Sandmonkey, one of the leaders of the Arab blogsphere, has issued a call to bloggers to protest the Egyptian government's imprisonment of 48 people (including several Egyptian bloggers such as Alaa, who has a well known blog with his wife Manal) who were arrested after a peaceful protest promoting the independence of the Egyptian judiciary. In SM's own words:
Alaa and those arrested with him are now arrested for 15 days "pending investigation", which could be renewed indefinitely if the state so wishes. Him and the men were sent to the infamous Torah Prison and the girls to the Qanatir prison for the duration. This makes them hardly safe, because stuff that goes on in egyptian prisons on the hands of the jailors: beatings, sexual assaults, torture of all kinds. This is why we aim to get them out of there as soon as possible, so that even if they do end up serving the entire 15 days- which they won't have to if the government gets pressured- they ndon;t end up serving an extra day after that. No one deserves this happening to them, especially for exercising their right to free speech.
Please contact your representative and voice your objection. Just as good--let the Egyptian government know that they can not get away with this repression (important fact: the Egyptian government gets $2 billion in U.S. aid each year. Remember--That's my money and your money.)
Here is an e-mail address: embassy@egyptembdc.org
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