At 7:15 am EST (2:15 pm in Cairo) the Hisham Mubarak Law Center had its offices entered by military police; it is believed that the human rights lawyers and activists inside were arrested and taken away, but POMED does not know exactly where to.  The military police, in uniform, were accompanied by a large group of thugs in plainclothes who did not enter the building, but remained in the street outside.

Exactly the same thing happened at the Egyptian Center for Economic & Social Rights, headed by Khaled Ali.

And more recently we were told that the Nadim Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence had a group of military police and plainclothes thugs outside their building and were expecting them to enter at any moment.

All 3 groups are reputable human rights organizations.

Also, POMED has been unable to reach this morning quite a few of our contacts at other NGOs/ human rights organizations that we have been talking to every day, which makes us worry that their offices may have also been raided and that they may have been arrested.

Reports from people in Tahrir by phone in the past couple of hours:

The army has been neutral on last night’s massacre; Checkpoints have been set up on streets leading to Tahrir, turning away people trying to reach the square, and also especially confiscating food, water and medical supplies that are being brought to the square, to try to force out those currently in the square; we’re told these checkpoints are being run by a coalition of plainclothed supporters of the regime, Min of Interior officials, and the army.

Also, contacts in Tahrir have stressed to us that the protesters now in Tahrir (our contacts estimate at least 60,000 at the moment) are primarily NOT Muslim Brotherhood - the regime is trying to circulate this and apparently some international media have been repeating it.   We are told it is a diverse group of all kinds and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood are a small minority of those present, maybe 10%.

Update:  Dan Williams, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, was arrested along with those at the Hisham Mubarak Law Center.