CAIRO — In a rare public show of protest in
Egypt,
“thousands of lawyers” staged a demonstration at their union in central Cairo
Monday, prominent lawyer Tarek Al-Awady said.
اضافة اعلان
After a smaller protest was held Thursday, lawyers
assembled again in droves on Monday to protest a new electronic invoicing
system introduced by the finance ministry — a rare sight in a country where
public protests are effectively banned.
Awady told AFP that “the lawyers are exercising
their legitimate right to voice their opposition to the e-invoicing system”,
which they say would burden them with exorbitant fees.
The new system — which seeks to draw in Egypt’s
massive informal economy — would require businesses of all sizes to start
issuing electronic invoices.
In addition to lawyers, pharmacists and doctors have
bristled at the December 15 deadline to sign up to the system, pointing to its
sizeable annual registration fees.
Lawyers should be exempt from the system because
they “are not service providers” but are “tasked with aiding the judiciary in
achieving justice”, deputy union chief Magdy Al-Sakhy said on state television
Sunday.
The fees to set up the system, Awady said, could
exceed “what an average (law) firm makes in four months”.
In 2013, mass protests against Islamist former
president Mohamed Morsi led to his ouster by then-army chief
Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. Later that year, a law was passed that effectively banned all protests
except those authorized by police.
Sisi assumed power as president the following year,
as an ensuing crackdown first targeted Islamists, before widening to curtail
all public space for dissent.
Read more Region and World
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
