Egypt: Women relatives of incarcerated prisoners demand their release

By Abdel-Rahman Hussein

CAIRO: Around 40 women gathered in front of the governor’s office in Al-Arish in Northern Sinai Tuesday to protest the continuing incarceration of some 70 prisoners from Siai arrested in the wake of a spate of bombings in the peninsula.

The protestors lifted placards and chanted slogans demanding the release of the prisoners, none of whom are kept in Sinai prisons but in other facilities such as Borg El-Arab, near Alexandria, and Cairo's Tora prison.

According to journalist and activist Mustapha Singer who was present at the protest, the women chanted slogans saying “Our country’s leaders, why did you take our children?”

Children lifted placards with captions such as “Release my father.”

There was a security presence around the protest and “I was prevented from taking pictures,” Singer said.

The governor sent some of his staff to take the names of the protestors so as to offer them aid, but the protestors demanded that their sons be released.

According to Singer, the staff responded by stating that the governor did not have the jurisdiction to release the prisoners, but that aid could be offered to the relatives.

The protest petered out at mid-afternoon and left vowing to return if the prisoners were not released.

Last Wednesday, a similar protest was prevented from taking place in a square in Al-Arish.

A government crackdown ensued after the Taba bombings of 2004, which killed 34 people. This attacked was followed by the 2005 attack in Sharm El-Sheikh in which 70 people were killed. An attack in Dahab the following year left 20 people dead.

According to Human Rights Watch, 3,000 people were arrested following the Dahab bombings. Since then most of them have been released except for the 70 for whom the protest was held.

All those who were held were detained under the emergency law, thus they were kept without charge or trial with their incarceration being renewed every 45 days. Some of the remaining 70 detainees have been kept under this law since 2004.

---Daily News Egypt