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  • Last Update
    23-May-2018

Egyptian Blogger Wael Abbas Detained

 

AFP

 

Egyptian blogger and journalist Wael Abbas, known for taking a stand against police violence, was arrested during the night of Tuesday and Wednesday at his home in Cairo, his lawyer told AFP.
 
In a message on his Facebook account overnight, Abbas wrote "I am in the process of being arrested."
 
"I am in touch with his family," Abbas' lawyer Gamal Eid told AFP. "And what has happened is a kidnapping, not an arrest."
 
"We are currently trying to find out where he is," Eid added.
 
Abbas has been posting about police violence, torture and corruption on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter for over a decade and he was active during the January 2011 street protests that resulted in president Hosni Mubarak's fall from power.
 
His Twitter account was suspended in December 2017.
 
Since 2013, international human rights groups have criticized President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi's government for cracking down on secular and left-wing activists, as well as Islamists close to the banned Muslim Brotherhood.
 
Sisi officially secured more than 97 percent of the vote, in elections in March.
 
The reported arrest of Abbas follows that of two other bloggers earlier this month, Sherif Gaber and Shadi Abuzeid.
 
Abuzeid, famed for his satirical videos on YouTube and Facebook, has been transferred to the state security prosecutor's headquarters in Cairo.
 
Earlier this week, an Egyptian military court sentenced journalist and researcher Ismail Alexandrani to 10 years in prison.
 
Alexandrani, an expert on jihadism in the Sinai peninsula, was arrested in November 2015 and accused of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood.
 
Sisi announced last Wednesday that over 330 young prisoners, including some arrested in protests, had been pardoned.
 
 

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