EGYPT: Blogger Rizk freed after days of interrogation
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Philip Rizk’s strange, spooky ordeal is over.
The blogger and peace activist was freed early today after having been arrested last week by Egyptian security officials. He was taken into custody following a protest march outside Cairo to raise awareness for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Rizk disappeared in a white mini-bus and was held at an undisclosed location and interrogated for nearly five days.
The 26-year-old filmmaker and incessant blogger had wandered into precarious Egyptian politics. The government of President Hosni Mubarak has grown testy over domestic and international criticism that it didn’t do enough to aid Palestinians during Israel’s recent 22-day incursion. Mubarak’s decision to keep Egypt’s border with Gaza largely closed kept humanitarian aid from entering the battered seaside enclave.
Rizk’s Tabula Gaza blog chided Egypt’s stance as well as Israel’s siege of Gaza. News of the German-Egyptian activist’s arrest streaked across cyberspace. Germany’s ambassador to Egypt along with Amnesty International and other human-rights groups called for his release.
But other recently arrested bloggers and government opponents haven’t fared so well. Ahmed Douma and Ahmed Kamal, who illegally crossed into Gaza during the Israeli offensive and blogged about it, have been sentenced by Egyptian military courts to one year in prison.
The crackdown on bloggers and Facebook dissidents has intensified over the last 18 months. The Egyptian government, skilled at using detention and intimidation to silence its opponents, charges that certain bloggers endanger national security. The cases of Rizk and the other Palestinian sympathizers expanded the Egyptian security forces’ battle in cyberspace from labor unrest, radical Islam and economic problems to the larger Arab-Israeli conflict.
Shortly after he was arrested, police raided the apartment Rizk shared with his sister, Jeannette, in Cairo. Jeannette said “they broke into my flat” and seized a computer, harddrives, cameras and other items. Egyptian authorities have not commented on why Rizk, a graduate student at the American University in Cairo, was detained and, days later, freed. No charges have been filed.
“They were trying frantically to build a case against Philip, but they didn’t have a case, and this was getting to be an embarrassment for them,” she said. “People mobilized internationally and this added the pressure on them. . .It seems like to say anything about Gaza is like directly attacking the Egyptian government.”
--Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo
