Denmark's "Buy Danish" lends its place to Egypt's "Judicial Independence flag"
As I have supported Denmark's freedom of expression, it is due time to start another support campagin for Egypt. The country's judicial system is still controlled by the executive authority. The Egyptian judges are going through one of the most important freedom battles in Egypt's modern history that needs everyone's support. I replaced the "Buy Danish" flag with the Judicial Independence for Egypt on the right side of the blog.
If you want to support our honorable judges',download the image and post it on your blog. Show your support to freedom and democracy and tell the world that Egyptians want their judicial independence.
P.S: This is not a symbol for Egypt's flag, this is part of the Egyptian judges sashes that they wear when court is in session.
Read about the judges' battle: Mom for Freedom of Press and Independent Judiciary in Egypt
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Growing tension between the Egyptian regime and the Judges....
Honorable Egyptian Judges:TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR SUPERVISING ELECTIONS
Referendum of May 25: Great Forgery Day
posted by Freedom For Egyptians @ 9:53 PM
27 comments
27 Comments:
Great! Judges independence is an essential step to Egyptian freedom. A question though why are you using the old Egyptian flag? Just curious (btw. i prefer it on the current one)Amr
Great initiative Freedom! Their cause, as the cause of the journalists is paramount to change, ultimately increasing freedom of the judiaciary and increasing freedom for journalists will change egyptian society intrinsically.
I love egypt :) i feel that egypt is my home somehow ;)
i will put it on my blog if you dont mind?
completely offtopic: you have put Cyprus flag for Croatia, in listing of visitor's countries :)
ontopic: good luck with your fight for better and happier Egypt :))
croatian visitor
This is the sashes of the judges that they wear in courts not the flag of the country.
you didn't understand me, I'm not talking about the last post, but on your visitor's list on front page of your blog. there, besides the number of visitors is the national flag and it is not croatian, but cyprus :)
I was answering Amr, first anonymous.
I got your point. But it is the software mistake. I should report that. Thanks for letting us know:)
Nice one, Freedom:-)
It's absolutely okay to remove the Danish flag; we simply thank you for the great support so far.
Let's see if we can do something in reverse; may be your country will accept the re-launching of the "Arab Initiative" by official Denmark trying to cooperate on building modern societies.
I'll keep monitoring your great blog.
As ph I will say thank you for your support.
One good thing came out of those unnecessary cartoons - I found a world of ME and arab blogs, that I simply have to monitor every day. I discovered opinions so much different from what I expected. My narrowminded and prejudiced (*bows head with shame*) views was challenged and I have learnt so much.
The most surprising thing I learnt was that we laugh at the same things....
Curious in Denmark
Opps! Thanks for the clarification FFE. Amr
Good initiative.
The Egyptian judges are more in need of help than Denmark. It is probably going to be a long process to build democracy and rule of law in Egypt, and this is an important first step. It's interesting to follow this debate on your site, FFE. You're doing a good job.
Thanks for your support FFE :-)
I've included your flag some other places on internet now, and I'm happy that I can pay you back for the support you've offered us.
Hope you'll get some success in the reforms you work for.
Take care
Adrian
Thank you for standing up for sanity! If we can help you in your struggle in any ways - let us know!
I'll just post this last thing, though, as a salute:
I’ve just watched the french documentary about the danish imams, and I’m really sad: sad because its evident that the muslim community in denmark is misguided by hateful people and imams with an islamist agenda. I’m sad because they have thrown the danish people into a campaign of hate! I’m sorry because this has destroyed a lot of the really good things about integration in denmark, and because all muslims in denmark will pay for the mistakes of the few in many years to come…
But I’m not sorry to see the true face of islamism, and to know that they exist and thrive on hate, in the midst of our society. I’m not sorry to know, that every dane will fight this kind of intolerance in the hardest way (as we have fought ultra-right wing idiots before that!)
The time of blind-eyed tolerance is over, and I hope moderate muslims will be wise enough to take a stand, and join that fight!
