Egyptian Blogger Endured ‘Weeks of Torture and Humiliation’

Posted on Jun 2, 2008

An Egyptian blogger, Karim el-Beheiri, who was arrested with two former co-workers from Mahalla’s Misr Spinning and Weaving company (all three were fired after their arrest) on April 6 and released Sunday, said he and his colleagues were shocked, beaten and denied sustenance during their ordeal behind bars.

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AFP via Breitbart.com:

“Many of us had never seen the inside of a prison before,” Beheiri said, describing his first weeks at Borg al-Arab prison near the Mediterranean city of Alexandria sharing a small cell with 25 people as “terrifying.”

“We had bread thrown at us. They would dip their hands in our food before throwing it at us,” said Beheiri who, with the others, mounted two hunger strikes while in detention.

On April 16, the prosecution ordered the release of several detainees including Beheiri [and his two colleagues], but the three remained behind bars until Sunday.

Beheiri said that during interrogations at state security headquarters in various Egyptian cities, questioning focused mainly on his blog and his connections to other bloggers.

“It’s the new fashion,” he said of a large-scale crackdown against Egypt’s cyber dissidents.

He said the first thing he wanted to do when he got home after the release was to blog the events.

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