Al-Ahram Weekly reviews the headline-grabbing stories of 2007 and assesses the ways in which they will impact on 2008 A force to reckon with DURING the course of 2007, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), Egypt's oldest and most influential opposition bloc, was subjected to a heavy-handed crackdown as the state attempted to curtail its growing influence while the MB itself embarked on a new tack, reaching out to society and announcing its intention to establish a political party. The regime escalated its campaign against the group in December 2006, following a military-style demonstration staged by Islamist students at Al-Azhar University in which they wore militia-style uniforms and balaclavas. Scores of students were arrested -- later to be released -- along with the group's deputy supreme guide, businessman Khairat El-Shater. El-Shater faced charges of seeking to form a paramilitary group and later of financing the alleged group's military activities. In retrospect, December 2006 seems only to have been a rehearsal. On 11 January 2007, President Hosni Mubarak signalled an intensification of anti-Brotherhood activity when he said in an interview that the spectre of growing Islamist influence threatened investment in Egypt and could lead to the country's isolation, undermining Egypt's security. Mubarak's statements were interpreted by commentators as heralding the start of a period of zero-tolerance of the group, predictions that were reinforced by a series of round-ups of MB members as activists from across its ranks were arrested. On 12 January, a day after Mubarak's interview, the MB announced that it intended to establish a "civil" political party "embracing Muslims and non-Muslims". The move was widely seen as an attempt by the MB to present itself as a force committed to civil society. Two days later more arrests took place, and those already arrested had their periods of detention extended pending further interrogation. Among the arrested were key group figures and wealthy businessmen, including Mohamed Bishr from the group's Guidance Bureau, Essam Hashish, a Cairo University professor and Brotherhood leader in Giza, Medhat El-Haddad, Osama Abdel-Mohsen, Abdel-Rahman Saudi and Khaled Ouda. The arrests targeted the group's financial infrastructure just as the state was planning amendments to 34 articles of the constitution, the main aim of which, said a majority of analysts, was to prevent the MB from ever reaching power through legitimate channels by forbidding the formation of political parties based on religion. By the end of January, an estimated 400 Muslim Brothers had been detained. Among them were many of the group's leading figures, including members of the Guidance Bureau, to fill wealthy businessmen thought to finance the MB's activities, and those described by the security apparatus as key players in the group's paramilitary wing. In February, 40 members of the group's wealthiest businessmen were referred to a military court on charges that included promoting terrorism, money laundering and plotting to overthrow the regime. Six were tried in absentia. It was the first military trial the group had faced since 2001. The arrests and military trial were accompanied by a concerted campaign in the pro-government press accusing the MB of setting up secret channels to recruit members of the radical groups that emerged in Egypt in the late 1980s and early 1990s. "The group ordered its militias to travel abroad for military training in preparation for taking over the regime" was typical of the headlines that appeared. El-Shater was accused of financing the new militias. As the clampdown continued some political analysts began to question the efficacy of the policy. The arrests, trials and smear campaigns could easily backfire, warned political science professor Hassan Nafaa, and the state's oppressive strategy, instead of seeing the MB lose ground with the public could actually force the opposite result. The MB's response to such attrition was to intensify its public relations efforts, engaging in debates with well-known political and intellectual figures and posting statements from its supreme guide on its website. Families of Brothers facing military trials played their cards carefully as they courted popular support, raising the slogan "no to military tribunals for civilians", launching petitions and keeping the press updated by circulating e-mails and text messages. The children of the detained appeared regularly outside courtrooms holding banners urging the immediate release of the "freedom fighters" in a clear attempt to tug on the public's heart strings. Nafaa's predictions appeared to be correct when hundreds of intellectuals, regardless of their position towards the MB, signed their names to petitions demanding an end to the military tribunals. On 16 December 2007, almost a year after the arrests, the military court amended its bill of indictment, dropping the charges of terrorism and money laundering, but in the case of El-Shater, Malek and five other defendants, some of whom reside abroad, adding charges of organising and financing a proscribed group. The new accusations were described by the group's attorney as "further proof that the case is politically motivated". Brotherhood MPs who, by running as independents now occupy a fifth of seats in the People's Assembly, met with foreign diplomats as part of the campaign to reach out to international civil society. Together with discussions with intellectuals and human rights activists, the meetings, say MB leaders, are part of a concerted effort to elucidate the group's vision and clarifying its agenda to counter official misrepresentations. In several interviews senior members of the group insisted it was important that they act to dispel people's worries and stress that the MB's aim is to form a civil party that does not differentiate between citizens on the grounds of race, sex or religion. In the wake of the clampdown, MB MPs launched a scathing attack on the record of the government of Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif as they sought to embarrass cabinet ministers over issues that ranged from the prevalence of torture in police custody, privatisation and the phasing of energy subsidies. The Muslim Brotherhood also proved a thorn in the side of government attempts to end practices such as female genital mutilation, insisting that they are Islamic practices that must be maintained. When in June MB nominees were prevented from running for the Shura Council elections the number of interpellations addressed to ministers by the group's MPs increased. In August the group launched the manifesto of its putative political party: predictably, say critics, it fudged a large number of core issues. Not only was it vague over central tenets of foreign policy, including the Camp David accords and Egypt's strategic relationship with the US, it was deliberately vague about the status of Egypt's Coptic Christians, the role of women in society, and skirted issues relating to the imposition of Sharia law as it relates to the economy, not least tourism, one of Egypt's most important sources of hard currency. Political analysts interviewed by Al-Ahram Weekly point out that while the ability of the group to establish itself as the most coherent opposition bloc to the regime in the face of repeated security clampdowns is in itself an achievement, the greatest challenge now facing the MB is to formulate a programme that convincingly separates the religious from the political. Should they fail to rise to this challenge the MB will always lack credibility as a political group committed to the rotation of power through peaceful and democratic means. Jailan Halawi Syndicate battleground PROFESSIONAL syndicates look set to continue their battle with the state as the demands of engineers, doctors and journalists continue to be ignored or are met, at best, with false promises. Engineers are fighting to end the judicial sequestration of their syndicate, doctors want higher salaries while journalists are pressing for an end to custodial sentences for publication offences. The state has so far shown itself unwilling to move to meet any of their demands. "We are really fed up," says Rifaat Bayoumi, a leading member of the Engineers Against Sequestration Group formed in 2004 to pressure for an end to the sequestration imposed on the syndicate in 1995. A court ruling in 2004 should have ended the sequestration, paving the way for new elections, but has yet to be implemented. Several dates for elections have been set by Irrigation Minister Mahmoud Abu Zeid in his capacity as syndicate supervisor and each time legal pretexts have been cited for failing to hold the poll. Sit-ins, street conferences and negotiations with Abu Zeid have all failed. "We're not going to give in", says Bayoumi. "The more than 300,000 members of the Engineers' Syndicate will not stand idly by while their money is looted by custodians." Bayoumi claims that since being placed under sequestration LE12 billion of Engineers' Syndicate funds have gone missing. "Our struggle to liberate the syndicate will not stop," insists Bayoumi, adding that engineers enjoy support from across the political spectrum. The Doctors' Syndicate may have escaped sequestration but it, too, has seen elections postponed since 1995. Council members, while lacking a popular mandate, continue to press for doctors' demands, on top of which is improving the financial conditions. "We are not going to beg for our financial rights," says chairman of the Doctors' Syndicate Hamdi El-Sayed. "Instead we will escalate protest measures." These, he says, might include adding sit-ins and work stoppages. The pressure group Doctors without Rights says the salaries of more than 180,000 doctors are less than those of hospital cleaners. Nor was 2007 a happy year for journalists. Last September nine journalists working for opposition and independent newspapers were handed prison sentences after being found guilty of libelling senior members at the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), including President Mubarak and members of his family. The case against the journalists was viewed by many as an attempt to silence voices critical of the regime. Ibrahim Eissa, editor of the independent newspaper Al-Dostour, was also referred to trial on charges of publishing rumours concerning Mubarak's health. In protest, 22 