CAIRO: Lawyers staged a national strike on Tuesday after two lawyers involved in an altercation with a district attorney were held on remand for four days. El-Sayyed El-Feqy, a lawyer from Tanta, El-Gharbeya, told Daily News Egypt that the events began last Saturday June 5, when lawyer Ihab Saey Eddin was waiting for district attorney Bassem Mohamed Abdel-Samee to sign a document, at the Tanta courthouse. El-Feqy says that when Saey Eddin entered Abdel-Samee's office to inquire why the latter was taking so long to sign the document, Abdel-Samee slapped the lawyer on the face. When Saey Eddin's colleague Mostafa Fotouh entered the office in order to come to the aid of Saey Eddin, he too was hit by Abdel-Samee, El-Feqy says. Matters deteriorated when the head of the Tanta prosecution office began an investigation into the incident and Abdel-Samee allegedly insulted the lawyers in attendance and said, “Yes I hit them.” Then, El-Feqy says, on Monday, Saey Eddin slapped Abdel-Samee. The prosecution office ordered on Monday that Saey Eddin and Fotouh be detained for four days during the course of investigations into five charges. It is alleged that they assaulted two public officials, Abdel-Samee and policeman Samy Rashwan, and threatened and insulted, verbally and through gestures, five members of the Tanta prosecution office. It is also alleged that Saey Eddin and Fotouh slandered these five individuals as well as causing LE 300 worth of damage to the office of the head of the Tanta prosecution office. Saey Eddin and Fotouh will appear on these charges in the Tanta misdemeanors court on Wednesday June 9. Lawyers have been staging a sit-in in the El-Gharbeya branch of the Lawyers' Syndicate since Saturday in protest at the incident. On Monday, head of the Lawyers' Syndicate Hamdy Khalifa announced that lawyers throughout Egypt would strike on Tuesday. El-Feqy explained to Daily News Egypt that, “the incident would have ended if Abdel-Samee apologized and if action had been taken against him. Instead lawyers feel a sense of injustice because only Saey Eddin and Fotouh are facing charges.” Lawyers writing on the Lawyers Without Shackles website have expressed anger about the treatment of Saey Eddin and Fotouh. A statement by the Qena Lawyers and Political Affairs Committee condemns what it describes as “recurring attacks” on lawyers by members of the public prosecution office and warns of the “frustration” felt by lawyers at members of the judiciary's “misuse of power against lawyers.”
