CAIRO: The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information and the Hisham Mubarak Law Center publish the facts and details of the conflict and fabricated cases filed by Judge Abdel Fattah Mourad against them and against several Egyptian bloggers, reaching the peak on the case to be heard by AlKhalifa misdemeanor court on Saturday June 26th, 2010. In this case, Gamal Eid, ANHRI executive director, Ahmed Seif, founder of Hisham Mubarak Law Center, and the activist and blogger Amr Gharbia, are indicted of threatening, insult and libel, defamation and misuse of the Internet. The case heard by the Al Khalifa Misdemeanor Court on Saturday 26/6/2010, is the third one to be filed by Judge Abdel Fattah Mourad against human rights organizations and bloggers. In an earlier case before the State Council, Mourad has demanded to block 49 internet sites for allegedly undermining the reputation of Egypt and described them as terrorist sites. In essence, those sites and blogs were the sites that published the incident of infringement on the intellectual property of the Arabic Network report on the freedom of Internet use, of which Mourad has reproduced dozens of pages in a commercial book without mentioning the source or referring to ANHRI report. The court rejected the judge's request and ruled that freedom of speech means that Internet sites are considered like newspapers that should not be blocked referring to the fact these sites offer an information stream to thousands of users and blocking them would deprive users of information access. Then the judge filed an insult and libel case against each of Gamal Eid, Ahmed Seif and Manal Bahi for alleged insult and libel. Dokki Misdemeanor Court ruled an acquittal sentence for all three and a court of appeals upheld the verdict. Arriving at the current case, the dispute reaching the peak by accusing three activists of charges that tarnish their reputations, in retaliation for exposing Judge Abdel Fattah Mourad's infringement on intellectual property. The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information and Hisham Mubarak Center for Law said, “instead of having justice served and our rights retrieved we are pursued on fabricated cases. Every few months the court considers a case against us whereas the investigation on the complaint, which we submitted to the Attorney General on April 3, 2007, against Judge Abdel Fattah Mourad remains pending where it should have been forwarded court years ago. What justice we are enjoying!” ANHRI and HMLC added, “the conflict between us and a citizen assaulting our rights has turned into a conflict between activists and bloggers on one side and a judge on the other side. We insist that Abdel Fattah Mourad is merely a citizen who violated the law and encroached on intellectual property and justice must be served regardless of the parties on that case.” The historical narrative, which we publish June 23, includes all facts on that dispute with the citizen Abdel Fattah Mohammed Murad in chronological order starting by discovering the incident infringing on intellectual property rights, reaching to the hearing on Saturday 26/6/2010. We detailed all fabricated case and the crackdown we are exposed to. It is a story of how we turned from victim to offender . For more information, click here ANHRI
