The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (HRinfo) announced today that it will not be terrorised into giving up its right to sue Judge Abdel Fattah Mourad for violating HRinfo’s copyrights.

Judge Mourad raised many cases including one accusing HRinfo Executive Director Gamal Eid and bloggers Manal Hassan and Alaa Seif, administrators of http://manalaa.net, of insult and defamation.

Eid was surprised to find that he was accused along with Alaa Seif and Manal Hassan in an insult and defamation case that was raised by Judge Mourad against them. After the prosecutor finished interrogation and ordered the release of the three on their own cognisance, the police continued to detain them for more than 10 hours giving the excuse of finishing procedures, which started at 1:00 pm and ended at midnight!

In addition to the false accusations that the judge is putting forward, the three were surprised to find that the same lawyer who raised a hisba (A sort of a civil case in an Islamic form) against the currently imprisoned blogger Kareem Amer is one of the witnesses brought in by the judge. It is worth noting that the lawyer had previously accused Amer’s lawyers, including Eid, of infidelity for defending Amer.

"The judge violated our copyrights and when we exposed this he filed a lawsuit to block HRinfo’s website and 20 others," Gamal Eid, HRinfo Executive Director, said.

"Today he is raising a criminal case against Alaa, Manal, and me and we have known of another criminal case against Ahmed Seif Al-Islam, Director of the Hesham Mubarak Center for Law, and others.
"This campaign does not only target HRinfo but targets all those who support it. We know that the battle is not easy and we will understand if others surrender, but we will not even if this entails the shut down of HRinfo and the imprisonment of its director. We will not give up our rights. This judge plagiarized large parts of our report and paraphrased some sentences for a book he sells," Eid added.

HRinfo has filed complaints to the Public Prosecutor, the Supreme Council of Judiciary, and the Minister of Justice demanding an investigation into the plagiarism incident and to take all legal steps necessary to lift the judicial immunity of the Abdel Fattah Mourad.

"We are looking for a neutral investigation into this case regardless of who are the parties. This is the foundation of justice," Eid Said.

"We appreciate and have the highest respect to Egypt’s judges and for this purpose we will be providing the Judges’ Club in Cairo and Alexandria a file with all the details of the cases and we are willing to respond to any of their question. Our battle is against this judge for violating our and others’ copyrights, trying to block websites and blogs, and imprisoning lawyers and bloggers for refusing that kind of violation," he added.

It is worth mentioning that the State Council Court had specified 7 April 2007 as the date for looking into the case of blocking HRinfo and 20 other websites.

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