Arrest warrants out for Alexandria activists

Eight activists are under investigation for allegedly calling for a protest that took place on December 2 outside an Alexandrian court during the retrial of the Khaled Saeed case. Prosecutors on Monday issued arrest warrants on charges of inciting violence and destroying a police car for five of the eight, including lawyers Mahienour al-Massry and Hassan Mostafa.

Another Alexandrian activist Nasser Abul Hamd had already been arrested late Sunday and given four days detention pending investigations, Massry wrote Monday on her Twitter account. Massry said he was interrogated by prosecutors Monday morning in the absence of lawyers.

Alexandria-based activist Mansour Hamdy told Mada Masr that if arrest warrants are issued, the activists would probably turn themselves in right away. 

According to a copy of the interrogation report Massry shared on Twitter, the eight are charged with holding a protest without notifying authorities, attacking security forces with rocks and destroying public property.

The recently approved protest law makes it illegal to organize a demonstration without first notifying police.

Last week, security forces used tear gas to disperse a protest outside Alexandria’s Haqaniya Court and arrested five people, activist and participant Nader al-Attar told Mada Masr at the time. Clashes broke out with security forces as protesters were forced to relocate to the Corniche.

An Interior Ministry statement claimed that demonstrators ignored warnings to clear the area and had blocked roads as well as assaulted security forces.

Khaled Saeed, who was beaten to death in Alexandria in June 2010, is among the most followed cases of police brutality in Egypt. Photographs of Saeed's disfigured face spread on social media and his death is credited by some with igniting the January 25, 2011 revolution.

In 2012, two policemen, Mahmoud Salah Mahmoud and Awad Ismail Suleiman, were found guilty of Saeed's murder and sentenced to seven years in prison. After filing an appeal, the two men are now facing a retrial.

During the fifth session of the retrial last Monday, forensic doctor Mohamed Abdel Aziz claimed that Saeed was not beaten to death, but died of asphyxiation after swallowing a bag of hashish.

Abdel Aziz had concluded asphyxiation was the cause of death in the initial report he prepared with other doctors at the forensics authority in 2010. However, multiple eyewitnesses reported seeing the accused officers beating Saeed to death in the street in front of the cyber cafe in Sidi Gaber where he was apprehended.