Tag: pigs

US-backed Mubarak extends state of emergency for another 2 years

Posted on By 3arabawy

Hosni Mubarak, has done it again:

Egypt on Monday extended a controversial decades-old state of emergency by two years despite pledges to replace it by new legislation, in a move slammed by rights groups as anti-constitutional.
“Parliament has accepted during its afternoon session today the decision by the president of the republic to extend the state of emergency for two years starting from June 1, or until a new terror law is drafted, whichever comes first,” the state news agency MENA said.
“It was passed with 305 votes in favor and 103 against,” Issam al-Mokhtar, an MP with the Muslim Brotherhood, told AFP by telephone.
The state of emergency was first imposed in 1981 after the assassination by Islamists of president Anwar Sadat and has been repeatedly renewed since then despite protests from rights groups and regime opponents.
Prime Minister Ahmad Nazif pledged to “only use the law in the fight against terrorism… and to protect the security of the nation and its citizens,” MENA reported.
“The government… has only used the articles of the law strictly for the goals intended, namely the fight against terrorism,” Nazif told parliament.
Last year, Judicial and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mufid Shehab said the state of emergency would end in 2008, even if the new anti-terror law meant to replace it was not ready.

U.S. Dog كلب الأمريكان

Mubarak plans to extend emergency law الدكتاتور كلب الأمريكان يجدد قانون الطوارئ

Posted on By 3arabawy

From Reuters:

The Egyptian government plans a one-year extension to an emergency law that grants police sweeping powers of arrest, an official said on Sunday.
Hours earlier security forces detained 18 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood.
The official, who asked not to be named, said the government would shortly present to parliament a bill to extend the emergency law, which expires at the end of the month, after failing to prepare in time an anti-terrorism law that would encapsulate similar powers.
The emergency law, which has been in force since 1981, allows the police to hold people without charge for long periods and enables the authorities to refer civilians to military courts, where defendants have fewer rights.
Human rights groups say some detainees have been in custody more than 10 years without trial or charge. Along with the opposition, they accuse the government of abusing the emergency law to target political dissidents and predict it will continue the same practices when the anti-terrorism law is passed. The government denies these charges.
“Comparing the emergency law and the anti-terrorism law is like comparing the devil and the deep blue sea,” Muhammad Habib, the Muslim Brotherhood deputy leader, told Reuters.
Hafez Abu Seada, secretary general of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, said people had spent years in jail in defiance of court rulings that they be freed.
“There is no real political will to end the emergency law in Egypt,” Abu Seada told Reuters.
The government said two years ago it would introduce the anti-terrorism bill before the emergency law expired, but it has not yet distributed any draft.

U.S. Dog كلب الأمريكان

Updates on the Mahalla detainees

Posted on By 3arabawy

AFP is saying that those who joined the hunger strike in Bourg el-Arab Prison have gone up to 280 prisoners:

Dozens of inmates at a prison in northern Egypt went on hunger strike on Sunday to protest against their continued detention despite repeated court orders for their release, an inmate said.
Some 280 prisoners at Borg El-Arab jail near Alexandria launched the protest because the authorities have not freed them despite individual court orders to do so, the inmate said.
The man, who asked that his name not be used, told AFP by telephone that he has been in jail for five years and had obtained 13 court orders for his release.
“Every time I got a court order I would be taken to a police station to finish the paperwork for my release and instead I’d be rearrested and sent back to jail,” he said by telephone.
“We now appeal to President [Hosni] Mubarak to intervene and look into our cases,” the inmate added.
Rights groups have repeatedly criticized Egypt for keeping prisoners behind bars after their release has been ordered.

I spoke with a Socialist source in Cairo, who also did not have much details about what’s going on, except that he said the news he’s getting talks about 500 detainees joining the hunger strike, not just 280.. But nothing can be confirmed at the moment.

More worrying, according to the Socialist source in Cairo and another in Ghazl el-Mahalla, State Security Police has submitted a new report to the Prosecutor, accusing the five following Textile Workers League activists in Ghazl el-Mahalla of “agitating for a strike”: Gihad Taman, Wael Habib, Gamal Abu el-Esa’ad as well as the two detained workers Kamal el-Fayoumi and Kareem el-Beheiri. This means the govt is moving to try to keep the already detained Mahalla activists for a longer period of time in prison, add more labor organizers to the detainees’ population, and turn it into a trial in court.