Tens of families of victims who fell during Egypt’s January 25 revolution have vowed to take to the street to protest against the acquittal of ousted President Hosni Mubarak and the symbols of his regime.
Ahmed Yousef, the father of late Khaled Youssef who was murdered during on January 29, 2011, described the ruling against Mubarak and his aides as “catastrophic”. He said: “There is no justice in Egypt… Mubarak and his Interior Minister Habib Al-Adly and his aides are responsible for the killing of the demonstrators which is a fact that the whole world knows.”
“The media has clearly reported the events of the revolution and the way the police assaulted the rebels during the January 25 revolution,” he added.
Advocate Tamer Hussein Mohammed, who was injured during the revolution, said they will not keep quiet or abandon the rights of the victims and will not lose hope and will come back to protest again.
“We will not abandon our right,” he said. Commenting on President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi’s mandate to form a special commission to compensate the victims of the January 25 revolution, Mohammed said: “These are words, no one recognises our rights. How do you expect them to restore our rights if they do not recognise the revolution in the first place?”
Al-Sisi mandated Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab to “take all necessary measures to review the compensation and care system for the victims’ families who paid with their lives as a price for the sake of this nation.”
According to a statement issued by the president’s office yesterday, Al-Sisi commissioned the Supreme Committee for Legislation Reform to “review the amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure which the court said were needed, and prepare a report to be submitted to the president”.
The statement added: “The president of the Republic stresses that the new Egypt which launched the revolutions of January 25 and June 30 will continue its way towards the establishment of a modern democratic state based on justice, freedom and equality and the fight against corruption and is looking toward to the future, and cannot ever look back.”
On Saturday, the Cairo Criminal Court, headed by Judge Mahmoud Kamel Al-Rashidi, dismissed all criminal charges of killing peaceful demonstrators during the January 25 revolution made against former President Hosni Mubarak. The court also acquitted his interior minister at the time, Habib Al-Adly and four of his aides; Ahmed Ramzy, Adly Fayed, Hassan Abdel Rahman and Ismail El-Shaeer on charges of premeditated murder.