Hazardous e-mail

ESSAM Hanna did not know he was playing a dangerous game when he sent an e-mail warning to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) claiming that US Ambassador to Egypt David Welch would risk his life if he visited Assiut, 380 kilometres south of Cairo. Hanna sent the message shortly before Welch visited Assiut on 11 and 12 December.

Egyptian police managed to find and arrest Hanna, who had boasted about the e- mail to a colleague, but both the motives behind Hanna's sending of the e-mail, as well as the actual date of his arrest, were not clear.

An English teacher at a private school in Assiut, Hanna will be tried by a state security misdemeanors court on 15 January. He is accused of spreading false information liable to harm the national interest abroad.

On 30 November, Welch was chased by a pick-up truck that slipped between his car and his police escort in the Sinai peninsula. That incident also remains unexplained.

Bad meat

ON SUNDAY, the People's Assembly decided to establish a fact-finding committee to investigate how 190 tonnes of substandard meat found its way into the local market. The decision was taken after two meetings held by the assembly's Defence and National Security Committee failed to reach a convincing conclusion regarding the disappearance of the meat from a refuse dump in Abis, east of Alexandria. The most likely scenario was that the bad meat was stolen from the dump by unknown perpetrators.

External Trade Minister Youssef Boutros Ghali said all meat imported into Egypt is thoroughly examined by health authorities to ensure that the shipments are microbe-free. Ghali indicated, at the same time, that it was also possible that certain quantities of bad meat go unchecked by authorities and find their way to the market.

"In this case, it will be the responsibility of the food and supply police to protect citizens from eating this hazardous meat," Ghali said, agreeing that the fact-finding committee had to closely examine the loopholes that were being used to smuggle substandard meat into the local market. The committee will include representatives from the ministries of health, agriculture, finance and trade.

NGOs unite

HANI Shaker and Tamer Soliman, activists representing the Cairo-based Egyptian Centre for Housing Rights (ECHR) were released this week after being arrested on charges of inciting civil unrest, falsely claiming to be journalists and working without legal permits.

Shaker, who heads the centre's documentation department, and Soliman, ECHR's staff researcher, were arrested while investigating the destruction of Al- Kowla village in the Upper Egyptian Governorate of Sohag, where one of eight newly built sewage tanks burst, forcing 100 families from their homes.

On Sunday both the ECHR and the Bar Association's Committee for the Defence of Freedom organised a press conference to denounce what were described as the "illegal procedures" involved in the arrests, and issue a call for the "immediate release" of the two activists.

Yasser Farag, one of the lawyers who witnessed the investigations in Sohag, was worried about what he described as the "vague language" of the charges and the "illegal" treatment the activists had been subjected to.

"This is an unprecedented incident for the NGO's fact finding missions. It's very grave," said Suzanne Fayyad of the Al- Nadim Centre for Pscychological Management and Rehabilitation. She said activists had been facing rough treatment recently, and cited the fact that Shaker himself was arrested, and seriously injured by authorities, only a couple of weeks ago during a demonstration against the war on Iraq.

Seven local NGOs as well as international organisations like the International Federation for Human Rights and the World Organisation Against Torture have joined the campaign against the arrests.

While general concerns regarding the lack of freedom for civic activity in Egypt headed the press conference's agenda, Ahmed Seif El-Islam, a lawyer representing the Hisham Mubarak Centre for Legal Aid, said it was also important to continue providing help for the people of Al-Kowla, who have yet to receive adequate compensation.

In the meantime the Geology Department at Southern Valley University said the soil at the site was inappropriate for the construction of the sewage tank. According to ECHR's Khaled Abdel- Hamid, the report also noted that there are concerns about the safety of the remaining seven tanks.

The press conference was held within the framework of a campaign launched by the Bar Association entitled "Enough of the Emergency Law". Egypt's Emergency Law -- in place since the 1981 assassination of President Anwar El-Sadat -- is up for discussion in parliament next March.

Freedom fish

ON 2 JANUARY, four prisoners managed to escape from a police station by using a tiny saw hidden in a fish and rice meal to cut through the iron bars of the custody cage. The meal had been delivered to the station by one of the prisoner's wives.

One of the escapees was caught and told police how they managed to flee. The officer in charge of the prisoners was arrested for negligence and two others were suspended from duty pending an investigation.

Compiled by Shaden Shehab