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Freedom of expression is missing despite a decision banning imprisonment for press crimes
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Security bodies continue to detain Musaad Abu Fagr
in spite of three court decisions to release him.
Cairo, February 16, 2008
For the third time in a week, a court decision is issued to free the novelist and activist Musaad Suleiman Hassan "AKA, Musaad Abu Fagr", as El Arish Partial Court issued a decision today to release Abu Fagr after the Public Prosecutor in El Arish (North Sinai) decided on Thursday to detain him in custody on new fabricated charges, including instigating riots, a weapon possession without a permission and driving a car without a license. A new record (No. 1925 /2007 administrative, Rafah) was done including the new charges. These charges come, according to the investigation record, on the background of events in last November, i.e. one month before the arrest of Musaad on December 26, 2007.
An Appellate Court in Ismailia had rejected on Tuesday, February 12, 2008 an appeal by the Public Prosecution of Al Arish, and thus supported the decision of El Arish partial court to release Abu Fagr.
After the court decision, Abu Fagr's lawyers were surprised that the police refused to implement the ruling as they continued to detain him. Moreover, Abu Fagr was dragged into a new lawsuit, showing the hidden intent to take revenge on him and exhaust him psychologically and physically, as they transferred him from Ismailia to the Security Directorate of North Sinai, and then to Rafah police station, and again to El Arish police station to investigate him on the new charges.
The Araicb Network for Human Rights Information, Hisham Mubarak Law Center and the People's Committee for Citizens Rights in Sinai renewed their condemnation of the continued imprisonment of the novelist and activist Musaad Abu Fagr, and the three organizations deplored the continued arbitrary detention of Abu Fagr.
The undersigned organizations also express their fears that the security bodies would resort to the emergency law and thus, issue an administrative decision to detain him following the recurrence of judicial decisions to release him, which, in such a case, would clearly indicate that the security bodies resort to the emergency law in the face of political activists and those who express their opinion freely, not only against the forces of terrorism, as Egyptian government claims.
And the question remains "Is detention, arbitrary arrests & intimidation the solution for problems and crises of the people of Sinai? Or the solution is to provide real development that the Sinai people is lacking?, putting in mind that Sinai represents about one sixth of the total area of Egypt"
Signed institutions:
Arabic Network for Human Rights Information
Hisham Mubarak Law Center
People's Committee for Citizens Rights in Sinai
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