Egypt's crackdown against anti-government protesters has ensnared at least four members of the April 6 Youth, a dissident movement organized largely through Facebook and other social media tools. Danger Room has learned that Amal Sharaf, one of the core members of the April 6 Youth, is among those arrested.
Security officials detained the activists Thursday afternoon at Cairo's Hisham Mubarak Law Center, an organization that provides legal assistance to detainees. Its director, Ahmed Sief (sometimes spelled Seif), was also taken into custody.
An eyewitness, Mamdouh Hamza, described the detentions to Danger Room over the phone from Cairo. Hamza, a professor of civil engineering at Suez Canal University, was part of a crowd of at least 200 people on El Tawfikia #1 Street, right next to the Center. He saw a minibus arrive at the Center, and plainclothes security officers entered the building. They arrested between eight and 12 people, he says.
"They also are creating the rumor that the people arrested are from Hamas," Hamza says, "and that they have come to burn Cairo, so the people in the street -- they were kicking them [the activists] and hitting them."
Conspicuously, Ahmed Maher, the group's co-founder (pictured above), wasn't arrested alongside his fellow online activists. It's possible that Hosni Mubarak's agents spared him because of his high profile. But he also alerted Danger Room to the arrests during a separate Thursday phone call.
Hamza says he was overwhelmed by the crowd and could do little except take pictures, which Danger Room is now trying to obtain. He added that he's fearful enough of follow-up arrests that he won't sleep at his home tonight.
Update, 11:45 a.m., February 4: Danger Room has learned that the Mubarak regime has arrested another cohort of activists in Cairo. Eight to 15 pro-democracy dissidents were taken in shortly after attending a meeting with Nobel laureate and anti-Mubarak figure Mohamed ElBaradei at his home Thursday night. Danger Room has been able to independently confirm the following activists are in Egyptian custody:
Mamdouh Hamza, a professor of civil engineering at Suez Canal University, tells Danger Room the group was apprehended Thursday night at a cafe. Members of the tech-savvy April 6 Youth group were snatched up as well.
Photo: Ahmed Maher (Joerg Klaus)
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