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23. May 2006

Egyptiske bloggere fortsat fængslet

 
Fre Droubi!
Alaa El-Fatah og ni af de øvrige anholdte har fået forlænget deres fængsling i yderligere 15 dage - hvilket vil sige, at de kommer til at sidde fængslet i mindst en måned for "forstyrrelse af trafikken" og lignende i forbindelse med en fredelig demonstration for domstolenes fortsatte uafhængighed.

Hvis du ikke allerede har skrevet under på protesten eller klaget til den egyptiske ambassade, er det desværre stadig ikke for sent!

Ahmed El-Droubi, som også sidder anholdt i sagen, har skrevet et brev (dateret 20. maj), som kan læses her:
Here I sit at the beginning of my 3rd round of fifteen days in prison; my thoughts lingering between the principles that I stand for which brought me here, and the life that was mine and which I left behind. I try not to think too much about the pain my arrest created in the hearts of loved ones, my parents in particular, who have suffered the most from this ordeal. The thought of my mother weeping, and worst of all the tears I see in my father’s eyes as he forces a smile on his face during their weekly visit, is far more painful than anything I have ever experienced. My fear for them supercedes the pain and panic of my arrest: when I was simply kidnapped from the street, lifted from the ground by thugs, my feet in the air, my face few centimeters from the asphalt, while those (a dozen) carrying me away pushing and punching and swearing at me before starting to search me, blindfold me, tie my hands behind my back, finally dumping me into a security truck.

Then, all I could hear was the cries of pain from others being dragged, and the constant threats and swearing by the security forces. There was such an extraordinary tone of hate and resentment in their voices. The fear of physical pain and the idea of having no control over anything and the desperate attempt to control one’s own thoughts were things I could have never imagined before. I had no idea who or what was around me, and any attempt to move or speak would bring an onslaught of shapes, mental threats and humiliation ...
Som tidligere nævnt skyldes de protestdemonstrationer, der har ført til den nuværende hårde undertrykkelse og fængsling af fredelige demonstranter, at de to dommere Hisham al-Bastawisi og Mahmoud Mekky, der i embeds medfør påpegede svindel og uregelmæssigheder ved det seneste valg i Egypten.

Regimets reaktioner mod dommerne (og det for at undgå afsløring af valgsvindel!)sætter domstolenes uafhængighed i fare, og det har fået landets demokratibevægelse op af stolen. Mere analyse hos Baheyya der under overskriften Are Judges Heroes? beretter om udviklingen i den nylige retssag mod de to "oprørske" dommere:
The verdict reinforces both the shortcomings of the existing law and its obvious manipulation by pro-regime judges to silence and discredit their outspoken colleagues working for real judicial independence. There is no clear legal rationale for acquitting Mekky while censuring Bastawisi, lending credence to claims that this is a face-saving manoeuvre by disciplinary tribunal head Fathi Khalifa, perhaps in response to pressures from on high.
(...)
Uniformed and plainclothed police agents used much violence against peaceful demonstrators expressing their solidarity with judges and with Ayman Nour, whose appeal was rejected today by a circuit of the Court of Cassation, to the shock and dismay of many, though I’d like to reserve judgment until I read the actual court ruling. In a laughable statement issued early this week, the Interior Ministry had attempted to portray its violence against citizens as perfectly legal. Several hundred demonstrators from the Ikhwan and Kifaya were arrested yesterday, adding to the earlier waves of arrests over the past month, all of them peaceful people expressing their solidarity with judges.

Perhaps it’s worth pausing here and reflecting on one year of consistent and highly unusual public visibility for judges since the April 2005 general assembly of the Alexandria Judges Club. Judges’ quiet, ceaseless, years-long struggle for autonomy and full electoral supervision has now become a national and even international obsession, carrying in its wake intense attention and potentially negative repercussions that I flagged back in December.
Men hvad har dommerne nu overhovedet med valghandlingerne at gøre? Jo, den egyptiske forfatning stipulerer, at dommerne skal overvåge og i sidste ende tage ansvaret for, at valghandlinger går rigtigt til:
Let’s remember that the reason we’re seeing judges at the centre of politics today is because of their constitutionally-stipulated role of electoral oversight.

Every time an election rolls around, judges find themselves wrested from their courtrooms and entrusted with ensuring the integrity of elections in a country with a rich history of electoral fraud. A young judge gives voice to the dilemma: "As a judge, of course I don’t want to be involved in elections, it’s not my purview. But as a citizen, I know that the judiciary is the only institution capable of standing up to the police and making sure elections are clean."
Og hermed kommer de i klemme, når de insisterer på faktisk at gøre deres arbejde, og regimet (i sidste ende = Mubaraks regering) med hjælp fra politiet har tradition for i et vist omfang at svindle og manipulere sig til et "acceptabelt" valgresultat.

Og hvor kan tilhængere af borgerrettigheder og ytringsfrihed, dvs. den egyptiske demokratibevægelse inklusive bloggere som Alaa og Ahmed El-Droubi mon stå i en sådan konflikt?

Vel, statssanktioneret vold og chikane mod dommere for at forhindre dem i at gøre deres arbejde og for at beskytte valgsvindel kan vist kun være et diktatur værdigt - et diktatur som f.eks. det egyptiske.

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