[This is a collection of news updates on Egypt compiled from multiple sources by the editors.]
Egypt Presidency Announces Names of Fifty-Member Constitution Committee
Presidential spokesman Badawi announces names of fifty-member committee to amend suspended 2012 constitution.
Presidential spokesman Ihab Badawi has announced on Sunday afternoon the names of the fifty member-committee tasked with amending the suspended 2012 constitution.
Below is the fifty members of the committee commissioned with draft the amended version of the 2012 constitution:
1. Diaa Rashwan (journalists)
2. Mona Zul-Fekar (human rights)
3. Mohamed Magd El-Deen (armed forces)
4. El-Sayed Badawi (liberal parties)
5. Mohamed Aboul Ghar (liberal parties)
6. Gaber Nassar (public figures)
7. Mohamed Salmawy (writers)
8. Bassam El-Zarqa (Islamist currents)
9. Amr Moussa (public figures)
10. Sameh Ashour (lawyers)
11. Shawky Allam (Al-Azhar)
12. Bishop Paula (Coptic Church)
13. Mervate El-Talawy (National Council for Women)
14. Mohamed Abdel-Aziz (youth movement)
15. Ahmed Eid (youth movement)
16. Mahmoud Badr (youth movement)
17. Amr Salah (youth movement)
18. Mohamed Abla (artists)
19. Sayed Hegab (High Council for Culture)
20. Khaled Youssef (artists)
21. Gebali El-Maraghi (labor)
22. Ahmed Khairy (farmers)
23. Mohamed Abdel Kader (famers)
24. Mamdouh Hamada (co-operatives)
25. Khairy Abdel Dayem (doctors)
26. Khairy Abdel Dayem head of Doctors Syndicate
27. Osama Shawky (engineers)
28. Elhamy El-Zayat (tourism chambers)
29. Abla Mohie El-Din (industrial chambers)
30. Ahmed El-Wakil (chambers of commerce)
31. Mostafa Badran (students)
32. Talaat Abdel-Kawy (non-governmental organizations)
33. Azza El-Ashmawy (National Council for Motherhood and Children)
34. Ahmed Mohamadan (Supreme Council for Universities)
35. Hossam El-Massah (special needs)
36. Ali Mohamed Abdel-Moula (Ministry of Interior)
37. Kamal El-Helbawy (Islamist currents)
38. Mohamed Aboul Ghar (liberal parties)
39. Hussein Abdel Razek (leftist current)
40. Mohamed Sami (nationalist current)
41. Magdi Yaccoub (public figure)
42. Abdel-Gelil Mostafa (public figure)
43. Amr El-Shobaky (public figure)
44. Saad El-Din El-Helali (public figure)
45. Hoda El-Sada (public figure)
46. Mohamed Ghoneim (public figure)
47. Hagag Adol (public figure – Nubian)
48. Mossad Abou Fagr (public figure – Sinai)
49. Antonious Aziz Mina (Catholic Church)
50. Safwat El-Baiady (Evangelical Church)
[This article originally appeared on Ahram Online]
More Brotherhood Leaders Arrested
Security Forces arrested Muslim Brotherhood member and former MP Farid Ismail from his house in Zagazig early Sunday, in the latest in a wave of sweeping arrests of the group’s leaders, Al-Ahram reported.
Police officers raided Ismail`s house and arrested him on orders from National Security in Sharqiya, according to the state-run daily.
Ismail was a member of the 2005 and 2011 parliaments as well as a member of the Constituent Assembly tasked to draft the now suspended constitution.
Brotherhood leader Sobhi Saleh was also arrested in Alexandria on Saturday, and was taken to Borg al-Arab prison where he is currently being investigated for inciting violence and insulting the judiciary.
Saleh, one of the Brotherhood`s top officials in Alexandria, has been charged with incitement to violence in connection with the 5 July clashes at Sidi Gaber train station, which quickly gained notoriety after a video circulated appearing to show supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi throwing opponents from a several-meter-high building.
The military-backed government continues to carry out a vast arrest campaign against Brotherhood leaders. Among those in detention are Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie and his deputy Khairat al-Shater, as well as Morsi, who has been detained since his ouster on 3 July.
[This article originally appeared on Mada Masr.]
Brotherhood Leaders Katatni and Akef Detentions Renewed
Head of dissolved Parliament and former spiritual leader of Muslim Brotherhood receive extended detentions pending investigation.
