CAIRO: Angry responses in the rights community are escalating on Sunday over the detaining of blogger and political activist Alaa Abdel Fattah for 15 days by a military prosecutor earlier on Sunday. A large number of online activists and politicians are joining the campaign of condemnation of Abdel Fattah's imprisonment and putting civilians in front of military trials. Activist and media figure Gameela Ismail decided to suspend her parliamentary election campaign, in which Fattah was one of the organizers and announced on her personal Twitter account that she would not carry on with her campaign until Fattah is released. Online activists were in a row once the news was out and demanded the immediate release of Fattah, one of Egypt's earliest bloggers, and some went on to say that the many recent arrests of those voicing opinions and activists was never this intense during former president Mubrak's 30-year rule. Potential presidential candidate and former leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood Abdel Monem Aboul Fotouh called the decision a “big relapse of the Egyptian revolution.” Fattah was summoned by the ruling military council recently with other activists, but he refused to take part in the investigation, declaring that as a civilian he is not supposed to be interrogated by a military prosecutor, which made the prosecutor give orders for his imprisonment. He is been accused of incitement against the military forces and participation in attacking them, vandalizing equipment owned by the military, protesting and upsetting public order. The charges raised against Fattah are linked to what is dubbed as the “Masepro massacre,” where thousands of Coptic Christian protesters marched towards the state TV building, or Maspero, demanding their rights and denouncing recent acts of violence against churches, yet the peaceful march turned bloody when the armed forces guarding the building opened fire at protesters and ran them over with armored vehicles killing 27 people and injuring hundreds more. BM
