Issue No.590
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13 - 19 June 2002 Issue No.590 Home news |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
NGO law ratified
PRESIDENT Hosni Mubarak has ratified a law regulating the work of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which human rights activists fear could put them out of business.
Mubarak signed the bill before he travelled to the US on 5 June, but the ratification was not reported in the official press until he returned on Sunday.
Human rights groups in Egypt and abroad oppose the legislation which regulates the activities, financing and status of NGOs, which include human rights groups. They charge that it gives the government a free hand to dissolve organisations without resorting to the courts.
Activists are also concerned that the law allows the Minister of Social Affairs to dissolve an NGO if article 17 is not respected. Article 17 forbids "earmarking NGO funds for activities other than those for which the organisation was founded", and forbids an organisation to obtain funds from or send funds to a foreign party without government approval.
The new NGO law replaces legislation passed three years ago which was thrown out by the Supreme Constitutional Court after it failed -- as required -- to pass first through the Shura Council. Last month, the Shura Council approved the new legislation and parliament passed it on 3 June.
Amateur spy convicted
A STATE Security Court sentenced Magdi Anwar Tawfiq, 52, to 10 years with hard labour on Monday for spying for Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad.
The court in Alexandria convicted Tawfiq of seeking to spy for a foreign country in order to undermine Egypt's national interest and forging official documents. Sentences passed by State Security courts cannot be appealed against and can only be overturned by the president.
Tawfiq's lawyer had argued that Tawfiq was mentally unstable and questioned his claims to knowledge of important information about past hijackings, including the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people.
Commenting on the verdict, Tawfiq said it was "unjust" and not based on any evidence. The amateur spy was charged in March after faxing a letter to the Israeli consulate in Alexandria, allegedly claiming to be a minister plenipotentiary and offering his services to Mossad.
He has acknowledged contacting the consulate, but has denied offering to cooperate with Mossad. He said he had sought the help of the office in contacting the international court that had convicted a Libyan in the Lockerbie bombing.
Investigators determined that Tawfiq had worked in the Congo with an Egyptian-African cooperation fund affiliated to the Egyptian Foreign Ministry and had been dismissed. He was arrested in April and went on trial on 11 May.
In March, another State Security Court sentenced Sherif El-Filali to 15 years with hard labour on charges of espionage for Israel. Four years ago, an Arab Israeli, Azzam Azzam, was convicted of spying and sentenced to 15 years in jail.
Defence blocked?
LAWYERS defending human rights activist Saadeddin Ibrahim -- the sociologist accused of tarnishing Egypt's image -- said on Sunday that the court was making their job very difficult.
The defence team complained that the court repeatedly ignored their requests to be allowed to obtain vital evidence.
Ibrahim, who is a sociology professor at the American University in Cairo (AUC), as well as head of the Ibn Khaldun Centre for Developmental Studies (ICDS), was accused last year of accepting foreign funds without government permission; embezzlement; and defaming Egypt's reputation by publishing false documents.
He was sentenced to seven years, but an appeals court overturned the ruling in February, ordering a retrial for him and 27 other defendants who are mostly Ibn Khaldun employees.
At the beginning of the retrial on 27 April, Ibrahim and his defence team seemed optimistic over having a second chance to clear his name. But the optimism has been fading as the retrial progresses. "In each court session we ask the judge to allow us access to the ICDS to obtain crucial evidence, but to no avail. How can we refute charges pressed against our client without obtaining the documents from the ICDS?" said Abdel-Qader Hashim, one of Ibrahim's lawyers.
Ibrahim, the eternal optimist, seemed particularly gloomy on Sunday. "We are being accused of staging fictitious plots at the ICDS, we need these documents, videos, books from the centre to prove there was no plot," he said.
Ibrahim's defence team called once again on Sunday for the centre's reopening and the lifting of a ban on Ibrahim travelling abroad for medical treatment. The court adjourned until 25 June.
Al-Nabaa is back
AN EGYPTIAN weekly newspaper returned to the stands on Sunday, almost a year after it was closed for running a story alleging a monk ran a sex-and-blackmail ring in a monastery.
Al-Nabaa's return followed a 25 May court ruling that said constitutional and press laws protected press freedom. The court also quashed an earlier decision revoking the paper's licence.
Al Nabaa is a tabloid known for running controversial stories and, according to one of its columnists, the paper's character will not change. It will remain as it was before the newspaper's ban last July.
Last June, it published an article and numerous blurred photographs purportedly of an ex-monk's illicit behaviour in an Assiut monastery. The Coptic Church denied the paper's claims and hundreds of Copts took to the Cairo streets in protest against what they saw as an attack on their religion. Last September, Egypt's State Security Court sentenced Mahmoud Mahran, Al Nabaa's editor-in-chief, to three years in prison for undermining public security.
Child snatchers
POLICE are searching for a Dutch woman whose Egyptian husband says she kidnapped their four-year-old son to take him back to the Netherlands. According to officials, the mother's attempt to leave Egypt with the child, Tarek, failed because he did not have a passport. The father of the child brought his son to Egypt from the Netherlands after a row with his wife.
He claims he obtained custody of the child from the mother, a Dutch citizen of Moroccan origin, in the Netherlands. She came to Egypt a month ago to live with her husband, but disappeared with their son two weeks later. Police believe the woman and the boy may be in Alexandria.
The father further alleged that after he complained to the police, he was kidnapped by three men who lived nearby. They forced him to sign a document saying he owed them money, which they threatened to claim if he did not keep silent about his kidnapped son, police said.
Police added the men, who are brothers, are in custody and have confessed to their crime. They said the mother had paid them to kidnap the boy so she could take him to the Netherlands, but the plan failed because airport authorities did not allow the boy to travel without a passport.
Last month, a Swiss woman took refuge with her three children in the Swiss Embassy in Cairo, complicating a custody battle between the woman and her Egyptian ex-husband. An Egyptian court had granted the father custody.
Compiled by Jailan Halawi
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