CAIRO: The retrial of embattled Egyptian blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad was adjourned on Sunday until December 4, sources near the Cairo military court told Bikyamasr.com. This comes after his original date for retrial on November 1 was also postponed. Upon leaving the c28 military court in the Egyptian capital, Nabil shouted to the few supporters who had gathered to support him: “down with the military government.” His father, Nabil Sanad, told Bikyamasr.com after the postponement that “those who commit crimes are let out onto the streets and the innocent have their cases adjourned seven times.” The court reportedly received a report from military intelligence over concerning the case, and the judge has asked for an independent expert to review the case. Nabil's lawyers then asked for the young blogger to be released pending the investigation, but were denied. He has been transferred to Cairo's Marg prison, where his family is expected to visit him on Monday. They told Bikyamasr.com that the blogger was in “good spirits.” Nabil, who has been on a prison hunger strike since August 23, refuses to acquiesce to military investigators and the controversial military tribunal, which last month called for a retrial of the blogger, sparking widespread outrage among his supporters. Late last month, he was sent to a psychiatric hospital, after he refused to eat and his health deteriorated. Doctors and observers said it was a move by the government to distance themselves from the potential death that looms for the young blogger, considered by many to be the first prisoner of conscious since the ousting of former President Hosni Mubarak on February 11. Basma Abdel Aziz, the director of the media department for Egypt's General Secretariat for Mental Health condemned the move regarding Nabil's case, stating, “the previous regime used to accuse mentally healthy individuals of being mentally disturbed and accuse them of crimes of conscience despite professional reports stating their sanity. “The incarceration of an individual whose charge is having a different view of the situation in the country is morally and professionally unacceptable. Sanad is kept in one ward with others accused of criminal charges, a matter that is involves terrorizing and threat,” the Abdel Aziz continued. It went on to condemn the politicization of mental hospital spaces to isolate and ridicule political opponents. He has since been returned to his prison cell and remains in military custody. Nabil was sentenced to a three-year jail term for insulting the Egyptian military on his blog “Son of Ra,” in a blog post published last March entitled, “The people and the military were never one hand.” Nabil, a Coptic Christian, holds controversial political views. As such, he has received little attention from the activist and pro-rights community in Egypt. The blogger supports Egyptian normalization with Israel, causing him to receive harsh criticism. He came under fire when he evaded military conscription in 2010 on the grounds that he is a pacifist and sympathetic to Israeli troops. “I don't want to point a weapon at a young Israeli, recruited into obligatory service, defending his state's right to exist. I think obligatory service is a form of slavery,” he wrote in a blog post then. Human rights groups and activists have called for the immediate release of the blogger, stating that he is a prisoner of conscience, unduly held. ** Bikyamasr.com's Pol O Gradaigh contributed to this report from the court. BM
