Banning sites case adjourned to October 20 : Murad and Bary’s secret alliance uncovered

Cairo, September 30, 2007

The state security court saw today a new session in the lawsuit filed by Abdelfattah Murad against a number of ministers and governmental bodies demanding a ban on 51 websites- news, blogs and human rights- in order to conceal the assault he made on the intellectual property of the Arabic Network’s report about Internet freedoms in the Arab world. The court decided to adjourn the case to October 20.

Today’s hearing confirmed what the Arabic Network was expecting about the degree of shared interests between Murad and Yousef Al-Badry as one of Al-Badry’s henchmen tried to interfere to bolster Murad’s demands but he didn’t go on.

Yousef Al-Badry notorious for persecuting writers and intellectuals for finiancial gains, made a tribute to Murad in his lawsuit against the Arabic Network, the latter paid him back and applauded his efforts, while making his case today. It became clear that there are two camps, the first comprised of writers, journalists and human rights organizations in front of neo-religious police and members in the ruling party backed by security services.

“They made it easy for us now. There is no compromise now. Either we go for freedom of expression or for those who are preying on press freedoms and journalists to make money off repression” Said Gamal Eid, the Executive Director of HRInfo.com

The record murad gave today was full of false claims and distorted facts in addition to revealing his pro-police brutality stance. He also mentioned that the Association for Legal Aid, and the Centre for Trade Union and Workers’ Services, both the authorities shut down, belong to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, Murad applauded the government for closing the two organizations down thus giving away his vehement enmity against freedom of expression in Egypt.

http://www.hrinfo.net/en/reports/20...