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Egypt court to hear appeal against listing Hamas as terrorist

Xinhua, March 12, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Egypt's State Lawsuits Authority appealed Wednesday against a recent court order listing the Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas as a terrorist organization.

"Appealing against listing Hamas as a terrorist organization comes in accordance with the Terrorist Entity Law that assigns the general prosecutor with the determination of terrorist entities," the State Lawsuits Authority's spokesman Sameh al-Sayyid said in a statement Wednesday.

The court will hear the appeal on March 28.

In late February, Cairo Court of Urgent Matters ruled Hamas as a terrorist organization, a month after the same court also listed Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, as a terrorist group.

In reply to the Egyptian court order, Hamas said Saturday that "the decision is a coup on history," describing it as "shocking and dangerous and directly targets the Palestinian people and their armed resistance."

A few days before the court listed Hamas as terrorist, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi signed off the Terrorist Entity Law, which defines "a terrorist entity" as any association, group or organization that threats national security, disrupts public transportation, assaults personal freedom of citizens, or harms the social peace and national unity.

According to the law, the general prosecution could ask a criminal court to list suspects as terrorists and start their trial and the law also stipulates that any group designated as terrorist will be dissolved and its assets frozen.

The law was issued following a series of bloody terrorist attacks in Egypt's restive Sinai Peninsula that killed more than 30 soldiers and policemen.

After the ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, the relations between the Egyptian new leadership and Hamas, an ally of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, has strained.

The Egyptian authorities listed the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation in November 2013 and have been cracking down on Islamist militant groups based in the Sinai Peninsula, accusing Hamas of having links with them, which is always denied by the movement.

Islamist militants killed hundreds of security personnel in Sinai, especially in the northern district that shares a border with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Endit