By Mai Shams El-Din
CAIRO: The ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) promised to reconsider military trials of civilians and to give more authorities to civilian judiciary, in a meeting with members of “No to Military Trials for Civilians” campaign.
“All what we got were promises without a specific timeline for meeting our demands,” said activist and campaign member Mona Seif.
“We had many chances before to meet with the SCAF, but we thought that our demands are known and do not require a meeting. But we changed our mind because we think that now we can hold the SCAF accountable to its promises and pressure it if those promises were not fulfilled,” she added.
The meeting was organized by renowned architect Mamdouh Hamza and was attended by Seif, lawyer from Hisham Mubarak Law Center Ahmed Ragheb, lawyer Ragia Omran, and acclaimed novelist Ahdaf Soueif, in addition to two protesters previously detained by military police.
Commander of Central District and SCAF member General Hassan El-Rouiny and his assistants were representing the military council, which has been running the country since president Hosni Mubarak was ousted on Feb. 11.
The demands included ending the trials of civilians before military courts and referring them instead to civilian courts and protecting peaceful strikes as a right gained after the revolution. The groups stressed that protesters shouldn’t be referred to military courts.
The campaign also demanded the release of a list of all the names of civilians tried in military courts since the start of the revolution and retrying them before normal courts within a specific timeline and dropping charges against all the revolution youth including those who got suspended sentences.
The campaign members requested the full release of all revolution youth, specifically Amr El-Behiry, Abo El-Ma’aty Ahmed, Mahmoud El-Sayed and Mohammed Adel. The SCAF promised to grant Adel a retrial in statement in March.
One of the main demands called on by the campaign that raised controversy recently was the investigation into violations reportedly committed by military police against protesters during and after the 18-day uprising.
“Those violations were always met by denial and described as an attempt to ruin the relationship between the people and the army,” Seif said. “But our presence in the meeting took the argument to another direction when we presented evidence of violations committed, including testimonies of people who were detained and photos of protesters with signs of torture on their bodies.”
CNN quoted earlier an unidentified army general admitting that virginity tests were conducted on female protesters arrested during the March 9 crackdown on protesters in Tahrir Square. Local and international rights groups have slammed the forced virginity checks.
The SCAF members neither denied nor confirmed the violations but they saw no justification for torturing the protesters, Seif said.
The campaign members also discussed the arrest of five workers in Petrojet Oil Company by military police during a strike in front of the Petroleum Ministry. They are currently facing a military trial.
Campaign members suggested assigning a judge to investigate the cases tried in military courts who would then send a report to the SCAF.
SCAF representatives promised to present this suggestion to the rest of the council members. They also promised to consider all the demands.
“We will file an official complaint to military prosecution next week against violations by military police including all the evidences we got, but we asked the SCAF members to fully investigate the entire issue including the cases who did not file complaints because this is our right as citizens,” Seif concluded.
