Tag: ikhwan

Mubarak’s military to try Brotherhood members

Posted on By 3arabawy

From Al-Jazeera:

An Egyptian court has upheld a decision by Hosni Mubarak, the president, to have 40 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood group tried by a military court.
Essam Abdel Aziz, a supreme administrative court judge, reversed a ruling in a lower court passed on May 8 that had declared the president’s decision invalid.
The court ruling clears the way for the resumption of the military trial of the detainees, some of whom have been in police custody since December.
Brotherhood lawyers said the judges examining the case were all working for the government as paid consultants and could not be impartial.
Abdel Moniem Abdel Maqsoud, a Brotherhood lawyer, said: “All these [judges] are assigned … to the ministries and the presidency. So of course there’s an objection to this body hearing a case … where the opponent is the president.”
The ruling last month in the lower court had said that the referral of the detainees to military courts in February had been illegal, and the defendants should be tried in civilian courts.
That ruling required the authorities to free the detainees, but the government often ignores court release orders in cases involving opponents, and they have remained in detention.

Here’s also a video report by Dream TV:

Mubarak’s crackdown on MB students continues

Posted on By 3arabawy

The universities’ administrations, acting at the behest of the security services, continue to crack down on Muslim Brotherhood students activists.

In Cairo:

Al-Azhar University administration referred 120 students to disciplinary boards, starting from Wednesday May, 9, 2007 until later next week, a move the students described as a malicious trick to deny them access to second term exams scheduled to be held a few days later .

And in Upper Egypt:

Less than 15 days before end of year exams, Bani Sweif University President, Dr. Ahmad Refaat issued on Wednesday May, 9, 2007, a decision of dismissing ten students in the Faculty of Commerce for a month starting from May, 10th till June, 10th, denying the dismissed students access to second term exams this year.

Egyptian parliament strips 2 MB lawmakers of immunity

Posted on By 3arabawy

AP report by Nadia Abou El-Magd:

CAIRO _ Egypt’s Parliament on Wednesday stripped two Muslim Brotherhood lawmakers of their immunity as parliament members, in a move that clears the way for their arrests, a spokesman for the group said.
The two, Sabri Amer and Ragab Abu Zeid, were briefly detained last month as part of an ongoing crackdown against the country’s most powerful opposition group. They were not questioned by prosecutors while in detention and were released the following day.
Twelve other members of the Islamic group were arrested with the two in the northern Nile Delta province of Menoufiya. They were ordered detained for 15 days, pending further investigation, accused of spreading Brotherhood propaganda.
Abu Zeid said the assembly decision was “not legal but political,” masterminded by the government to intimidate the Brotherhood’s political figures and curb their influence. Speaking outside the parliament building, he said the Brotherhood were “not scared by this.”
Under Egyptian law, lawmakers often enjoy immunity from prosecution unless the Parliament gives clearance for a legal investigate.
“It’s very evident that this is a fabricated political case against the Brotherhood,” said Hamdi Hassan, a spokesman of the Brotherhood in the Parliament. “The authorities could have asked the parliament for a permission to question them, without lifting their immunity. Meanwhile, the immunity of ruling party lawmakers who have committed serious crimes against Egyptians remains intact.”
Hassan said that the Brotherhood block in Parliament, as well as 19 other lawmakers of the ruling National Democratic Party, voted against the motion to strip the two of immunity, but “even the brave can be outnumbered.”
“Instead of apologizing for violating the immunity of the lawmakers (in their detention) … the authorities regrettably went too far this time in unjust treatment,” Hassan said.
The Brotherhood has been banned since 1954 but has continued to operate and has become the country’s largest opposition group. Its lawmakers, who run as independents, hold 88 seats in the 454-seat parliament.
Wednesday’s two lawmakers were the first two members of the group to be stripped of immunity since the 2005 elections.
In recent months, the Egyptian government intensified its crackdown on the Brotherhood, arresting more than 300 members since December.
A military trial of 40 top figures from the group on terrorism and money laundering charges began last week under heavy secrecy. Even though an Administrative Court decided in a rare ruling Tuesday that President Hosni Mubarak’s order to try the 40 before a military court was not valid, the state appealed the decision on Wednesday.
In related developments, authorities have extended the detentions of Abdel Moneim Mahmoud, a well known young blogger and journalist, and 18 others, mostly students, for another 15 days, said their lawyer Gamal Tag and also police officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk with the media. They have already been detained for a month.
Local and international human rights groups have condemned the arrests that are part of the crackdown on bloggers, both Islamists and secularists.
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Associated Press writer Omar Sinan contributed to this report from Cairo.