Freedom Committee Shows Solidarity With Two Prisoners Of Opinion

The Freedom Committee of Lawyers Syndicate criticized the continuous arresting of Muslim Brotherhood bloggers Mamdouh Al-Monayer and Mohamed Refaat, stating that it is working on executing the decisions of releasing both prisoners of opinion against the decisions of detention which the statement described as “random and illegitimate.”

  
“Egyptian regime used the Emergency Law against prisoners of opinion; as this law has terrorized people over the last 27 years; the regime is still using it till today to suppress opponents,” the committee said in a statement. “Despite the government promise not to use this law except against terrorists and drug traffickers, it used it against Dr. Mamdouh Al-Monayer and the student Mohamed Refaat,” The Committee stated.

 

Mamdouh Al-Monayer was accused of taking pictures for Central Security soldiers while they were destroying their vehicles by their own selves last April 6 in the Nile Delta city of Mahalla, the statement added. Why then accusing the residents and workers of Al-Mahalla of this vandalism? The state security agencies had tortured him brutally by electric shocks, despite an order from the judiciary to release him more than four times but ,as usual, the  Interior Ministry issued a detention warrant in terms of the Emergency Law on July 27,2008 so he  was sent to Tora Prison after preserving his grievance, the Committee stated.

 
“While Mohamed Rafaat, a student in Faculty of Media, has been arrested on charges of writing his opinion on the Internet and Facebook, and he is also still detained despite the decision of the Supreme State Security Prosecution to release him, but the Interior Ministry has also issued an arrest warrant.”

 
The Freedom Committee’s statement confirmed that these illegal practices of the Egyptian security agencies are contrary to Article no.17 of the Egyptian Constitution which states that everyone has the right to express his opinion.