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Egypy takes 529 giant steps backwards

Egypt is an ally of many countries, and notably, as an American one, the second largest recipient of aid after Israel.    What to say then about the way Egypt has spiraled out of control - with the latest outrage the mass sentencing to death of 529 people in one very short trial.    Spiegel OnLine International reports:

"It is 10 p.m. Both windows in lawyer Hussein Ali Tamam's office, located on the first floor of a building on Saa Square, are open. A warm evening breeze is ruffling the papers on his desk, where Tamam is sitting behind a pile of books and file folders. Tamam, a gangly 46-year-old, is considered to be one of the most experienced defense attorneys in Minya, a town on the Nile River in Egypt. But he looks stressed as he alternately reads, writes and smokes. Mostly, though, he is trying to calm himself down. He just suffered the largest defeat of his life.

Tamam heads up a team of attorneys that represented around 100 of the 529 defendants in the "Minya trial." Last week, every single one of them was sentenced to death, a collective penalty handed down after just one-and-a-half days. It is an Egyptian record.
Among those sentenced, several lawyers have said independently of one-another, were at least four minors who, according to Egyptian law, should have been tried in separate proceedings. It is also said that three dead men were among those sentenced to death.

Tamam points to a pile of papers that is at least 15 centimeters (6 inches) high. "That there is a quarter of the indictment. It is 3,500 pages in total, 14,000 appendices in four parcels. And do you know when exactly I was given these parcels? A quarter of an hour before the trial started. I ask you: What is happening in this country right now?"











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