CAIRO: The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) promised in its 35th and 36th statements to reinvestigate the case of detainee Waleed Sami Saad, adding that all detention cases of Tahrir protesters will be reconsidered.
Saad, whose mother appealed to SCAF for his release in Al-Wafd newspaper, was detained by the military police in March 9 when the Tahrir Square sit-in was forcibly dispersed. He was sentenced to three years in military prison.
"Most of the SCAF’s statements are not yet translated into reality, as far as I know. Thirty-five protesters who were detained on the April 9 and during 12 military crackdowns on protesters will be soon facing military trials," said activist Mona Seif, campaigning against military trials of civilians.
The SCAF also promised in its 29th statement issued three weeks ago to reinvestigate the cases of Amr Eissa and Mohammed Adel who were detained by military police on Jan. 28 after losing their IDs during clashes with police.
"Nothing new since then," confirmed Nariman Ahmed, Adel’s mother. "I went to the Ministry of Defence and showed them the SCAF’s statement and said they will look at it but no real legal steps were taken," she added.
Adel’s mother expressed deep concern about her son’s military imprisonment, and questioned why her son was tried in three days while his release process was taking such a long time.
"They even asked me why I was in such a rush,” she said.
Rights groups launched a campaign named "No to Military Trials for Civilians" to face what they called "the army’s media blackout on military police violations".
The campaign aimed to show the human side of the cases of the detainees and their families by holding press conferences and rallies.
Meanwhile, unidentified army leaders promised last month to investigate allegations of torture by Military Police after rights groups issued a statement condemning comments by their chief General Hamdy Badeen denying the allegations.
"Army leaders sent us a mediator, a journalist, asking for the documents carrying the results of our investigations and testimonials by tortured and detained civilians," Gamal Eid, head of Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), told Daily News Egypt.
"We will wait for the results of the investigation and hope that it will be transparent enough and that whoever is responsible for this will be put on trial and all those detained will be released."
General Badeen had denied in an interview with Al-Shorouk daily newspaper all torture allegations against the army, claiming that those allegations only aim to "ruin the relationship between the people and the army."
The SCAF also confirmed that its recent presence in Tahrir Square aimed at protecting the youth of the January 25 Revolution from assault.
