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Alert

Blogger arrested, detained in unknown location

(ANHRI/IFEX) - The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) has condemned the security forces' arrest of blogger Mohamed Adel, who runs Meit blog ( http://43arb.info/meit ). Adel has been kidnapped and held in an unknown place since 20 November 2008.

Adel's house was surrounded by forty soldiers, special police forces and three police vans who broke into his home, searched his house and confiscated books and CDs. The 20-year-old blogger was not home during the police search. It seems that police had been tapping his phone. He was kidnapped while he was on his way to meet a friend who is a journalist.

Although Adel's father has filed two lawsuits against the attorney general demanding his son's whereabouts be revealed immediately, the general prosecutor confirmed that his son was wanted for questioning. ANHRI and Adel's friends have been informed that he is being held at the headquarters of state security known as "Lazogli" in Cairo, a place of ill repute where torture has been practiced on the infamous fourth floor.

Gamal Eid, the executive director of ANHRI, said in a statement: "An enormous security force and special forces to take into custody a young blogger who owns nothing other than a keyboard and a blog! This is the law of the state of emergency which has ruled Egyptians for 27 years".

It is worth mentioning that Adel is the second blogger to be arrested under state of emergency laws. The first was Musaad Abu Fagr who runs the blog http://wednane3ish.katib. In addition to this, other bloggers have been persecuted.

For further information on the Fagr case, see: http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/98386