The Administrative Court postponed the trail for the 6 April Youth movement case to 14 January 2014 until all necessary documents are presented by the prosecution.
Earlier in November, lawyer Hamdy Al-Fakharany sued the Egyptian interim President, Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, calling for the dissolution of the movement and its classification as a terrorist organisation which aims to spread chaos in the country. Al-Fakharany claims that the movement received foreign funds and training to carry out the alleged plans.Media coordinator for 6 April Youth movement Khaled El Masrey called the trial a “joke”, adding that it is a similar allegation to that made by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces in their 69th statement against the movement.
El-Masry said that after the 2011 July sit-in, the movement filed a complaint in against themselves to prompt opposition to present evidence justifying their claims. All state agencies and ministries participated in the attempt to convict them, but investigation results revealed that foreign funds were received by other Salafi organisations and Gamal Mubarak’s Future Generation Foundation, not the movement.
When asked about the consequences in the case that the court sentences the movement’s dissolution and classifies it as a terrorist organisation, El-Masrey said: “That will be interesting to see, we will be the first terrorist organisation that calls for nonviolent struggle.”
Regarding 6 April members who traveled to Serbia for training, El-Masrey said: “Only three members traveled to Serbia and participated in a course offered by Otpor Organisation. The members learnt in Serbia about non violent struggle.”
Otpor is a Serbian civic youth movement which led the struggle against the Serbian dictator Milosevic since 1998. It is considered to be the main reason behind the 5 October revolution in 2000 and the consequent fall of Milosevic.
Earlier in November the 6 April Youth movement organised a peaceful protest in front of the state council, wearing clown wigs and holding toy guns as a way to mock the trial. El-Masry said: “The message of this protest is to mock the case and to assure that the government is intimidated by our ideas, which are our only means for change.”
Al-Fakharany is a former Member of Parliament for Mahala district and is known for several controversial cases, including that calling for the dissolution of the Freedom and Justice Party.