(Photo Public Domain)
By: Nourhan Dakroury
The Egyptian Social Democratic Party (ESDP) issued a statement on Saturday saying that Vice Chairman Emad Gad was stopped by airport security at Cairo International Airport and taken to Homeland Security.
Gad was returning from Beirut after attending a conference on “Building a modern state in the context of the Arab movement”. He and writer Amina Shafik were stopped upon their arrival in Egypt, according to the ESDP statement.
Gad was allegedly taken to the Homeland Security office inside the airport because he had a similar name to a suspected criminal, according to the statement.
Gad and Shafik were detained for half an hour, according to Mohamed Arafat, secretary of the public action committee of ESDP.
Arafat said that this incident was an attempt to terrorise the opposition.
Ahmed Saleh, the airport’s public relations director, told Daily News Egypt that “the incident never occurred”.
He added that it only took Gad about four minutes to go through the passport checking process and that he was not taken to Homeland Security.
