Egypt’s Morsi Is Guilty Of Something Even If Its Not What he’s Charged With

Mohammed Morsi. Photo Credit: Jonathan Rashad via Compfight cc

There was a very interesting editorial in Lebanon’s Al-Nahar newspaper Nov. 6. It’s in Arabic, but here’s my gloss:

The author, Monalisa Freiha, wrote essentially that the trial of Morsi was a show trial even though Morsi was guilty, and deserved to be tried and jailed.

She called it a “show trial” not just to mean that the trial is a public performance with strong dramatic interest, but in the traditional Cold War sense that the guilty verdict against the defendant has been more or less predetermined by political goals.

Morsi, the author pointed out, was guilty of the following:

1. he stepped over all the democratic values that brought him to power.
2. He attempted to monopolized power in the executive (i.e. his own) hands
3. He established the rules to suit his “Brothers.”
4. He marginalized the opposition
5. He further wore down the already exhausted economy

What he probably didn’t do is the thing he was charged with: incitement to killing

The problem is that none of the five things Morsi is guilty of–and which people came out in the millions to protest–are prosecutable crimes under Egyptian law, she says. So charges had to be brought against him for which he could be prosecuted. Same thing happened with Mubarak.

Food for thought for the next poor sod who get elected president of Egypt.