Free Alaa

Those of you who follow the Arab blogsphere will know that one of our own has been arrested by the Egyptian authorities for peacefully demonstrating in support of the independence of the judiciary in Egypt and the release of previous demonstrators who were detained two weeks earlier.
Alaa, a prominent Egyptian blogger at Manal & Alaa's Bit Bucket, will now be detained for another 15 days pending an investigation which could be renewed indefinitely by Egyptian authorities.

In support of free speech and peaceful demonstrations in the Arab world, I add my voice to the many bloggers who have called for the release of Alaa and all others who were detained. It may or may not be a coincidence that Alaa is an active pro-democracy Egyptian based blogger who happened to be targeted during this demonstration. The point is that him and the others should possess the right to speak their mind and voice their concerns about the current state of political oppression in Egypt by the Mubarak regime.

Human Rights Watch has issued a press release on the recent arrests:

Egyptian security officials arrested 11 more political reform activists, including an award-winning blogger, Alaa Ahmed Seif al-Islam, Human Rights Watch said today. This brings to more than 100 the number of people detained over the past two weeks for exercising their rights to freedom of assembly and expression.

Approximately half of those arrested are members of the Muslim Brotherhood who were putting up posters and distributing leaflets protesting the April 30 extension of emergency rule for another two years. The Emergency Law has been in effect since President Hosni Mubarak came to power in October 1981. The others were detained for demonstrating in support of a group of judges campaigning for greater judicial independence.

Please check out the Free Alaa! campaign blog for all the latest updates.

[technorati tags: Egypt, politics, bloggers, googlebombingforalaa]