Egypt's NCHR to be announced on Tuesday

Ezz El-Din El-Komy, secretary general of the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR), stated on Monday that Parliament's upper chamber, the Shura Council, will announce the names of nominees for council membership on Tuesday. The list of 80 possible names will be announced on Tuesday, discussed by the Shura's general assembly, and then voted on. Twenty-seven names will be selected for membership of the official body. Sources in the Shura Council told Ahram Arabic-language news website that the upper house has officially agreed to appoint Hossam El-Ghurayany, head of Cairo's Cassation Court, as head of NCHR. Sources also stated that prominent leftist figure Abdul Ghafar Shukr will be nominated to be deputy head. The list of 80 names is expected to include Coptic lawyer and former MP Georgette Qeliny; member of the Coptic Orthodox confessional council Edward Ghaleb; secretary general of the Lawyers Syndicate Ahmed Saif El-Islam; leftist activist Wael Khalil; the head of the freedoms committee within the Lawyers Syndicate, Mohamed El-Damatti; the Muslim Brotherhood's head lawyer and former chairman of the Legislative Committee, Mohamed Tosson; and Abdul Moneim Maksoud, another Brotherhood lawyer. Among the nominees will also be actor Wagdy El-Araby; spokesman of the Salafist Nour Party Nader Bakar; spokesman of the Brotherhood, Mahmoud Ghozlan; prominent leader in the Freedom and Justice Party, Mohamed El-Beltagy; head of the Shura Council’s Nour Party bloc Abdulla Badran; and Louis Graise, a well-known writer and journalist. Famous Egyptian writer Alaa El-Aswany declined the nomination. Ghozlan stated that "the human being has social, economic, political rights that have to be granted fully, without any discrimination." The reshuffle is the second at the body since Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in February 2011, according to MENA. The Shura Council recently appointed new editors-in-chief at the country’s state-owned newspapers. The Administrative Court is set to rule on the constitutionality of the Shura Council on 4 September and could dissolve the body just as the People’s Assembly (Parliament’s lower house) was dissolved in mid-June. (ahram)