CAIRO: A prominent Egyptian blogger and human rights researcher Amr Gharbeia announced on Twitter that he is “home” and “safe” after having been captured by residents in the Abbassiya area of Cairo on Saturday evening during clashes with thousands of protesters who had marched on the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) headquarters. Gharbeia was attacked by assailants in the area shortly after he and a group attempted to leave the Abbassiya square. “I am home, safe and resting. Grateful for everybody,” he wrote on his Twitter account. His arrest sparked massive calls for his immediate release, including from his former employer Amnesty International. Alya el-Hosseiny detailed the circumstances of the attack on Facebook. Hosseiny wrote that at around 9:30 pm and in Ahmed Lotfy al-Said street, her group, including Gharbeia, passed Ain Shams Medical School and close to al-Demerdash metro station when a group of young men, “loud-voiced,” approached the group. She then turned around to see them grabbing Gharbeia from his pony-tail, hitting him and wanting to search him. “I tried to defend him and say he is my brother, as we look alike, and then they wanted to search me too,” she said, adding that they had Gharbeia by the neck and shouting “he is part of 6 of April movement and a spy.” They asked Gharbeia about his ID and he told them they had taken it already when they took his bag for searching. Hosseiny said that when she received his bag, it was empty and the men had taken what was inside, including his ID. She continued that the attackers wanted to turn Gharbeia over to the military police so they could decide if he should be arrested or not. Gharbeia then told them that he would turn himself in and they walked down the street looking for a police checkpoint. She noted that one of the attackers took out a video camera and took images of Gharbeia while shouting in the camera: “a spy … a spy.” The attackers then began stopping passersby and asking them where the police point was and many gave them directions. One man even offered to give them a ride in his car. The attackers told people who were coming up to them out of curiosity that they found “white powder” with him, referreing to cocaine or heroin, which Hosseiny denied strongly to those people. She wrote that she kept screaming at them “let go of my brother” and the attackers then threatened to turn her over to the military police as well. She concluded by saying that she and the group she was with found it difficult to follow where they took Gharbiya as they took off in a car. BM
