Families of detainees hold silent protest in downtown Cairo

Dozens of demonstrators gathered in downtown Cairo on Thursday evening for a silent protest remembering the thousands of detainees arrested over the past few months, holding up their pictures and signs bearing their names.

The pictures portrayed well-known activists such as April 6 Youth Movement member Mohamed Adel, who has been sentenced to two years imprisonment, in addition to several other detainees — most of whom were arrested during protests.

Throughout the coming week, revolutionaries and students will be facing trial, “including both our friends, and people we do not know,” wrote in a statement the families of Alaa Abd El Fattah, Ahmed Douma, Ahmed Maher and Mohamed Adel, as well as families of other detainees, including members of the Revolutionary Ultras.

Abd El Fattah was released last week on bail after months in prison, while Douma, Maher and Adel remain behind bars.

These detainees have been “deprived of their most basic rights and all the trials are politicized,” the statement read.

The families called for the silent protest to “show solidarity with all prisoners and for youth behind bars to know they are not alone, and for the street to know that there are thousands unjustly in prison.”

A woman holding up a picture of her nephew, a student arrested on January 25 this year and sentenced to two years in prison, also carried a poster depicting a young woman she did not know.

The protest ended as the demonstrators sang revolutionary songs. The mother of detained April 6 member Mohamed Sherif cried as she watched the singing, saying her son used to always sing old dissident songs by Sheikh Imam.

Hearings in the coming week include the appeal of a five-year sentence and fine of LE100,000 handed down to 18 Al-Azhar students, and a hearing to extend the detention of Al-Azhar student Yassin Sabry and member of the Revolutionary Front detained since January 12.

Detainees arrested on the third anniversary of January 25 will also be facing the judges this week appealing their sentences.

On April 6, there are four hearings, including the case of unauthorized protest outside the Shura Council in November, in which Abd El Fattah is a defendant, while the following day the court will sentence in the appeal of imprisoned activists Maher, Adel and Douma.

On April 10, the trial of Al Jazeera journalists will continue.

In a letter from Douma written in prison published Thursday in the privately owned newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm, he talked about his stomach problems and about the small pleasures in life that are only appreciated after they are taken away.

A writer and poet, Douma drew parallels between the choices he had to make in relation to his stomach and his health in regard to taking part in politics, and finally the choice to get rid of the Brotherhood knowing that the alternative was the military.

The choice was never between an elected civilian authority and an unelected military authority, Douma wrote, nor between continuing repression and revolt against it.

“Rather, it was a choice between those who kill you because you are an infidel and those who kill you because you’re a terrorist. Our only option was to get rid of the first one, and we were not in a position to choose. All we could do was realize the inevitability of a battle with the second.”

It is not about making bad choices, Douma continued.

“It is imposed on us as a people and generation to choose between two bad things and our way out was always try to create a third option, even if we failed.”