16 - 22 August 2001
Issue No.547
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 16 - 22 August 2001 Issue No.547 |
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Cooperation agreements
EGYPT and South Korea concluded two agreements on Tuesday covering cultural cooperation and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, Soha Abdelaty reports. The agreements were signed by Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher and his visiting South Korean opposite number, Han Seung-Soo. Maher expressed "satisfaction with the state of our bilateral relations [and] cooperation regarding international issues." He said they also discussed bilateral relations, such as Korean investments in Egypt, the situation in the Middle East and relations between the two Koreas. Seung-Soo, who is expected to chair the 56th United Nations General Assembly session which opens in September, said his goal would be to achieve an "objective, impartial manner to promote peace."
Aggression on tape
ISRAELI soldiers beat a cameraman and a reporter for Egyptian Television on Monday at a West Bank checkpoint. The two had the camera rolling at an army roadblock near the Kalandia refugee camp between Jerusalem and Ramallah when Israeli soldiers shouted at them to leave the area. They withdrew abut 20 metres from the roadblock, but a soldier approached cameraman Abdel-Nasser Abdoun and kicked him in the groin as he was filming.
When his colleague, reporter Tareq Abdel- Gaber, approached an officer at the roadblock to ask why Abdoun had been assaulted, he too was shoved and slapped.
As the tape kept rolling, the first soldier returned to Abdoun and repeatedly kicked him until he fell to the ground.
Abdel-Gaber was attacked in a similar incident in the same area last month.
The Egyptian chargé d'affaires in Tel Aviv, Ihab El-Sherif, conveyed his "deep resentment" about the incident to the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
An Israeli army statement said this was the second time the television crew had ignored the instructions of guards at the same checkpoint, but it went on to admit that the behaviour of the soldiers was "wrong and completely unacceptable." The statement said that one of the soldiers involved had been tried by his battalion commander and given a 21-day prison sentence, suspended for two years, and suspended from command positions.
Ibrahim's appeal
THE COURT of Cassation, the nation's highest court, will sit on 19 December to hear an appeal filed by prominent human rights activist Saadeddin Ibrahim against a State Security Court ruling which sent him to prison for seven years, reports Khaled Dawoud.
Ibrahim and 27 other defendants associated with the Ibn Khaldun Centre for Developmental Studies were sentenced in late May to jail terms ranging from one to seven years.
A statement issued by a US-based group in solidarity with Ibrahim said the 62-year-old sociology professor at the American University in Cairo was disappointed by the late date for Court of Cassation hearing, since it meant he would serve a longer time in prison before knowing his fate.
At the concluding session of his trial on 21 May, Ibrahim and the other defendants had expected the judge to set a date for their sentencing. Instead, the judge took all observers by surprise and handed down the sentences against the defendants on the spot. Those convicted, including Ibrahim's Sudanese assistant, Nadia Abdel-Nour, were taken to prison straight from the courtroom.
The Court of Cassation will determine whether to accept Ibrahim's appeal and order a retrial, or approve the State Security Court's sentences, making them final.
Ibrahim's family visited him in his Tora prison on 7 August and later reported his health to be stable.
Militants detained
THE STATE Security Prosecutor last week prolonged for an additional 15 days the detention of 85 Muslim radicals suspected of unlawful activities. Most of the suspects have been in police custody since May.
Security officials said the 85 were being investigated on suspicion of belonging to an outlawed group, Islamic Jihad-Egypt, raising funds without government permission and possessing anti-government leaflets
Mamdouh Ismail, a lawyer representing several of the suspects, said five of them hailed from the Russian region of Daghestan. This is the first time non-Egyptians have been arrested in a crackdown on Islamic groups in Egypt.
Ismail said the suspects were devout, non- violent Muslims who were collecting donations for Muslim Chechen rebels fighting to establish an independent Islamic state. He denied they were members of Islamic Jihad- Egypt.
Phone fee for TE
TELECOM Egypt (TE) will have to pay some LE1,975 million before it can operate Egypt's third mobile network at the end of 2002. The decision was finally made this week by Egypt's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), whose role is to oversee all telecommunications activities, such as allocating frequencies and licences, monitoring prices and the quality of services, and preventing monopolies. The TRA's decision ends a dispute which arose earlier this year between TE, Egypt's fixed-line monopoly, and the two existing mobile network operators, the Egyptian Company for Mobile Services (MobiNil) and Vodafone-Egypt. TE had claimed that it already holds an operating licence, and that it had sold MobiNil its network but not the licence, and is therefore not obliged to pay any new fees to the government. On the other hand, the two companies were adamant that the third operator would only enter the market on the same terms they were subject to. Back in 1998, each company paid some $514 million to obtain their licence to operate.
The TRA has also decided that the company will pay annual fees for frequencies, as is the case with the existing two mobile networks. TE will begin offering mobile services starting 1 December, 2002, the date the exclusivity period for the existing two companies expires.
Compiled by Shaden Shehab
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