Human Rights Watch called Friday on Egyptian authorities to release Farid Zahran, the leader of the Popular Committee for Solidarity with the Palestinian Intifada, who has been arrested on charges of calling for demonstrations against Israel.
The US organization said that plainclothes security officials abducted Zahran on a Cairo street on September 20, and the next day prosecutors ordered him held for fifteen days without charges.
Zahran, 44, who runs Al Mahroosa publishing house, is a leading member of the Coordinating Committee of the Egyptian People’s Committee for Solidarity with the Palestinian Uprising (EPCSPU).
Zahran is the first political activist to be arrested by the Egyptian government since the September 11 attacks in the United States.
Human Rights Watch expressed concern that the government would use the anti-terrorism campaign to silence critics of government policy, citing President Hosni Mubarak’s recent remark that “human rights arguments should not be put forward on all occasions.”
“We hope that Mr. Zahran’s arrest is not the first in a new wave of repression against people trying to express peacefully opinions the government doesn’t want to hear,” said Joe Stork, Washington director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch in a statement, published in HRW’s internet site.
“The government should release him immediately.”
According to eyewitness accounts, Zahran was abducted by plainclothes personnel of the State Security Intelligence shortly after midday outside the al-‘Ogail store on al-Tayaran Street in Cairo’s Madinat Nasr district.
They drove him to his home nearby, where they seized papers and personal belongings. He was held overnight in SSI headquarters on Lazoghly Square, they told the organization.
The next day, the State Security Prosecution ordered Zahran held in preventive detention for fifteen days without formal charges.
Lawyers who attended the interrogation told Human Rights Watch that Zahran was accused of disseminating tendentious information aimed at disturbing public order, and planning public marches and demonstrations.
The prosecution authorities failed to clarify which legislation formed the basis for these accusations.
Last week, several Egyptian lawmakers and political leaders told the prosecutor general that they worked with Zahran.
The move has come as part of their campaign to obtain the release of Zahran.
A group of lawyers headed last Tuesday to the office of the prosecutor general in Cairo to hand him a memo, a copy of which was obtained by Albwaba.com.
The memo states that “since Zahran was detained on charges of participating in the popular committee's activities for solidarity with the Palestinian Intifada, and because we all participated in the same activities…we have decided to confess to you that we were partners of Zahran in the [crimes] he is accused of.”
The list of signatories include MPs, political party leaders, press association members, a Muslim Brotherhood member and artist Muhsenah Tawfiq.
The EPCSPU, set up in Cairo in October 2000 by Egyptian human rights activists and other professionals, currently has several hundred members.
Its aims are to generate support for Palestinians under Israeli occupation, and to provide foodstuffs and household goods to offset hardships stemming from the clashes that began a year ago – Albawaba.com
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