Destroyed ballot boxes and assaulted the attendants.. A complaint to the Public Prosecution as thugs stormed the Engineers’ General Assemy to disrupt the declaration to restore confidence in Al Nabarawy
The Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR), together with cassation attorney Ahmed Fawzy, and attorney at law at the High Court of Appeal Mohamed Eissa, submitted a complaint to the Attorney General Counsellor Hamada Al-Sawy, demanding an investigation in the storming incident committed by unknown persons to the Vote Counting Committees during the engineers’ extraordinary general assembly to consider the withdrawal confidence from Eng. Tareq Al Nabarawy, the Head of the Egyptian Engineering Syndicate, in addition to assaulting and intimidating those who attended from the General Assembly, and destroying the ballot boxes and papers.
The Complaint submitted on behalf of the member of the House of Representatives Eng. Maha Abdel Nasser, Eng. Adel Waseily, Eng. Maha El Gazzar, and Eng. Magdy Abdel Hameed, called for the examination of the CCTV footage in the headquarter of the Voting and Counting Committee in the Conferences Hall- Nasr City, paving the way to take proper legal measures against those involved in this barbaric assault
The complaint explained that on Wednesday, May 30, 2023, an extraordinary General Assembly was scheduled to convene to consider withdrawing confidence from the Head of Engineers’ Syndicate Eng. Tareq Al Nabarawy. When the quorum was completed by the attendance of thousands of Egypt’s engineers from all sectors and governorates, the process of voting started in a normal atmosphere under the supervision of a judicial committee headed by Counsellor Hany Mohamed Mahmoud, and after the end of voting, and once the process of counting is close to completion with a foregone conclusion rejecting the request to withdraw confidence from the Head of the Engineers’ Syndicate, the petitioners were surprised when a number of unknown persons stormed the counting headquarter .
Moreover, those unknown group of persons assaulted and intimidated the attendants from the General Assembly Members, together with destroying the ballot boxes and papers, which led to not declare the result in a scene that is similar to medieval ages . In addition, the Judicial Committee supervising the process of voting and counting left the counting headquarter.
The report indicated that petitioners from the members of the General Assembly who witnessed the incident suffered from severe moral damage due to intimidation and thuggery committed by unknown groups who forced the Judicial Committee to leave the counting headquarter and disrupting the process of declaring results. The first petitioner documented a part from the incident through recording it with her cell phone camera. The video footage showed the faces of assailants while leading the aforementioned assaults, intimidation and destructions.
The complaint stressed that what this incident is considered a crime according to Egypt’s Penal Code and represents a grave insult to the image of Egypt and to all members of the General Assembly of the Engineers’ Syndicate and criminalized according to Penal Code No. 38 of 1937 in a number of articles, including Article No. 86 which listed such acts under terrorist acts.
Moreover, Article No. 86 bis stipulates that “Imprisonment shall be the inflicted penalty on whoever establishes, founds, organizes, or runs, contrary to the provisions of the law, an association, corporation, organization, group, or band, the purpose of which is to call by any method for interrupting the provisions of the constitution or laws, or preventing any of the Slate’s institutions or public authorities from exercising its works, or encroaching on the personal freedom of citizens or other freedoms and public rights as guaranteed by the constitution or the law, or impairing the national unity or social peace.
In addition, “temporary hard labor shall be the punishment inflicted on any one assuming leadership or command of their formations, or supplying them with physical or financial assistance, while being aware of the purpose they call for. Imprisonment for a period not exceeding five years shall be the inflicted penalty on whoever joins any of the associations, corporations, organizations, groups or bands prescribed in the previous clause or participates in them in any form, while being aware of their”.
Furthermore “the penalty prescribed in the previous clause shall be inflicted on whoever propagates by speaking or writing or by any other method, for the purposes mentioned in the first clause, and also whoever, personally or by an intermediary, holds or acquires written documents, printed matter, or records, whatever their kind, comprising propagation or advocacy of any of the foregoing, if they are prepared for distribution or access by third parties, and also whoever holds or acquires any method of printing, recording, or publicizing which is used or prepared for use, even temporarily for printing, recording or diffusing anything of the foregoing
Article No.137 bis A stipulates that “whoever uses force, violence, or threat with a public official/civil servant or a person charged with performing a public service, to force him without due right to perform or refrain from performing a work of his position duties, but without reaching its aim shall be punished with imprisonment for a period not exceeding five years. If the felon reaches his/her aim, the penalty shall be imprisonment for a period not exceeding ten years”.
Article No.375 stipulates that “subject to any more stringent penalty prescribed in another provision, a penalty of detention for a period of not less than one year shall be inflicted on whoever, personally or through others, displays force in face of another person or hints at using violence with him, threatens him with applying violence or force with him or with his spouse or one of his ascendants or descendant, or threatens to accuse him or any of them maliciously, in order to disgrace and denigrate him, or to outrage the inviolability of his intimate life or that of any of them, in order to terrify the victim or intimidate him with harming him bodily or morally or assault him indecently, or steal his money, levy a benefit from him, affecting his will in order to control him or compel him to perform something the law does not obligate him to do, or force him to refrain from performing a legal work, or hinder the enforcement of laws, or regulations, or resist the enforcement of self-executed judicial or legal rulings, orders or procedures, so long as such deed or threat is liable to plant terror ill the heart of the victim, disturb his peace, serenity, or security, risk his life and safety or cause damage to some of his properties, or interests or affect his personal freedom, honor, dignity or integrity of his will”.
The penalty to be inflicted shall be that of detention for a period of not less than two years and not exceeding five years, the deed or threat is committed by two or more persons, or accompanied with an animal arousing horror, or if he carries an arm or sharp tool or a stick, or any solid body or electrical article or a scalding, caustic, gaseous, stupefacient, soporific, or any other harmful material. If the deed or threat is directed to a female, or a person below eighteen complete calendar years of age. In all cases the court shall rule placing the convict on parole by police for a period equal to the penalty inflicted on him”.
