The Arabist

The Arabist

By Issandr El Amrani and friends.

Sharqawi and Sha3er are FREE

Sharqawi and Sha3er have been finally released by 12:50am, after a long odyssey of "paper work" pending their release.

The two were taken from Tora Prison on Wednesday 1:15pm, to State Security police HQ in Lazoughli Square, where they spent a couple of hours sitting in some corridor. They were then transferred to El-Khalifa Police Station, and then to the Cairo Security Directorate, from where the two walked out ten mins to 1am.

Mabrouk ya Sharqawi... Mabrouk ya Sha3er...

Here is a picture I took of Sharqawi, talking on a mobile phone and still dressed in white prison clothes, in Bab el-Louq shortly after his release. His friends, waiting outside the Directorate, took him and Sha3er together with some family members to a downtown coffeeshop.
Sharqawi