CAIRO: Eighteen parliament members affiliated with the National Democratic Party (NDP) were among the 111 votes against lifting the parliamentary immunity of Sabry Amer and Ragab Abu Zeid, according to Haidar El Boghdady, a parliament member belonging to the NDP. The two parliament members are affiliated with the illegal Muslim Brotherhood group. However, 181 voted for Amer and Abu Zeid s parliamentary immunity to be lifted, according to El Boghdady. Both Amer and Abu Zeid were taken into custody at Menufiya city last April during a meeting they were holding with some members of the Brotherhood to discuss the upcoming Shura elections. According to the constitution, parliament members cannot be detained or investigated without removing their immunity. Sobhy Saleh, a parliament member affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood group, told The Daily Star Egypt that the accusations were based on the actions of the two members relating to the Muslim Brotherhood group over the past two years, even before they became members of parliament. The question, now, is what new happened that made lifting their parliamentary immunity necessary? Saleh asked. However, the only charge announced in Amer and Abu Zeid s case was the holding of a Brotherhood meeting in Menufiya city last April. It would have been enough that the prosecutor s office gets permission to hear their statements on the crime they are accused of rather than lifting their parliamentary immunity, El Boghdady told The Daily Star Egypt. Lifting parliamentary immunity should only take place if parliament members get caught committing a crime, El Boghdady added. According to Saleh, what Amer and Abu Zeid have committed does not require any action to be taken against them. Saleh indicated that the decision to lift immunity is illegal and has nothing to do with the constitution or the law. The decision was taken for political reasons, according to Saleh. On the other hand, Mohamed Khalil Kwaitah, a parliament member affiliated with the NDP, told The Daily Star Egypt that the lifting of immunity gives freedom to parliament members to defend themselves as they get released from the parliamentary restrictions. Kwaitah said that the accused person remains innocent until proven guilty, and according to him, the lifting of immunity will give Amer and Abu Zeid the space to defend themselves. However if the immunity is not lifted, the accusation will remain on hold, Kwaitah added. Nabil Abdel Fattah, a political analyst from Al Ahram Center for Strategic and Political Studies, told The Daily Star Egypt, that the investigative authorities have the right to ask for the lifting of immunity of any parliament member provided that it has a specific charge filed against him. Until now, according to Abdel Fattah, it has not been proven if the two members were holding a Muslim Brotherhood meeting or not. Legally speaking, the Muslim Brotherhood group is an illegal group and all of its activities can be considered a violation of the law, so a Muslim Brotherhood meeting can, from this angle, be considered illegal, Abdel Fattah added. However, Abdel Fattah indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood's current situation is complicated. Practically, the Muslim Brotherhoods are present in our political life, Abdel Fattah said, and they occupy around 20 percent of the People s Assembly seats. So, from one side, the group does exist and is allowed to practice as matter-of-fact but, from another it is considered illegal by the law, Abdel Fattah added. This duality, according to Abdel Fattah, is very strange, yet he believes it was intentionally established by the government to be able to intervene in the groups activities and stop them whenever their powers increase to the extent that they threaten the government s prevalence. In Amer and Abu Zeid s case, Abdel Fattah believes that the quickness by which the arrests and the immunity lifting procedures were taken proves the presence of more tension between the government and the Muslim Brotherhood group. The political party has recently become the strongest opposition power in the country, enjoying high awareness and acceptance among Egyptian citizens.
