Thousands of lawyers across Egypt will stage a five-hour sit-in today in front of courthouses to express solidarity with their colleagues Ehab Saee Eddin and Mustafa Fattouh, convicted of assaulting the district attorney in Tanta earlier this month.
Both men were handed five-year prison sentences on 9 June, which sparked a nation-wide dispute between Egyptian lawyers, on the one hand, and judges and prosecutors on the other.
After a strong show of support from the Lawyers Syndicate, Saee Eddin and Fattouh sent a letter to thank the syndicate for backing them, according to Khaled Abu Kreisha, a syndicate assembly member. Abu Kreisha urged Hamdi Khalifa, the head of the Lawyers Syndicate, and Omar Hareedi, the syndicate treasurer, to hand the case over to another team of lawyers, arguing that “the defense team for the two lawyers was poor.”
Mohamed Abdel Ghaffar, another member of the General Assembly, added that the two lawyers would like to pick their defense team by themselves.
Meanwhile, lawyer Montasir el-Zayyat criticized the management of the crisis, which he described as “haphazard”. El-Zayyat suggested that lawyer Ragaee Ateyya should handle the case.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
