The Cairo prosecution renewed the detention for a further 15 days for prominent Al-Azhar cleric Anas Al-Sultan and his brothers, lawyer Mohamed Al-Baker told Daily News Egypt Monday.
Security forces raided and took Al-Sultan and his brothers, Islam and Ossama, from their home at dawn on 26 May. The family stressed that Islam is still a minor.
His family and lawyer had no idea of their whereabouts from Tuesday until Thursday, when the three young men appeared in Nasr City police station.
On Thursday, the prosecution ordered their detention for four days pending investigations.
The three brothers face charges of “belonging to a terrorist group, endangering societal peace, delaying the production of citizens, attacking public and private property, inciting against the police and military via social media, and arranging meetings for marches in mosques”.
According to a family statement, officers at the police station initially told lawyers they did not know where Al-Sultan and his brothers were.
The the officers stole at least EGP 5,000, as well as all the technical devices in the house, including phones and laptops from the cleric’s home, the family said.
Al-Sultan was a student of a revolutionary Al-Azhar cleric, Emad Effat, who has become a revolutionary icon since his death in the Cabinet clashes on 15 December 2011. Military forces allegedly killed at least 17 people and injured hundreds more during the Cabinet clashes.
Al-Sultan is also co-founder of Sheikh Al-Amoud, a post-revolution non-profit Islamic studies school, that reaches thousands of students. According to a family statement, Al-Sultan was highly concerned with “spreading knowledge”.
“Anas Al-Sultan was a great guy and I am sure he is not a ‘terrorist’, but I guess he was a threat to security because he was good and influential and was spreading awareness,” Salma Shouman, one of the attendees of Shiekh Al-Amoud commented on Al-Sultan’s arrest. “For them, people have to stay in the dark.”
Al-Sultan was involved in the 25 January Revolution. His revolutionary involvement included the Cabinet protests, Mohamed Mahmoud, and more students said.
