Egypt is collapsing!

[BRVoice]

Well the creation of a Nazi Party after the revolt in Egypt isn't quite a surprise to me. Years ago I read that 'Mein Kampf' is one of the bestsellers books in arab world, the other is 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'.

I've read also that they make an TV special about 'The Protocols', I just don't remember which country made it, I think it was on Iran but I'm not so sure.

During the World War Two the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was pro-Germany and even tried to help Hitler and his associates with money and troops.

Seeing what's happening in Egypt, I really believe that the Muslim Brotherhood will create a Islamic Republic there.

I don't buy 'Arab Spring' at all. It's all about get rid of USA and Israel.

[BRVoice]

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/144519


Egypt's Arabi Wants Camp David Accords Amended
by Gavriel Queenann - 05/26/11, 6:37 PM

The Palestine Information Center claims Egyptian foreign minister Nabil al-Arabi is studying a proposal to amend the 1979 Camp David Accords signed between Israel and Egypt.

Arabi, who is slated to become the secretary general of the Arab League later this year, was the force behind Egypt's recent attempt to raise the price Israel pays Egypt for gas retroactively to 2008.

Citing "senior Egyptian diplomats," PIC said Arabi has been overseeing a board of legal experts and diplomats for the past two months to study the Camp David accords and determine how Egypt and the Arabs can benefit from several items that have thus far been neglected.

The sources said that Arabi is confident that the committee will succeed, even though the treaty was signed over thirty years ago. Observers suggest Arabi's review of the Accords is a second run at obtaining the gas price hike, which Israel has, to date, refused.

One of the clauses that Arabi is reviewing, according to the sources, states the parties had agreed to set up a committee for mutual financial settlements. Arabi maintains this gives Egypt the right to receive the rate differentials in gas prices supplied to Israel during Mubarak's regime.

The sources added that Arabi wishes to properly apply the treaty and not to terminate it, which runs counter to popular sentiment in post-Mubarak Egypt. Amending it, however, would necessitate Israeli consent.

Polls suggest 54% of Egypt's citizens want the treaty with Israel canceled.

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Gaza Border with Egypt Opens After Four Years

By Saud Abu Ramadan and Calev Ben-David - May 28, 2011 4:34 AM CT

Hundreds of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip entered Egypt as the border crossing was opened permanently for the first time in four years amid Israeli concerns that the move strengthens Hamas’s rule of the area.

About 300 Palestinians crossed into Egypt this morning, and “it was smooth and easy,” said a Hamas police officer at the crossing who gave his name only as Abu Osama. “If the situation remains as smooth as it was today, I don’t see any future problems.”

Egypt’s decision to scale back crossing restrictions for the Gaza Strip has been welcomed by the Hamas Islamic movement, which controls the Palestinian enclave, while raising concern in Israel that the wider border access poses a security threat.

Hamas Moving HQ from Syria to Egypt, Warns Netanyahu

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

Hamas is moving its headquarters from Damascus to Egypt, and the terror group is strengthening itself in the Sinai, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee Monday.

He also noted that the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Hamas sprung, also has become a more powerful force in Egypt since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak. The Prime Minister stated his concern about the inability of the provisional military regime in Egypt to exercise sovereignty in the Sinai, which borders Israel and from where Bedouin and Hamas terrorists smuggle weapons from Iran, Sudan, Syria and elsewhere into Gaza.

Al-Qaeda also has brought 400 terrorists into the area, according to an Egyptian official quoted by an Arab news agency.

The Prime Minister confirmed previous reports that Hamas supreme leader Khaled Mashaal has pulled out of Damascus, where his presence and welcome by Syrian President Bashar Assad is an additional worry for him in the face of the continuing uprising.

The vacuum of power in the Sinai has been illustrated by “the two gas explosions that occurred there” this year, Prime Minister Netanyahu told the Knesset committee. “Global terrorist organizations are interfering, there and their presence is increasing because of the geographic connection between Sinai and Gaza."

The Sharon government agreed to pull out of Gaza following the 2005 expulsion of nearly 10,000 Jews in the area. Agreements with Egypt on security in the Sinai began falling apart after Hamas ousted Fatah from Gaza four years ago.

Following the Operation Cast Lead counterterrorist campaign at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009, Israel relied on American and European guarantees to monitor the transfer of goods and merchandise from the Sinai to Gaza, but these also have eroded. The opening of the Rafiah crossing this past Saturday has further harmed security.

The de facto dominance of Bedouin tribes and allied terrorists in the Sinai has set the stage for further stockpiling of advanced arms by Hamas and for plotting terrorist attacks at tourist and holy sites in Egypt.

[BRVoice]

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columni...aspx?id=222765


Where fear and blindness dominate
By BARRY RUBIN
05/29/2011 23:46

Egypt is well on its way to becoming the next Iran.


In September, the leaves will start falling in the West. And so will the policies toward the Middle East. That month, Egypt will likely elect a radical and largely Islamist parliament. That parliament will then probably write a radical and largely Islamist constitution. The new government will follow a radical and at least partly Islamist policy. It will be Iran all over again.

Of course, Egypt is different. The problem will not be as large or intense as Iran. As the Shakespearean character Mercutio said when given a fatal wound: “No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but ’tis enough; ’twill serve.”

There was recently a violent demonstration at the Israeli Embassy in Cairo.

The protesters set fire to an Israeli flag and demanded that the Israeli ambassador be expelled. They attempted to storm the embassy; 185 people were arrested, 18 police were injured.

The demonstration was organized on Facebook by the April 6 Youth Movement – the same “moderate” and “democratic” group so highly praised in the West for “leading” the Egyptian revolution.

Asmaa Mahfouz is a leader of the movement. In fact, she claims that she personally began the revolution with a video calling for demonstrations.

Now, Mahfouz is trying to launch a new revolution against the military rulers.

