Al-Ahram Weekly | Egypt

		25 - 31 July 2002 Issue No. 596 Home news	Current issue Previous issue Site map
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Recommend this page

Headline row

AS EGYPT was celebrating the golden jubilee of the 23 July Revolution, a dispute over an article about revolutionary leader Gamal Abdel-Nasser has led to his daughter's resignation as head of the Egyptian Revolution Studies unit at the Al-Ahram Centre for Strategic Studies.
Hoda Abdel-Nasser resigned on 18 July after heading the unit since 1996. The article, written by her, was a summary and a reading of the minutes of a closed meeting of the Central Committee of the Arab Socialist Union, chaired by President Nasser. The article was published on the same day of Hoda Abdel- Nasser's resignation.
The meeting in question had followed Nasser's acceptance of a US peace initiative sponsored by then Secretary of State William Rogers in 1969.
The story was headlined, "After Egypt accepted the Rogers initiative, Nasser declares that he is not ready to stand up to America." Nasser was quoted in the minutes as saying, "We are not ready to enter into battle with the United States."
In her resignation letter, of which various regional newspapers published excerpts, Hoda Abdel-Nasser said that she would not tolerate having her name above a "deliberate distortion of Gamal Abdel-Nasser's comments, made at a documented meeting, in order to give a false impression".
In response, Al-Ahram on Monday published a statement entitled "Thanking Dr Hoda Abdel-Nasser... a response and clarification." The statement said, "We were amazed and astonished by Dr Hoda Abdel-Nasser's announcement of her resignation from Al- Ahram..." The wording of the letter, said the clarification, was surprising because it implied that the article's title reflected a political bias against the late president -- something that Al-Ahram denied. The headline in question, Al-Ahram said, did not undermine Nasser's well-known positions, but stressed the political realities of the period. "The headline does not imply that President Gamal Abdel-Nasser retracted any of his nationalist positions, but rather it reflects his interpretation of the political realities at the time and it makes it clear that he wanted to avoid confrontation with the US so as to strengthen Egypt's strategic position vis-a-vis Israel, which is in accordance with the published text..."
Furthermore, Al-Ahram pointed out that Hoda Abdel-Nasser was not technically an employee of the organisation but an expert hired on a consultative basis, so legally there was no need for a resignation. The statement ended by thanking Abdel-Nasser for the efforts she exerted at the centre.
Clampdown continues

ATTORNEY-GENERAL Hisham Badawi on Sunday ordered the detention of 34 alleged members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood. The suspects were ordered detained for 15 days pending investigation on charges of joining an illegal organisation that aims to undermine constitutional and legal provisions, harming national unity and of possessing books that propagate the group's ideology.
State security prosecutors said the 34 were arrested Saturday while meeting 70 kilometres north of Cairo at a villa belonging to one of the detainees.
Investigators said the arrested group was led by five members. They include Sherif Abul- Magd, head of the engineering department at Helwan University, and Mohamed Haider, a professor at the college of education at the same university, medical doctors Diaa Abdel- Maqsoud and Wael Farouk, and engineer Osama Fattouh. The 29 others are students from various universities.
On 12 July, police had arrested 28 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood group for allegedly planning pro-Palestinian demonstrations to be held after Friday prayers at Cairo's Al-Azhar Mosque. Moreover, a few weeks ago 150 presumed members of the group were arrested for taking part in riots while supporting two Muslim Brotherhood candidates running for parliamentary elections against members of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). The two parliamentary seats were won by the NDP amid accusations of fraud and police interference.
Seeking treatment

FOUR students injured in demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinians on 9 April and denied visas for treatment in Britain were informed by the cabinet that they might seek visas to obtain treatment in Spain. The four students of Alexandria University were injured when anti-riot police forces used shot gun pellets to disperse demonstrators, said a Ministry of Interior statement. The students sustained severe eye injuries when they were hit by the shots.
During the demonstrations, one student was killed and about 200 were injured.
The students' visa applications had been rejected by the British Embassy twice last month because, as an embassy's attaché said at the time, the applicants failed to persuade the visa officer that they would leave the UK following their treatment.
By a cabinet decree, the Egyptian Health Ministry agreed to pay the students' medical and travel fees.
Clinical abuse

POLICE have arrested a dentist and his two female assistants for allegedly luring girls into engaging in indecent acts in a room adjacent to his clinic. All three have been remanded in custody for 45 days pending investigation.
The female assistants allegedly tricked a number of 14-year-old girls into coming to the clinic, in which Ali Ayoub, 58, a professor at Cairo University, showed them pornographic films before having sex with the adolescents.
According to the police, the dentist's activities were discovered after the father of one of his victims told police that his 14-year-old daughter spent two weeks with the doctor.
A few weeks ago, another dentist, Mohamed El-Agmawi, was arrested for allegedly videotaping his female patients nude while they were under anesthesia. His trial is scheduled to begin next week.
The maximum penalty each dentist could receive is three years in prison and the revocation of their professional licence.
Compiled by Shaden Shehab

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