CAIRO: Minya teacher and poet Mounir Said Hanna Marzuq was acquitted Saturday on charges of insulting the president, according to a release by the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI). The 55-year-old, who works in El-Adwa, in the Upper Egyptian province of Minya, is an administrator at the Ministry of Education. He came under fire after writing a satirical poem criticizing President Hosni Mubarak. Although ANHRI contends that the poems "accidentally fell into the hands of security agents , other reports claim that one of Marzuq's colleagues had found them and informed the authorities. Fifteen poems by Marzouq have allegedly depicted or discussed the president in a negative way. Since the poems were never published nor were they intended for widespread distribution, the court decided to drop the charges. None of the poems, however, explicitly mentioned the president. According to reports most of them were fairly abstract. Three lines of one poem were read out during the trial and translated by Los Angeles Times news assistant Amro Hassan: "No one can shine like you shine/You made people feel confused and lost/You made people feel happy and lost. On May 30, Marzuq was sentenced to three years in prison and fined LE 100,000, the maximum sentence for the crime of insulting the head of state. ANHRI, Marzuq's legal representative, had reported that Marzuq was denied a lawyer during the initial trial. He remained imprisoned in Maghagha during this time as he was unable to pay the huge fine. The civil servant's plight received much publicity in the western media and was touted as further evidence of the regime's suppression of free speech. The defendant's younger brother wrote an open letter to President Hosni Mubarak in independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm, asking for clemency. Hamdi Al Assiouty, who works with ANHRI's legal support team, said in a press statement, "the Egyptian judiciary remains the first defense front of freedom of expression. In our defense we mentioned that the first instance trial was unfair and unpublicized and this is what the court of appeal referred to in its fair verdict. People have every right to write memos without security eavesdropping. More famous writers and poets have criticized Mubarak in recent years. It is unclear why this anonymous amateur, was targeted. Neither ANHRI nor Marzuq could be reached for comment.