One of the reasons she’s protesting the transitional military regime is that the army protected the Israeli Embassy from being seized by the demonstrators.

President Barack Obama believes these people are the hope for the future, and backs them 100 percent. Of course, there are moderate democrats supporting the movement in Egypt, but they are few, and terrible at organizing a political structure. There is no strong moderate party running in the parliamentary elections. The Muslim Brotherhood is well-organized. Smaller Islamist and radical leftist parties are organized.

The dominant emotion in Egypt today is fear. The dominant response in the West is blindness.

MEANWHILE, AN Egyptian court took Egyptian citizenship away from a leading Coptic Christian activist and banned him from entering the country.

Among the charges was supposedly insulting Islam and asking the United States and Israel to interfere in Egypt’s internal affairs.

Former deputy head of Egypt’s Court of Appeals Judge Mahmoud al-Khodheiri gave an interview on Al Jazeera and said: “We should stop exporting natural gas to Israel. I consider the export of gas to Israel an act of treason, and we should stop it. I salute the people who bombed the gas pipe, because this is my blood that is being transferred to my enemy.”

A man who’s been a high-ranking judge salutes terrorists who blow up a pipeline. Yet judges are supposed to uphold the rule of law. If a judge can cheer those who blow things up, that opens the door to supporting other acts of lawless violence. Wherever Khodheiri draws the line, others will find justification for mayhem. Attack Christians? Kill Jews? Assassinate secularists or government officials? Once lawlessness is rationalized as absolute right, there are no limits.

A former high-ranking judge calls for ignoring a legal contract. Of course, he could call for renegotiating the contract through legal channels, but that isn’t what he did. So the acceptable response to an agreement where you aren’t currently gaining an advantage is violent, unilateral abrogation.

What does this tell us about other agreements/contracts that Israel might make with Arab neighbors or the Palestinians? Israel is an enemy. Despite a peace treaty signed 33 years ago, most Egyptians regard this as a temporary truce. The return of the Sinai and the reopening of the Suez Canal and of Egyptian oil fields in western Sinai do not suffice to make them feel at peace with Israel, whatever continuing sympathy and support they might give the Palestinians. Nor does Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the creation of the Palestinian Authority or Israel’s acceptance of its arming. Why should we believe that Israel’s turnover of east Jerusalem and the West Bank, and the creation of a Palestinian state, would change anything? Selling gas is “treason.” And what does one do to traitors in the Arabicspeaking world? One kills them. While Khodheiri isn’t a cleric, he has been a career judge, one of the people who lay down the law of the state, as Muslim clerics rule on Shari’a (Islamic) law. So in a real sense, what he has done is issue what one might call a “secular fatwa.”

If an official of Egypt’s energy authority is murdered tomorrow, the killers can cite Khodheiri as justifying it, just as previous killers, or the would-be assassin of Naguib Mafouz – Egypt’s great novelist – rationalized their acts because of clerics’ statements.

Remember, Khodheiri is a Mubarak-appointed judge! What will the judges selected by the next government sound like? Finally, “blood.” The resort to passion rather than reason is dangerous. The English-language expression “as sober as a judge” doesn’t just refer to intoxication but to a “judicious temperament” – calm, cool and rational.

If judges call for violence and murder, invoking blood and treason, how might common people behave? What example is being offered to the national political culture? Obama and European leaders don’t get it. We are about to be projected back to the bad old days of radical Arab nationalist regimes competing with each other in militancy, anti-Americanism and hatred of Israel. Except this time they’re Islamists, and that’s worse.

When top judges yell for fire and vengeance, your society is in real trouble.

And so are its neighbors. No democratic state can be built on such a foundation.

Ignore all those soothing and ignorant “experts” on television and in the papers.

Here comes the judge. And he’s a hanging judge.


The writer is director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center (www.gloria-center.org) and editor of Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal and Turkish Studies. He blogs at http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin

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Companion Thread:
Is Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco and Libya Facing Real Unrest or a Manufactured Crisis?

'This revolution was a curse': Economic woes test Egypt

'People in the neighborhood are talking about going back to the streets for another revolution — a hunger revolution'



CAIRO — Egypt’s economy, whose inequities and lack of opportunities helped topple a government, has now ground to a virtual halt, further wounded by the revolution itself.

The 18-day revolt stopped new foreign investment and decimated the pivotal tourist industry. The annual growth slowed to less than 2 percent from a projected 5 percent, and Egypt’s hard currency reserves plunged 25 percent.

In a region where economic woes enraged an entire generation, whether and how Egypt can fix its broken economy will be a crucial factor in determining the revolution’s success. It could also influence the outcome of the revolts across the Arab region, where economic troubles are stirring fears of continued instability, authoritarian crackdowns, or even a backlash against what had appeared to be a turn toward Western-style market reforms.

“People are angry,” said Hassan Mahmoud, a resident of a slum near Cairo. He expected a better life after the revolution, he said, but instead he was laid off from his $10-a-day job in a souvenir factory. “People in the neighborhood are talking about going back to the streets for another revolution — a hunger revolution,” he said.

With Egypt’s first open election this fall, the challenge of meeting public expectations while nursing the economy back to health has prompted a wide-ranging debate over radically divergent proposals. They include deep cuts to the bloated government work force and vast public subsidies, a leftist re-expansion of the state’s role in the economy, and the Muslim Brotherhood’s plan to impose a 7.5 percent income surtax on all Muslims to fulfill their religious mandate to give to charity. Non-Muslims would not be required to pay — a distinction that could reinforce sectarian resentments.

Slideshow: Egypt's Mubarak steps down (on this page) The Western powers are scrambling to address the growing sense of crisis by pledging a total package of $20 billion in assistance to the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, including debt forgiveness as well as loans from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

The challenge is steep. The revolution has inspired new demands for more jobs and higher wages that are fast colliding with the economy’s diminished capacity. In an indication of the desperation, the government said soon after the revolution that it would add 450,000 temporary jobs to the public payroll; an extra seven million people applied, said Ahmed Galal, a prominent Egyptian economist.

