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| Mohamed Ali, the alleged spy, was arrested by Egyptian police at Cairo airport [AP] |
Mohamed Sayed Saber Ali, took documents from his workplace at Inshas, the site of one of Egypt’s small research nuclear reactors, and handed them over to his foreign contacts, earning thousands of dollars, the statement said.
Egyptian security officials arrested Ali on February 18 when he arrived at Cairo airport from one of several trips to Hong Kong, where he had meetings with his contacts, it added.
The statement named the Irishman as Brian Peter and the Japanese man as Shiro Izo.
They told Ali at one meeting in Hong Kong that they wanted him to work for their company from inside the Atomic Energy Agency, it said.
“The first accused [Ali] said that he understood from the course of this meeting that the company referred to was no more than a front for the activity of Israeli intelligence,” it said.
Details sought on Egyptian reactors
The government statement said Ali’s contacts were interested in information about the capability of the Inshas reactor, how many hours it operated, the type of experiments conducted with it, any technical problems with the reactor and reasons for them.
They also wanted to know how frequently the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspects the reactor, it said.
Egypt’s reactors are under IAEA supervision and the United Nations agency has had no serious complaints about Egyptian compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Egypt dropped plans for nuclear power stations in the 1980s but the government last year announced plans to take another look at nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels.
Source: www.english.aljazeera.net
In Egypt today the elections for the proposed changes in the constitution, which are supposed to make the country more “secure”, try more oppressed, took place. It scares me when I read what type of country Egypt is turning into because of the government. And I thought it was supposed to have a democratic government; guess I was wrong.
Low turnout for Egypt referendum
Polls have closed and counting is under way after Egyptians voted in a referendum on constitutional amendments which would help the government exclude opposition groups from the political system.
Anas al-Fiqi, Egypt’s information minister, said turnout on Monday stood between 23 and 27 per cent, according to early estimates.
The independent Committee for Democracy Support, which deployed 300 observers, said overall turnout was no more than three per cent by 5pm (15:00 GMT).
Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, said that the 34 amendments being voted on are needed to maintain security.
If approved, the changes will include a ban on all political parties based on religion.
Broad boycott
All major opposition groups including the Muslim Brotherhood, which won one-fifth of the seats in parliament in 2005 elections, have told supporters to boycott the referendum, saying they cannot be sure the voting will be fair.
A number of so-called anti-terror laws will give police greater powers of arrest and surveillance – which critics say will turn the country into a police state.
The constitutional amendments are expected to pass. Mike Hanna, Al Jazeera’s correspondent, said the government “has made absolutely clear that it will regard a majority ‘yes’ vote as an endorsement of its constitutional amendments, regardless of how many people actually vote”. Estimates from the Muslim Brotherhood and the Hesham Mubarak Law Centre, an independent group co-ordinating monitors, also put the turnout around three per cent. Al Jazeera reporters were outside polling stations all day and saw few people voting, and Reuters described the turn out as a “trickle”.
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Amnesty International describes the proposed changes as the greatest erosion of human rights in 26 years.
Human Rights Watch said the amendments “effectively remove basic protections against violations of Egyptians’ rights to privacy, individual freedom, security of person and home and due process”. Al Jazeera obtained evidence that suggests the polling system may be badly flawed. And Monday night, the Egyptian Council of Human Rights, a government body, said in a report that there were voting irregularities. Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera’s correspondent, said he spoke to voters who didn’t understand why they were voting and found even ineligible voters were able to take part.
Mohyeldin also said government employees were taken en masse by buses to polling stations.
Ballot confusion
Amal Oweid, an Egyptian he spoke with, said: “I am here to vote for Hosni Mubarak … I am here to vote for him as president.” She did not know how to read or write and did not know what was on the ballot. Oweid said: “A guy came with me and he said mark here and I marked on the green circle … I didn’t know what the ballot said.” Mohyeldin reported that he was able to cast a ballot without providing appropriate Egyptian identification. He said: “I came to the polling station [and] presented a press ID issued by the ministry of information that clearly stated that I am an American citizen working for Al Jazeera.” “The supervisor asked me whether I was born in
Egypt. I replied yes and I told him my father was Egyptian. I was handed a ballot and allowed to vote. At no time did I mislead authorities about my nationality or my identity.”
There is no guarantee that the ballot will be tallied but the instance highlights major loopholes in the voting system, Mohyeldin said.
Source: www.english.aljazeera.net
One Ummah 