The Lawyers Syndicate held a partial strike on Sunday to protest the shooting of a lawyer by a policeman in a Cairo court.
Lawyer Mohamed Al-Gamal was in the Nasr City court when a quarrel between him and a colleague on the one hand, and a prosecution employee and a number of policemen on the other, led to a policeman injuring him with a gunshot. Al-Gamal was transported to hospital with serious wounds.
The syndicate decided to temporarily suspend work in courts in Nasr City and Al-Gamal’s hometown Abu Hammad in Sharqeya governorate, in protest of the incident.
“Doctors said his health condition improved, but he hasn’t spoken yet,” head of North Cairo’s syndicate Mohamed Osman told Daily News Egypt.
Minister of Justice Ahmed Al-Zind condemned the assault on the lawyer and expressed appreciation for the lawyers’ work, according to Osman.
The policeman who shot Al-Gamal was arrested and questioned before the general prosecution late on Saturday, after which he was charged with attempted murder.
In June, lawyers launched a general strike across Egypt’s courts following a lawyer’s being physically assaulted by a police officer inside a police station in Damietta.
At the time, the syndicate demanded an official apology from the Ministry of Interior, the institution legally responsible for police officers. But a public apology from President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, in which he said “I owe you, and I apologise to you”, resolved the dispute.