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As Sinai Deteriorates, Israelis Fear the Worst: Jeffrey Goldberg

By Jeffrey Goldberg Aug 22, 2011 7:30 PM CT 10 Comments Q

It wasn’t much noticed at the time, but this past winter, as some Egyptians flooded Tahrir Square to bring down a pharaoh, others were busy opening the gates of Cairo’s jails.

Common criminals found their way to freedom, and so too did an unknown, but possibly substantial, number of hardened jihadists, including men involved in some unspeakable acts of terrorism.

All indications are that these men, including some from a group in al-Qaeda’s orbit, have returned to Sinai since their spontaneous parole.

Security officials in Egypt and Israel suspect that some of these jihadists may have been involved in repeated attacks on a natural-gas pipeline running between the two countries.

And they worry about more grandiose plots as well -- plots meant to unravel the Egyptian-Israeli peace accord.

The return of Egyptian militants is only one reason the Sinai threatens to become the new Somalia. Another is that Gaza- based terrorists now understand that the Sinai can be their playground.

These men exploited the Sinai’s growing lawlessness a few days ago, when, according to news reports, teams of terrorists associated with the Popular Resistance Committees (a network for which the word “shadowy” was practically invented) tunneled from Gaza into Sinai, made their leisurely way down the peninsula, and entered Israeli territory at will. There they killed eight people at four locations and proved, conditionally, that Egyptian authorities have lost control of the territory returned to them by Israel as part of the Camp David peace treaty.

A Portent

In their pursuit of these terrorists, Israeli gunships mistakenly killed three Egyptian policemen. It was a terrible mistake, of course, but it was a portent of things to come. Egyptians railed against Israel in Cairo, and celebrated as a hero the man who pulled down the Israeli flag from a building housing Israel’s embassy. But the death of those three men was a direct consequence of Egypt’s failure to secure its borders.

Back in the flush early days of the Egyptian revolution, there were many people (I count myself as one) who were swept up in the drama and promise of President Hosni Mubarak’s downfall. Supporters of the revolution directed angry words at those -- in Washington, Jerusalem and the capitals of conservative Gulf monarchies -- who didn’t seem quite so excited.

Many Israelis mourned the departure of Mubarak, not because they opposed democracy, but because they feared precisely what has come to pass: An Egypt unable, or unwilling, to fulfill its security obligations.

Robert Satloff, the executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told me this past weekend that “the new reality -- a no-police-zone in Sinai, wall-to-wall political opposition to peace, a Hamas-friendly civilian leadership and a set of military rulers fearful that their fate may be like Mubarak’s in a cage -- makes the cold peace of the ancien regime seem absolutely balmy.”

Egypt, of course, isn’t Gaza -- Israel cannot simply invade the Sinai (though history suggests that it is very good at doing so) and clean out the terrorists. Such an invasion could cause Egypt to make a decisive break with Israel, with profound consequences for the region and for the U.S. It’s up to the Obama administration, and European leaders, to stress to the Egyptians that the security of their border with Israel must be a top priority.

Maximum Restraint

What is also needed is maximum Israeli restraint, not only in Sinai, but also in Gaza. The terrorists who carried out the fatal attack last week came from Gaza, and so have the rockets that have fallen regularly on southern Israel in the past few days. There are loud calls for retaliation in Jerusalem; the opposition Kadima Party has been leading the charge, demanding military operations to root out terrorism.

But a full-blown Israeli attack on Gaza would be a terrible idea, for many reasons. Hamas, the party in charge of Gaza, is not firing the rockets (that is the role mainly of the Islamic Jihad, which Hamas tries to control, intermittently). Israel’s international isolation would only intensify if pictures of Israeli tanks rolling through Gaza were broadcast around the world, and Israel cannot afford more opprobrium now, a month before the Palestinians ask the United Nations to recognize them as a state.

Most importantly, such an attack would inflame Egyptian public opinion, and cause Egypt’s current military rulers to curtail whatever level of security cooperation they’re giving Israel to prevent further terror attacks.

And these sorts of incursions rarely seem to achieve their desired ends. In late 2008, Israel launched the unfortunately named Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, which was meant not only to suppress Hamas rocket attacks but also destroy Hamas’s infrastructure. Israel failed to achieve the second objective, and, although Hamas quieted its rocket launchers after the incursion, it still possesses the capability to launch when it pleases. (Israel can also afford more restraint now that it has developed more sophisticated anti-rocket defenses.)

There are no immediate solutions to these problems. But the best chance to maintain some semblance of peace and to limit the impact of terrorism is for Israel to buttress its anti-missile capabilities and work assiduously to convince Egypt that peace in the Sinai is an overriding, and common, interest.

What Egypt has to do is what it did successfully for decades: secure its border and keep jihadists in jail. We know the Egyptians are capable of doing this. The question is whether they still want to.

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Egyptian Protesters Outside Israeli Embassy Bear Signs with Swastikas: ‘The Gas Chambers Are Ready’

• Posted on August 22, 2011 at 6:25pm by Tiffany Gabbay
• Comments (287)

While perhaps not shocking, it is profoundly disturbing that in the purportedly more “moderate” Egypt of 2011, demonstrators took to the streets outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo with signs bearing swastikas and a message that read: “the gas chambers are ready.”

It was feared by some that the fall of Mubarak would create a vacuum, thereby opening the door for an Israel-hostile regime to enter Egypt’s halls of power. If “democracy” is what the Egyptian spring truly sought and cared about, then why the vitriolic calls for Jews to be sent to the gas chambers?

And to whose gas chambers, exactly, are the protesters referring?

