US cable reveals ill-treatment of activist

Cable 09CAIRO255 Egyptian-German blogger Philip Rizk was tortured in an Egyptian prison in February 2009, according to a US diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks which also reported the hounding of pro-Palestinian activists. The 11 February 2009 cable quoted his lawyer, Gamal Eid, as saying he had blindfolded and beaten as part of “physical and mental abuse” during his detention in a bid to get personal information out of him, including pass-words for his computer. Hafez Abu Seada, secretary-general of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights, speculated that international publicity about his arrest, along with his German nationality, had prevented the regime holding him for more than a few days (6-11 February), the cable said. The cable also reported, quoting Eid, the arrest on 6 February that year of Dia Eddin Gad, author of the pro-Palestinian blog “An Angry Voice”, who had been detained several times between December 2008 and January 2009 after taking part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Palestinian activists Ahmed Saad Abu Doma and Ahmed Kamal Abdelal, authors of the blog “The Angry Ones” (Ghadeboon), were each given one-year prison sentences and fined $350 on 10 February 2009 for illegally crossing the border into Gaza, according to the cable, released by Wikileaks on 16 February 2011.