The prosecutor-general has refused to re-open the Maadi nursery school sexual abuse case. Lina Mahmoud reports on how shocking the decision was for the alleged victims A late July appeal to the prosecutor- general by some 28 non-governmental organisations, demanding that the Maadi nursery school sexual abuse case be re-opened, was rejected last Saturday. The case had briefly flared in March, after three sets of parents claimed the owner of, and two teachers at, Maadi's Norhan Nursery School had raped their sons. While the three alleged culprits were promptly arrested and accused of child molestation, by 17 April the prosecutor-general had abruptly announced the case closed, on the grounds of "insufficient evidence". The official medical examinations, he said, indicated that the children had not been raped. The accused men -- nursery owner Ismail Mohamed, and two teachers Ayman El-Basha and Essam Imam (who were giving private lessons to older students on the premises) -- were set free with an apology. The demand, on the part of the NGOs, that the case be re-opened was based on a new forensic report, produced upon the organisations' and parents' request after further examination of the three children. Three doctors from Cairo University's Faculty of Medicine, Nadia Abdel-Moneim Kotb, Mahmoud Sami El-Hefni, and Mohamed Amin El-Fawal, carried out the examination. Their report tells a vastly different story from the one used by the prosecutor-general: "Similar healing signs of old anal wounds in the three children were found. Two children [are inflicted with] clamydia trachomatis, a microbe [that can only be] transmitted through sexual intercourse. The electromiogramme has found that the anal muscle of one child has been weakened." The conclusion: "These are [all] evidence that the children were repeatedly raped during the period from September 2003 until March 2004." The prosecutor-general's rejection of the appeal has the NGOs and parents fuming. Adel Badr of the Egyptian Child Rights Centre (ECRC) said it was a "basic human right that the case be re- opened when new evidences come up." Badr said no consideration was given to the findings of the new forensic report. According to Badr, the case has clearly been politicised, a decision seemingly having been made to keep the file closed. The prosecutor- general, he said, even accused the press last spring of scaring people by publishing the news. "The rights of Egyptian children are really at stake," said an angry Badr. "Little attention is given to the future of three children who were sexually molested and will continue to suffer physically and psychologically. When will [the government] move? What are they waiting for?" The ECRC's Hani Hilal said, "the prosecutor general, not only rejected the appeal, but he also refused to provide reasons for his decision." Hilal and other NGO activists intend to file local and international complaints. "We are going to complain to the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood and the National Council for Human Rights as well as the United Nations Child Rights Treaty follow up committee. We believe in the justice of this cause and will take any possible legal action to get these children their rights," Hilal said. The father of one of the children said his son has not forgotten about what happened to him. "He is still scared of schools and teachers. He also gets terrified whenever a doctor tries to examine him. He has become sad and lonely." For the parents, the worst part was that not even their lowest expectations -- that the guilty would be punished -- have materialised. "We scandalised ourselves by reporting this to the police," he said, "and now they are free. They have even filed their own lawsuits against us." Lawsuits are indeed pending charging the parents with filing false reports. Some of the publications which reported the story are also being targetted for legal action.
