YEMEN Press Agency

1943 people arrested since September 20 demonstrations in Egypt

SANAA, Oct. 11 (YPA) – The prominent Egyptian human rights lawyer Khaled Ali revealed on Saturday the inventory of 1943 people arrested since the protests of September 20.
Ali said, in a statement on his documented Facebook page, that “an approximate count of 1943 names has been arrested,” during the period between September 20 and until today.
He explained: “We collected them from the testimonies of lawyers, families and human rights organizations published on Facebook, because no data was issued from official bodies that clarify the numbers of those arrested in recent events.”
He pointed out that “decisions were issued to imprison those arrested for 15 days pending investigations in two cases,” without details of the charges against them.
Ali added that “this inventory is approximate, and it may not include everyone included in the release decisions, or the names of all those arrested.”
He continued: “There are cases that we were unable to monitor, and we excluded from it all the names that we were certain of the issuance of a decision to release them.”
Since September 20, Egyptian villages have witnessed “limited” demonstrations calling for the departure of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, in protest against the deteriorating living conditions and rejecting a law allowing the removal of real estate built without permits.
These demonstrations are considered a second wave of similar protests that broke out on the 20 of the same month in 2019, at the invitation of the contractor and opposition artist Muhammad Ali.
While the authorities did not issue a total number of detainees during the recent protests, local media reported in separate reports about the arrest of “people in possession of incendiary devices for the purpose of causing riots,” or “inciting to block roads.”
The authorities say that the right to demonstrate is guaranteed to everyone according to the law, which requires whoever wants to obtain approval from the security authorities, but the protesters say that the requirement to obtain a prior permit is illogical, as the security authorities do not essentially grant it, and those who present it may be arrested.