(Photo public domain)
Journalist and political activist Ahmed Doma is being held in Damanhur prison after the appeals prosecution in Tanta ordered him detained for four days, his lawyer said.
Doma is facing charges of insulting the president that could lead to between one and two years of jail time for calling President Mohamed Morsi a criminal, a murderer, and a fugitive from justice.
Several groups announced their intention to hold protests to force the state to reveal where Doma was being kept.
“We can now say we are 90 percent sure he is being held in Damanhur prison. This information came to us through personal efforts, as neither the prosecution nor the Ministry of Interior revealed it officially,” Doma’s lawyer and member of the Front to Defend Egypt’s Protesters Ali Soliman said.
He added that police kidnapped Doma and dragged him into an armoured vehicle in front of his lawyers as the Tanta prosecution questioned him. Doma handed himself in to the Tanta prosecution on Tuesday after the prosecution issued a warrant against him for insulting the president.
Soliman added that the prosecution did not announce whether it will refer his client to court but that he expects the political activist to be put on a speedy trial and that the prosecutor who questioned Doma was a member of the ‘Judges for Egypt’ movement, which he says supports the Muslim Brotherhood.
Doma is also wanted on charges of inciting violence in the clashes in front of the Muslim Brotherhood’s headquarters in Moqattam in late March. Prosecutor General Tala’at Abdallah asked the Tanta prosecution office to notify them of Doma’s arrest so he could be transferred to the southern Cairo prosecution.
“I do not think he will be transferred to Cairo any time soon. They will exhaust all the methods they have to keep him detained in Damanhur on the insulting the president charge and after he is released or stands trial and is acquitted they will use the other charges. They will not play all their cards at once, they want him imprisoned for the longest time possible,” said Soliman.
He added that the day before the clashes was Doma’s wedding day and that he was not present in Moqattam on that Friday.
“This is a trend that has been going on since 25 January 2013. They are getting rid of all the revolutionary youth through killing, torturing or imprisoning them,” Soliman said.
Doma, a member of the Coalition of Revolutionary Youth, the Youth for Justice and Freedom Movement, and several other revolutionary political movements, was imprisoned on charges of inciting violence during the cabinet building clashes of December 2011 under the rule of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. He was released in April 2012.
