28 June - 4 July 2001
Issue No.540
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 28 June - 4 July 2001 Issue No.540 |
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Sharon trial at the Bar
More than 2,000 people braved the hot weather and gathered at the Bar Association for the "trial" of Ariel Sharon. Nadia Abou El-Magd attended
The downtown headquarters of the Bar Association seethed with activity last Thursday. Loudspeakers blared nationalist songs. Posters of the funerals of the martyrs of the Al-Aqsa Intifada and pictures depicting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as a vampire were everywhere.
An effigy of Sharon at the mock trial
Although the association is a stronghold of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, a "people's trial" of Sharon attracted Egyptian and Arab lawyers and intellectuals from across the political spectrum. The "trial" was organised by the so-called Islamic Lawyers Group.
Banners that read "Al-Aqsa [mosque] is in our hearts" greeted visitors at the entrance.
The walls were plastered with copies of newspapers documenting Israeli aggression against Arabs. The "trial" took place in the courtyard, with an effigy of Sharon standing behind bars in a corner.
Hearings began with the observance of a moment of silence in remembrance of the 500 martyrs of the Intifada.
"We will not be able to reclaim our land or dignity without the use of force," Sameh Ashour, the Nasserist chairman of the association and the Union of Arab Lawyers (UAL), told the crowd. In addition to Ashour, the panel included attorney Abdel-Aziz Mohamed, Farouk Abu Eissa, the Sudanese secretary- general of the UAL, and Saudi intellectual Mohamed Said El-Tayeb.
One of the "witnesses," Mahmoud El-Sawarka, the most famous Egyptian war prisoner who spent 22 years in Israeli jails, said: "Sharon is a terrorist; he should face trial; he should be executed."
The "trial" is the brainchild of Montasser El-Zayat, head of the Islamic Lawyers Group. "We want to fire the people's religious and national zeal," he told Al- Ahram Weekly. "We want to diversify and maintain the momentum of support for the Intifada."
According to El-Zayat, the "trial" is one way of attracting the world's attention to the necessity of bringing the "war criminal Sharon" to justice.
The "charges" brought against Sharon included "war crimes against the Arab people in Palestine, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon from 1944 until the present."
The "trial" was adjourned indefinitely "due to the absence of lawyers for the defence and certain witnesses."
The crowd burned Israeli flags while chanting: "We are all soldiers of Palestine."
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