21.04.2011
Egyptian Justice: What to Do About the Mubaraks?
For some Egyptians, the news and gossip are both titillating and outrageous. But for others, jail is jail. "No one ever imagined that even a servant in one of their homes could be made to go to prison. So the fact that these people are in prison now is a miracle," says Qatan, cracking a wide grin. "It will be the trial of the century."
But can justice really be served within Egypt's still unstable political climate? Many fear that the Mubaraks may benefit from a web of connections that still exists and a justice system that - like the rest of Egypt's state institutions - has been beleaguered by corruption and lack of transparency for decades. The Ministry of Justice is seen as such a weak institution - and the due process it practices still experimental - that the country's current power brokers, the military, have deemed hundreds of cases more appropriate for military courts. The Mubaraks and their alleged cronies, on the other hand, will receive trials in vicil courts. "Those being tried in military courts are thugs and bullies," says one Army officer who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
Many of Tahrir Square's most diehard activists suspect there is no way the Supreme Military Council, led by Field Marshall Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, a long-time Mubarak ally, is going to let its old commander-in-chief receive a tough verdict - or even a balanced trial. "Gamal and Alaa [Mubarak's sons] should be in jail for life - or at least 20 years - and execution for [Hosni] Mubarak," says Essam al-Sherif, a political activist who took part in a mock trial for the former president in Tahrir Square two weeks ago. "But I don't expect to see him executed. The military and Mubarak's relationship spans 30 years," he says. "So I think they'll hold him for 15-day periods, one after the other, and that will calm people down and enable them to go on with their lives. I think Mubarak will die before there's ever a trial. They will delay it as long as possible."
To Egyptian investigators, the matter of paperwork is proving burdensome - and a task for which they may not be prepared for. They are frustrated by the fact that governments in Europe and the United States demand legwork - and paperwork - to locate the evidence needed to prove the case against the Mubaraks in court and, just as importantly, to physically return a lot of the allegedly stolen money to Egypt's coffers. "The countries who control those accounts are making really difficult demands in order to remove the privacy for those accounts," says Assem al-Gohary, Egypt's Deputy Minister of Justice, and the chairman of the committee tasked with recovering the stolen assets. "You as a reporter should tell the countries that they need to help us by loosening the conditions."
On a busy Sunday at the Justice Ministry in downtown Cairo, Asser Mahmoud Harb, an official on the team tasked with locating Mubarak's foreign assets, says his job is so much more difficult than it needs to be. He complains that the general prosecutor's office - which is looking into charges that Mubarak and members of his entourage ordered violence against civilians - has an easier task because it can rely on testimonies alone. They don't need bank statements, he says. "They have the option of relying on witnesses. For proving wealth, we have to get documents for everything." Each state in the European Union has different demands, says Harb. "Furthermore the European Union decision [to preemptively freeze accounts belonging to Egypt's and Tunisia's corrupt leaders] only covers accounts under the personal names of the accused. It does not include accounts under business names."
Western diplomats in Cairo argue that there's nothing unusual about their governments' procedures, but they do admit that mismatched legal standards have slowed the process of reclaiming allegedly purloined assets. Still, one high-ranking Western official was bewildered by what Egyptians claimed was a hefty file full of evidence to facilitate access to various accounts. Much of the file turned out to be little more than personal testimonies, the official said, not the hard documents needed to overrule privacy laws protecting bank accounts.
Meanwhile, some observers caution that the loud calls for revenge may not serve the cause of justice either. They argue that anger and the threat of huge protests in Tahrir Square may simply force the military to set up kangaroo courts and sentence certain officials to appease the mob. "They are angry. And anger blocks clear vision," says Leila Takla, a prominent law professor and women's rights activist, and a former member of parliament for the recently-dissolved ruling party. "I don't think the shouts and screams in Tahrir should be the decisive factor. It should run within the rule of law and due process." Indeed, even activists like Sherif believe that it was hardly coincidental that Mubarak and his sons were only detained after a weekend of renewed protests in Tahrir Square.
