So much has happened in Egypt since I last wrote about it that I won’t even attempt to summarize it. It has been fascinating to watch from afar, and incredibly emotional at times. In particular, witnessing the events in Maspero through videos, photos, and eyewitness reports about a year ago affected me deeply.

This post is not about Maspero. This post is an update about the two Egyptian bloggers I mentioned in my previous blog post.

Within two weeks of their arrest, both Mosa’ab Elshamy and Tarek Shalaby were released from prison. They had been detained at a peaceful protest outside the Israeli Embassy.

Tarek Shalaby was released first. He was put through a military trial that took less than an hour. He was sentenced, as part of a group of 15 people, to a year of suspended sentence for two out of the six charges laid against the group. The people in the group were not allowed to speak at the trial. The two charges that stuck were vandalism and public gathering. He got out on May 19, 2011.

Three days later, on May 22, 2011, Mosa’ab Elshamy was part of another similar group of civilians to go through a military trial after being wrongfully detained. He too got a suspended sentence of a year.

Since then, they have continued to be active in the revolution.

Here are some tweets and links from those days in May 2011. [Note: sometimes these tweets embed in the post, and other times they show up as URLs, I haven’t yet figured out why. But if you see just URLs you could reload the page and see if the embedded tweets show up.]

Tweets About Tarek Shalaby

They had 6 accusations against them. The first 2 they were found not guilty. They were sentenced a year for the others but ikaf tanfeez

— Nora Shalaby ن. شلبي (@norashalaby) May 19, 2011

So the 15 including Tarek are not guilty. The other 10 who were arrested on the 16th r also not guilty.

— Nora Shalaby ن. شلبي (@norashalaby) May 19, 2011

So correction, 4 of the charges brought against them, found not guilty.2 if the charges, a year w suspended sentence

— Nora Shalaby ن. شلبي (@norashalaby) May 19, 2011

The two accusations they got suspended sentences for were public gatherings and vandalism of public property

— Nora Shalaby ن. شلبي (@norashalaby) May 19, 2011

RT @hatemation: .@tarekshalaby finally arrives at home http://yfrog.us/49pigz http://yfrog.us/106jjz

— Nora Shalaby ن. شلبي (@norashalaby) May 20, 2011

A person located in Tokyo with the Twitter handle of nofrills, has collected some tweets about events in Egypt May 19-20, 2011 here.

Tweets About Mosa’ab Elshamy

RT @sarahngb: Why @mosaaberizing is wrongfully detained. bit.ly/kAeEGh #IsraeliEmbaasy #FreeMosaab

— Nancy Messieh (@nfm) May 18, 2011

Free Mosaab:I’ve never thought a day will come where I will have to find words to describe someone as dear to… http://bit.ly/mKoRFx

— Abdullah Elshamy (@abdallahelshamy) May 19, 2011

@mosaaberizing is doing well, his spirit is high and he doesn’t regret it.He sends you all his greetings and thanks for your support.

— Abdullah Elshamy (@abdallahelshamy) May 19, 2011

During detention, an army officer called me a son of a whore. I asked him to leave my mum out of it and he kicked me in the face. #NoScaf

— Mosa’ab Elshamy (@mosaaberizing) May 23, 2011

“Our trial took 15 minutes in total” witness #nomiltrials

— السيد مانكي (@Sandmonkey) May 23, 2011

So somber and heartfelt were @mosaaberizing notes from the military prison, loved reading them. http://yfrog.com/gybl2ycvj

— Pakinam and Voice (@pakinamamer) May 25, 2011

Some more tweets about Mosa’ab Elshamy’s detention here.

At the time I’m writing this, they are both doing well, as far as I can tell from this side of the Atlantic Ocean. Although Mosa’ab Elshamy had an eye injury from a piece of glass thrown at him December 16, 2011, he seems to have recovered from it.

I’m happy that I have had the opportunity to hear their thoughts and debates and see their photos this past year. I’m glad it wasn’t a year of silence, wondering what was happening to them in jail.