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Egypt; security forces prevent intellectuals and intellectuals of declaring their opposition to extremism
Cairo; June 12th 2008
The Arabic network for human rights information ‘anhri.net” said that police forces banned a protest organized by poets and intellectuals in Talaat Harb square calling for patriotic unity and rejecting extremism. The forces deprived activists from reaching the square threatening them to use violence if they tried or insisted on the protest.
The great Egyptian poet along with a number of Egyptian intellectuals invited to a protest in Talaat Harb Square calling for patriotic unity on Wednesday 11th June 2008. The programme only included poetry and singing as a way to declare the refusal of extremism and the sectarian violence incidents in Egypt that happened the past weeks.
Right after the first group of activists came out of Merit publications headquarter –near Talat Harb Square- hundreds of police officers and gangsters surrounded them. The 80- year- old poet along with George Ishaq –the ex- general coordinator of Kefaya movement could not manage to make those forces change their mind. It was clear that the hundreds of gangsters accompanying the police forces were ready to use violence against anyone including Negm and Ishaq. The group did not exceed 80 persons while the police and gangsters were hundreds.
“we refuse what the security forces have done to us, they surrounded the group and forced us back to the headquarter and surrounded the building banning anyone to get in or outside it. The movie director Magdi Ahmed managed to reach the headquarter after huge difficulties” Mohammed Hashem the director of “Merit publications” said. “we have the right to express our opinion” he added.
“the gangsters were harassing us and ready to beat, even one of the officers called general Maher ordered them many times to stop their harassments, but it seemed hard for them to prevent poets and intellectuals from expressing their opinion without using violence as their usual means” Gamal Eid the executive director of the Arabic network for human rights information said.
The lawyers of the network who were in Talat Harb Square monitored dozens of police cars and hundreds of police forces in plain clothes harassing the activists and the normal citizens in the streets around the Square, as if some poems and song threaten the security in Egypt and require militant confrontation.
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