CAIRO: Egypt's newly appointed Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzoury said on Tuesday that some 20,000 political prisoners who had been detained under former President Hosni Mubarak have been released since his ousting in February. “20,103 political detainees have been released since the beginning of February,” Ganzuri was quoted as saying by the country's state media. He said that 68 political prisoners remained in detention, including 48 who had been sentenced, the official MENA news agency reported. However, activists and human rights groups argue that over 12,000 citizens have been detained and sentenced in controversial military trials since Mubarak's removal from power after a popular uprising engulfed the country beginning January 25. Among those detained are a large number of political prisoners arrested at protests that have sporadically rocked the country. The military claims they have not detained any citizen for their beliefs. For decades, the Mubarak government arrested, detained and jailed thousands of activists and political opponents, employed violence against its people and used torture methods to illicit confessions from the detainees. The near constant arrests, coupled with widespread police torture and violence, was one of the major causes that banded Egyptians together on January 25 to demand an end to the Mubarak era of more than three decades. Under the draconian Emergency Law in the country, which is still in place today, citizens can be detained indefinitely on suspicion of terrorism. The military junta, which took power following Mubarak's removal, had previously said it would not use the controversial laws, but following the September attack of the Israeli Embassy in Giza, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) announced it would “re-institute” the laws in order to “preserve” security in the country during the transitional period. A number of bloggers and activists, most notably popular blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah and Maikel Nabil, have been arrested and jailed. Nabil has been in prison for months, entering a hunger strike on August 23 in protest against the use of military trials against him. Fattah, an extremely popular blogger with a massive following, is charged in the October 9 violence at the country's state television building. He is accused of assaulting the armed forces and attempting to steal weapons, on the night when a Coptic Christian protest marched to the building, where it was met with live ammunition from the armed forces guarding the Maspero building, leaving 27 people dead. Activists accuse the military of using similar tactics against activists and bloggers as during the Mubarak era and have called for an end to military trials in the country. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/aKsxj Tags: featured, Ganzoury, Mubarak, Prisoners, SCAF Section: Egypt, Latest News
