CAIRO: Field Marshall Mohamed Hussein Tantawy, head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) signed the release of 230 detainees ahead of the Eid holiday. The 230 people were brought in front of military courts and some of them had been detained outside al-Baloon theater in Cairo on June 28 and 29 when clashes erupted between protesters and police and hundreds were detained. Activists and rights groups welcomed the move, but demanded the release of all detainees facing military trials and rights groups put the number of detained in the thousands. On Friday, tens activists organized a silent protest on Qasr al-Nile bridge on the edge of Tahrir Square, holding signs that denounced military trials for civilians. On Saturday, a digital protest against military trials saw thousands participate by tweeting and commenting on the official pages of the SCAF and the Egyptian cabinet. The idea of the e-demo was in a nutshell that “all of us gather at the same time and post comments on certain pages on Facebook expressing our total rejection and objection to military trials for civilians.” As a result, hundreds of thousands of comments were placed on the Facebook pages in refusal of military trials and some of the pages stopped receiving comments after a while due to the large number of participants. BM
