Human Rights Organizations Call on the Attorney General to Stop the Implementation of Imprisonment Penalty On the Nile University Student

In Statements and Position Papers by CIHRS

5435527The human rights organizations signed this statement today; demanding from the attorney general, Judge Hesham Barakat, to promptly rectify the legal mistakes happened in the trial of the Nile University student, Ahmed Khalil, which led to returning a verdict by the Misdemeanor Appellate Court in Sheikh Zayed. The judgment is to jail the student for two weeks over the misdemeanor battery charge that was trumped up after the student along with his friends participate in a protest; in which they called for restoring their university.

The case’s proceedings go back to September 16, 2012, in connection with a sit-in of the Nile University students and professors at the headquarters in Sheikh Zayed city. Ahmed Khalil, a student in Nile University, headed at the same day to the police station there to file a communiqué against a professor called Yehia Ismail; accusing the professor of beating him. The student was surprised with the police forces detaining him after filing a communiqué in which they charged him of beating that professor. It turned out that the officer of the police station had ordered an official to head to El-Sheikh Zayed Specialized hospital to hear the statements of Dr Yehia Ismail, in a proactive move to the student’s one so as to file a communiqué against the student.

The Prosecution started investigations in the two communiqués by hearing first to the statements of Yehia Ismail as a victim, apparently an attempt to improve his legal position, which later on was consistent with the decision of the prosecution to release him, while the student was detained to be referred the following day. Despite that fact that the situation of both parts are similar that necessitates releasing both of them or detaining the two parts, but this clarifies the absence of law in the case since its start in the General Prosecution till its referral to the court.

The fabrication in the case is clear as there is inconsistence between the forensic report, which stated that the plaintiff Dr Yehia Ismail is wounded and his left hand is broken, while the prosecution inspection proved that the wound is in the right hand, which also was confirmed by the professor himself in the prosecution’s investigations. This clearly proves that medical report was forged.

The court of first instance had ignored the defense’s requests, represented in summoning the witnesses and the plaintiff “Dr Yehya Ismail” to hear their statements, which would make it clear to the court. However, the court ordered to jail the student for 3 months without paying attention to the requests of the defense.

Following the appeal on the first-degree verdict, the court confirmed that it recognized the defense’s request and adjourned the trial until October 30 to issue the judgment, and then the defense was surprised with the court’s verdict of convicting the student and taking him into the custody for two weeks.

The undersigned organizations refer that the judgment issued on October 31 by the Misdemeanor Appellant Court came after the decision made by Zayed Misdemeanor Court to imprison Mahmoud Gabr, a researcher in Nile University, for one month with suspension over the accusation of entering the university’s headquarters by force and damaging some plantings. Nevertheless, the students and professors of the Nile University had received a final judgment last April from the Supreme Administrative court that gives them the right to repossess the land and buildings of the university, but the state failed to implement it.

The state’s failure to implement the decision of the Supreme Administrative Court besides the defective procedures in the case make us doubt that there is complicity by the different bodies of the state against the students and professors of Nile University. This matter necessitates the attorney general to make a decision to rectify the procedures of trying the student, and to stop implementing the penalty in order not to prison an innocent student, which consequently will affect his future in a negative way.

Signed Organization:
  1. Arab Network for Human Rights Information
  2. Journalists without Rights
  3. The Hesham Mobarak Law Center
  4. The Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights
  5. Association for Freedom of Expression and of Thought
  6. The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights
  7. Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies
  8. The Land Center for Human Rights
  9. Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance
  10. Nazra for Feminist Studies
  11. The New Woman Foundation
  12. The Egyptian Association for Community Participation Enhancement

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