Newspaper headlines reflected the tension and disorder on the streets felt and seen for weeks. Cases in point: the four-hour interrogation of TV host and political satirist Bassem Youssef on charges of insulting the president, contempt for Islam and publishing false news; the verdict by the Cairo Court of Appeals that overturned Mohamed Morsi's decision to sack prosecutor-general Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud and appoint Talaat Abdallah in his place as part of a controversial constitutional declaration last November. The start of a protest by railway drivers added to the mayhem. Al-Shorouk on Monday had ‘Motivations of the verdict ignite a battle to sacking prosecutor-general'. Al-Tahrir quoted judges as saying ‘Verdict is final and keeping Abdallah on is act of legal thuggery'. Al-Akhbar wrote ‘Train drivers protest starts today'. Al-Ahram on Sunday wrote ‘Government discusses ways to retrieve investment and rationalise power'. Al-Youm Al-Sabei stated ‘Bloody clashes between police, lawyers in front of Al-Raml police station'. And Al-Watan quoted those who are suffering from long and repeated power cuts: ‘We will not pay the bill'. Abdel-Fattah Abdel-Moneim regarded the verdict by the Court of Appeals as historic and a victory for the rule of law and independence of the judiciary. Abdel-Moneim said the ruling also showed the impulsiveness of the decision issued by President Mohamed Morsi and his presidential team especially when it came after another historic verdict that annulled Morsi's call for holding parliamentary elections. The writer hailed the role of the judiciary and the media in stopping attempts to Brotherhoodise the state. That is why the present regime waged war against both, Abdel-Moneim said. The MB, he added in the independent daily Al-Youm Al-Sabei, started its war against the media even before Morsi won the presidential elections, immediately after the media launched its campaign dubbed “Ikhwan Kaziboun” (Muslim Brotherhood are liars). The MB war against the judiciary, Abdel-Moneim continued, started by attacking the constitutional court and then imposing a siege around it. However, both the judiciary and media “continued their fight against the satanic plans of the present regime”. Amr Abdel-Samie wrote that the verdict of the Court of Appeals raised speculation about the way the crisis was managed. Some believe the verdict would be appealed and that the present Prosecutor-General Talaat Abdallah will stay in his job until the verdict of the appeal. However, that assumption is not possible because the verdict is final. Others believe that Abdallah would give up the position that has harmed his status. However, “we are before a case of political polarisation: the judiciary ruled the re-appointment of Mahmoud after he was sacked in an illegal and unconstitutional way. Meanwhile, Abdallah, the present prosecutor-general, is supported by the authority which insisted on ignoring the verdict and keeping him in his position,” Abdel-Samie elucidated in the official daily Al-Ahram. Any decision taken regarding the issue would be regarded by the authority as a victory for a political group and a defeat for another. Abdel-Samie summed up his column by calling on Abdallah to behave in the way that matches his status and position in the prosecution-general, to act in a way that shows respect for the law, and on the supporters of Mahmoud not to exaggerate in showing their victory because the real winner would be the law and the constitution. Ragaa Al-Nimr wondered why the prosecutor-general caused a crisis and why the state insisted on not implementing the verdict. “Is a meeting of the Supreme Judicial Council that difficult? Is nominating three candidates for that position impossible? Does the president still insist on keeping the constitutional declaration that caused a catastrophe in Egypt?” Al-Nimr asked in the official daily Al-Akhbar. She believed that that matter is not a crisis and does not involve the organisation of protests and million-man marches to call for sacking Abdallah. The presidency should pursue legal channels and should not keep Abdallah unless the decision to appoint him together with the constitutional declaration are issued just for him. The decision to call popular TV satirist Bassem Youssef in for questioning was another cause of concern this week. In his column entitled ‘The farce of holding investigations with the TV host', Wael Kandil wrote that had he been in President Morsi's place he would have stopped the investigation. “Interrogating satirists who are accused of insulting the president does not improve the president's image. It shows that an elected president who is supposed to establish a democracy allows media figures to be prosecuted and taken to court,” Kandil wrote in the independent daily Al-Shorouk . The writer claimed that an exaggerated kind of satire benefits the president rather than insults him. Youssef, the satirist media, together with a weak opposition, Kandil explained, confined themselves in a cycle of lies that contributed to tarnishing their picture before the public. The opposition once claimed that Egypt would sell the Suez Canal, the Nile and the Pyramids to Qatar and in another situation that the people are authorising the army to rule the country and in another situation they made up fake interviews with the president in foreign media and which were put on the Internet. By so doing, Kandil concluded, they harm themselves and serve the president and the regime. Farida Al-Shobashi remembered the romantic crooner Abdel-Halim Hafez on the 36th anniversary of his death. Hafez's voice and songs, she wrote, recorded the battles of the Nasserist era during which the High Dam was built, the Suez Canal nationalised, factories set up and progress achieved in agriculture and education. During these days of great achievements, Al-Shobashi added, “we used to feel them and proudly sing about them with Hafez.” She noted that now we hear about achievements but we never feel them. President Morsi, his premier, his Muslim Brotherhood group and supporters, she added, are under the illusion that they would distract the attention of the public from their sufferings by claiming they made achievements. “I just wonder whether these people walk on the streets, whether they see the long queues to buy bread and gas. Haven't they seen the piles of garbage in the streets?” she asked in the independent daily Al-Watan. Al-Shobashi also asked whether they notice the turmoil that Egypt is going through or the siege imposed around the Media Production Centre and the case of the prosecutor-general. However, she concluded by stating that she still remembers the day in which Hafez died and wonders what he would have sung had he been with us now.
