Translated from the original article by George Bushra for Copts United
At 2pm on Thursday July 22nd, Attorney Naguib Ghobrial (President of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights) gave a statement to Copts United announcing that Egyptian authorities had released Egyptian Coptic blogger Hani Nazeer.
Ghobrial said that he called His Eminence Bishop Cyril of Nag Hammadi that afternoon and that His Eminence informed him that Hani Nazeer had been turned over to him by the security services and would be his guest for a few days.
In a related phone conversation, Coptic blogger Hani Nazeer thanked Attorney Ghobrial and his organization and also all the other human rights organizations that had contributed to his release. Nazeer also expressed great joy for his release by the Egyptian authorities.
The AlKelma Center also welcomed the release of Nazeer. Human rights activist Mamdouh Nakhla, the head of the organization, said that the release of blogger Hani Nazeer may underscore the Egyptian government's desire to apply the emergency laws only to cases of terrorism and drug crimes. He urged the Egyptian authorities to free all the remaining detainees who had been arrested for crimes attributed to free speech and freedom of expression.
It should be noted that Nazeer was detained by state security investigators without any specific charges being brought against him and on the basis of an allegation by the Ministry of the Interior that he had published a picture of the cover of a book that Interior considered offensive to Islam on his blog. He had been acquitted by the courts on six separate occasions only to be rearrested immediately following each release using the authority of the emergency laws.
Additionally, it should be noted that the newspaper Copts United and the Coptic TV channel also launched human rights campaigns advocating for Nazeer’s release.
