A few Muslim Brotherhood (MB) MPs threatened to resign from the People's Assembly [lower chamber of Egypt's parliament] Human Rights Committee in protest against what they described as the committee's failure to solve many human rights issues and ineffectiveness in putting its recommendations into effect. There is a conspiracy to kill the committee and to fail to discuss its agenda with the People's Assembly Speaker, MB MP Hussein Ibrahim said, describing the committee as a patient who is dying. He pointed out that some issues have not been put on the committee's agenda, such as the detention of scores of demonstrators calling for breaking the siege on Gaza as well as Sinai events, during which hundreds of Bedouins were attacked by the police. This weakened the committee's role and turned it into an office of complaints, he said. MP Mohammed Omar criticized the committee's receiving routine responses to complaints it sent to the Ministry of the Interior.
For his part, the Chairman of the Committee, Dr. Edward Ghali, reviewed the Interior Ministry's response on the committee's notices during his visit to some prisons. On the other hand, some members of the committee called for a statement backing the Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zeidi, who threw his shoes at US President George Bush. The committee's chairman refused, though, pointing out that the committee's role is just to defend and support the journalist in case he is tortured.