independent and opposition publications decided to cancel publication on 7 October. Imprisoning journalists is not the only blow directed against an independent press. A report issued last month by the State Jurisdiction Body stipulated that the budgets of private press organisations should be subject to supervision by the Central Auditing Authority (CAA). The CAA's mandate has previously been restricted to monitoring the spending of public monies, though now it is effectively in charge of supervising the legal and administrative affairs of independent newspapers and magazines. Evidence of any financial or administrative irregularities must be referred to the prosecutor-general, said the State Jurisdiction Body's report. Journalists warn that the report could furnish a legal justification for the sequestration of Egypt's 58 independent publications and have called for council members of the Press Syndicate, elected last month, to put aside their differences to fight the threat. Judges defend independence "IT SOMETIMES seems that official attacks against judges will never stop," says veteran judge Ahmed Mekki, summing up the last 12 months of relations between the judiciary and the regime. The opening shots in the ongoing battle were fired last March when the state decided to end full judicial supervision of elections. In the wake of the 2005 presidential and parliamentary polls judges monitoring the poll made public incidents of electoral fraud: in response the government set about limiting the supervisory role of judges, announcing constitutional amendments to diminish their involvement. Judges then decided to boycott the supervision of the referendum necessary before the new amendments pass into law, with judges' clubs mobilising their members to oppose the constitutional changes. A committee was then formed to monitor the referendum and report any irregularities. Last May another blow was directed against judges calling for reform when the People's Assembly endorsed an amendment of the judiciary law which extended the retirement of judges from 68 to 70. The move was widely interpreted as an attempt by the regime to reward senior judges who had displayed loyalty to the state and bar the way to professional advancement to younger, more reform-minded judges. Officials deny that the changes were politically motivated, arguing that they were necessary to allow younger judges to benefit from the experience of older members of the judiciary. "If the question were really one of passing on experience then why not let them hear the backlog of thousands of lawsuits rather than occupy administrative posts?" says Mekki. The amendment of the judiciary law was endorsed by the People's Assembly a week after it had approved a new military tribunal law. The latter has been roundly criticised by judges and opposition groups for stripping the civilian judicial system of powers in favour of military tribunals. Judges have also been angered by draft regulations for the Higher Council for Judicial Bodies prepared secretly by Justice Minister Mamdouh Marei and leaked only last month. The draft, they said, amounted to "a massacre of the judiciary". Its eight articles tightened the grip of the executive authority, represented by the minister of justice, across the whole range of judicial affairs. The most serious article, judges argued, was the one abolishing judicial immunity, a constitutional privilege intended to guarantee the neutrality and independence of judges. The draft was also criticised for depriving judges of control of their own budget, something for which they had campaigned for years and received only in 2006. The draft, which was rejected even by the state-appointed heads of the judicial bodies, was to top the agenda of an emergency general assembly at the Cairo Judges' Club's headquarters when President Hosni Mubarak made a surprise intervention and ordered that the draft be withdrawn. The presidential order meant that the draft law was back to square one, with all articles subject to thorough discussion by judges before being resubmitted. Though relieved, judges remain wary of Marei's ongoing attempts to curb what is left of their independence. Since joining the cabinet in August 2006, Marei has adopted an aggressive position towards judges. In February, he publicly questioned their competence, telling the Shura Council that of 2,000 judges only 200 could be considered efficient. Reacting to Marei's statements Zakaria Abdel-Aziz, chairman of the Cairo Judges' Club, filed a complaint against the minister with the Higher Judiciary Council, requesting punitive measures be taken against Marei. Judges from the provinces joined the fray. Besides the tight financial siege imposed on judges' clubs the minister has referred several judges to disciplinary courts and in March filed a lawsuit against Judge Hamdi Wafiq, a board member of the Damietta Judges' Club, accusing him of libelling President Mubarak. Few anticipate that 2008 will bring a thaw in relations between the executive and judiciary. Marei has shown no signs of changing his position towards the judges' clubs while members of the clubs remain adamant that they will not give up their independence without a fight. Mona