Youth of the Democratic Front Party and relatives of some people from the city of El-Mahalla (Governorate of Gharbia) being kept in custody on the backdrop of the events on April 6, 2008, staged a protest in front of the Public Prosecutor's Office yesterday. They demanded that the 21 convicts be tried before normal courts rather than the Supreme Emergency State Security Court. The latter sentenced them to serve various terms in jail. After that, the relatives filed an appeal to the Public Prosecutor asking to clarify the social and economic situation of the families of the accused, as most of these families no longer have a breadwinner. The protesters also called on President Hosni Mubarak to pardon the accused. They raised boards such as "a year of sorrow with our children in jail" and "The Front Party calls upon the President to release the sons of el-Mahalla". They also chanted slogans such as "Mr. Public Prosecutor, release them straight away", "Don't give up, el-Mahalla" and "Freedom for all prisoners".
Aida Abdel Hamid, the mother of one of the convicts, said: "My son's been sentenced to three years in jail. He was arrested while on his way back from work on charges of stealing computers. He's our only breadwinner and we have had no one else providing for us ever since." Bushra Hassan, wife of one of the detainees, said: "My husband has been sentenced to three years in prison on charges of resisting the authorities. I have five children and I'm the only one providing for them." Sameh El-Sayed, the brother of a person being kept in custody on charges of possessing weapons and ammunitions, said they heard his brother might be released on this year's anniversary of the July Revolution. He added, though, that this has not been confirmed so far. "We call on President Mubarak to pardon our beloved relatives as quickly as possible," he said. Nour Hamdi, a member of the Front Party, said they decided to resort to the Public Prosecutor to demand that the accused be tried before a civil court, as the Supreme Emergency State Security Court is not competent with trying the accused in criminal cases. He added that the people of el-Mahalla have mostly been charged with possessing weapons, something he described as strange. They said one of the accused was charged with possessing a sack of bricks and those bricks were also shown to the Court as evidence. Shehab Abdel Maguid, the head of the youth organization in the Party, said the party has adopted the case of el-Mahalla's inhabitants and is resorting to President Mubarak as a final step to get an amnesty.
