19 - 25 July 2001
Issue No.543
|
Al-Ahram Weekly Online 19 - 25 July 2001 Issue No.543 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Too sad to celebrate
CONTRARY to expectations, the Cairo Court of Appeals decided last week to adjourn until 8 August the pronouncement of its ruling on a request by Mamdouh Mahran, chief editor of the independent weekly Al-Nabaa, for a change in the judicial circuit trying him, reports Khaled Dawoud. Mahran is charged with publishing indecent photographs of a defrocked monk which threatened national unity.
Many observers had expected that the Appeals Court would reject Mahran's request on the spot, sending the case back to the same judicial circuit to ensure a speedy trial. However, the three-judge panel agreed to give Mahran's lawyers time to present a written memo on the reasons justifying their request to change the judicial circuit, and decided to issue a ruling on 8 August. Mahran's trial will resume after this date, either before the same judges or a different circuit.
Two days after the court's action, Pope Shenouda III announced that he would not hold the annual celebration marking the 47th anniversary of the start of his monastic life. The Pope said that celebrations would be inappropriate in the present circumstances and in view of the anger among Copts.
Some observers interpreted the Pope's decision as an expression of dissatisfaction with the delay of Mahran's trial. After the crisis first erupted in mid-June, the Pope cancelled two weekly meetings with young people from the Church, and chose instead to go into retreat at a Wadi Natroun monastery, near Alexandria. He did not resume these meetings until the Administrative Court decided two weeks ago to revoke Al-Nabaa's licence. The Pope told his followers that he had asked all priests and monks to pray that the licence be revoked.
Brotherhood arrests
IN A MOVE underlining the government's intractable policy on the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, police arrested 25 members of the group as they held what was described as a secret meeting in Cairo on Sunday.
Those detained included Mohamed El-Shater, a member of the Brotherhood's so-called "guidance office" -- its highest decision-making body. El-Shater was among more than 100 leading Brotherhood figures arrested early in 1995 and put on a military trial. He was sentenced to five years imprisonment, together with three other leading Brotherhood figures, and was only released a year ago.
The arrested 25 were questioned by the state security prosecutor, who ordered that they be kept in custody for 15 days pending further investigations.
Appeal for Ibrahim
THE LAWYER defending Saadeddin Ibrahim, a human rights activist and sociology professor at the American University in Cairo (AUC), filed an appeal on Monday with the district attorney for southern Cairo asking for a retrial of his client, who was sentenced two months ago to seven years imprisonment. The lawyer, Ibrahim Saleh, asked the Court of Cassation to abrogate the sentence and order a retrial.
Ibrahim, director of the Ibn Khaldun Centre for Developmental Studies, was convicted on 21 May of receiving money from the European Union without government permission to fund a project for encouraging Egyptians to take part in last year's parliamentary elections. He was also found guilty of "tarnishing Egypt's image" by issuing false reports on human rights conditions, the status of Christians and election irregularities.
Twenty-seven co-defendants, who worked for him at the Ibn Khaldun Centre, received sentences ranging from one to five years behind bars. "The State Security Court [which handed down the sentence] made mistakes against the letter and spirit of the law," Saleh told reporters after filing the appeal. He said the court had relied on confessions made by Ibrahim's co-defendants "which were taken from them by false promises, threats and coercion."
Ibrahim's arrest and conviction were widely criticised by local and international human rights groups, but the government insisted the charges brought against him were criminal and not political.
Defiance on the dole
THOUSANDS of unemployed university and institute graduates staged demonstrations on Saturday in various parts of the country against a government decree restricting job openings in the public sector to those under the age of 28, reports Reem Leila.
Last week, State Minister for Administrative Development Mohamed Zaki Abu Amer issued a decree setting age restrictions at 28 for university graduates and 24 for intermediate diploma holders in order to apply for openings in public sector posts and training spots. Amer defended the decree by saying that the government could not find job vacancies for all 1.2 million unemployed degree holders -- the official figure.
Protests were staged outside a number of employment bureaus in Cairo, Giza, Daqahliya, Qalyubiya and Sharqiya. In some cases, police used tear gas to disperse the protesters after they pelted buses with stones and disrupted traffic.
According to Samir Radwan of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), there are more than eight million unemployed graduates in Egypt.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page