Is this what Israel has to look forward to from its ever-changing neighbor?
MEMRI translates the signs and provides the all Arabic-language report that originally aired on Al-Jazeera in Qatar:

Glenn Beck: The Gas Chambers are ready

[BRVoice]

http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticl...aspx?ID=309480


Egyptian activists call new protests over pace of reform
September 8, 2011

Activists who were at the forefront of the uprising that toppled veteran Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak in February are calling for new protests on Friday to press the country's military rulers to keep their promises of reform.

The Coalition of Revolutionary Youth urged Egyptians to take to the streets to demand a clear timetable for the restoration of civilian rule and for a halt to the routine use of military courts to try cases involving civilians.

The largest demonstrations are expected in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the mass rallies that ended Mubarak's three decades in power.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces issued a statement late on Wednesday warning it would "deal firmly with any attempt to create disturbances."

It cautioned in particular against "any attack on military units, personnel or vital facilities."

The council's chairman, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, tried to reassure activists about the military's intentions in a speech on Thursday.

He pledged to "organize parliamentary and presidential elections in a completely transparent and impartial manner."

"In the current circumstances it is vital that everyone defend the stability of our country," he added.

The Coalition of Revolutionary Youth urged its supporters to "avoid any actions that could spark chaos" and to be wary of "infiltration by elements seeking to stir trouble."

The Muslim Brotherhood, by far the best organized opposition group under Mubarak's regime, said it would not join the protests but added that it would not cede the initiative to secularist groups.

Secular politicians have voiced concern that the military's current timetable for parliamentary elections in October and November will play into the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood by denying new political movements the time to organize on the ground.


-AFP/NOW Lebanon

[BRVoice]

http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticl...aspx?ID=312031


Peace treaty with Israel “not sacred,” Egyptian premier says
September 15, 2011

Egypt's Prime Minister Essam Sharaf said on Thursday that the 1979 peace treaty with Israel "is not sacred," state-run MENA news agency reported, quoting remarks he made in an interview with Turkish television.

"The Camp David treaty is always open to discussion or for modification if that is beneficial for the region and for a just peace. The peace treaty is not something sacred and there can be changes made to it," MENA quoted Sharaf as saying.

Ties between Egypt and Israel took a blow last week after protesters ransacked the Israeli embassy in Cairo, forcing the evacuation of staff and the departure of the ambassador.

The attack late on Friday, in which crowds smashed through an external security wall, tossed embassy papers from balconies and tore down the Israeli flag, was the worst since Israel set up its mission in Egypt, the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state.

Ties between Egypt and Israel, which have been bound by a peace treaty since 1979, have entered a period of turbulence since the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak by a popular uprising in February.

Activists behind Mubarak's fall have urged a revision of the treaty and the call echoed by the powerful Muslim Brotherhood after the embassy attack, although the Islamists did not ask that the treaty be broken.

Egypt's military rulers have repeatedly said they are committed to all international pacts signed by former regimes, namely the peace treaty between the two countries.

Sharaf's remarks came in response to a question by Turkish television on the "timing" of a visit this week to Egypt by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as Ankara's relations with long-time ally Israel also soured.

"Erdogan's visit to Egypt came at a very delicate time as there are real changes happening in the Middle East," MENA quoted him as saying in the interview.

"We should care about the root of the problem and the problem in the Middle East is the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land," Sharaf added.

Erdogan late on Monday began in Egypt a three-nation Arab Spring tour of countries where popular uprisings toppled veteran, autocratic regimes, and was in Tunisia on Thursday ahead of visiting Libya.



-AFP/NOW Lebanon

[BRVoice]

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...123427,00.html


Egypt sets Nov. 21 date for parliament vote
Published: 09.17.11, 22:22 / Israel News

Egypt's election commission has set Nov. 21 as the date for an election for the lower house of parliament, the country's first vote since President Honsi Mubarak was ousted seven months ago, Al Arabiya Television said on Saturday.

Voting for the upper house will take place two months later on Jan. 22, the satellite channel quoted the head of the commission as saying. Officials were not immediately available to comment on the report. (Reuters)

[BRVoice]

Egypt deputy PM quits after deadly violence

Hazem El-Beblawi resigns as deputy PM and finance minister in Egypt's interim government in protest over Copt deaths. Last Modified: 11 Oct 2011 13:52

Sunday's sectarian clashes were Egypt's worst violence since its revolution ousted Hosni Mubarak in February [Reuters] Hazem El-Beblawi, Egypt's deputy prime minister and finance minister, has resigned from the government in protest over the deadly violence that left at least 26 people dead, his spokesman said. Beblawi submitted his resignation to Essam Sharaf, the interim prime minister, on Tuesday, "saying that this was an individual initiative on his behalf protesting the incidents outside state TV the violence Coptic protesters were subjected to", Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh reported, citing the spokesman. "Beblawi was saying that while the government could not be directly linked to this violence, still in the end, it is the responsibility of the government to maintain security and prevent those kinds of incidents," Rageh said. A protest led by Coptic Christians in Cairo on Sunday against the destruction of a church in the southern province of Aswan, was met by violence, that killed 26 people. The clashes were the worst violence Egypt had seen since the country’s revolution in February, which toppled long-time leader Hosni Mubarak. Next move The immediate reaction in Egypt is that the resignation came at a time when the Sharaf government has been coming under heavy criticism - not only for the way the protests were handled on Sunday but also for its overall performance, our correspondent said. "There are a lot of jokes, play on words of Prime Minister Essam Sharaf's last name, which means honor," Rageh said. "There are a lot of tweets going around, saying that this is a guest of honor-like government, not really an effective cabinet with real rulers." It is still unclear what the prime minister's next move is going to be, whether he reviewed the resignation request or accepted it; and how the ruling military council will react. "It is important to note that this is a government whose shelf life was imminently expiring anyway," Rageh said. "It is an interim cabinet that was sworn in in the summer, [and] we have parliamentary elections [coming up] in November. "So it's not like it was going to stay for a while." Declining economy In addition to the public's general dissatisfaction with the interim government, Beblawi has specifically been under intense criticism for the declining figures of the Egyptian economy in the past few months. Egypt's benchmark stock index took a beating on Monday, dropping over two per cent amid fallout from the weekend's violence. It largely reversed the losses on Tuesday, but the country still faces massive fiscal and economic challenges as continuing protests undercut tourism and foreign direct investment - two key foreign currency earners.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

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More virtues of the Muslim Brotherhood's Arab Spring...

