Tag: courts

Blog-blocking court hearing adjourned

Posted on By 3arabawy

Sarah Carr reports…

The Supreme Administrative Court on Monday adjourned hearing the appeal of a case brought by judge Abdel Fattah Murad seeking the blocking of 51 websites.
Lawyer Rawda Ahmad from the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) — whose website is included on the list of 51 — told Daily News Egypt that the case was adjourned pending the court’s receipt and examination of a specialist report.
Ahmad said that the court is scheduled to announce the date of the next hearing Tuesday.
Murad, the head of the Alexandria Appeals Court, initiated the case against the list of 51 human rights organizations and bloggers last year. He accused the websites of “tarnishing Egypt’s reputation,” and demanded that they be blocked.
Earlier in 2007, ANHRI director Gamal Eid brought a case against Murad accusing him of plagiarizing more than 50 pages of an ANHRI report on the internet in the Arab world.
“Dr Abdel Fattah Murad, judge and head of Alexandria Appeal Court, recently published a book entitled ‘Scientific and Legal Principles of Blogs,’ which includes more than 50 pages copied from HRinfo’s [now known as ANHRI] report entitled ‘Implacable Adversaries: Arab Governments and the Internet,’ without reference to sources, as dictated by Intellectual Property Protection Act no. 82/2002,” HRInfo stated in a press release issued last year.
Murad’s case against the 51 websites was thrown out by the Administrative Court at the end of December 2007.

Mahalla Updates

Posted on By 3arabawy

The Prosecutor has ordered today 43 from the Mahalla April 6 detainees, who have been classified as “criminal” (not political) prisoners, to be referred to court. Six more names will be tried in absentia, since they are on the run.

This means that the government has decided to use those Mahalla citizens as the scapegoat for the uprising.

Rights groups blast court decision on HIV convictions

Posted on By 3arabawy

Michaela Singer reports for the Daily News Egypt:

Human Rights Watch has condemned the decision taken by the Cairo Appeals court to uphold the sentencing of five men diagnosed with the HIV/AIDS virus to three-year prison terms, labeling it, “inhuman and unjust.”
In a press release issued by the organization, a torrent of criticism has also been directed at the ‘months-long campaign’ launched by Egyptian authorities that target men carrying HIV/AIDS.
“To send these men to prison because of their HIV status is inhuman and unjust,” said Joe Amon, director of the HIV/AIDS program at Human Rights Watch. “Police, prosecutors and doctors have already abused them and violated their most basic rights, and now fear has trumped justice in a court of law.”
The decision, which came on May 28, upholds the May 7 ruling of the Court of First Instance, which handed out maximum prison terms for the crime of “habitual practice of debauchery” referring to consensual sexual acts between men.
Human Rights Watch reports that even before their first trial, the prosecutor branded them a “danger to public health,” telling their lawyer that they should not be allowed to “roam the streets freely.”
Four other men are already serving sentences of one year for “debauchery,” having been sentenced on Jan. 14, 2008. An appeals court upheld these sentences on Feb. 2.
Three other men were released without charge after testing negative for HIV.
Human Rights Watch noted that both men, whilst being held in detention, were subject to “inhumane” treatment by authorities, both medical and security-related, including beatings by police.