CAIRO: The opening session of the trial of three activists accused of criminal charges was adjourned Saturday until June 26 this year.
The Khalifa misdemeanors court granted requests by defence lawyers that they be allowed time to see the complete case file, and also accepted the civil compensation claim that is routinely raised lodged by defendants at the beginning of criminal processes.
Defendants Gamal Eid and Ahmed Seif El-Islam Hamad, directors of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center (HMLC) and the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) respectively are charged with libel, blackmail and misuse of communications.
The case against the three activists has been raised by judge Abdel-Fatah Murad, who ANHRI accused in 2007 of plagiarizing 50 pages of a report they produced on internet freedom in his blog, “Scientific and Legal Principles of Blogs”.
Blogger Amr Gharbeia, who was not in court on Saturday, is accused of libel and misuse of communications. Gharbeia published a review of the book on his blog.
Saturday’s court proceedings lasted for approximately 15 minutes, but were stopped two minutes after they began when the presiding judge ordered that members of the media leave the courtroom, after which he retreated into his inner chambers for 20 minutes.
No one was made to leave the courtroom, however.
Hamad told reporters after the court session that while he does not think that the state is directly involved in the case, “influence is being misused by officials to pay complements to Murad.”
“The case creates a general atmosphere of fear however even if we don’t have evidence to prove that a particular person [in the regime] is involved in it,” Hamad added
Eid meanwhile alleged that the public prosecution office is not neutral.
“We accused Murad of lodging a false complaint and of libel because he described our organizations as “terrorist”. These accusations were ignored completely. We’re not before a neutral public prosecution office,” Eid said.
Human Rights Watch called for the charges to be dropped in a statement published Friday saying that Criminal defamation laws “are increasingly viewed as inconsistent with the right to freedom of expression.”
"The prosecutor should never have sent this defamation case to court," Joe Stork, depute Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch says in the statement.
"In a country where so many human rights abuses are not properly investigated, the government should put an end to the abuse of the justice system to silence critics."