This documentary should be watched by everyone, and I urge people who recorded it, to put it on the internet (hopefully a translation into english will follow)
Abu Laban, Achmed Akkari - your time is over - you are not representatives of religion, but demons of hate!
Good intentions, but this is actually the flag of pre-1952 Egypt.
The shashes Egyptian judiciary wear are green or red, depneding on one's rank as judge, and red-and-green for magestrates. There are no white crecent and stars, rather three golden stars and the odd-looking, republican bird, or this is what I saw after the sit-in last week.
Alif of Folding Spacetime has released a few deisgns. Why not take a look?
Thanks for your support (again :-)
God bless Egypt!
Ok that is great, but…
What if the controller now is controlled by the Moslems brotherhood??
I know both choices are terribly bad...
We need to call for secular justice system.
As Coptic, I did not forget that our justice system freed the killers of the 19 Copts in al kosheh, and many others.
So we need to know more about what those judges are really looking forward to.
Hopefully not Sharia based justice system!!
Anonymous coptic.
You're right. It's important that we know what the judges stand for, before we endorse them. Do they believe in a secular judicial system, democracy and rule of law. It's important to be sure of that.
To the last Anon and Mr. Cosmic Duck: I dont understand your comments. It is obvious that the judges are fighting this battle to gain independence in order to protect the role of law and democracy. Otherwise, it is easy for them to get personal benifits from the corruption instead of standing against it. If you are asking about their personal beliefs, as sort of insider, I can tell you they are not all the same. However, the common thing is they, in general, stick to the law in a literal manner whatever the law is. They dont make the law, they interpret it. If you want to support them only if they have certain ideologies that match yours, thanks but I dont think they are interested in your support. They are not the guardian of the religion like in Iran nor they are the guardian of the secular system like in Turkey. First thing they learn is to stick to the Law only not to their personal ideology. I dont deny that this may have an effect but it is not at all that strong given the many stages of appeal and different personal ideologies they all have. As for the specific case Anon mentioned I dont know the details but mind you that the same judiciary are also the ones who trialed the religious terriorsts before and gave them strong sanctions. You cannot judge them on the result of certain cases since every specific case has its own pecularities and in criminal cases you need to satisfy a very high threshald to convict someone. In large magnitude hate crimes like the one you mentioned it is very hard to convict specific persons especially given tribal traditions which do not ease the evidence collection plus police ineffieciency. Peace, Amr
"First thing they learn is to stick to the Law only not to their personal ideology."
Hi Amr.
Thank you for the information. How can we in the international community show our support for the judges? I don't mean support for individual judges based on their opinions/ideology but support for judges who stick to the law as you describe it.
Scandinavian person
Amr.
Good argumentation. But then there is a problem. If for instance it is in compliance with the law to imprison a person like Ayman Nour, and a judge passes the verdict, it's hard to support judges that are part of that system.
"As for the specific case Anon mentioned I dont know the details but mind you that the same judiciary are also the ones who trialed the religious terriorsts before and gave them strong sanctions. You cannot judge them on the result of certain cases since every specific case has its own pecularities and in criminal cases you need to satisfy a very high threshald to convict someone"
you can be right Amr , but I still have the right to worry since in all the cases those have to do with Coptic issues , those judges failed us, and the criminals were set free. Even the terrorists, they did not get any sanctions for their crimes against Copts, they were only punched for their crimes against the government.
In the incident I mentioned before, the judge based his decision on the second article of the constitution "Islam is the Religion of the State. Arabic is its official language, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia)"
So if those judges have Muslim brotherhood background, then they will interpret the law in their own way, like how they freed all the killers in Al Kosheh.
By the way, in that specific incident, all killers were known by name and the victims family members testified against them.
I do not want to take the discussion to different topic, but I'm just worry that Copts will remain the last class of the Egyptian society to be thought of, like how we have always been.
Scandinavian person: thank you for your interest. Support to the independence of the judiciary and against their persecution can be done through attracting the interest of international press to the issue, asking your human rights organiztions and pressing your official representatives to bring the issue in meetings with Egyptian officials. This could loosen the government’s heavy hand and keep their actions more reasonable. Your creativity is welcome. Thanks again.
