Renewed brawling at the Bar
A dispute over a newly formed Bar Association committee has further highlighted the serious rift between Nasserists and Islamists in the association's council. Mona El-Nahhas reports
On 10 August, 25 members of the Bar Association's women's committee met to elect the committee's seven executive members. Six Nasserists and one Islamist emerged victorious. But while the association's Chairman Sameh Ashour -- a Nasserist -- gave the results his stamp of approval, the association's Secretary-General Ahmed Seif El-Islam Hassan El-Banna -- a leading figure in the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood -- ended up cancelling the elections altogether.
Although established in 2001, with El-Banna as its rapporteur and Boshra Asfour -- said to be a Muslim Brotherhood supporter -- assigned to be his deputy, the women's committee had never actually met, nor conducted any noteworthy activities, until this month's elections.
When, three days after the elections, El-Banna decided to cancel the results under the pretext that the elections were held behind his back, the dispute quickly escalated. The syndicate headquarters became a battlefield, with Nasserist and Islamist lawyers exchanging insults and even blows. Afterwards, both groups rushed to the nearest police station to file complaints against each other.
El-Banna, meanwhile, has stood his ground. "What happened was illegal," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. "A group of Nasserist women decided amongst themselves to meet and form the committee in the absence of its rapporteur. How could I be expected to approve such nonsense?" El-Banna asked rhetorically. Ashour, meanwhile, was not available for comment.
According to Dina Dardeer, a Nasserist who was one of those elected by the committee, El-Banna was "against the formation of the committee from the very beginning, because of his conservative views towards women. He consistently blocked its formation." Dardeer said that although El-Banna was amongst those invited to attend the 10 August meeting, he missed it on purpose. "13 of the 25 [committee] founders nominated themselves," she said. "The nominees included five Muslim Brotherhood sympathisers, only one of whom managed to win. That was a shock to the Muslim Brothers, who then began to cause problems."
In a protest letter published in Sunday's Al-Arabi newspaper, the weekly mouthpiece of the Nasserist Party, Wafaa El-Masri, another Nasserist winner, attacked El-Banna's "dictatorial" decision to abolish the elections, calling it a challenge to the will of the majority of lawyers, and an attempt to draw attention away from women's issues.
Islamist lawyer Fatemah Rabie, however, told a different story. "Muslim Brotherhood supporters never considered nominating themselves in the first place," she said, "and they were not part of the fight that took place." Rabie categorised the clash as being "simply between the Nasserists and El-Banna".
Independent analysts, meanwhile, interpreted the developments as being part of a continuing attempt by the Muslim Brotherhood -- whose supporters make up two thirds of the association's council -- to control most of the syndicate's affairs and marginalise the role of its Nasserist chairman.
Internal conflict has been a hallmark of the association. According to observers, the syndicate's Islamists have tended to ignore decisions made by the Nasserist chairman, and have consistently attempted to exclude Ashour's supporters from any significant positions of power.
The ideological divide between the two groups has a significant number of lawyers worried about the syndicate's future. The Bar's general assembly meeting has not been held for two years, and the annual budget remains up in the air.
Lawyers fear that the situation may lead the syndicate back into the dark tunnel of judicial sequestration, a situation quite similar to the one that occurred in 1996, when Islamists controlled the syndicate and marginalised its late Chairman Ahmed El-Khawaga.
