Arms and the law
From handgun possession to the cost of chandeliers to the price of bread, Fatemah Farag reviews a week of revelations
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Remarking on the headline, "New job opportunities", the elderly passer-by retorts, "You believe that? We've been reading the same thing for 30 years and we still can't find work." -- Al-Wafd
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The Palestinians were in town this week and Al-Ahram's Editor-in-Chief Ibrahim Nafie pointed out on 7 December that while Cairo was hosting the meeting of Palestinian factions to facilitate their arriving at a unified strategy, "it is up to the Palestinians to realise that national unity is the bridge that leads out of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. There must be true coordination between the various Palestinian factions since the goal is one. It is up to everyone to compromise a little." In the same vein, Abbas El-Tarabiylie in Al-Wafd of 8 December noted that "the most dangerous obstacle facing the Palestinian struggle is atomisation which has reached the point of disintegration. No one knows exactly how many factions there are... and this is a sign of weakness, not strength."
The plight of the Palestinians was also under consideration in press reaction to the Geneva Accord signed between Palestinians and left-wing Israelis last week. In his 6 December column in Al-Gomhouriya, Samir Ragab expressed frustration at continued Israeli violence that took place at the same time that others were trying to broker peace and signing the Geneva Accord. "But honestly, what proved that the Likudniks enjoy no political savvy is their recent announcement that they will have a law passed prohibiting the burial of Yasser Arafat -- when he dies -- in Jerusalem! Really, do these people possess any amount of objectivity? And until when will hate continue to gnaw at their hearts?"
On the opinion pages of Al-Ahram on 8 December, Mohamed Basha questioned the relevance of this informal agreement in light of the existence of the formal roadmap which has received unanimous approval. And in the same issue, Mahmoud Shukri expressed his conviction that the Geneva accords was a "conscious realisation of the option of a compromise settlement which in turn reflects the art of the possible".
Whatever. The nation had other things on its mind, one of these being the aftermath of the sensational murder of pop singer Zikra by her husband, Ayman El-Sweidi, who then proceeded to kill his manager and his manager's wife before shooting himself. The front page of Al-Ahram on 6 December carried an item announcing that the Minister of Interior Habib El-Adli had decided to revoke the arms licence of businessman Awni Sadeq El-Sweidi, Ayman's father. More important was a report that the ministry is currently reviewing all gun licences -- including those held by businessmen (216 licences) and members of parliament (316 licences) and the Shura Council (30 licences).
Rose Al-Youssef also dedicated extensive space to the issue of arms possession in Egypt. Karim Sobhi pointed out that "among the serious questions raised by the terrible massacre is that of the bizarre amount of arms used in the incident. How could one person have in his possession all these weapons?" Sobhi went on to publish figures indicating that there are currently 167,000 gun licences in force, adding that the ministry revokes 10 per cent of licences annually on grounds of improper use.
In Al-Arabi on 7 December Abdel-Fatah Abdel-Moneim launched a tirade against those whom he described as the "arms barons". He argued that despite the continuos efforts of the police, the Ayman El-Sweidi incident "proves that the ministry must take expeditious action to revoke the laws that give members of parliament the right to own arms without licences and to block all the doors through which arms are smuggled, especially those coming from Israel".
A less violent crime took place in Zaqaziq where an engineer, Bahaaeddin Nada, was arrested last week after having written "No to family succession" on a wall near the university, and downtown area of his hometown. Nada was released via presidential order and Al-Wafd, which followed the case closely, was happy to announce his release in its issue of 8 December and scoop the first interview with the imprisoned engineer hours before his release.
"I love Egypt more than any other person and I believe myself to be part of the system," Nada told Al-Wafd although he did complain that his treatment in prison was "very bad". However, Nada added, he was still keen on making his voice heard to the president.
A related feature in Al-Wafd on Nada's release indicated that this case has "proven to us that the protection of democracy and freedom of opinion and expression is solely in the hands of President Mubarak who seems to be the only person in authority concerned with supporting democracy".
While columnist Magdi Sarhan wondered, "If Nada had written on the walls of Zaqaziq: 'Yes to succession and yes to the return of royalty and no to the presidential system', would he have been thrown in prison?" In Al-Osbou on 8 December Mustafa Bakri pointed out in his editorial that "one would have expected that the City Council take action to fine the man [Nada] the LE100 violation fee for graffiti. But what we did not imagine is that he would be arrested and imprisoned for 15 days."
But then these are tense times. On 8 December, Al-Wafd released figures it claimed were official that indicate there is a continuos increase in the price of 'strategic' staples such as sugar, flour, oil and rice.
The "bread crisis" is still omnipresent, prompting Galal Dweidar in his editorial in Al-Akhbar on 7 December to comment on a recent decision taken by the Ministry of Supply and Trade to establish 130 subsidised bakeries, saying the problem was not the setting up of new bakeries but the issue of subsidies in general. "The majority of this [government] subsidy leaks in illegitimate ways to those who do not deserve it and to the 'mafia' which in turn makes hundreds of millions of pounds while the state suffers a budget deficit which has now reached LE40 billion. Is this justice?"
Back to Al-Wafd and also on the front page of 8 December an item referring to a government report "confirming the increase in the pharmaceutical trade deficit... in 2001 as a result of the increased use of foreign components in locally produced medicines by 85 per cent".
Earlier in the week on 6 December, a banner in Al-Wafd highlighted the "medicine crisis". According to the paper, "The Ministry of Health has refused the advice given by the Decision Support Centre to give up its role of pricing medication. The centre had presented a request to the prime minister requesting that this role be given to the centre, claiming that since the ministry was refusing requests made by pharmaceutical companies to increase the price of their commodities as a result of the increase in the dollar, the latter were losing money." The ministry countered that it is the companies themselves that are responsible for the crisis, pointing out that the price of low-cost drugs has already increased 12 fold in the past three months.
Al-Arabi on 7 December also had bad Egyptian economy news to report to its readers. "Parliament has removed the government's fig leaf," it said. The paper went on to detail two reports presented to parliament which indicated that investment had dropped from 30 per cent of GDP in 89-90 to 16 per cent in 2001- 2002. The newspaper quotes Mahrous Hassan, professor of economics at Ein Shams University, as saying that the reports "indicate that the private sector has obtained money from the banks and then took the path of speculation, housing and tourism. And so the wealth of the state has turned into mounds of cement housed by ghosts which resulted in a real imbalance in the structure of investment."
Not that what remains of the public sector is doing much better. In another related article published in the same issue of Al-Arabi the paper claims that the public business sector has lost LE350 million in fertiliser, chemicals and medicine.
And while one of several young graduates talking to a feature reporter in Al- Wafd of 6 December said: "Tell them [the government] to give us some of the money that they spend on government offices," only a few days later Sawt Al- Umma front-paged an item the headline of which screamed, "A Scandal: The minister of industry furnishes his office with aid money". According to the paper, which provided its readers with colour photos of the offending items, these furnishings included a chandelier worth LE22,000, a LE15,000 desk and a chair the customs of which alone cost LE5,000.