Cosmic duck:
Thanks for your reply. I agree that there is a problem. But if the law is flawed, it should be changed. The judiciary power does not include legislating but it is the legislature prerogative. The judiciary in doing their job, in general, tend to strictly respect this difference. If the judiciary is independent they will ensure that the parliament members are chosen democratically and there is no fraud in the election process. Ayman Nour case can be cited as an example on why the judiciary should be independent. The government has an absolute control, although indirectly, on the constitution of the circuits, i.e. chooses which judges will be sitting on which circuit, and on the distribution of the cases on circuits. This means the government can choose who decides your case. It is not a secret that there are some judges, although very much a small number, who let themselves be controlled by the government. Accordingly in important cases the government will assign these cases to these circuits. The judges aware of these facts are demanding that this changes and the constitution of the circuits and distribution of cases be automatic and in a neutral way. I don’t want to speak about specific cases, as I don’t believe that this is appropriate in this place, but I think you got what I meant.
Anon:
Thanks and I understand your worry. But I think you are only looking to one part of the picture and we are being taken to a different case that, although I find legitimate, is not reasonable to be asserted against granting the judiciary their independence(which by the way includes many Egyptian Christians in most senior places). Besides, it is not only Egyptian Christians who suffer from discrimination but every sect in the society. Other religious sects, including Muslim different sects, other religions followers and atheists (who are not officially recognized by the regime) are discriminated. Professionals and academic institutions suffer, for e.g., look to professors, doctors, students, and even lately ,believe it or not, the police. I don’t want to confuse things together, and I don’t want to enter into discussion on these issues. But a part, at least, of the solution will be justice and democracy. Independent judiciary can deliver this through impartiality and ensuring fair elections. As I mentinoed before judges have so different ideologies or for that matter none. Most of them, to my knowledge, believe in literal application of the law, period. In addition during the appointment process,candidates who belong to islamic groups or have any known religious inclination are always excluded during the appointment process.
Finally, if you say that any way Egyptian Christians will be discriminated, although I disagree, then what is the solution? If according to you, you are currently being failed by the current oppressing regime, why don’t we try a proper one we choose? Why do you defend a regime that you say is currently oppressing you? Your objection on independence of the judiciary does not solve your problem my friend.
Accordingly, I find no use to discuss what you mentioned about the reasoning of the judges in kosheh. However, I cannot help but note that I can find no relation between what the Constitution stipulates regarding Islam as the source of legislation and applying criminal law on murderers. This could be mentioned in the reasoning as a recital of a defendant's defence (which typically includes anything that comes to the mind of the defence lawyer even if it is 100% not relevant) but cannot be used to acquit murderers. If the reasoning is otherwise, then this will be really scary but I highly suspect that this is the case. The DA would not have let this pass and would have challenged it as this won’t escape the court of cassation scrutiny.
My respects
Egypeter:
“The problem Amr, is that the law in Egypt is broken. The constitution is fatally flawed and if that's what the law is based on then there are big problems.”
I agree with you that the constitution is flawed. My understanding is that you assume that the criminal law, or any Egyptian law other than family law and inheritance law that applies to Muslim Egyptians, is based on Islamic jurisprudence. This assumption is UNDOUBTEDLY NOT right. Most of the laws are based on the civil law system (mainly French) and lately we have been looking to other western and international systems too, mainly in commercial and corporate related laws.
In addition, the last thing we need is politicising our judicial system. The U.S. system is simply not compatible with ours and the analogy in this respect is not valid. The US has a common law tradition where judges do make laws in addition to interpreting them. As you know, there are federal and local courts, jury system, election of local judges and prosecutors in some states and nomination and confirmation for the federal judges. All this belongs to different history and circumstances and I don’t think this is the place to discuss the issue of importing other legal systems.
I, respectively, have to disagree with your “ABSOLUTE truth”. I refer you to my above opinions.
Peace
So when are the great egyptians going to tell the kafir Americans to keep all that infidel money they keep sending over? Time for egypt to stand on its own two feet and stop begging like dogs for money from the American infidels
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