Cairo Courtroom Erupts in Celebration at Dissidents’ Release
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Version 0 of 1. After a series of verdicts that have disheartened democracy activists in Egypt, there were rare images of celebration in a Cairo courtroom on Monday when a judge ordered the release on bail of three prominent dissidents imprisoned for attending a protest last year. The dissidents, Alaa Abd El Fattah, Mohamed Nouby and Wael Metwally, shouted with joy and flashed victory signs to their supporters and relatives in the courtroom after the judge announced that he was recusing himself and that the three men would be released on bail pending a retrial. Sharif Kouddous, an Egyptian journalist, shared images of Mr. Abd El Fattah, a popular blogger known to his hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers as @Alaa, waving from behind bars and his sister Mona Seif beaming at the news. Ms. Seif reported later on Twitter that the three defendants were free. The men were sentenced in June to 15 years in prison for violating a new law banning unsanctioned street protests and have been fighting to have their convictions overturned. The same sentence was given to 22 other defendants who were arrested last November at a rally called by a human rights group, No Military Trials for Civilians, that was founded by Ms. Seif. Those dissidents, who have remained free during the appeals process, crowded into the courtroom Monday to cheer when Mr. Abd El Fattah, along with his fellow defendants, was ordered released on bail of about $700, the independent Cairene daily Al-Masry Al-Youm reported. Mr. Metwally, a software developer, is the business partner of another prominent opposition blogger, Mahmoud Salem, who blogs as @Sandmonkey. Mr. Salem celebrated his friend’s release by sharing an old image of the two men posing with light sabers. At an appeal hearing last week, prosecutors screened private video of Mr. Abd El Fattah’s wife, Manal Hassan, belly-dancing, a move that outraged his supporters. Before suddenly recusing himself from the case on Monday, the judge also ordered an investigation into the submission of that video as evidence by the prosecution. Mr. Abd El Fattah’s other sister, Sanaa Seif, remains in jail, three months after she and 22 other protesters were arrested near the Ittihadiya, Egypt’s presidential palace, while marching against the protest ban. As her cousin Omar Robert Hamilton noted, she is among the dozens of dissidents now on a hunger strike in prison. The three siblings were briefly reunited last month at the funeral of their father, the pioneering rights lawyer Ahmed Seif al-Islam Hamad. Another image from the courtroom Monday showed the broad smile of their mother, Laila Soueif, a university professor also known for her dissident politics. At least 82 political prisoners are now participating in a hunger strike, the state-owned Ahram Online reported. A member of a government rights council that is monitoring the health of the hunger-strikers said last week that the law banning unsanctioned street protests was under review and could be amended. After the three men posted bail, their friends continued to celebrate their release by sharing images on social networks of them enjoying their freedom. |