Egypt Christians vent fury after clashes kill 25

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Coptic Christians mourn clash victims in Cairo

Mon, Oct 10 2011

• Mourning and anger in Egypt
• 24 dead in Cairo clashes
• Nineteen killed as Egypt Christians, police clash

1 of 7. An Egyptian Christian woman mourns on the coffin of Coptic Christian Mina Daniel, who was killed during clashes with soldiers and riot police late Sunday, at the morgue of the Coptic Hospital in Cairo October 10, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Mohamed Abd El-Ghany

By Tamim Elyan and Shaimaa Fayed
CAIRO | Tue Oct 11, 2011 1:48pm BST

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's Coptic Christians turned their fury against the army on Monday after at least 25 people were killed when troops broke up a protest, deepening public doubts about the military's ability to steer the country peacefully towards democracy.

In the worst violence since Hosni Mubarak was ousted, armoured vehicles sped into a crowd late on Sunday to crack down on a protest near Cairo's state television.

Online videos showed mangled bodies. Activists said some people were crushed by wheels.

Tension between Muslims and minority Coptic Christians has simmered for years but has worsened since the anti-Mubarak revolt, which gave freer rein to Salafist and other strict Islamist groups that the former president had repressed.

But much of the anger from Sunday's violence targeted the army, accused by politicians from all sides of aggravating social tensions through a clumsy response to street violence and not giving a clear timetable for handing power to civilians.

Late on Monday, thousands marched from Cairo's main cathedral to the Coptic hospital where most of the wounded were treated, calling for religious unity and the removal of the head of the ruling military council, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi.

"Why didn't they do this with the Salafists or the Muslim Brotherhood when they organise protests? This is not my country any more," Alfred Younan, a Copt, said near the hospital.

Church leaders called for three days of fasting "for peace to return to Egypt."

The military council told the interim government to investigate the clashes urgently and said it would take necessary measures to maintain security, state TV said.

"This is a huge crisis that could end in a civil clash. It could end in dire consequences," said presidential hopeful Amr Moussa. "An immediate investigation committee must be formed, with immediate results."

The clashes overshadow Egypt's first parliamentary poll since Mubarak fell. Voting starts on November 28.

"One big problem Egypt faces now is that, increasingly, there is no one in power with the authority and credibility to calm the situation down," said a senior Western diplomat.

"After (Sunday's) events, there is an increasing risk that the military will come into conflict with the people. The authority of the prime minister is dangerously eroded. None of the presidential candidates yet has the standing."

AGITATORS
Christians make up 10 percent of Egypt's roughly 80 million people. They took to the streets after accusing Muslim radicals of partially demolishing a church in Aswan province last week.

They also demanded the sacking of the province's governor for failing to protect the building.

On Monday, mourners packed the Abbasiya cathedral, where Coptic Pope Shenouda prayed over candle-lit coffins of the dead. Many wept and chanted slogans calling for Tantawi to step down.

The congregation wailed as some held aloft bloodstained shirts and trousers. "With our souls and blood we sacrifice ourselves for the cross," they cried.

Some protesters said agitators, whom they described as thugs, sparked violence that prompted the heavy-handed tactics.

The Health Ministry said 25 people were killed and 329 wounded, including more than 250 who were taken to hospital.

Mina Magdy, a doctor at the hospital, said it had dealt with 17 fatalities. Fourteen of the deaths were due to bullet wounds and three were killed when vehicles ran over them, he said.

Streets near the state television building had been largely cleared of debris on Sunday, but smashed and burnt vehicles lined streets in the area near the Coptic hospital, which was also the scene of violence overnight.

Prime Minister Essam Sharaf, appearing on state TV in the early hours of Monday, said the government's attempts to build a modern, democratic state were being disrupted by security concerns and talk of plots against democracy.

"We will not surrender to these malicious conspiracies and we will not accept reverting back," he said before the interim cabinet met and launched an investigation into the violence.

Justice Minister Mohamed Abdel Aziz el-Guindy said the investigation and any trials would be handled by military courts. State newspaper Al Ahram said 15 people were being investigated. State media had said dozens were detained.

GROWING FRUSTRATION
The United States urged restraint and said the rights of minorities and the universal rights of peaceful protest and religious freedom must be respected.

"These tragic events should not stand in the way of timely elections and a continued transition to democracy that is peaceful, just and inclusive," the White House said in a statement.

European Union ministers expressed alarm and said the authorities had a duty to protect religious minorities.

The clashes add to the growing frustration of pro-democracy activists with the generals who took over from Mubarak. Many Egyptians suspect the army wants to wield power from behind the scenes even as it hands day-to-day government to civilians.

The army council denies this.

It has yet to announce a date for a presidential election. A staggered parliamentary vote that lasts till March followed by drawing up a new constitution could push the vote back to the end of 2012 or early 2013, leaving presidential powers in the hands of the military council until then.

Presidential candidate Moussa and other presidential hopefuls have demanded a swifter presidential vote on April 1. Moussa told Reuters it was important that the violence did not derail the election timetable.

Christians complain of discrimination, citing rules that they say make it easier to build a mosque than a church. Tensions have often in the past flared over inter-faith romantic relationships, church building and other issues.

Protests erupted elsewhere in Egypt including its second biggest city, Alexandria. Copts say promises by the new rulers to address their concerns and protect them have been ignored.

