04.02.2011, 16:16 10670

Egypt arrests human rights employees

Egyptian police have arrested employees of Amnesty International and other human rights organizations, the agency reports.

Almaty. February 4. Kazakhstan Today - Egyptian police have arrested employees of Amnesty International and other human rights organizations, the agency reports.

Amnesty International is calling for the release of its representatives who was detained by police in Cairo after military police there took over the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre Thursday morning, allheadlinenews reported.

Amnesty International does not know where its representative was taken. Others were also taken, including Ahmed Seif Al Islam Khaled Ali, a delegate from Human Rights Watch. However, still other human rights workers, including another Amnesty International staffer, are still being detained at the center.

Amnesty International USA asked President Barack Obama to immediately demand the release of all captive Amnesty International staff members.

"We call for the immediate and safe release of our colleagues and others with them who should be able to monitor the human rights situation in Egypt at this crucial time without fear of harassment or detention," said Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

The Hisham Mubarak Law Centre provides legal aid to Egyptians.

Journalists have also been targeted by the Egyptian government. Journalists from Egypt, Great Britain, the United States, India, Australia, Greece and other countries have reported being jumped, beaten, detained and interrogated this week while reporting on the uprising against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, CNN informed.

In a one-day span, attacks on reporters included 30 detentions, 26 assaults and eight instances of equipment seized, and plainclothes and uniformed agents reportedly entered at least two hotels where international journalists were staying to confiscate media equipment, said the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based organization, on Thursday.

The high number of attacks in Egypt might be, in part, because there were already a large number of reporters working in Cairo bureaus before the protests against Mubarak began, McBride said. News organizations, at least until recently, considered Cairo a convenient and friendly base from which to travel to more hostile areas in Africa and the Middle East.

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