El-Nahhas Much to be modest about MUDDLED expectations, more openness on religious freedoms and the correlation between religion and civil rights were defining features of 2007. Perhaps one of the most determining characteristics of 2007 is not so much the manner in which religion generally has had an ever-increasing impact on public life. Rather, it is that the entire question of religious affiliation and the precise nature of its correlation to citizenship and civil rights have become the subject of a pronouncedly open public debate. The rough edges of the politico-religious debate have not been sanded off. What has changed is the nature of the debate and the fashion in which the media tackled the prickly question of religious rights. The year ended with the release on 17-18 December of more than 200 militant Islamist Jihad prisoner-activists. The amnesty was officially described as a goodwill gesture on the occasion of Eid Al-Adha (Greater Bairam). The move was preceded by a pledge by a senior Jihad leader Sayed Emam to cease violent operations. Ironically, 2007 began with massive and exceptionally violent demonstrations by students of Al-Azhar University which were judged by the state security apparatus to be instigated by the Muslim Brotherhood. Activists, including the Deputy General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood Mohamed Khairat El-Shater, were referred to the public prosecution and charged with masterminding the student rioting. However, the Muslim Brotherhood's own ambiguous religious agenda has come under scrutiny from members of religious minorities and more liberal or secular Muslims. Indeed, a similar gulf within the Coptic community created confusion about what to expect. "I strongly object to the term 'religious minority'. Coptic Christians are Egyptian citizens and to pigeon-hole them into a religious minority implies that the country is divided along religious lines," Samir Morcos told Al-Ahram Weekly. "Copts are not a homogeneous community but like Muslims are differentiated according to social class and economic stratification. A poor Muslim suffers much the same problems as his poor Coptic compatriot. The poor are discriminated against and their civil rights are often violated be they Copt or Muslim," Morcos added. Furthermore, he stressed that a distinction should be made between religious and civil questions. There is a difference between essentially religious questions such as problems associated with the construction of churches and civil rights issues, for instance, when an individual believes that his or her rights are violated or that he or she is persecuted on religious grounds," Morcos explained. On 16 December, sectarian violence erupted in the Upper Egyptian city of Esna in which scores of people were injured. The Esna violence seems to follow a pattern in which Coptic shopkeepers or pharmacists are accused of harassing Muslim women. In retaliation, Muslim mobs attack Christians. Morcos noted that this was not a particularly new phenomena, but that such incidents have increased of late. He also cited the incident of Al-Ayyat, Giza, as an example that sectarian strife was much in evidence in 2007. Nothing justifies violence deliberately aimed at civilians, which is what the violence in Al-Ayyat indicated. Moreover, he also pointed out that many Christians feel uneasy about -- and even threatened by -- the Muslim Brotherhood's views on Coptic participation in public life in Egypt, and especially as far as politics is concerned, as outlined by the Brotherhood's programme. On the positive side, Morcos expressed optimism that at least there is more openness in the country about squarely facing such challenges. Have things changed? Yes and no. In theory these are hopeful times as far as civil rights activists are concerned. However, it is clear that an undercurrent of tensions remains palpably simmering beneath a seemingly tranquil surface. A less alarmist view is that Copts and Muslims in Egypt could potter along as they have been doing for decades, if not centuries. But as they potter, compromise sometimes grows harder, especially with the increasing interference by immigrant Coptic communities in North America and elsewhere in Egyptian domestic politics. Indeed, the immigrant Coptic community, especially of the United States, has become something of a self-styled advocate of Coptic rights in Egypt and more often than not vociferously so. A speech delivered by the Minister of Manpower and Human Resources Aisha Abdel-Hadi, for instance, infuriated the immigrant Coptic community in America. The minister was quoted in the official Al-Ahram as saying that, "Egypt emphasises that there are absolutely no provisions in the legislation that allow for discrimination between Egyptians along religious grounds". The minister's statement prompted an angry rejoinder by the Coptic Assembly of America. They were particularly incensed because the minister was quoted as saying that according to state statistics while Copts constitute 10 per cent of the population, they possess more than one third of the wealth of the country. The United States-based Forbes magazine, noted that three Copts among the 10 wealthiest men topped the list