Alaa Released from Egyptian Prison

How We Won

Dec 25, 2011

Victory! Alaa was released from prison on Sunday, December 25, 2011.

As soon as Alaa was freed, he went straight to Tahrir Square and spoke, holding his 3 week old son Khaled, who was born while he was in prison. "We need to end military rule,” Abdel-Fattah said as reported by the Associated Press, moments after his release outside Cairo's police headquarters. “We cannot just celebrate my innocence. We know from the beginning I am not the one who killed people. We have not gone after the real criminals who killed people.”

Thousands of people like you have signed petitions and rallied for Alaa’s release from his unjust imprisonment. Alaa’s imprisonment occurred soon after he published a scathing criticism of the Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) in Al-Shorouk, an independent Egyptian newspaper, about the deaths of 28 peaceful protesters at the hands of the armed forces during a protest in Maspiro, Cairo, on October 9th. He was falsely charged with inciting violence during the protest and carrying army weapons. When detained by military prosecution, he refused to be questioned as a civilian and was imprisoned until, after much external pressure from activists including his family, his case was transferred to a civilian court. He has been released pending further investigations and is banned from travel; he will continue to fight for his acquittal from the charges.

“Do not rejoice in my release. The real victory is when the Military Police commander stands behind bars while being tried for killing protestors,” Alaa is quoted saying in Al-Shorouk.

Alaa is one of over 12,000 Egyptian civilians who have been tried by military courts in Egypt since SCAF took power after Mubarak’s ouster on February 11, 2011. His release gives us hope that the many other political prisoners like him may also be released. Together, we will continue to fight for them and with them for justice, and for a free, democratic, inclusive, civilian-led Egypt.

Click here to watch Alaa speak about his detention

Alaa Abd El Fattah, a prominent political activist in Egypt, joined thousands of peaceful protesters on Sunday, October 9, 2011 in a march to the Maspiro TV building in Cairo, Egypt. There, the Egyptian Army brutally attacked the protesters, killing at least 28 civilians and injuring at least 300. Protesters were deliberately crushed by Armored Personnel Carriers and killed by gunfire.  They were made up of Muslims and Christians protesting the burning of a church in Assyut, Egypt.

Alaa later published an opinion article about the protest in the Egyptian independent newspaper, AI-Shorouk, implicating the army in the deaths of the Maspiro protesters. Soon after, he was summoned for questioning by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) and then arrested. Alaa was arrested five years before for his political activities –under Hosni Mubarak.

Writes Alaa from prison: “I am locked up, again pending trial, again on a set of loose and flimsy charges — the one difference is that instead of the state security prosecutor we have the military prosecutor — a change in keeping with the military moment we're living now." (The Guardian, November 2, 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/02/egypt-revolution-back-mubarak-jails)

Under the rule of Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), 12,000 Egyptians were sentenced to military court since last January. During Mubarak's rule, only 500 Egyptians were sentenced by military court. SCAF has renewed the hated Emergency Law that Egyptians protested during the January 25th Revolution, and heavy-handed censorship has brought upon the arrest of journalists and the storming of the offices of independent news media.

The US Department of State must use its influence on SCAF to release Alaa.  Every year, the US government gives $1.3 billion in public money to SCAF, and SCAF must be held accountable for its multiple abuses of the human rights of Egyptians.  

For more information:

New York Times

NPR: 

Huffington Post

The Guardian

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