by Heba Morayef
Published in: The Times
Egyptians were glued to their TV screens yesterday as the trial of the deposed President Hosni Mubarak opened. Friends gathered at each other’s houses, and some coffee shops put up large screens to accommodate crowds who had risen painfully early to eat before they began fasting.
Until that moment, the question on everyone’s minds had been whether Mubarak would appear in court, with a consensus that it would not happen. But there he was, on television for all to see, on a stretcher in the cage that Egyptian courts insist on retaining.
As an Egyptian and a human rights activist, I had felt pride the day the public prosecutor announced that he was investigating Mubarak on charges of killing protesters and corruption. Egyptians would not enforce mob justice against their former President, nor would they allow him to join Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia in pleasant retirement in Saudi Arabia. Mubarak would be tried by Egyptian courts, with an airing of all evidence against him and public scrutiny via live televised sessions.
