Council for a Community of Democracies

Activists and Bloggers Arrested in Egypt
January 27, 2010
By: Benjamin Russell

A group of around twenty Egyptian activists and bloggers were arrested earlier this month as they made their way to Nag Hammadi, the site of a January 6th drive-by shooting of a group of Coptic Christians. The activists came from various religious and political backgrounds, and intended to demonstrate solidarity against sectarian violence in the country, according to a release from the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED).

The activists and bloggers were detained after reaching their destination and charged with “illegal assembly and disorderly conduct/causing unrest.” Among those arrested were Bassem Samir of the Egyptian Democratic Academy and several well-known Egyptian citizen journalists. According to POMED, these arrests mark “the latest in a long series of arrests by the Egyptian government targeting private Egyptian citizens who express themselves politically.”

The January 6th killing of six Copts as they left a midnight Coptic Christmas Eve service represented one of the worst cases of religiously motivated violence in Egypt in over a decade, according to BBC News. A Muslim security official was also killed. Three suspects have been arrested in connection to the shooting.

Sources:

POMED – Prominent Egyptian Bloggers and Activists Arrested

Global Voices – Egypt: Bloggers arrested over Naga Hammady visit

BBC News – Egypt’s anxious Copts await ‘next catastrophe’

BBC News – Three arrested after Egypt Copt killings