DSE: Activists protest violence against Egyptian journalists

By Pakinam Amer
First Published: May 18, 2006

CAIRO: More than 200 activists staged a loud demonstration in front of the press syndicate Tuesday evening, vehemently criticizing the use of force against journalists covering last week’s protests.

“Down … Down with the Emergency Law,” shouted some protestors. “Down … Down with the security police.”

The activists belonged to several groups: the Kefaya (Enough) movement, the socialist party, the Muslim Brotherhood and reporters making a stand in sympathy with their colleagues. Among the protestors was Muslim Brotherhood member and Islamist thinker Mohammad Abdel-Qudous, who has become a familiar face at most opposition protests.

During the protest, however, a minor dispute between protestors occurred, when two groups differed over the intensity of the slogans shouted against the government. Dozens of truckloads of security forces convened around the syndicate did not interfere. However, hundreds of riot police silently blockaded the entrance to the building.

The protestors held banners and pictures citing security violence during protests. Last week’s protests broke out on the day of the trial of two deputies to the Cassation Court, Hisham El-Bastawisy and Mahmoud Mekki. The two judges faced a disciplinary hearing, supervised by Minister of Justice Mahmoud Abu-Leil, for speaking to the press about what they deemed as violations and fraud during last year’s presidential electoral process.

Waves of protests in support of the two judges, with thousands of activists taking to the streets, were dispersed violently by state police. Reporters were harassed, with their cameras confiscated or broken.

One Al-Jazeera reporter was surrounded by a group of plainclothes security men and was punched several times in the face, an Al-Jazeera correspondent and eyewitness told The Daily Star Egypt. More than 250 were rounded up; in addition, some reporters were held temporarily in police trucks.

In the local and international press, newspapers published pictures of police beating activists using truncheons and brutally kicking them as they curled on the ground.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Interior responded twice to the incident.

In its initial response, the ministry said that the activists’ presence was illegal and their gathering unauthorized. “The police presence was crucial to guarantee the safety of the important court session,” the statement said, without commenting on the use of violence.

In their second statement to the parliament, however, the deputy to the ministry said that the protestors and activists “actually attacked the security forces and physically assaulted them” and that such attacks were recorded on film.

Such statements have not only aroused anger in the Egyptian political arena, they have drawn strong condemnation from international human rights and other concerned groups. The European Union in Brussels said it had followed “with concern” recent developments in Egypt.

“The scale of the police operation and the harsh manner in which these demonstrations have been policed appear as disproportionate,” said the report.

The EU report also expressed alarm concerning the pre-trial conditions of the detained activists, arrested during recent protests.

“According to lawyers of the detainees, a number of those held have been arrested under the provisions of the Emergency Law, for instance without an arrest warrant, which is a procedure only authorized under the state of emergency,” said the report, adding that the Emergency Law should not be extended beyond 2008, reminding the Egyptian president of his promise that the Law would only be used to combat terrorism.

Addressing the Egyptian government, the EU called on authorities to “allow civil society activists and other political forces to express themselves freely, to permit peaceful demonstrations and freedom of assembly and to maintain public order by transparent and proportionate legal procedure.”

New York-based Human Rights Watch also published a detailed report, publishing records of eyewitnesses and journalists present at the protest scene, along with names of 50 detainees referred to a Heliopolis police station.

According to the report, “Human Rights Watch called on President Mubarak to speak out against the attacks by plainclothes and uniformed security officials and to order an impartial investigation to identify those responsible and hold them accountable.”

“The government is apparently determined to stamp out peaceful dissent - literally,” Joe Stork, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch, was quoted as saying. “It seems that President Mubarak sees growing popular support for the reformist judges as a real challenge to his [rigid] ways.”

Link: http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=1551