Arrest warrants issued for five activists in Egypt

Cairo: The office of the Egypt`s prosecutor-general has issued arrest warrants for five rights activists on the suspicion of inciting violence against members of the president`s Muslim Brotherhood.

The wanted activists are blogger Alaa Abdel-Fattah, Ahmed Doma, Karim El-Shaer, Hazem Abdel-Azim and Constitution Party member Ahmed El-Ghoneimi, all of whom have been banned from leaving the country by the prosecution. Karim El-Shaer, responding to the warrants issued yesterday, said on his Facebook page, that he rejected both the subpoena and the Morsi-appointed prosecutor-general who issued it, since the decision amounted to a "continuation of the Mubarak regime," in reference to Egypt`s ousted president. However, Abdel-Fattah, by contrast, expressed his intention to appear before the prosecution today, even though he viewed the decision as "evidence of the corruption of the case and the prosecutor-general`s bias towards the Muslim Brotherhood." He justified his decision to answer the summons by citing his desire to avoid subjecting his wife and son to police harassment. "I`m not afraid of the prisons of the oppressive state," the activist wrote on Facebook. "I refuse to go from one who is unjustly accused to a fugitive." The prosecution also summoned prominent activist and journalist Nawara Negm for questioning in connection with the clashes that took place near the Muslim Brotherhood`s headquarters in Cairo`s Moqattam district. Negm, a daughter of renowned revolutionary poet Ahmed Fouad Negm, told the Headlines news program on the satellite ONTV last evening that though she has not yet received any summons, she would not submit to any questioning. Earlier yesterday, Brotherhood lawyer Abdel-Moneim Abdel-Maksoud filed a complaint with the prosecutor-general against 169 people ? including party heads, politicians- whom he accused of inciting violence. The prosecution also heard the testimony of a number of injured protesters from the Brotherhood, who accused several opposition political figures of instigating the attacks. The clashes between protesters and Brotherhood members outside the group`s main headquarters in Cairo and in several other cities on March 23 left at least 200 people injured. PTI