Egypt: Online Campaigns to Release Arrested Protesters Underway · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Egyptian cyber activists went back to their keyboards to demand the release of protesters and bystanders arrested on Sunday 15 May, 2011, for being at a protest outside the Israeli Embassy in Cairo to commemorate the Nakba (‘Day of Catastrophe’, as it is known in the Arab world) which marks the day the State of Israel was created in 1948.
Numerous blog posts, Facebook pages and Twitter hastags have sprung calling on the military to release the detainees.  Ahram Online announced  that the military prosecutor has released 17 protesters “due to their young age and schooling situation” and detained 119.
Detained blogger Tarek Shalaby. Photo by Hossam El Hamalawy.
Blogger and Twitter user Tarek Shalaby was among those arrested. One of the last tweets Tarek posted before his arrest was:
Shit! We've been ambushed! Army coming from other side. Ran into side street…
A ‘Free Tarek Shalaby‘ page has been set up on Facebook.
The information on the page reads:
Tarek Shalaby was detained by the Egyptian Army last night for protesting in front of the Israeli Embassy in Giza. He was taken along with tens of other people, and we are still trying to find out his whereabouts! Please join this page to help support his release from Military custody in Egypt!!
@mosaaberizing: Protesters running towards Cairo Uni. Tens of ambulance cars carrying injured ones. #IsraeliEmbassy
Twitter user Mosa'ab ElShamy was also arrested. A ‘Free Mosa'ab ElShamy‘ page was set up for him on Facebook, and it reads:
Mosa'ab (@mosaaberizing), young activist who participated in the Jan25 revolution, was also taken last night by security forces at the Israeli embassy in Cairo along with Tarek Shalaby.
Kuwaiti Twitter user Mona Kareem writes a touching tribute in honour of her detained friend and calls for his release in a post entitled ‘Bring My Friend Back':
It hurts me so bad when I think that this 20 year old friend of mine got caught and might face the militant court. Some have already been there, it is inhumane, and some have been sentenced to years in prison for speaking out or for being in a protest. Egypt had a revolution but the army cannot understand that; the army is a machine good in killing, arresting, and punishing. The army does not see youth, hope, dreams, and memories in those men and women they arrest, they do not appreciate their courage giving up what people of their age should live, just to build a better place for the coming generations, who most probably will deal with jan25 as a boring subject, just the way we dealt with our fathers and mothers’ revolutionary memories as boring and superficial.
‘We are all Mahmood Al Sadati’ is a page set up on Facebook for Mahmood, who was also detained during the clashes outside the Israeli Embassy. The page administrator writes [ar]:
يوم الثلاثاء 17/5 خد 15 يوم إستمرار فى السجن الحربى
الحرية لمحمود الساداتى
On Tuesday, May 17, he was sentenced to another 15 days in the Military prison
Freedom for Mahmood Al Sadaty
On Facebook, another page calling for the freeing of 17-year-old Omar Hani Farouk Albstawisy has been formed.
His uncle Hesham writes:
Blogger Rowan El Shimi posts [ar] a testimonial written by video journalist Mohamed Effat, who was with those arrested from in front of the Israeli Embassy. In his harrowing testimonial on how the protesters were arrested, Effat explains:
The soldiers and army officers then started shooting in the air from both ends, in a manner which cannot be described. It was enough to terrorise us and make us surrender. The soldiers surrounded us on the sidewalk and forced us to fall on our knees and put our hands on our heads, while some were pointing their guns at us and the others continuing to shoot in the air. They then made us sleep on our stomachs, with our heads to the ground and our hands behind our heads – all while pointing their guns at us and firing shots in the air.
A child, who wasn't older than eight years old, was next to me and he was crying hysterically from fear. They forced him, like us, to sleep on his stomach. After two minutes, they transferred us to the next pavement, and we remained in the same position. Whoever raised his head was hit on his head and verbally insulted. The policemen then came and they started dragging us, one at a time, forming us in a column, and then took us to the Corniche, near the Embassy. (Note: We had to crawl as they moved us from one area to the other and whoever stood u was beaten and kicked, until he fell down.)