Egyptian police accused of killing protesters get light sentences

PressTV

A Cairo court has given suspended one-year sentences to 11 policemen accused of killing protesters during last year’s uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

The policemen were accused of killing 22 protesters and injuring 44 others outside a police station in Cairo's Hadaeq al-Qobba neighborhood in one of the deadliest days of the protests on January 28, 2011.

The policemen were guilty of using live ammunition in violation of orders, the court ruling said, adding that “the right of self-defense here is legitimate, but the defendants exceeded that right.”

The ruling, carried by the official news agency MENA, said the people outside the police station were genuine protesters, but they were later infiltrated by a “misled minority” that attacked the police.

The sentence means the policemen will not face prison time.

Families of the dead protesters gathered outside the court and chanted "Death to the murderers!"

Since the ouster of Mubarak last February and coming to power of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, dozens more people have been killed.

Protesters have regularly taken to the streets to denounce the ruling military, accusing it of stifling dissent, stalling on reforms and of human rights violations.

Egypt not to allow foreign poll monitors

Al Jazeera

The decision is part of a new election law approved by the country's ruling generals.

Egypt's council of military rulers will not allow international monitors to observe upcoming parliamentary elections, a council member has said.

Maj. Gen. Mamdouh Shaheen, who presented the new election law to reporters on Wednesday, said barring foreign monitors was a necessary step to protect Egypt's sovereignty. "We have nothing to hide," he said, adding that "we reject anything that affects our sovereignty."

Egyptian election monitors will observe the process instead, he said.

The decision was swiftly criticised by activists, who said it raises questions about the transparency of the first elections after the toppling of Hosni Mubarak and urged the military to reconsider.

Hafez Abou Saada, a member of the National Council for Human Rights, said promises of free and fair elections from the military are not enough, and noted that barring international monitors mirrors the line adopted by Mubarak's government.

"International monitors are part of any modern elections," he said. "Many countries are watching what is happening in Egypt. This is not a very positive signal."

The new law also lowers the minimum age for candidacy for the lower house from 30 to 25, apparently to allow youth who led the 18-day uprising that toppled Mubarak to run.

Rules for the upper house remain the same: Candidates must be at least 35 years old, and a newly elected president will appoint 100 of the body's 390 members.

Shaheen said the judiciary will oversee the whole electoral process, limiting the role of the interior ministry, which many Egyptians say remains tainted by its many years as the Mubarak regime's enforcer, and was responsible for much of the rigging in previous elections.

The voting itself, which will be for the upper and lower houses of parliament at the same time, will be spread over a month before the end of 2011, and the army will set their date by decree before the end of next month, Shaheen said.

The final election law has also brushed aside demands by political groups that aimed to shield the electoral system against vote buying, rampant under the previous regime, and the return of former regime officials by barring individual candidates.