Egypt's highest-profile secular activists threatened with arrest

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Egypt's highest-profile secular activists threatened with arrest

Patrick Kingsley in Cairo
The Guardian, Wednesday 27 November 2013 14.13 GMT

Arrest warrants were issued for two of Egypt's highest-profile activists on Wednesday, a day after 79 other secular campaigners were detained in Cairo in the largest crackdown on non-Islamist dissent since the fall of Mohamed Morsi. It was the first use of a draconian new protest law that was enacted on Sunday and has been condemned by the UN and human rights groups.

Ahmed Maher, the leader of a youth movement that helped spearhead Egypt's 2011 revolution, and Alaa Abdel Fattah, an activist targeted by every administration since Hosni Mubarak, were accused of masterminding a protest outside the Egyptian parliament.

"We're back to Mubarak's time," said Maher by telephone, while he mulled whether to hand himself in to the police. "I feel it's the same atmosphere as it was in 2008, when I was hiding and trying to escape the police, and trying to make my wife and family safe."

Twenty-two female protesters, many of them well known for their activism during and since the 2011 revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak, said they were beaten and harassed by police during their arrest on Tuesday night before being abandoned in the desert several miles south of Cairo. At least 24 of their colleagues remain detained.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/27/egypt-secular-activists-arrested-protest-law

[Scootaloo]

1. And so many DU'ers were cheering for the violent, bloody coup

I hope they're proud of themselves.