Hossam el-Hamalawy
The NYC-based rights watchdog has issued a statement denouncing the one-year-prison sentence handed down by a military court to Member of Parliament Talaat Sadat.
The nephew of Egypt’s late president Anwar el-Sadat had his immunity lifted, and was prosecuted by the military, for “defaming Egypt’s army.”
Shameless…
2006-10-30
Mubarak: Putin should stay in power
Egyptian President says Russian counterpart is familiar with both situation in Russia, in world.
MOSCOW – Egypt’s long-serving President Hosni Mubarak is to advise his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to seek a third term in office, he said in an interview published Monday.
“He is familiar with the both the situation in Russia and with the situation in the world. He understands it all,” Mubarak, who is to meet with Putin Thursday, told the daily Vremia Novosteï. “He should stay.”
Last week, Putin reaffirmed that under the two-term limit established by the Russian constitution, he is ineligible to seek re-election, but said he would continue to exert political influence in Russia after his term ends in 2008.
“Your constitution only permits two terms and this is an imitation of Americans. You criticize Americans but you imitate them?” said Mubarak, who has headed Egypt since the 1981 assassination of president Anwar al-Sadat.
“Decide for yourselves. Russia needs Putin,” he said.
According to the latest opinion polls, six out of 10 Russians are in favor of an amendment to the constitution that would increase term limits.
Mubarak is on a visit to Moscow for talks concerning present issues in Middle East, including the crisis in Lebanon and the situation in Iraq. Russia is one of the so-called quartet of sponsors of the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process with the European Union, the United Nations and the United States.
Putin last year became the first Russian leader to visit Egypt in some 40 years. Egypt was a key cold war ally of the then Soviet Union until Sadat changed sides in the mid-1970s.
Thousands of Muslim Brotherhood and leftist students are demonstrating at the Cairo University campus in Giza, protesting state security’s hassles against opposition candidates running for the student union elections.
The list of candidates certified to run in the elections should have been announced by 3pm. As of the time of writing, it hasn’t. The student activists smelt a fish, expecting the delay to be related to the security going through the names, putting their final touch, and eleminating names of political activists. Demonstrations broke out on campus. The university gate has been reportedly smashed. The students are currently on a sit in, waiting for the lists to be publicized.
The Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression has issued a statement denouncing security violations against students in Helwan, Ain Shams and Cairo universities.
UPDATE: The lists were announced sometime after 8pm. About 200 Muslim Brothers were banned by security, according to a MB student I spoke to over the phone. Demonstrations broke out, and the students tried to go out on the streets, only to be met by the Central Security Forces. The troops clashed with protesters violently at the gates of the university. The standoff ended around 9:30pm.
UPDATE: The AFTEE has issued another statement denouncing the security forces’ assaults on students.