Barred from Attending Military Court Session

Ramsey Clark Barred from Attending Military Court Session Ikhwanweb [0] 15/7/2007

The Egyptian Security Forces have prevented Mr. Ramsey Clark, former US Attorney General, and Yvonne Ridley British journalist, from attending the today’s session of the military trial for 33 Muslim Brotherhood leaders.

It’s worth mentioning that although the Haickstep Military Base is located in a military zone and controlled by the Egyptian army, however, police is in full control on the ground.

During the first two sessions, government has also denied access to representatives from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Arab Human Rights organization.

Muhammad Sulaiman محمد سليمان

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Ramsey Clark Opposes Mubarak's Violation of Basic Rights

Egypt military trial condemned Courtesy Gulf News: Published: Tuesday, 17 July, 2007, 01:16 AM Doha Time

CAIRO: Former US attorney general Ramsey Clark yesterday condemned the military trials of members of Egypt’s opposition Muslim Brotherhood and called on President Hosni Mubarak to release them. “The arrest and detention once again of the Muslim Brotherhood is an outrageous violation of fundamental human rights,” Clark, 79, told reporters at the Egyptian Bar Association a day after being barred from attending the trial. “I’ve been in political trials on six continents.. . I have never been excluded from a court in any of these trials,” he said. “What does the government of Egypt fear? What is it ashamed of doing that it can’t do in broad daylight as the law requires?” Clark led a delegation of rights activists that included former Sunday Express British journalist turned Islamic activist Yvonne Ridley to Sunday’s session of the military trial of 40 leading Brotherhood activists. Together with a court observer from Amnesty International, the delegation was barred from entering the court which is on a military base. The Brotherhood members have been charged with funding an illegal organisation and money-laundering — charges they were originally acquitted from in a civil court. Over the past 10 years, Mubarak’s government has repeatedly relied on military tribunals, which have a more consistent rate of conviction, to try Islamist organisations. The latest crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, which while banned holds a fifth of the seats in parliament, began last December and has targeted the organisation’ s funding mechanisms, freezing the assets and arresting prominent businessmen associated with the movement. “I ask the government and President Mubarak to recognise the error of what they have done and to embrace these defendants as worthy Muslims and release them,” Clark said. An attorney general in the 1960s, Clark went on to become an anti-war activist and has joined the defence teams at a number of high profile trials, including that of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussain and Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel Rahman. – AFP