Egyptian Activist Questioned by Military Prosecutor

The Egyptian activist and one of the founders of the April 6 Youth Movement, Asmaa Mahfouz, was investigated this Sunday by the military prosecution office on charges of defaming Egypt’s military rulers and calling for violence. The accusation of Asmaa was based on an earlier phone interview she had on Al-Nas Satellite TV Channel and on a message she cross-posted on both her twitter and facebook accounts.

Al-Masry Al-Youm wrote about the incident and translated Asmaa's tweet.

if the judiciary doesn’t give us our rights, nobody should be surprised if militant groups appear and conduct a series of assassinations, because there is no law and there is no judiciary.

Asmaa was later released on LE 20,000 (more than $3000) bail pending further investigations. However this doesn't stop the Egyptian users on twitter as well as the possible Presidential candidate Mohamed El-Baradei from condemning the incident.

@ElBaradei: Military trials for young activists, while Mubarak & co. stand before civilian courts, is a legal farce. Don't abort the revolution

Dozens of users on twitter also either retweeted or copied and pasted Asmaa's tweet challenging the military court.

@AmrEzzat:

رفاق تويتر:أدعوكم لترديد التويتات اللي هي تهمة أسماء محفوظ، ونطلب ضمنا لمتهمين القضية. والمجلس يحبس آلاف المدونين أو يحترم حرية الرأي
Dear twitter friends: I call you to repeat the tweet used in accusing Asmaa Mahfouz, and ask those who are interested in the case and the Supreme Council of Armed Forces to either jail all bloggers or respect the freedom of speech.

On the other hand the phone interview used as an evidence of her defaming the Supreme Council of Armed Forces was made when she was in the middle of Al-Abbasseya clashes, where activists and peaceful protesters were attacked by thugs, and about 300 protesters were injured and one died a few weeks later from injuries sustained.

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