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Egypt: Misuse of World Wide Web, Official Charge Against Activists

Categories: Egypt

Misuse of World Wide Web Charge [1]

AlKhalifa misdemeanor court will consider the case 8260/2009 on Saturday 22nd of May 2010, in which judge Abdel Fattah Mourad [2] is accusing Ahmed Seif – Director of Hisham Mubarak Law Center [3] (HMLC), Gamal Eid – Director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information [4] (ANHRI) and blogger Amr Gharbeia [5] for “insult, libel, blackmail and abuse of internet services”.

The judge who requested in 2007 to block 51 websites and blogs [6], is accusing Gharbeia for publishing and not deleting some “insulting” comments left by the blog visitors. Seif, Eid and Gharbeia are all accused to misuse communication means including phone lines and World Wide Web!.

This case is among many other fabricated cases [7] by Abdel Fatah Murad against HMLC, ANRHI as well as against bloggers, human rights defenders and news websites.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Studies said [2]:

Judge Abdel Fattah Mourad enjoys impunity despite being charge with assault on the intellectual property, as he reproduced dozens of pages of the report of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information and published them in one of his books. Impunity encouraged him to fabricate more cases against the Arabic Network and Hisham Mubarak Law Center though he was proven to have fabricated two earlier cases.

While cases filed by this judge process quickly , the communiqué submitted by Gamal Eid on abuse of intellectual property in April 2007 is still in the drawers of public prosecution. It seems that justice in Egypt turns a blind eye on a judge abusing rights of others and violating the law when he should be trying to prove his innocence.

This judge has previously fabricated an insult and libel case against Gamal Eid and the bloggers, Manal Hassan and Alaa Seif [8] in 2007. All three were acquitted on first instance and on appeal as the court was certain of fabrication.