in the Arab world, while no Muslim Egyptian made it. How did other religious minorities fare in 2007? The Bahaai community in Egypt is among the most disgruntled. The Bahaai community is generally among the most prosperous and law-abiding in many countries around the world and not only in the West. In Egypt, however, they have had a rotten luck. That is a good cause for worry. Amid confusion and half-truths, the controversy surrounding the nature of the Bahaais of Egypt continues unabated. As far as the Christian communities of Egypt are concerned, the most pressing issue is full citizenship and civil rights. The same goes for the Bahaai community in Egypt today. "The crux of the matter is our struggle for official recognition as Egyptians and for full citizenship rights," Labib Iskandar, a leading Egyptian Bahaai, and a professor of engineering at Cairo University told Al-Ahram Weekly. "We move about without personal identification cards. That is a criminal offence in Egypt. We could be stopped by police at any moment, anywhere and asked for our ID," he explained. The removal of religious affiliation slot on computerised ID cards has become not only a question of priority for the Bahaai community, but has also been advocated by non-other an influential organisation than the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR). "Inability to produce an ID card entails a five-year prison sentence. Still, we have faith in the legal system," Basma Moussa, a dentist and an assistant lecturer at Cairo University, yet another outspoken Egyptian Bahaai concurred. Moussa, a vociferous spokeswoman on the plight of Egypt's Bahaais, told the Weekly that the conditions of Bahaais in Egypt has become untenable. "I am a university professor but cannot even withdraw money from my bank account because I do not have an ID card. I cannot even buy or register a car," she complained. "Worse, there are many Bahaai youngsters who cannot even enroll at schools or universities because they do not have birth certificates or ID cards. This causes serious psychological traumas. It is most distressing for the parents and disheartening for the youth. The right to education is a particularly important human right," she explained. "All Bahaai children born in 2004 and afterwards cannot have birth certificates. Shall we lie about our religion in order to secure false birth certificates," she demanded in desperation. Ironically, in 1924, Egypt became the first predominantly Muslim state to legally recognise the Bahaai faith. However, this initial tolerance was repealed in the 1960s. Currently, Bahaai institutions and public practice of the Bahaai faith is prohibited by Law 263. In an ideal world, they should. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, former secretary-general of the United Nations and currently head of the National Council for Human Rights assured the Weekly that his organisation, an advisory body, had recommended to the government that the slot pertaining to religion on the ID cards be discarded. Conceivably in the not so distant future, this demand by Bahaais and others will be realised. And, 2007 has been a year in which their specific grievances have come to the fore. "That is the only positive aspect of 2007. At least now we are discussing our predicament in public forums and that makes 2007 relatively better than 2008," Moussa concluded. As Copts, too, contemplate a prouder future, positions differ on how precarious the situation is. Some Copts want to engage more prominently in peaceful politics, to partake of the democratisation process. But it is hard to determine precisely what degree of freedom the country's assorted religious minorities have attained in 2007. The controversial question of religious conversion was also highlighted in 2007, when in an unprecedented move Mohamed Beshoi Hegazy, a Muslim convert to Christianity and openly declared his Christian faith hit the headlines. Hegazy might not be the first Egyptian Muslim to convert to Christianity, but he became the first Christian convert to seek official recognition of his conversion from the Egyptian authorities. Again, Hegazy insists that his religious affiliation be changed from Islam to Christianity on his national ID card. Gamal Nkrumah Body and mind HEALTH issues repeatedly hit the headlines in 2007, though the manner in which they were reported, and the often conflicting official advice, left the public bemused, often confused, and increasingly unwilling to take official reassurances at face value. Bird flu, in recent weeks rubella (German measles), Hepatitis C (HCV) and cancer have all had their share of column inches, though it is the first that has received the most attention, both from the public and officials. The H5N1 strain of Avian Flu affected 18 people in 2006: by the end of the first six months of 2007, 20 additional cases had been reported. Fifteen out of the 38 victims died, while the remaining were successfully treated with Tamiflu. In January, a mutation of the virus (the new 294S strain) was identified though only two people are thought to have contracted the new strain which officials say does not represent a step towards human-to-human infection. Egypt's health officials have