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Alert

Two bloggers released after two months' imprisonment

(HRinfo/IFEX) - HRinfo welcomes the orders issued by the newly appointed public prosecutor to release the two prisoners of opinion, Mohammad Al-Sharqawy and Kareem Al-Shai'r, who have been unjustifiably jailed for two months. They were arrested for supporting the Egyptian judges' movement calling for judiciary independence.

The release orders were issued 18 July 2006. Al-Sha'ir and Al-Sharqawy were released on the night of 19 July, in a development that could be considered an attempt to correct an injustice. However, justice will not be done until the police officers of the Kasr El-Nil police station have been investigated for having tortured the two political activists.

Though Al-Sha'ir and Al-Sharkawy's lawyers have submitted several official requests for the investigation of the police officers responsible, and have requested, in their renewing sessions, that it be confirmed to them that action has been taken on the matter, the former public prosecutor took no such measures - nor did his deputy, the official who filed the arrest report against Al-Sharqawy.

"We hope that the newly appointed prosecutor will represent a change in policies, not only in name. The attitude of the former public prosecutor, who prolonged the regime of impunity in our country, immensely disappointed all supporters of democracy in Egypt. We demand the rule of law, not the rule of policemen," said Gamal Eid, HRinfo's executive director.

HRinfo recommends that the newly appointed public prosecutor begins enforcing the rule of law by releasing all Muslim Brotherhood's prisoners of opinion, including Dr. Essam El-Erian, Dr. Ibrahim Al-Za'farani, and other prisoners who are illegally detained; and by limiting the powers of the political police known as "State Security", which exerts excessive control over Egypt's political life