Nine people from Manfalut in Asyut Governorate – around 600 south of Cairo –were sentenced to three years imprisonment last month for leading a demonstration of 150 people denouncing the lack of gas cylinders, according to officials.  

[ibimage==1696==Small_Image==none==self==null]

Blocking the railway

They were charged with blocking of the railway passing through the city.

Nine people from Manfalut in Asyut Governorate – around 600 south of Cairo –were sentenced to three years imprisonment last month for leading a demonstration of 150 people denouncing the lack of gas cylinders, according to officials.  

[ibimage==1696==Small_Image==none==self==null]

Blocking the railway

They were charged with blocking of the railway passing through the city.

According to legists, the court based its decision on Article 167 of the Penal Code, which states “Deliberately endangering the integrity, or blocking the passages, of ground, marine or air public transportation shall be punished by temporary hard labour or imprisonment.”

New laws that smell old

Announced on the 16th of August, the sentence coincided with statements by the Ministry of Interior, calling upon citizens to ‘abide by the methods and controls of peaceful expression of opinion which is guaranteed by the constitution and the law…’

The court decision, however, has been ambiguous as blocking roads for the purposes of peaceful demonstrations has been a common phenomenon in Egypt since the revolution. Why has an imprisonment term has been rendered in this particular case? Does the Ministry of Interior’s citation of ‘controls of peaceful expression’ mean that mechanisms and criteria governing political protests— which were absent under Mubarak’s regime—have been already established?

Those questions clearly echo in the comment made by Jaber Abdulmunem, the lawyer of one of those convicted, on the verdict. “There are previous incidents of the roadblock phenomenon in other governorates; however, no imprisonment term has ever been passed. In addition, there are no clear criteria for the court to adopt. A judge rules according to his conscience.”

Tharwat Abdulaal, a professor and head of the Common Law Department at Asyut University, explained, “’Legally, there is a difference between demonstrating and gathering.  The former is made in specific places after the permission of public authorities and aims at claiming certain things.  It is thus a legitimate way to claim a legitimate right and is subject to legal regulations, while the latter is a random assemblage resulting in roadblocks and disruption of the interests of people, in the sense that it is an illegitimate way to claim a right.”

Password: ‘Notification’

According to this definition, a previous notification of official authorities is what saves demonstrators from legal prosecution, according to security director in Asyut, Major General Muhammad Ibrahim. A notification, he says, is a regular application presented to the Security Directorate by those who want to go out and demonstrate, specifying the time, the number of participants and their demands.

Such statements may raise suspicions.  Egyptians under Mubarak were accustomed to a security service that did its best to thwart the simplest manifestations of political protests.  Since the revolution, some Egyptian leaders are still in their positions, while the judiciary is examining charges against them of killing demonstrators from the 25th of January.  Is it possible that in the last year and a half, the right to demonstrate has turned from a matter of life and death into a mere procedural matter?

Gap of trust between security services and citizens

The security directorate in Asyut, according to Ibrahim, hasn’t received any notifications regarding the organization of demonstrations since the outbreak of the revolution, while the number of protests amounts to hundreds.

Legist Gamal Eid, director of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information, highlights the same issue while commenting on that verdict.  He attributes citizens’ abstaining from notifying the police of their demonstrations to a crisis of confidence between them and the officials. “People are still convinced that they won’t be dealt with humanely and fairly.” According to Eid, the Ministry of Interior indeed deals with popular movements inhumanely, even though it claims the contrary.