CAIRO - Egyptian lawyers will hold a nationwide general strike in all types of courts and prosecution offices on Sunday to coincide with an appeal hearing for their two colleagues sentenced to five years in jail. "A large number of lawyers have decided to stage a general strike on Sunday all over the country, as the Tanta court of appeals hold its session in the trial of Ehab Saa'i and Moustafa Fatouh," said Montasser el-Zayyat, who organised a consultative meeting of lawyers on Wednesday night. El-Zayyat added that there would also be a march from the Bar Association to the Supreme Court, calling for the Prosecutor General to declare the outcome of the probe of senior judge Bassem Abul Roos, who was allegedly beaten by the lawyers. The two lawyers Saa'i and Fattouh were sentenced in Tanta to jail for five years for assaulting prosecutor Basem Abul Roos. During their appeal session, the chief judge deferred their lawsuit to July 14 (Sunday) and rejected their release request. "If the Bar Association's board does not take more positive measures to resolve the crisis, there should be a general assembly meeting to lower confidence in them," said el-Zayyat, a former board member of the Bar Association. He added that he had submitted a request to the head of Tanta Appeals Court in order to delegate a new judge to investigate the incident. A group of lawyers filed a lawsuit against Ahmed el-Zind, the head of the Judges' Club, accusing him of insulting lawyers and their profession. El-Sayyed el-Badawi, the head of the opposition Wafd Party, meanwhile invited both lawyers and judges to hold an international conference to discuss the crisis between them. "Why do we not invite Egyptian lawyers, judges and Arab heads of bar associations to a conference to discuss the relation between the judges and lawyers?" el-Badawi asked in a meeting with Galal Shalabi, the head of the Tanta branch of Bar Association. Last week, lawyers in Menoufiya, Gharbia and Kafr el-Sheikh unilaterally ended a one-month strike staged in solidarity with their two detained colleagues who were sentenced to five years in jail, and slammed the Bar Association's efforts to resolve their crisis with the nation's prosecutors and judges as a failure. The Bar Association, the largest union in the country with around 456,000 members, ordered lawyers nation-wide to avoid appearing in court in protest against the detention of the two lawyers. Nation-wide furore has surrounded the trial, especially after allegations arose that judges and their professional association, the Judges' Club, were using the case to settle old scores against lawyers.
