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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 July - 2 August 2000 Issue No. 492 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 July - 2 August 2000 Issue No. 492
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Win some, lose some
By Mona El-NahhasIn a development that took analysts by surprise, the Administrative Court annulled on Tuesday a decision taken in May by the Political Parties Committee to effectively suspend the publication of the Islamist-oriented Labour Party's mouthpiece, Al-Shaab, and freeze the party's activities. The committee, chaired by Mustafa Kamal Helmi, speaker of the Shura Council, is a government-controlled body that licenses parties and oversees their activities. The committee's decision was based on a split in Labour ranks after two senior party members, Hamdi Ahmed and Ahmed Idris, were chosen by two different congresses to replace Chairman Ibrahim Shukri. The legality of the committee's decision was contested by Shukri before the Administrative Court.
Although Shukri's associates hailed the Administrative Court's ruling, they expressed worry over the party's future after the Political Parties Committee, on Monday, had asked the Supreme Administrative Court to dissolve the party and liquidate its financial assets. The committee's request will reach the Supreme Administrative Court within a week. According to the law governing political parties, the Court should hand down its ruling within a month, which means the fate of "irksome" Labour will be determined in late August.
During its Monday meeting, the Political Parties Committee also decided to freeze the party's activities and ban the publication of its newspapers, until the judiciary makes a decision.
The committee's action was based on a report by Socialist Prosecutor-General Gaber Rehan summing up the results of a two-month investigation of accusations levelled against Shukri and his associates. The report listed nine accusations, including links between Labour and illegal Islamist groups, punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
"The ruling of the Administrative Court on Tuesday [in Shukri's favour] has affirmed confidence in the integrity of the Egyptian judiciary and given us hope that we can get our rights by appealing to the judiciary," said Tala'at Musallam, Labour's political rapporteur. According to Musallam, the court ruling, however, will not restore the situation to normal because of Monday's decision by the committee banning Labour from exercising all activities. Musallam said Labour leaders, meaning Shukri and his associates, are capable of defending themselves and refuting the accusations levelled against them.
Reacting to Monday's decision, Shukri declared in a statement that his party will take all legal measures to face the "unjust" accusations levelled against party leaders. Shukri expressed surprise at the decision and said it ran counter to democracy and public freedoms.
The Socialist Prosecutor-General's report accused Labour leaders of violating the law governing political parties by forging links with illegal groups, an allusion to the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as extremist groups. The Labour Party was founded in 1979 with a socialist platform, but it allied itself with the Brotherhood in 1987 and adopted an Islamist line two years later. The report accused the party of giving Islamists the opportunity to occupy leading party positions and using the party's mouthpiece to express views that incite sedition and threaten national unity and social peace. Party leaders were also accused of receiving donations without securing the approval of the concerned authorities, or publishing the names of donors in any daily newspaper. The report also said that party leaders changed the party's socialist platform to a religious one without informing the Political Parties Committee. Moreover, the party did not reveal its sources of funding in its annual budget sheets. The report added that party leaders did not notify the head of the Political Parties Committee of the visits they pay to foreign political organisations. They also failed to inform him of amendments to the party's internal statutes, which included changing the names of the party and its higher committee and changing the terms of membership, as well as increasing the number of members of the executive committee.
Labour's secretary-general, Adel Hussein, responded by saying that the report was intended to scare away party members, an attempt which, he said, was bound to fail. Hussein asserted that in the course of investigations, party leaders submitted evidence refuting the accusations levelled against them. He denounced the decisions of the Political Parties Committee as "a serious escalation in the government's attacks against multi-party politics and democracy."
Hussein accused the government of seeking to terrorise the opposition, declaring that "the government's position is a reminder of the political climate of September 1981, which witnessed a wide-scale detention campaign against [President Anwar] El-Sadat's political opponents." Hussein vowed his party would use all legal means to fight the government's attempts to have the party dissolved.
Hundreds of party members quit party ranks in protest against its domination by Islamists, harshly criticising Hussein for being responsible for such a state of affairs.
Related stories:
Labour in limbo 25 - 31 May 2000
Labour revolt 18 - 24 May 2000
