The Arab Network for Human Rights Information submitted a grievance Sunday to South Giza Prosecution demanding the release of El-Badil journalist Kareem Al-Behairi, who was arrested while covering protests marking the third anniversary of the 25 January Revolution.
The grievance filed by ANHRI calls for the inspection of documents submitted by the lawyers of the detained, whose preventative detention was extended for another 15 days on 18 February. Al-Behairi, who is being held at a Central Security Forces (CSF) camp on Cairo-Alexandria Desert Road, was charged with inciting riots, protesting and possessing Molotov cocktails.
“It is noteworthy that Al-Behairi, upon his arrest, faced physical abuse; moreover, the policemen insisted on apprehending him although he showed his ID and told them about the nature of his work along with reasons behind his presence in the protest,” the statement read.
The statement alleges that Al-Behairi refused to be photographed with weapons and a Molotov cocktail once inside the CSF camp. The officers then “beat him violently”, robbed him of his belongings, refused him a lawyer, and locked him in an “unlawful” cell. Later Al-Behairi was summoned for interrogation by a Homeland Security officer, who asked him about political movements such as the Revolutionary Socialists.
ANHRI adds that the group “is surprised that there is insistence on issuing decisions of renewing the preventive detention for Al-Behairi; despite submitting a proof, from El-Badil newspaper, [which] confirms that the journalist was ordered to cover the incidents.”
The group has called for the prosecutor general and South Giza Prosecution to release Al-Behairi as well as an end to “the use of preventive detention as a punishment of opinion makers”.
