- ActivitesHuman RightsOther BlogsPalestine
- February 10, 2009
- 4 minutes read
Phillip Rizk…Blogger Behind Bars for Gaza
The Egyptian police has arrested the Egyptian blogger on Friday during his return from “Qalyobeya” province to Cairo.
Salma Saed, the activist who was with Rizk during his arrest, stated to “Reuters” that Rizk and a group of activists were organizing a march in rural areas in solidarity with the Palestinians and to raise awareness about the impact of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
Salma added that police seized their car for many hours then they told them that police wanted to speak with Rizk, and they placed him in a car without licence plates and sped away.
After that, some policemen prevented them from following the car Rizk got in.
Rizk had founded, with other activists from the US, Poland, Spain and France a group called “To Gaza“, which was going to be launched last Friday.
The idea was to highlight the actions to stop the Israeli bombardment, as the pro-Gaza march was scheduled to reach Gaza Strip.
Thinking about this activity began on 23rd of January, to coincide with the anniversary of the fall of the separating wall between Egyptian – Palestinian Rafah, which fell on 2008 when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians rushed to the Egyptian territory for food and feul in the light of the Israeli blockade of the Strip.
Phillip is a member of the People”s Committee to support Palestinian people, a documentary filmmaker, has the German Citizenship and had spent two years in Gaza, where he worked on relief projects with Canon Andrew White, the special envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Middle East.
Rizk is the editor of a popular blog called (Tabulet Gaza). Most of the work had been made in a documentary film about resisting the non-violence.
He is also a student at the American University in Cairo where he is studying for his Masters on Middle East Studies.
On the other hand, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information has stated in a report issued on Monday, that some officers of the State Security branch in Maadi, south Cairo, had burst in Rizk”s house today at dawn, where they searched his house without obtaining a prior permission from the Public Prosecution and tried to force his father to go to the headquarters of his company to inspect but couldn’t because of the presence of the delegate from the German Embassy and a lawyer from the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.
Gamal Eid, the Executive Director for the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, has said ,in a statement to Ikhwanweb, that detention of the activist Phillip Rizk, who has a German nationality, and of Egyptian origins, is illegal since he was hijacked from a peaceful march.
Eid has expressed his unhappiness with the policy of repression, detention and abduction, which he described as “the dominant and determinant policy of Egypt”.
Meanwhile, the German Embassy in Cairo has expressed its disapproval of detaining a German national in this unacceptable way. stressing that it made lots of efforts in order to find out the reason behind his detention.
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