The scene in Cairo##s Tahrir Square and in other squares and public spaces all over Egypt is of thousands of Egyptians boiling over with anger at the court sentence pronounced yesterday against the former president Hosni Mubarak and his aides
The scene in Cairo##s Tahrir Square and in other squares and public spaces all over Egypt is of thousands of Egyptians boiling over with anger at the court sentence pronounced yesterday against the former president Hosni Mubarak and his aides.
Mubarak was handed a life sentence for failing to stop the killing of protesters during the 18-day 25 January 2011 Revolution which ended with the former president stepping down. But he and his sons Alaa and Gamal were cleared of corruption charges, setting off protests for greater accountability. His Interior Minister Habib al-Adly was also sentenced to life imprisonment, but six other senior security officials were acquitted in the same case. The judge described the evidence as weak, generating speculation that Mubarak and Adly may themselves win their appeals.
The sentence, which will be contested by the convicts and the prosection, has aroused heated controversy.
Thousands took to the streets to protest what they see as an unreasonably lenient judgement.
Prominent among the protestors have been the Islamists who support Mohamed Mursi for Egypt##s new president, due to be elected on 16 and 17 June. In Tahrir, they have been egging the protestors on, claiming an Islamist rule would bring about justice. Supporters of the other presidential contender, the liberal Ahmed Shafik who is nonetheless seen as fuloul, a remnant of the Mubarak establishment, retaliated that no-one is above the law.
Other contenders who lost the first round of the elections, prominent among whom is Hamdeen Sabahi who came out third in the first round and who joined the protesters in Tahrir carried on the shulders of his supporters, attempted to make a comeback to the political scene.
Nabil Abdel Fattah, political analyst at the al-Ahram Centre for Strategic and Political Studies, told Watani that the various parties and different political streams are each taking advantage of the situation by attempting to mobilise the public to its own side. The Muslim Brotherhood (MB), he said, are egging on the crowd##s anger and exploiting it to batter their opponent, Shafik, as representative of the former regime.
For his part, Shafiq, Mubarak##s last PM, is touting the sentence against Mubarak as evidence that: “no one is above the law”. As for the sentence itself, his only comment was: “We have no right to comment on judicial rulings.”
Abdel-Fattah described the moves by Sabahi and another presidential contender, who came out fourth in the first election round, Abdel Moneim Abul-Fotouh as attempts to re-introduce themselves to the electorate, a large sector of whose young voters suppport Sabahi.
According to Ayman Salama, professor of international law, the public anger at the Mubarak sentence appears to overlook that it took into account the aspirations of the Egyptian people and the revolution##s victims.
The lawyer Salah al-Badrawi for his part explains that that there appears to be a lot of misunderstading regarding the court ruling. He noted that the law was applied according to the Penal Code which stipulates that subordinates legitimately execute their superiors## orders so would be exempt from penalty.
Watani International
3 June 2012