consistently downplayed the disease, claiming that bird flu has been contained. "Bird flu is under control and vaccination campaigns are planned to cover Egypt's entire poultry population," announced Abdel-Rahman Shaheen, the official Ministry of Health and Population (MOHP) spokesman. "Soon Egypt will be free of the deadly H5N1 virus." The General Authority for Veterinary Services (GAVS), affiliated with the Ministry of Agriculture, said last month that it had imported 500,000 doses of anti-H5N1 vaccines to immunise poultry. The MOHP also reports stockpiles of more than five million courses of Tamiflu. Egypt faces a double health crisis, with a high incidence of non-communicable diseases, including cancer, and a scourge of transmissible diseases such as rubella and HCV, all associated with poverty and hygiene problems. This year's rubella outbreak is believed to have infected thousands of students and adults across the country, and in the resulting panic thousands of children were kept back from school by worried parents. While German measles is a relatively mild illness, the extent of infections -- more than 11,250 were reported during 2007 -- is causing concern. It is believed that 15-20 per cent of the population is infected with the Hepatitis C virus, and the number of new cases of cancers reported annually is estimated at 65,000. The Health Ministry is currently developing a cancer control strategy in an attempt to reduce the number of cancer patients, lessening risk factors by planning and implementing cancer prevention and control strategies. Contaminated blood bags hit the headlines in 2007 in a still unravelling scandal. Hayedelena for Advanced Medical Industries Company (HAMIC) delivered 300,000 blood bags to the Health Ministry which were discovered to have serious technical defects. Hayedelena's CEO Hani Sorour, a member of parliament, was convicted of supplying the defective blood bags to the ministry in a contract worth LE4 million. Sorour, who was stripped of his political immunity when the scandal became public, denied claims that the contaminated blood bags could lead to cancer and kidney failure. Sorour and his sister, Nevan, are currently in detention pending an ongoing investigation, along with five others suspected of involvement in the scandal. In the wake of news reports many people stopped donating blood, especially after a death occurred following a transfusion involving one of the contaminated bags, and a sharp decrease of stocks was reported by blood banks. Testifying in court on 11 December, Health and Population Minister Hatem El-Gebali said the ministry had not yet paid Sorour. The case against him continues. A second, equally disturbing crime emerged when it was discovered that milk had been offered for sale containing traces of peroxide, chlorine and fertiliser. The milk is thought to have been produced by unlicensed dairies -- according to officials there are no accurate statistics as to the number of illegal dairies though they are sufficiently numerous to exercise considerable lobbying influence. Individual dairies can produce up to 40 tonnes of milk which sells for between LE2 to LE4 a litre. A sea of catastrophe THE YEAR ended much as it had begun, on a tragic note. On the second day of Eid Al-Adha a subway train overshot the platform and crashed at Helwan station injuring 46 passengers. The driver of the train, who is to be questioned as soon as he recovers from his injuries, claims he was distracted by a passenger constantly banging on the doors, and there have been reports that the brake units inside the train were faulty. Initial findings by the team investigating the cause of the crash, however, confirm that the train's automated control belt and other safety systems were in good order. On the fourth day of Eid Al-Adha 16 people, including four children, drowned and five others were hospitalised when a minibus plunged into the Nile at Deir Mowas in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Minya. The accident occurred at 10am, as families were returning to their village following the Eid festivities. The minibus on which they were travelling was driven onto a cross Nile ferry where it slipped to the back of the boat and then plunged into the river. Rescue workers have recovered 11 bodies from the minibus. The search for five missing passengers continues. At least five people were killed, nine were injured and 20 reported missing when a 12-storey building consisting of 36 flats collapsed in Alexandria on Monday. Five bodies were pulled out from beneath the rubble as ambulances and civil defence teams continued to search for those missing. The building, reportedly built in 1982, in the Loran district east of Alexandria city, was home to dozens of people but the fall happened in the early morning after many residents had left for work or school. A police official said the building had seven original storeys, with five more built in recent years. Local authorities had ordered the removal of the top two floors because they contravened building laws in 1995, but the order was not implemented. The owners of the building had been ordered several times, up to 2002, to upgrade the building but work was repeatedly delayed