Egyptian judge frees anti-junta blogger
Alaa Abd El Fattah was detained for two months, pending investigation into charges that he incited violence against military
One of Egypt's most prominent revolutionaries has been released from jail after almost two months during which he missed the birth of his first child.
An Egyptian investigative judge ordered that Alaa Abd El Fattah, who has been at the forefront of anti-regime struggles for a decade and was a political prisoner during the Mubarak era, be freed pending investigation into charges that he incited violence against the military.
A picture posted by his sister Mona Seif showed him holding his new-born son Khaled on his release. His wife Manal Hassan, who is also an activist, gave birth to the couple's first child while he was in detention.
Military prosecutors detained Abd El Fattah on 30 October after he refused to answer questions about their allegations that he played a role in clashes during a march by Coptic Christians on 9 October. At least 27 people, most of them Christians, were killed. Abd El Fattah was among those who spoke out against the army's involvement in the violence, which was confirmed by multiple witness reports and video footage. But the military has accused Abd El Fattah of inciting Christian protesters to attack the soldiers. He was also accused of stealing a military weapon, deliberately destroying military property and attacking security forces.
His supporters dismissed the claims, saying the military was trying to silence a prominent critic and to deflect blame on its soldiers in the violence. Abd El Fattah wrote in newspaper articles smuggled out of jail that his arrest was motivated in large part by his insistence on autopsies to determine the cause of the protesters' deaths.
Several of the victims were found to have been killed by being run over, according to activists. TV footage showed armoured vehicles ploughing through crowds.
Abd El Fattah had maintained that the military prosecutors could not question him since the military was suspected of involvement in the killings.
Later the case was handed to the civilian judge who ordered his release. The reasons for the release were not immediately made public, but Abd El Fattah had not been formally charged.
The blogger helped pioneer an online space in which opponents of the Hosni Mubarak dictatorship could organise and challenge the regime. His detention has elicited international condemnation and, activists say, provided more evidence that the generals who took over ruling the country from Mubarak, when the dictator was ousted in February, were following the deposed leader's authoritarian policies.
Abd El Fattah, 30, belongs to a family of activists who used his detention to draw international attention to the plight of thousands of civilians hauled by the ruling generals before military courts. At least 12,000 Egyptians have been tried before military courts since late January.
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