An Egyptian court yesterday released leading left-wing activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah on bail during the opening session of his trial on charges of participating in an illegal and violent protest.
Abdel-Fattah, a prominent youth leader in the 2011 uprising that overthrew former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, was arrested in November last year for taking part in a protest against widened military powers under the new army-appointed interim government.
The interim administration, appointed after the overthrow of former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi in July last year, has cracked down on both Morsi’s Islamists supporters and his secular opponents.
Abdel-Fattah faces trial with 24 co-defendants, all but one of whom had already been released on bail before the trial. They were arrested after taking part in a protest outside the Egyptian Senate, where a panel was drafting a new constitution allowing the military more powers in choosing the minister of defense.
The protest violated a recently enacted law banning all except police-authorized demonstrations.
Cheers erupted in the courtroom when the judge ordered the release of Abdel-Fattah and his remaining co-defendant on bail of 10,000 Egyptian pounds (US$1,400).
His father, lawyer Ahmed Seif, said the acitvist should be freed today, once bail has been posted.
Meanwhile, the judge in one of the largest trials of Morsi supporters on Saturday said he will issue verdicts for the more than 500 defendants after only two sessions, said lawyers who decried the move as violating the norms of a fair trial.
The 545 defendants are standing trial in relation to violence in August last year following the dispersal by security forces of two pro-Morsi protests in Cairo, in which hundreds were killed. In an apparent backlash, police stations, churches and government buildings were stormed by suspected Morsi supporters across the country.
The defendants are accused of attacking a police station, stealing government weapons, killing one police officer and attempting to kill two others, Egypt’s state news agency said. More than 400 defendants are still at large and are being tried in absentia, defense lawyer Khaled el-Koumi said.
El-Koumi said the trial opened with more than 100 defendants crammed in a courtroom cage. He said lawyers asked Judge Said Youssef to delay the case to give them time to review the hundreds of relevant documents, but Youssef declined. Another lawyer began to make a request based on constitutional demands, but the judge interrupted and refused to recognize it.
When the lawyers protested, el-Koumi said Youssef angrily told them they would not dictate his actions and then asked court security to close in on the lawyers.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was