Hossam Bahgat has just been banned from travel. After Gamal Eid travel ban + Nadim Center closure order. Closing in.
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Egypt Bars Journalist From Leaving Country as Crackdown on Dissent Widens
One of Egypt’s leading investigative journalists, Hossam Bahgat, was prevented from boarding a flight to Jordan today when officials at Cairo International Airport informed him that his name had been added to a list of citizens barred from traveling abroad.
Bahgat, who was detained and interrogated for three days in November by military intelligence officers, wrote on Facebook that officials at the airport told him that the order confining him to the country had come from Egypt’s public prosecutor, but they could provide no details of any case against him.
With some exasperation, the reporter pointed out that this surprise punishment by the Egyptian judicial system came as he was on his way to Jordan “to participate in the United Nations meeting on justice in the Arab world!”
The travel ban was quickly condemned by Egyptian activists, including Heba Morayef, the associate director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a prominent human rights group that Bahgat founded and led before turning his attention to journalism after the country’s 2011 revolution. Writing on Twitter, Morayef observed that the space for dissent against Egypt’s authoritarian government seemed to be narrowing, given that the restrictions on Bahgat were imposed just weeks after a similar ban was placed on Gamal Eid, a lawyer with the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, and days after health officials ordered the closure of El Nadeem, a renowned clinic for the rehabilitation of torture victims.
Canadian Embassy in Cairo closed due to security concerns | Reuters
Canadian Embassy in Cairo closed due to security concerns | Reuters.
(Reuters) – Canada’s embassy in Cairo was closed on Monday until further notice because of security concerns, an official answering its emergency telephone line said, the second diplomatic mission to shut its doors this week.
A message on the embassy’s website read: “The ability to provide consular services may occasionally be limited for short periods due to unsettled security conditions.” It gave no more details.
The British Embassy in Cairo closed to the public on Sunday, also citing security concerns. A notice on its website on Monday said its services remained suspended.
Egypt is battling an Islamist insurgency largely centered around the Sinai Peninsula, a strategic area near the border with Israel, Gaza and the Suez Canal.
Insurgent attacks have mostly targeted Egyptian police and soldiers, killing hundreds in the past year, but Egypt’s most dangerous militant group, Sinai Province, said last week it was behind the killing of an American oil engineer in the western desert in August.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Egypt jails 23 activists over protests – Middle East – Al Jazeera English
Egypt jails 23 activists over protests – Middle East – Al Jazeera English.
The three-year jail sentence handed down is the maximum allowed under the law [AP]
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| An Egyptian court has sentenced 23 pro-democracy activists to three years in jail for holding an illegal protest, despite international calls to free them.
The defendants were sentenced on Sunday for their part in a peaceful demonstration in June near the presidential palace in Cairo, which called for the annulment of a new anti-protest law that severely restricted the right to demonstrate. They were arrested while protesting the detention of Alaa Abdel Fattah, a political blogger, and other activists held in jail. Some of the activists sentenced on Sunday had supported the army’s overthrow of president Mohamed Morsi in 2013. …click on the above link to read the rest of the article… |
Blast outside Cairo University wounds 11 – Middle East – Al Jazeera English
Blast outside Cairo University wounds 11 – Middle East – Al Jazeera English.
Cairo University has been the stage for almost daily student protests, often dispersed by police [AFP]
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| A bomb has exploded outside the gates of Cairo University, wounding eleven people including policemen stationed outside the campus to quell student protests that have become customary in the politically unstable country.
Police cordoned off the area and scoured it with sniffer dogs, state-run Ahram news outlet reported on Wednesday, citing a security source. Six of the eleven wounded were policemen stationed outside the campus, Ahram said. The blast took place near the site of a bombing in April that killed a police general. Riot policemen are now stationed on foot and in armoured vehicles to confront the frequent protests by pro-Islamist students. The explosion came after policemen had clashed with student protesters earlier in the day. …click on the above link to read the rest of the article… |
