CAIRO, Egypt, April 27 - Thousands of riot police sealed off access to Egypt’s High Court today, beating and arresting protesters who turned out to support two judges brought before a disciplinary panel for declaring that there was fraud in previous elections.
Police beat and arrested protesters who turned out to support two judges brought before a disciplinary panel in Cairo.
The massive show of force, appearing larger even than that deployed in the Sinai after three bombing attacks this week, seemed to signal that the government of President Hosni Mubarak had reached a breaking point over the judges’ calls for independence from the executive branch and for a role as the sole monitor of elections.
The judges’ demands - and their high-profile persistent pressure on the government - have united various centers of political opposition, both secular and religious, sparking new life and purpose in a reform movement that had withered after the presidential election in September.
“We cannot aspire to have reform without an independent judiciary,” said Ghada Shahbandar, leader of an electoral monitoring group that has followed the judges’ demands closely. “It is the first and most important block in the reform process.”
The chaos in the center of the city followed a tumultuous week in Egypt, with a triple bombing in the southern Sinai resort town of Dahab, which killed nearly two-dozen people. Two days later there were double suicide attacks on peacekeeping forces in the northern Sinai which failed to injure the intended targets.
By today the government appeared overwhelmed, arresting dozens of demonstrators supporting the judges as well as a journalist for the Al Jazeera network who had reported incorrectly that there was an attack on the police in a city in the Egyptian Delta. The network retracted the story but the government held the reporter in custody, saying he was guilty of “spreading confusion.”
By 8 a.m. today, massive green troop carriers, human cargo containers on wheels, rumbled into the city’s center deploying more than 3,000 troops - a number that swelled to about 10,000 by midday, according to eye witnesses accounts and video of the event.
The target was the court and a second stately old building called the Judges’ Club, where some 80 judges from around the country had staged a protest for more than a week. They have been demanding an independent judiciary, saying the minister of justice, who is appointed by the president, has the ability to threaten, intimidate and punish those who challenge the will of the government - a charge government officials deny.
Two of the most outspoken judges, Mahmoud Mekky and Hesham al-Bastawissi, were being brought before a disciplinary panel today because they had accused the government - and other judges - of forgery in connection with the last parliamentary elections. Their case was postponed for two weeks while the panel considered several motions made by the defense.
In addition to the two brought before the panel, the authorities lifted the judicial immunity from seven additional judges who also complained about fraud in past elections, paving the way for those judges to be questioned by the police in an act interpreted as government intimidation.
“I am so happy that they are doing this to us because it proved that they are the ones that people want to try, not us,” Mr. Bastawissi said today after his appearance in court. “It is not us that are going to court, but it is the ruling regime and they already got the verdict from the people.”
In a Labor Day speech today to workers gathered in a conference hall in Cairo, President Mubarak portrayed the dispute with the judges as an intra-judge matter - and not involving the government.
“I tell the judges who make up Egypt’s proud judiciary that you are the guardian of justice and protector of the law,” he said in the speech. “I hope you reach, among yourselves, to a just conclusion that preserves the high interest of the homeland.....” But the president’s words did little to soften the government’s heavy- handed approach - sending in an army of riot police armed with long wooden poles and body-length shields to seal off the judges from a relatively small group of supporters on the street. Eyewitnesses said at least 50 people were arrested, though there was no way to independently verify that figure.
“It is an indicator the system is breaking down. They are panicking, they are in the dark and don’t know what to do,” said Rajia Amran, a lawyer who turned out today to support the judges in their fight and described their cause as “the last bastion of freedom in this country.”
There are 9,000 judges in Egypt and an estimated 7,000 have linked forces to press the government for a new law which they argue will allow them to be independent. While they have been pressing for this separation for some 15 years, the tension between the judges and the government reached a new level about a year go when the judges began demanding the sole right to monitor elections. They complain that while judges monitor individual polling sites, government appointees handle the tallying of votes.
Zakariya Abdel Aziz, chairman of the Judges’ Club in Cairo, said during a meeting in August, “It is enough that for the past 52 years, we have been carrying the liability of rigging the elections in this country.”
Mahmoud Al-Khudeiry, head of the Judges’ Club in Alexandria, who is now facing the prospect of police interrogation, said “We don’t know how it will end or where it will end.”
He has served on the bench for 43 years and said he has not seen such antagonism between the bench and the executive since the 1960’s, when then-president Gamal Abdel Nasser staged what is known as the “judges’ massacre” by firing judges who did not bend to his pressure.
As he greeted supporters who came to the Judges’ Club, Mr. Khudeiry said on Monday: “All we know is we insist in our demands and we persist in our way until we achieve our demands.”
Abeer Allam and Mandi Fahmy contributed reporting for this article.