Southern Cairo Prosecution has renewed the detentions of two prominent Muslim Brotherhood leaders for fifteen days, pending investigation, MENA reports. This is the fourth time their detentions have been extended.
Saad Katatni, head of the Brotherhood`s Freedom and Justice Party, and Mahdi Akef, previous supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, are both facing charges for inciting the killing of protesters in front of the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in the suburb of Mokattam, during the events of 30 June.
On 30 June, eight protesters were killed and several more injured during clashes between armed Muslim Brotherhood members, who barricaded themselves inside their Headquarters, and anti-Morsi protesters.
Egyptian authorities have launched a crack down on the Muslim Brotherhood, arresting key leaders, including the supreme guide of the organisation, as well as several hundrerds of members since the ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi.
[This article originally appeared on Ahram Online]
Brotherhood Vows to Keep Protesting
The Muslim Brotherhood said in a statement today that “Egyptians will not rest” after the 30 August protests and will continue “to fill streets and squares on a daily basis.”
Scattered protests and clashes were reported in several cities on 30 August after the Brotherhood-affiliated National Alliance to Support Legitimacy called on supporters to take to the streets to reject what they called the military coup of 3July. Six people died and 190 were injured in the clashes according to the Health Ministry, and those who died reportedly belonged to the Ahrar Movement that rejects the Brotherhood, the military, and the remnants of the Hosni Mubarak regime.
The statement, entitled “No more sleep or rest until we reclaim the revolution,” said thieves staged a coup against President Mohamed Morsi on 3 July and “exploited political differences between parties as well as everyday problems, courted some groups, pitted groups against each other, and asked for a mandate that they exploited in an attempt to dominate the state, take power, and establish a military, dictatorial, police state that kills innocent people, imprisons the noble, silences voices and moves the country backwards.”
The statement condemned the closure of satellite channels and the political detention of Brotherhood members. It alleged that “tens of thousands” have been imprisoned and that security bodies have killed more than five thousand people since Morsi was removed.
The statement also said that unprecedented numbers took to the streets on 30 August. Media outlets, however, reported mostly small, scattered protests.
“This revolutionary people will not be calm until the military coup regime has fallen,” the statement read, adding that Egyptians will “escalate peaceful actions and create new, peaceful techniques in order to reclaim the revolution.”
[This article originally appeared on Mada Masr.]
Brotherhood`s Badie Faces New Charges of Inciting Violence
Egypt`s Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie is given another fifteen-day detention for `instigating attack on police station in downtown Cairo`.
The head of Al-Azbakia prosecution, Mohamed Hatta, ordered on Sunday evening that Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie be detained for fifteen more days, pending investigations into charges of inciting violence against security and the raiding of Al-Azbakia police station last August in Downtown Cairo`s Ramsees street.
Badie has also been accused of managing an armed gang, destroying public facilities, blocking roads and halting transportation. He denied all accusations against him during questioning. On 18 August, fierce clashes erupted at Al-Fath mosque in Ramses Square, central Cairo, between Morsi supporters and opponents, as well as with security forces. Around 1500 pro-Morsi protesters sought refuge inside Al-Fath Mosque in Cairo`s Ramses district, demanding "safe exit" from the area. Gunshots were allegedly fired inside the mosque and security services shot back before storming the mosque and arresting those inside. Prosecutors ordered the arrest of 260 supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi on charges of forming an illegal organisation, inciting murder and breaking into Azbakeya police station in Cairo’s Ramses Square. Badie`s fifteen day-detention will commence once his provisional detention period regarding other pending charges comes to an end, according to the prosecution. The Muslim Brotherhood leader, who was arrested on 20 August, has been charged, along with several prominent Muslim Brotherhood figures, of inciting the murder of protesters at the group’s headquarters in the Cairo district of Moqattam. Seventy-year old Badie reportedly suffered a heart attack on Saturday in Tora prison. According to a security source, his condition is stable and a team of doctors were sent to the prison to examine him.
Meanwhile, earlier on Sunday night, Egypt`s prosecutor-general ordered the referral of cases against deposed president Mohamed Morsi and fourteen other defendants to criminal court, concerning their alleged responsibility for clashes that took place last December in front of Al-Itihidaya presidential palace in Cairo.
[This article originally appeared on Ahram Online.]