Gregory Porter, Luke Gates and Derrik Sweeney were enjoying their semester at American University in Cairo this fall. And when protests began in Cairo’s central Tahir Square on November 19, the students were excited by the prospect of a true revolution.
However, the boys’ excitement soon ended when they were arrested near the square last Sunday. Egyptian officials accused them of throwing petrol bombs at security forces from a rooftop during pro-democracy protests.
In an interview with Reuters, Sweeney told reporters that the he and his friends never actually made it to Tahir Square, but that they were headed there when an Egyptian classmate asked them to hold his backpack while he waded through the crowd.
They were waiting for their classmate on a side street when they were approached by four men in street clothes who insisted on leading them away “to safety, away from the violence,” Sweeney said.
Suddenly, the boys found themselves in front of at least 15 members of the Egyptian police and military. They were accused of being spies and throwing gasoline bombs.
For the next seven hours, the students were forced to lay in a fetal position, according to Sweeney. The students were told that if they moved at all, they would be shot.
After spending a week in Egyptian prison, the Egyptian court ordered that the three young men be released and the boys flew home on Saturday. They went straight to the airport from the prison, leaving their belongings behind to be boxed up by the university in accordance with their parents wishes.
Porter, 19, landed in the Philadelphia Airport on Saturday night. He regularly attends Drexel University. Gates, 21, arrived in Indiana on Saturday as well. He attends Indiana University. Sweeney, 19, arrived in Missouri late Saturday night. He attends Georgetown University.
All three boys maintain that they had no actual involvement in the protest, aside from their curiosity.
Source:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/26/egypt-american-students-leave_n…