The Justice Ministry says the Mubaraks were detained when they were because that's how long it took investigators to gather enough evidence to order their arrest. Several other members of the ex-regime, including the much-hated ruling party bigwig and steel tycoon Ahmed Ezz, and ex-interior minister Habib al-Adly were rounded up two months ago. But the fact that a formerly untouchable clas of wealthy and powerful politicians are now in prison remains, for post-revolutionary Egypt, one of the most surprising and shocking of developments.
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Morrison not trying to match show's chart success
But the actor-singer, who stars on the hit Fox TV series, says he's not worried about matching the cast's musical feat.
"I know going into this that that won't be possible," Morrison said in an interview from Los Angeles last week. "There's going to be a lot of expectations for this album, you know. I'm in such a spotlight right now. ... I just want to do the best I can and just continue the growth."
Morrison's single, the pop tune "Summer Rain," was released in early March; it currently sits at No. 27 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart. Last week he released his duet with Gwyneth Paltrow — a cover of "Over the Rainbow" — and this week he dropped his duet with Elton John, "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters/Rocket Man." Morrison said there will be a "big unveiling" of one more star-studded duet.
His self-titled debut is out May 10. He said the first single isn't a reflection of his entire album.
"The single is fantastic and I love it, but I wouldn't classify that as my sound," he said. "There's a lot of really kind of deeper songs (on the album) and I felt like if I started with one of those, I couldn't go to a more pop-y place later."
On "Glee," Morrison stars as Will Schuester, the school's Spanish teacher and glee club coach. He's earned Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for his role on the series, and also has appeared on Broadway in such shows as "Hairspray," "Footloose" and "The Light in the Piazza."
Writing songs gave him a chance to reflect on his life, he said.
"I learned so much about myself and kind of dealt with some things I guess I had been suppressing for a while," he said. "A lot of the songs I wrote were about my 20s, living in New York City, kind of being away from my family for the first time."
The 32-year-old said the album's most personal song is "My Name," a tune about the duality of his "Glee" character and his real self.
"I walk down the street and people are like, 'Hey, it's Mr. Schue' or 'It's the guy from 'Glee',' and no one really knows my name," he said. "You're in people's living rooms every single week and they feel like they know that character and they think that's who you are."
Morrison will kick off a solo tour June 18 in Minneapolis and wrap in Los Angeles on July 23. He says the tour will be "kind of moody, sexy."
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20.04.2011
First Person: Changes in Education After Columbine Tragedy
COMMENTARY | The day of the Columbine shootings 12 years ago was during my first year of college. I remember sitting in one of my classes toward my degree in elementary education and talking to classmates about how the Columbine tragedy could have occurred. I felt sick, scared, and angry.
I've spent the last 12 years in education and have seen changes take place in our classrooms and hallways that would have shocked me when I was in school. It started slowly, but the new reality for teachers and students following the Columbine shootings of April 20, 1999, have had an impact on the daily life of many students today. As the 12-year anniversary of Columbine approaches, I've been taking some time to reflect on the changes that the educational system has seen since then.
For example, when I was in high school, we would load down our backpacks with all the books that we would need for the first half of the day in order to eliminate the trek back to our lockers and risk being late to class. Soon after the Columbine shootings, one of the first things that local school districts did was disallow students at the middle and high school levels from carrying backpacks to and from classes. Too easy to conceal weapons in them.
The next step that followed was prohibiting students from wearing coats to and from classes. In the post-Columbine educational setting, this also had the chance of allowing students to hide weapons, as Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris did.
There are also the "intruder drills" that now occur on regular intervals along with fire, tornado, and earthquake drills. This process involves closing and locking classroom doors, pulling curtains over any windows, turning off the lights, and crowding students in the furthest corner from the door. I'll be honest - there's something frightening about sitting in the dark with a group of students huddled in a corner, preparing for the possibility that at some time an unknown person with a gun could be roaming the halls of the building.
Other preventative measures that can be seen in schools include the requirement that students at the secondary level wear ID badges during school hours, the locking of all exterior doors during school hours, and security guards at the entrance and exits to school grounds ().
What's the cost and benefit for these measures? Of course, the benefit is the perceived sense of security that students, employees, and families have during school hours. The cost is in the fact that students from kindergarten on are aware of the types of horrific things that can happen when they are supposed to be safe. This is the lingering effect of the Columbine shootings and the terror that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold wielded.
, National Center for Education Statistics.
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