Generation jail: Arab Spring activists living under jail threat

Every day at 5:30am, an alarm clock awakens Ahmed Maher from his mattress below a stairwell at his neighbourhood police station in Cairo.

An officer then escorts him to the toilet and signs a notebook that Maher carries, authorising his release until 6pm.

After breakfast with his wife and two small children, he takes care of chores aimed at rebuilding his life — renewing his driver’s license, reactivating his mobile phone; he visits friends and family and searches for a job in civil engineering, his occupation before he was clapped into prison. Whatever he does, he must be back at the police station before sundown.