EGYPTIAN ANTI-WAR ACTIVISTS ARRESTED AND TORTURED

By Ahmed Ben Bella, George Galloway (MP), John Rees, Stop the War Coalition

At least 13 Egyptian activists against the war on Iraq have been arrested. Ten of those 13 remain in custody, including a journalist and a film maker, and we know that eleven of the 13 arrested have been tortured. We have received a plea for solidarity from a broad range of anti-war and human rights groups in Egypt, asking us to protest to the Egyptian embassy in each of our countries, and to the Egyptian government. As signatories to the Cairo Declaration of December 2001 against war and globalisation, we ask you to support their appeal.

The appeal from Egypt reads in part:

"On the 18th of January State Security Police arrested 11 activists participating in an anti-war demonstration in Cairo. In the dawn of the 8thof February they arrested and issued an order of detention for Ibrahim El Sahari, Journalist at El Alam El Yom, founding member of Center for Socialist Studies and prominent activist in the Egyptian antiwar movement. On 9 Feb, at 2 p.m., they arrested another antiwar activist, Sabri El Sammak, director of production at Aflam Misr El Alameya, the production company of Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine.

"A vicious war is about to hit the region causing a damage whose proportions no one can fully predict. It is the people of the region who are going to pay for this war. In those black moments of history the least the peoples of the world can do, and the Egyptian people are no exception, is to raise their voices against that war and the interests it serves.

"We demand the immediate release of our detained colleagues and to stop the harassment of the Egyptian solidarity movements, which are exercising their legitimate right in collective peaceful expression, a fact supported by the recent court order which rejected the government's decision to ban the organization of peaceful demonstrations against the war on Iraq."

The names of those still in custody are Sabri Al Sammak, Ibrahim Al Sahari, Tamer Hindawi, Abdel Gawad Ahmed, Mohammed Khalil, Samir Al Foli, Magdi Al Kordi, Mahmoud Hassan, Mohammed Dakhli, and Mohammed Hosni. The activists in Egypt are worried that many more will be arrested in the next few days if there is not sufficient international pressure for their release.

Please protest to:

President Hosni Mubarak, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt
Telegram: President of the Republic, Cairo, Egypt.
+ 202 390 1998
webmaster (at) presidency.gov.eg

And to General Habib al-'Adeli, Ministry of the Interior
Telegram: Minister Interior, Cairo, Egypt.
+ 202 579 2031
moi (at) idsc.gov.eg

And to diplomatic representatives
Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt

Chancery: 3521 Intemational Court, NW. 20008
Washington, DC.
(895-5400) (FAX 244-4319/5131)