Activist Asmaa Mahfouz denied on Tuesday that she had been referred to a military court on charges of insulting the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and calling for armed operations against the military and the judiciary.
Earlier media reports had suggested that Egypt’s military prosecution had referred her case to a military court, including one anonymous military source, who told Al-Masry Al-Youm, “After listening to Mahfouz’s testimony, the prosecutor referred her to the military court, but no date has been set for her hearing."
However, since then, Mahfouz has made a statement on her Twitter account, saying: "I contacted the military prosecution and they denied the news."
Ali Atef, a lawyer from the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) who is representing Mahfouz, told the The Daily News Egypt website: "We checked with our [sources] in the military prosecution; the case is still under investigation."
The charges against the activist relate to comments she made on Facebook last week, including a statement saying, “If the judiciary doesn’t give us our rights, nobody should be surprised if militant groups appear and conduct a series of assassinations because there is no law and there is no judiciary.”
Mahfouz was arrested after publishing the comments and later released on Sunday on a bail of LE20,000 bail after testifying in the presence of eight of her lawyers.
General Adel al-Morsy, head of the Military Justice Commission, issued a statement saying Mahfouz's Facebook post was not a matter of freedom of expression, but rather an incitement to violence and an insult to both the army and SCAF. The statement called on the media and the public to check Mahfouz’s Facebook account to judge whether she was giving an opinion or calling for the formation of armed groups to conduct assassinations.
Mahfouz’s supporters on the microblogging website Twitter argue that her post warned of the negative consequences of not taking seriously the need to bring members of the former regime to justice.
Mahfouz wrote on her Twitter account on Saturday that she had been requested to appear before the military prosecution. She suggested that she might be under investigation because of a phone interview she gave to Al-Jazeera on 23 July during clashes between pro-revolution protesters and residents of Abbasseya, a Cairo neighborhood.
Hundreds of protesters were injured on 23 July during a march to the SCAF headquarters to urge the ruling council to speed up reforms.
“We’re against the corruption of the SCAF, which covers for Mubarak and his aides,” Mahfouz told the pan-Arab satellite network.
During the clashes, Mahfouz also told Al-Jazeera that the “army protected the thugs” by cordoning off protesters before they were attacked. She added that the march was to protest against the corruption of the military council, and its hesitation in speeding up former President Hosni Mubarak’s trial.
Translated from the Arabic Edition
