2:08AM
Sharqawi and Sha3er are FREE
Hossam el-Hamalawy
Sharqawi and Sha3er have been finally released by 12:50am, after a long odyssey of "paper work" pending their release.
The two were taken from Tora Prison on Wednesday 1:15pm, to State Security police HQ in Lazoughli Square, where they spent a couple of hours sitting in some corridor. They were then transferred to El-Khalifa Police Station, and then to the Cairo Security Directorate, from where the two walked out ten mins to 1am.
Mabrouk ya Sharqawi... Mabrouk ya Sha3er...
Here is a picture I took of Sharqawi, talking on a mobile phone and still dressed in white prison clothes, in Bab el-Louq shortly after his release. His friends, waiting outside the Directorate, took him and Sha3er together with some family members to a downtown coffeeshop.
The two were taken from Tora Prison on Wednesday 1:15pm, to State Security police HQ in Lazoughli Square, where they spent a couple of hours sitting in some corridor. They were then transferred to El-Khalifa Police Station, and then to the Cairo Security Directorate, from where the two walked out ten mins to 1am.
Mabrouk ya Sharqawi... Mabrouk ya Sha3er...
Here is a picture I took of Sharqawi, talking on a mobile phone and still dressed in white prison clothes, in Bab el-Louq shortly after his release. His friends, waiting outside the Directorate, took him and Sha3er together with some family members to a downtown coffeeshop.
Reader Comments (6)
Mabrouk!
Great news. Is Sharqawi doing OK healthwise?
He seemed well. But he'll go through some medical check ups soon, and will probably have an operation in his left hand. Will keep you updated...
[...] Gamal 3eid, lawyer for Sharqawi and Sha3er and the leftist director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, issued a statement today, welcoming his clients’ release, but called up on the newly appointed Public Prosecutor to investigate the Qasr el-Nil officers who are involved in Sharqawi’s torture and put an end to police brutality; to curb the powers of State Security officers; and to release the Muslim Brothers prisoners of conscience. [...]
[...] With those words activist blogger 3alaa started a funny posting titled, “Boiling the Frogs between Cairo and Tel Aviv,” where political activism meets his cyber-humour. Behind the cartoon, Egyptian slang humour, there lies a lot in 3alaa’s message. 3alaa, an independent leftist, shares a belief upheld by many on the left in Egypt today: the local is connected to the regional. A blow struck against autocracy in Cairo, solidifies the resistance in Palestine and Lebanon, and vice versa. During the 15 July demo in solidarity with Sharqawi and Sha3er before their release, 3alaa and his fellow bloggers were distributing a statement, brilliantly written in my view. The statement affirmed the leftist bloggers’ support for Hizbollah and Hamas in their fight to liberate the detainees, but drew the attention of the public to the Egyptian fight to liberate our own detainees in the regime’s prisons. The statement is only available in Arabic, and could be found here. 3alaa did not forget to add his own humourous touch to it, signing the statement in the name of “30th of February Organization,” the name activist bloggers are jokingly referring to themselves by. In his last posting, you can see a frog chanting against Mubarak, saluting the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance, and stating that “boiling” will not deter dissent. [...]
[...] el-Safty (leftist activist), Omar el-Hadi (blogger), Mohamed Gamal (blogger), Ahmad Droubi, Kareem el-Sha’er (blogger), Omar Mustafa, Mohamed Awwad, Mohamed Abdel Qader, Medhat Shaker, Mohssen Hashem and [...]