"The new emerging faction of Islamists and Salafists has created havoc since the January revolution ... The problem is the severe reluctance of the cabinet and the authorities to enforce the rule of law and protect the Copts," said Youssef Sidhom, editor in chief of Orthodox Coptic newspaper al-Watani.

The cabinet said a fact-finding committee would probe the violence in Cairo and Aswan and laws would be changed to punish religious and other discrimination with prison terms and fines.

It said a committee would speed up the drafting of a new unified law regulating places of worship. Christians have complained that mosques are far easier to build than churches.

Investors, who Egypt is desperate to attract to plug a deep funding shortfall, sold Egyptian shares, pushing the benchmark index down. The index closed down 2.3 percent.

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Companion Article:

• State Dept.: Not a Single Public Christian Church Left in Afghanistan

At least 24 dead in worst Cairo riots since Mubarak ousted

Maggie Michael

CAIRO, Egypt— The Associated Press

Published Sunday, Oct. 09, 2011 2:59PM EDT Last updated Sunday, Oct. 09, 2011 11:45PM EDT

578 comments



Flames lit up downtown Cairo, where massive clashes raged Sunday, drawing Christians angry over a recent church attack, hard-line Muslims and Egyptian security forces. At least 24 people were killed and more than 200 injured in the worst sectarian violence since the uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak in February.

More related to this story

• Video: Cairo's worst rioting in months ends with 24 dead
• Egypt's ruler denies Mubarak told army to shoot protesters
• Egypt's military rulers suggest presidential elections for late 2012

Video

Deadly sectarian violence in Cairo

The rioting lasted late into the night, bringing out a deployment of more than 1,000 security forces and armored vehicles to defend the state television building along the Nile, where the trouble began. The military clamped a curfew on the area until 7 a.m.

The clashes spread to nearby Tahrir Square, drawing thousands of people to the vast plaza that served as the epicenter of the protests that ousted Mubarak. On Sunday night, they battled each other with rocks and firebombs, some tearing up pavement for ammunition and others collecting stones in boxes.

At one point, an armored security van sped into the crowd, striking a half-dozen protesters and throwing some into the air. Protesters retaliated by setting fire to military vehicles, a bus and private cars, sending flames rising into the night sky.

After midnight, mobs roamed downtown streets, attacking cars they suspected had Christian passengers. In many areas, there was no visible police or army presence to confront or stop them.

Christians, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt's 80 million people, blame the country's ruling military council for being too lenient on those behind a spate of anti-Christian attacks since Mubarak's ouster. As Egypt undergoes a chaotic power transition and security vacuum in the wake of the uprising, the Coptic Christian minority is particularly worried about the show of force by ultraconservative Islamists.

The Christian protesters said their demonstration began as a peaceful attempt to sit in at the television building. But then, they said, they came under attack by thugs in plainclothes who rained stones down on them and fired pellets.

“The protest was peaceful. We wanted to hold a sit-in, as usual,” said Essam Khalili, a protester wearing a white shirt with a cross on it. “Thugs attacked us and a military vehicle jumped over a sidewalk and ran over at least 10 people. I saw them.”

Wael Roufail, another protester, corroborated the account. “I saw the vehicle running over the protesters. Then they opened fired at us,” he said.
Mr. Khalili said protesters set fire to army vehicles when they saw them hitting the protesters.

Ahmed Yahia, a Muslim resident who lives near the TV building, said he saw the military vehicle plow into protesters. “I saw a man's head split into two halves and a second body flattened when the armored vehicle ran over it. When some Muslims saw the blood they joined the Christians against the army,” he said.

Television footage showed the military vehicle slamming into the crowd. Coptic protesters were shown attacking a soldier, while a priest tried to protect him. One soldier collapsed in tears as ambulances rushed to the scene to take away the injured.

At least 24 people were killed in the clashes, Health Ministry official Hisham Sheiha said on state TV.

State media reported that Egypt's interim Cabinet was holding an emergency session to discuss the situation.

Writing in his Facebook page, Prime Minister Essam Sharaf said: “What is happening now are not clashes between Muslims and Christians but attempts to spark chaos and divisions. I call on all the children of the nation who care about its future, not to comply with calls of sedition, because it is fire that will burn us all.”

The protest began in the Shubra district of northern Cairo, then headed to the state television building along the Nile where men in plainclothes attacked about a thousand Christian protesters as they chanted denunciations of the military rulers.

“The people want to topple the field marshal!” the protesters yelled, referring to the head of the ruling military council, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi. Some Muslim protesters later joined in the chant.

Later in the evening, a crowd of ultraconservative Muslims known as Salafis turned up to challenge the Christian crowds, shouting, “Speak up! An Islamic state until death!”

Armed with sticks, the Muslim assailants chased the Christian protesters from the TV building, banging metal street signs to scare them off. It was not immediately clear who the attackers were.

Gunshots rang out at the scene, where lines of riot police with shields tried to hold back hundreds of Christian protesters chanting, “This is our country!”

Security forces eventually fired tear gas to disperse the protesters. The clashes then moved to nearby Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the uprising against Mubarak. The army closed off streets around the area.

The clashes left streets littered with shattered glass, stones, ash and soot from burned vehicles. Hundreds of curious onlookers gathered at one of the bridges over the Nile to watch the unrest.

After hours of intense clashes, chants of “Muslims, Christians one hand, one hand!” rang out in a call for a truce. The stone-throwing died down briefly, but then began to rage again.

In the past weeks, riots have broken out at two churches in southern Egypt, prompted by Muslim crowds angry over church construction. One riot broke out near the city of Aswan, even after church officials agreed to a demand by local Salafi Muslims that a cross and bells be removed from the building.

Aswan's governor, Gen. Mustafa Kamel al-Sayyed, further raised tensions by suggesting to the media that the church construction was illegal.

Protesters said the Copts are demanding the ouster of the governor, reconstruction of the church, compensation for people whose houses were set on fire and prosecution of those behind the riots and attacks on the church.