due to disagreements among residents. According to Alexandria Governor Adel Labib, some workers had been renovating the first floor when the building suddenly tilted to one side and collapsed. Labib ordered the three buildings on either side of the ruins to be evacuated after they, too, partially fell. Young Egyptians, desperate to find employment and opportunities to improve their lives, fled across the Mediterranean on rickety boats, seeking illegal entry into Europe only to have their hopes dashed when the boats sank off the Italian coast. More than 100 lives were lost in such a way during the course of 2007. The hapless would-be immigrants were victims of human traffickers who prey on frustrated young Egyptians, holding out the promise of a brighter future north of the Mediterranean. While officials are proud of statistics revealing healthy economic growth rates the benefits have yet to trickle down and far too few jobs are being generated to absorb new entries to the job market. High rates of unemployment, low salaries and increased inflation has made life intolerable for all too many families in Egypt, contributing to a crisis that few commentators expect to be solved anytime soon. In March this year the trial began of gang members accused of abducting, abusing and then murdering at least two dozen children over a spree that lasted several years. The gang are reported to have thrown many of their victims on the railroad tracks were the bodies were cut into pieces by passing trains. The story first hit the headlines in December 2006: the gang leader, Ramadan Abdel-Rahman, known as El-Torbini, was subsequently sentenced to death along with one of his seven accomplices. The rest were jailed in June. Hend Mohamed gave birth at the age 11 after being raped. Mohamed Sami, 21, a tuk-tuk driver, was accused of threatening the girl with a knife, dragging her to a deserted area, reportedly raping her, then threatened to kill her if she told anyone what had happened. Terrified, the young girl kept silent for five months when it was discovered she was pregnant. Though the victim identified Sami after her family reported the incident he was subsequently released after it was shown he had not been at the scene of the alleged crime. The rapist remains at large. The Maadi saffah (serial killer) didn't actually kill anyone, though he became the talk of the town for months. The story, which grabbed the public's imagination, began on 20 December 2006 when news reports surfaced of a knife-wielding assailant who attacked young women walking alone in Maadi before fleeing on a motorbike. No robbery was involved, and there were no witnesses to any of the six attacks apart from the victims. The attacks spawned an outbreak of panic -- some might say hysteria -- among the residents of New Maadi. Many of the victims moved to other parts of town to stay with relatives. They were advised not to speak to the press for reasons of "personal safety". Checkpoints were set up along the autostrade linking Maadi to Nasr City and the streets of New Maadi were filled with plain-clothed policemen, as was nearby Maadi, home to many foreign diplomats, including the Israeli ambassador to Egypt, and embassies. Though it is months since the last reported incident, the unidentified Maadi assailant remains at large. Love of money or hate of country? Both appeared to have been involved in the high-profile spying cases that have hit the headlines. Mohamed Essam El-Attar and Mohamed Sayed Saber were accused of spying for Israel in separate cases. El-Attar, who appeared in court in February, pleaded innocent but was found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in prison. It was reported that he was not only a homosexual but an apostate who had converted from Islam to Christianity. Saber admitted to collaborating with the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad but insisted that the information he had passed was not classified which is why he had pleaded innocent. Saber is reported to have told his interrogators that he at one point considered emigrating to Israel, going so far as to apply to the Israeli Embassy in Cairo. According to Saber, he admired the work of Israel's universities and believed that living there would be the best way to make progress with his own research. He was sentenced to 25 years in jail. Street children continued to blight the national conscience. Their number is estimated at anything between 200,000 and a million, most of them in Cairo and Alexandria. The children lead an often dangerous life that leaves them deprived of their basic needs -- protection, guidance, adequate healthcare -- and prey to myriad forms of exploitation, violence and abuse. For many, survival on the street means begging and sexual exploitation by adults. In one survey 50 per cent of respondents reported they had been raped. Egypt's National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM) has set up several centres to train social workers on the rights of children and the risks they face living on the street. It also provides training directly to the children through the social workers. The centres offer health services including check-ups and hospital referrals. Reem Leila
