CAIRO: Human rights lawyer Gamal Eid and popular bloggers Manal Hassan and Alaa Seif spent yesterday in police custody after being accused of defamation by Alexandria Judge Abdel Fattah Mourad.
Their detention and the defamation charges are the latest development in a tangled copyright battle between Judge Mourad and Eid’s organization, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (HRInfo).
Last month the case turned into a test of Egypt’s commitment to freedom of expression and a showcase for abuse of power when the judge filed a lawsuit to block the web sites of HRInfo and its allies. “We were called in to the Dokki prosecutor’s office on Wednesday morning and we thought it was just going to be a simple, easy case, Eid told The Daily Star Egypt. “But when we got there, the case was four pages long and full of inaccuracies. They said that HRInfo was a group of bloggers receiving foreign funds, not an NGO, and that we were a threat to the government of Egypt. They even called witnesses against us.
Among those was Mohamed Daoud, a prosecutor in the case of imprisoned Alexandria blogger Kareem Amer, who Eid defended in court. During the trial, Daoud accused Eid and the rest of the legal team of apostasy against Islam for agreeing to represent the 21-year-old.
Eid, Seif and Hassan were released by prosecutors at 1 pm, but were held until midnight by police and transferred back and forth between the Dokki and Giza prosecutor’s office several times.
No court date has been set for a hearing into the defamation charges, although the State Council Court in Dokki will begin proceedings on the case of the blocked blogs on Saturday, April 7.
HRInfo alleges that Mourad plagiarized more than 50 pages of his recent book, “Scientific and Legal Principles of Blogs on the Internet, from a report published by their organization entitled Stubborn Adversary: The Internet & Arab Governments.
The rights group has filed a lawsuit against the judge for copyright infringement, and has attracted support from many political parties, media outlets and non-governmental organizations.
Mourad, who has written many other books on law and society, rejects the charges.
In early March, he filed a case with State Council Court to block the website of HRInfo and 20 other organizations or individuals who had expressed support for the rights group on an internet petition. Among those Mourad wants to see banned are El Ghad Party, the Kefaya National Movement for Change, and the Iraqi News Agency.
In an interview with state-run daily Rose Al Youssef, Mourad alleged that the groups in question “tarnish the reputation of Egypt and insult the Egyptian president and “pose a threat to the national security, stability and supreme interests of Egypt and Arab countries.
But according to Eid, the case is not about national security, it is about how far one man will go to avoid prosecution on copyright charges.
The judge violated our copyrights and when we exposed this he filed a lawsuit to block HRinfo s website and 20 others, said Eid. Today he is raising a criminal case against Alaa, Manal, and myself, and we know of another criminal case against Ahmed Seif Al-Islam, Director of the Hisham Mubarak Center for Law.
The Daily Star Egypt was unable to reach Judge Mourad for comment.
In addition to directing the Hisham Mubarak Center for Law, Seif Al-Islam is also working as Eid’s attorney in the plagiarism case. He is also the father of blogger Alaa Seif and father-in-law of Manal Hassan, who were both detained alongside Eid.
This campaign does not only target HRinfo but targets all those who support it, charged a statement released by the organization. “We know that the battle is not easy and we will understand if others surrender, but we will not even if this entails the shut down of HRinfo and the imprisonment of its director. We will not give up our rights. This judge plagiarized large parts of our report and paraphrased some sentences for a book he sells.
In the meantime, HRinfo has filed complaints with the Public Prosecutor, the Supreme Council of Judiciary, and the Minister of Justice demanding an investigation into the alleged plagiarism and the lifting of Mourad’s judicial immunity so that he can be charged.
We are looking for a neutral investigation into this case regardless of who the parties are, said Eid. “This is the foundation of justice.
