High-profile Egyptian figures want interior minister prosecuted for blocking them from proceeding to Rafah city

[ 14/10/2008 - 03:36 PM ]

CAIRO, (PIC)--

Egyptian media sources reported on Tuesday that a number of Egyptian legislators, university professors, and judges were planning to file a lawsuit against Egypt's interior minister Habib Al-Adely for blocking them from proceeding to Rafah city.

According to the sources, the high-profile Egyptian personalities were angry at Adely because he denied thousands of Egyptian citizens from proceeding to Rafah city to extend a helping hand to the 1.5 million Palestinian individuals besieged inside Gaza Strip for more than two years now.

"We hope we could get a ruling indicting the interior minister over his hostile stand against the Palestinian people" said Judge Mahmoud Al-Khudari, the deputy-head of the appellate court and president of the anti-Gaza siege committee.

He ruled, as a Judge, that preventing Egyptian citizens from proceeding to Rafah constitutes grave violation of personal freedom that was granted by the constitution.

Hundreds of buses and vehicles were prepared to proceed to Gaza Strip to deliver urgent medical and food assistance to the besieged Palestinians ten days ago, but the Egyptian security forces aborted the plan and arrested tens of the activists in addition to confiscating the buses and vehicles.

For his part, MP Hamdi Hassan, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood parliamentary bloc in the Egyptian legislature, accused the Egyptian "regime" of being directly responsible for the miserable humanitarian conditions in Gaza Strip [for refusing to open the vital Rafah crossing point], asserting that the complaint against Adely was meant to get the world's attention to the human tragedy in Gaza.