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| Africa North |
| Egypt releases blogger after weeks in custody |
| 2009-03-29 |
| Egyptian authorities have released a 22-year-old blogger and activist after holding him for nearly seven weeks, a human rights group said on Saturday. Police detained Diaa Al Deen Gad on February 6 outside his home in the Nile Delta province of Gharbiya. London-based rights group Amnesty International said in February that his incommunicado detention at an unknown location put him in danger of torture. "Dia was released at dawn (on Friday) ... He was ill-treated in the period where we did not know where he was being held," said Jamal Eid, director of the Cairo-based Arabic Network for Human Rights Information. Eid said police beat the Egyptian blogger in a car immediately after picking him up and during his detention in State Security offices. Police beat and kicked Gad, threatened to electrocute him, and electrocuted others in front of him, according to Eid. The government says it prosecutes torturers. Gad's blog Sawt Ghadib or "An Angry Voice" contained pro-Gaza slogans and news and commentary on Gaza during the three-week Israeli offensive on the coastal strip, as well as strident denunciations of Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and the security services. |
| Posted by:Fred |