Ahdaf Soueif, a the member of the National Council and a representative of the movement "No to military trials," said some figures from the National Council and the movement accepted the invitation of Egypt's ruling military council to discuss their demands regarding not trying civilians before military courts. Soueif gave a statement to Youm7 after the meeting, which was held on Monday and lasted for five hours. Members of Egypt's military leadership attended the meeting, including Gen. Hassan al-Rawaynee, commander of the Central Area. Soueif said the meeting witnessed the insistence of the attendents to refuse military trials of civilians, particularly in the shadow of a revolution where ‘change' was the priority. Soueif said the four generals in attendance promised to open complete files regarding those who have been tried before military trials so far. The promise came after the attendees said those tried had not committed any unlawful act. Al-Rawaynee promised to consider the attendents' proposal to shift the cases of civilians from military trials to civil justice and to present the proposal to the ruling military council. According to Soueif, al-Rawaynee also said he could study how to refer all civilians to civil courts with the exception of certain cases. Soueif said two people tried by military courts participated in the meeting: Marwa Abdallah and Mustafa Ismail. They narrated their experience during the meeting. Ahmed Ragheb Ali demanded that lawyers be given their rights during the investigations, rights that have been ignored since the first day of the trials. A committee of the meeting members resulted from the meeting after the decision of general al-Rawaynee to set one of the military courts officers to monitor the existing military courts in general and also to study the individual cases that were applied during the meeting. Professor Mamdouh Hamza expressed his concern of the military trials' influence on Egypt's situation abroad, especially after the proud look that the Egyptian revolution has received from all the European countries. The meeting was attended by Mamdouh Hamza, a professor and spokesman of the National Council; former parliamentarian Sherif Zahran; Judge Ahmed Ragheb, a member of ‘No to military trials'; lawyer and human rights activist Ragia Omran; and human rights activist Mona Seif.
