Meanwhile, back in Cairo.

"They took my purse and copied the messages and numbers from my phone. "Nobody will know where you are," the officer said. "You are lost." They tore at my clothes; my shirt buttons. They continued to slap and punch me. I was lying on the floor. He placed his shoe on my face and said, "Anyone who comes here will get the same treatment."

All this stuff is going on just two blocks from my apartment in downtown Cairo. A friend of mine, a guy I met in Alexandria covering the elections there in November, has been arrested and is looking at five years in an Egyptian prison for demonstrating against the Mubarak regime.