Bikya Masr
"CAIRO: An Egyptian court acquitted prominent activist Asmaa Mahfouz on Tuesday morning from battery and assault charges.
Mahfouz, whose video message “I am taking part in January 25 protest” helped galvanize youth, received an earlier sentence of one-year in prison and 2,000 Egyptian pounds ($330), appealed and won.
The man who accused her of hitting him with a stick over the head worked as a director in the Youth and Sports Ministry during the old regime.
He claimed Mahfouz hit him with a stick on his head after he testified against another activist in court.
Mahfouz denied all accusations, saying she never saw the man before in her life.
Mahfouz announced to her followers, some 309,823 Twitter followers, saying “acquitted,” three times. She reported that while she was waiting for the verdict, her movement was confined by police.
She wrote on her account that while she wanted to go and wash her face, two policemen asked her where she was going and ordered her to sit still as “her movement was restricted.”
Mahfouz has been on a hunger strike the past week, camping outside the Egyptian parliament in opposition to the non-application of the political isolation law, that should prevent loyalists to the old regime from participating in public life, most notably presidential finalist Ahmed Shafiq, who was imprisoned dictator Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister.
Mahfouz’s happiness was short-lived, as she soon wrote on her Twitter account “the revolution is still going, and still there are detainees in military prisons and still activists are on hunger strikes.”"
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