Mubarak trial...the lesson and the implications!

Photo credit to Reuters -Egypt TV via Reuters TV

 All the worldwide media and broadcasting outlets, both television and radio, aired yesterday the live trial of the former Egyptian president Mohamed Husni Mubark, who has been sentenced to life in prison for his role in killing protesters during last year's revolution that forced him to step down.

Mubarak, the first Arab leader to be tried in his own country, remained silent inside a court cage while he and millions of people all over the world were waiting to hear the judge.

Although the court found no evidence that Mubarak ordered the killings, but blamed him for not using his power to stop days of bloodshed.

Before reading the verdict, presiding judge Ahmed Rifaat offered a searing indictment of Mubarak’s 30-year regime, calling it “without a conscience and with a cold heart.” He said Mubarak ruled by oppression, kept his people in poverty and allowed Egypt, once a “beacon” of the world, to tumble into “one of the most deteriorated, backward countries.”

The verdict stunned this emotionally battered nation and spurred cheers from cities to distant villages. Mubarak and his former interior minister Habib Al-Adli, were both sentenced to life, ending a raucous trial that impassioned the Arab world and shook autocratic regimes across the region.

Rifaat, who was presiding over his last court session before retirement, said Mubarak and Al-Adli did not act to stop the killings during 18 days of mass protests that were met by a deadly crackdown of security forces on unarmed demonstrators. More than 850 protesters were killed, most shot to death, in Cairo and other major cities.

Its your turn ya.........!

May such a fate be also the destiny of his counterparts of the autocratic regimes, former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Salih and the ex-Tunisian president, Zain Al-Abidine Ben Ali? I hope so! And I hope that it will also be the fate of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who is, till the writing of this column, killing his people, the protestors and their relatives.

I also hope that such a trail would be a lesson to all the African and Arab leaders, who keep their people in poverty, to stop killing their people when they go into anti-government demonstrations, protesting peacefully and demanding better living conditions!

The people who are only demanding dignity want an end to the injustice and exclusion that keep them trapped in deprivation. They want to have control over the decisions that affect their lives, and they want their rights to be respected and their voices to be heard, and not more!