Last week, the military used force to disperse a similar protest in front of the state television building. Christians were angered by the treatment of the protesters and vowed to renew their demonstrations until their demands are met.

[American Patriot]

Military will have to accept people's verdict

The newly elected Egyptian parliament should be the deciding authority

• Gulf News
• Published: 00:00 November 22, 2011

• Image Credit: AFP
• Tens of thousands of protesters wave Egyptian flags during a rally in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday.

Doubts about the willingness of Egypt's military to accept a new democratically elected government are clouding the prospects for a successful election next week. What should be a momentous day when Egypt goes to the polls for its first ever free elections may not work out as expected. In the past nine months since the revolution toppled the Mubarak regime, the generals have kept a firm grip on the levers of power and have not permitted the dismantling of the power structures that have been built up over decades of authoritarian rule.
The groups of young people who led the protests in February have failed to take a political lead, letting the much more organised Muslim Brotherhood set the election agenda. But the bizarre combination of this Islamist movement and the military establishment both wishing to encourage the marginalisation of the young people can backfire, as the strong protests against the military intransigence in Tahrir Square have shown.
It is wrong that only a week ahead of Egypt's first free elections, the military is already trying to manage the main priority of the incoming democratically elected parliament, which is to agree to a panel to write a new constitution for Egypt. The present interim rulers, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, has demanded a special political role for itself as the protector of the constitution, and asked for provisions that would keep the military budget secret and give itself a veto over the body drafting the constitution.
These military leaders would be better off accepting that the new parliament should be the deciding authority. They should prepare to accept the people's verdict rather than seeking to pervert it using their own flawed mandate through which they were appointed by the deposed former president.

[vector7]

Egypt's Cabinet submits resignation amid protests, violence

From Ben Wedeman and Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, CNN
November 21, 2011 -- Updated 2131 GMT (0531 HKT)

Cairo (CNN) -- Egypt's Cabinet offered to resign Monday night, government officials said, as thousands of people gathered again in Cairo to protest the military-led government.

The military leadership accepted the mass resignation soon after the prime minister's office said it was offered, said Lt. Col. Amr Imam, a spokesman for the ruling Supreme Council for the Armed Forces.

But a short time later, a spokesman for Prime Minister Essam Sharaf said that the resignation was not complete. Mohammed Hegazy said around 11 p.m. (4 p.m. ET) that Egypt's ruling military council "is currently in another session with the Cabinet and has not accepted" the Cabinet members' proposed mass resignation "yet."

Tahrir Square -- the hub of the activist movement that led to the ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak 10 months ago -- was packed again Monday with protesters calling for Egypt's military leaders to step down.

The demonstrations in Egypt's capital continued despite ongoing chaos and violence, as security forces clashed with demonstrators for a third straight day.

One of those who submitted his resignation, Justice Minister Mohamed Abdelaziz al-Juindy, said the forces' crackdown prompted the mass move to quit the government.

"I resigned because of the events in Tahrir (Square), because of the political responsibility," explained al-Juindy, referring to the bloody confrontations in Cairo between security forces and demonstrators.

Twenty-two protesters have died in these recent clashes, a spokesman for the Health Ministry said.

Among police, 102 officers and conscripts have been injured, with wounds ranging from gunshots to burns from Molotov cocktails, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. One officer has a critical bullet wound to his head.

Those figures, though, pale compared to the roughly 1,700 citizens who have been wounded, according to the same Health Ministry spokesman.

The military said it is "extremely sorry" for the events under way and called for an investigation.

With citizen activists again at odds with security forces in Tahrir Square, the scene this week in many ways resembles what happened in February.

After Mubarak was ousted, military leaders took control with the promise that eventually a civilian government would be elected and take over.

Military leaders still insist they will hand over power to a new government when one is elected. Parliamentary elections are set to take place November 28. But a complex electoral process follows, and presidential elections could be a year away.

Demonstrators say they are concerned the military -- which would continue to be Egypt's top authority until a president is in place -- wants to keep a grip on the country. And many have voiced anger about a proposed constitutional principle that would shield the military's budget from scrutiny by civilian powers. They say they worry the military would be shaped as a state within a state.

These sentiments are reflected in the 2011 Arab Public Opinion Poll, conducted by University of Maryland professor Shibley Telhami and released Monday. Some 21% of respondents believe that Egypt's military rulers are working to advance the gains of the revolution, while double that figure -- 43% -- say they are trying to slow or reverse the gains. The survey of 750 Egyptians, conducted between October 22 and 30, has a margin of error of 3.7%.

"People here feel that they have been cheated and that they have moved from an autocracy to a military dictatorship," protester Mosa'ab Elshamy said. "So they are back to the square -- back to square one -- to ask for their rights once again."

On the streets of Cairo, some protesters have gone further -- shouting that they believe Mubarak is running the military council and, in fact, the entire country from prison. He and his sons Gamal and Alaa face charges of corruption and of killing protesters.
Violence on the streets has intensified the sentiments among demonstrators.

On Monday, CNN saw police use tear gas and rubber bullets in attempts to disperse the protesters, who responded with Molotov cocktails. Both sides threw rocks as well.

CNN saw captured protesters beaten and shocked with Taser-like devices. CNN also saw bullet holes and a pool of blood. Witnesses said one young man was shot from a nearby building. Witnesses showed CNN mobile phone footage of the wounded young man before an ambulance picked him up.

Doctors at Tahrir Square said injuries in the latest fighting include gunshot wounds, excessive tear gas inhalations and beatings to the head.

"I have received many people suffering of convulsions," said Tarek Salama, a medic in a makeshift hospital in Tahrir Square. "Lots of gunshot wounds from rubber and bird shots. And I have seen two cases who have been hit with actual live bullets."

Still, security forces efforts to control the demonstrators have not succeeded in stopping the people -- many of them shouting "freedom" -- from gathering day after day, night after night.

