Saddle Up the War Blogs the Sand Monkey Calls for Help

"Alaa, blogger, co-founder of the egyptian blog aggregator Manalaa and democracy activist, got arrested today during a protest to support the Judiciary's branch fight for independence. He, and about 10 others, were rounded up in the street, beaten up and thrown in a police car. Amongst those who got arrested were at least 3 girls, and the police beat up at least another 2 girls as well.

Alaa and those arrested with him are now arrested for 15 days "pending investigation", which could be renewed indefinitely if the state so wishes. Him and the men were sent to the infamous Torah Prison and the girls to the Qanatir prison for the duration. This makes them hardly safe, because stuff that goes on in egyptian prisons on the hands of the jailors: beatings, sexual assaults, torture of all kinds. This is why we aim to get them out of there as soon as possible, so that even if they do end up serving the entire 15 days- which they won't have to if the government gets pressured- they ndon;t end up serving an extra day after that. No one deserves this happening to them, especially for exercising their right to free speech." contact the state department as well as the egyptian embassies. We have informed the US state department people of what's going on, and as the media blitz that we have planned takes place, they will have something to back up their demands on the egyptian government. But some public outrage (or encouragment if you will) from you guys should push them to act faster. Here is their contact information:

State Department contact information:

Address:
US Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

Main Switchboard: 202-647-4000

URL to send email:
http://contact-us.state.gov/cgi-bin/state.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php?p_sid=We6SaX6i&p_lva=&p_sp=&p_li=

Site with information on contacting your congressional representatives (in
the US):
http://www.ams.org/government/howto.html

As for the Egyptian embassy in DC, the information is right here:

The contact information for the Egyptian embassy is below:
The Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt
3521 International Ct. NW
Washington DC 20008
Phone (202) 895 5400
Fax (202) 244 5131
(202) 244 4319
Email: embassy@egyptembdc.org

Rantings of a Sandmonkey