Egyptian journo who posted ‘police torture videos’ arrested, but later released

CAIRO - Wael Abbas, a well-known Egyptian journalist who had posted hundreds of terrifying videos of police abuse on the web, has claimed that he was arrested, but later released by his country’s Army.

Abbas tweeted “arrested by the Army!” just before 7 p.m. Cairo time on Friday evening, ABC News reports.

Someone using the Twitter username ‘RamyYaacoub’ tweeted several minutes later that he was on the phone with Abbas and that the blogger confirmed: “Yes, yes, I was arrested, I am with the military police now.” He further twitted that Abbas had said he was “okay but in their custody” before the call was disconnected.

After almost an hour later, Abbas tweeted that he had been released by the Army, but was “stopped at every single checkpoint,” adding: “We are getting arrested every five minutes now for looking like foreigners and having a camera and a laptop.”

On Thursday, Abbas had said that he was hiding from President Hosni Mubarak’s supporters and security agencies to stay safe and out of their reach.

“I’m moving around. I’m trying to get to a safe place. All my friends have been arrested. I might have to try to get out of the country. I’m afraid for my life. I need to figure out what I’m going to do and where I’m going to go,” Abbas had said from an undisclosed location.

Abbas has been reportedly posting police torture videos on his blog misrdigital.com since February 2005. His latest post on January 26 shows gory images of a young protestor’s dead body, who was shot in the abdomen, in a hospital near the Suez Canal.

The footage of the video also showed a nurse screaming into a phone that more wounded were brought to the hospital. (ANI)