Egyptian human rights activists on Wednesday demanded that trials of police and those accused of corruption be broadcast on state television. On Tuesday, the Supreme Judicial Council issued a decision opening trials to the public and allowing them to be broadcasted on screens outside the courtroom. Describing the decision as “incomplete” and failing to “bring anything new,” activists who spoke to Al-Masry Al-Youm said they considered it to be nothing more than duplicate of previous decisions. Bahi Eddin Hassan, director of the Cairo Center for Human Rights Studies, called on the cabinet to pressure state television outlets into broadcasting the trials. Hassan pointed out that the Supreme Judicial Council does not have such authority and that it settled for broadcasting trials on screens located inside the courthouse. He went on to say that broadcasting trials live on state television would preserve the trials' integrity and allow Egyptian citizens to monitor them, while failing to broadcast the trials would increase distrust between the people, government and the military junta. Gamal Eid, founder and executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, said live broadcasts would take pressure off courthouses by allowing the public to watch from home, and Fathy Abu al-Hassan, a lawyer for killed protesters' relatives, agreed that broadcasting the trials would alleviate public fury. The lawyer went on to say that he submitted the request for broadcasting trials live to the Cairo Court of Appeal and that it had been signed by 1058 relatives of those killed or injured during the revolution. Translated from the Arabic Edition
