Board members of the Bar Association, Egypt's biggest professional union, are considering collective resignation as an escalatory measure in response to a court decision to keep two of their colleagues behind bars while their appeal against a five-year jail term is being heard. "The meeting on Tuesday will discuss the escalatory measures to be taken. We are keen on collective measures not individual acts," Hamdi Khalifa, the Chairman of the Bar Association, said Monday. Khalifa added that the lawyers' strike would continue. "The reaction to the court decision must be studied well in order not to harm the lawyers or their clients," he stated. Gamal Sweid, the deputy chief of the Bar Association, called on other board members to submit collective resignation in protest against the stance adopted by the judges. Lawyers in the Delta town of Tanta, where the two convicted lawyers, Ehab Saa'i and Moustafa Fattouh, were sentenced to jail for five years for assaulting prosecutor Basem Abul Roos, protested yesterday again outside the courtrooms calling for their release. "Their detention is intended as a humiliation for lawyers," one protester said. He added that they would not go back to work unless their colleagues were released. Meanwhile, due to the lawyers' strike, a Cairo State Security court delayed until October 17 the case of 25 Islamists accused of killing four Christian jewellers and planning attacks against tourists in Egypt. "The defence team attended, but said they were on strike. The case will resume on October 17," the court said. Despite mounting tensions between the judges and the lawyers, a judge in a Cairo court yesterday intervened to end a dispute that happened between a lawyer and a police officer, who quarrelled with each other. "This is an ordinary dispute over the way of treatment. It has nothing to do with the crisis between the judges and the lawyers," Khalifa said. He lauded the judge's efforts to reconcile the officer and the lawyer.
