My story about the dissident officers published on Al-Akhbar English.
While the Egyptian army hosts a ceremony in Tahrir celebrating the role of the military in siding with the revolution on January 25, several officers who joined the protests early last year will not be able to attend. The trials of Major Tamer Badr, Amr Metwally, and Ahmed Shoman, arrested after joining protesters in Tahrir Square during the November mass protests against military rule, have now been postponed until next month.
This means that as the anniversary celebrations take place, a total of at least 25 officers will be sitting in prisons for having peacefully joined protests. Meanwhile, officers involved in abusing protesters, even in widely publicized cases such as that of “blue bra girl” and the Maspero massacre, will be joining the ceremony.
The majority of the other officers being held are those that joined the square on April 8th. The soldiers have been collectively named “the honorable officers” by their supporters, who have held protests in their honor over the last two Fridays and also rallied outside the military court complex on Jan 11, when the case had been scheduled to be heard.
Read more here.