In fact, more and more protesters appeared to be joining the efforts.
Some political factions have vowed to hold a sit-in Tuesday at Tahrir Square, demanding the immediate resignation of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces.

They also demand the immediate punishment of those who have killed protesters in the past few days.

The Alliance of the Revolutionaries of Egypt are calling the event a "million man sit-in."

The Muslim Brotherhood -- one of the largest organizations in the nation -- has said that it is not having its members join the event.
Military officials have said they will allow protests, so long as they are peaceful.

On its official Facebook page, the Supreme Council of Armed Forces issued a statement about the "extremely urgent" developments that could affect the country's "stability and security."

The armed forces are "extremely sorry for what the events have led to," the statement said, calling on all political parties and coalitions "to come and work together."

The armed forces alsocalled for an investigation into "the reasons behind the incidents," according to a CNN translation.

The forces stressed their commitment to "handing over power to an elected, civil administration" and said they do not "seek to prolong the transitional period in any way."

Mohamed Higazi, a spokesman for the prime minister's office, said the government will continue dialogue on reaching a constitution that ensures the election of a civilian government.

Besides Cairo, clashes between protesters and police have also reportedly broken out in the cities of Suez and Alexandria.

Some on the streets expressed little confidence in the government, saying there had been little progress since Mubarak's ouster.

"Nothing has changed," said Zahra, one protester in Cairo. "We've gone backwards. The military council is garbage. Mubarak is still alive and well, and the people are dying."

Hisham Qasim, a publisher and human rights activist, said that Egypt can't afford anything -- including another revolt -- that could further hamper its already struggling economy. The nation's once-thriving tourism industry continues to struggle, while unemployment remains high.

"The poverty belt is now the ticking time bomb in Egypt," Qasim said. "It threatens that what we went through (earlier this year) could be repeated. ... I don't think we'll survive a second uprising in the span of 10 years."

[BRVoice]

Egypt braces for fresh rally against army rule



By Marwa Awad and Tamim Elyan
CAIRO | Thu Nov 24, 2011 6:11pm EST

(Reuters) - Activists vowed to crank up pressure on Egypt's generals on Friday with an overwhelming show of people power to cap almost a week of protests against army rule that have left 41 people dead.
State media said the army leaders picked a political veteran in his late 70s to form a national salvation government, a choice that was quickly snubbed by many of the young activists who have led the demonstrations in Tahrir Square.
Kamal Ganzouri agreed in principle to lead the new government after meeting the head of the military council, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the website of state newspaper Al Ahram reported, citing sources close to Ganzouri.
As talk of a Ganzouri appointment filtered through the crowds thronging Tahrir on Thursday night, discussion quickly focused on his age.
"Ganzouri is no good for this transitional period, which needs youth leaders not grandparents," said student Maha Abdullah.
"Appointing Ganzouri is a crisis for the revolution. We must remain in Tahrir," said protester Hossam Amer, a 44-year-old tourist guide.
Metwali Atta, a 55-year-old taxi driver who was camped out in Tahrir, disagreed: "I would like to see Ganzouri as prime minister. The man has a strong character, unlike (outgoing prime minister) Essam Sharaf who was easily bossed around by the military council."
The army, hailed as a champion of the people when a popular uprising overthrow President Hosni Mubarak nine months ago, is now trying to defuse the worst crisis of its tenure.
It has promised to speed up the timetable for a handover to civilian presidential rule and insists parliamentary elections will start on Monday, as planned.
A truce between security forces and hard-line protesters brought a nervous calm to the streets near Tahrir on Thursday after five days of clashes that turned part of the capital into a battle zone and left residents choking in clouds of tear gas.
The Health Ministry said 41 people have died in the violence, state television said early on Friday.
The army council said it was doing all it could to prevent more violence, offered condolences and compensation to families of the dead and a swift enquiry into who caused the unrest.
But reports of unjustified police brutality that have swollen the ranks of protesters continue to filter out in the media.
"The people demand the execution of the marshal," crowds chanted on Thursday, referring to Tantawi, who was Mubarak's defense minister for 20 years.
The unrest in the heart of the capital makes it even harder to dig the economy out of a crisis whose first victims are the millions of poor Egyptians whose frustration spurred the protests against Mubarak.
Egypt's central bank unexpectedly raised interest rates on Thursday for the first time in more than two years, after depleting its foreign reserves trying to defend a local currency weakened by the political chaos.
In fresh blows to confidence, the Egyptian pound weakened to more than six to the dollar for the first time since January 2005, and Standard & Poor's cut Egypt's credit rating.
ECONOMY SAVIOUR?
The economic woes may argue in favor of Ganzouri, whose government virtually balanced the budget, cut inflation, held the exchange rate stable and maintained healthy foreign currency reserves during his time in office from 1996 to 1999.
He introduced some economic liberalisation measures and many Egyptians viewed him as an official who was not tainted by corruption. But his record serving under Mubarak could stir opposition from those demanding a clean break with the past.
Some Facebook activists derided the choice of a Mubarak-era man to steer the country into a new era, listing four ancient pharaohs as useful alternatives if Ganzouri turns the job down.
"Tutankhamun is more suitable because he is from the youth," one said, referring to the boy king of ancient Egypt.
In a communique, protesters called the million-man march on "the Friday of the last chance" for the army to hand over power.
The Egyptian Independent Trade Union Federation called for a workers' march to Tahrir. Another labor rights group called for a general strike to back the protests. Labour unions played an important role in the movement that toppled Mubarak.
Supporters of the army council had said they would hold a rally to back the military. In a statement on its Facebook page, the army council said it was "appealing to them to cancel the demonstration," saying it wanted to avoid divisions.
Suspicion that the army will continue to wield power behind an elected civilian administration has grown in recent weeks as the government and political parties tussled over the shape of a new constitution.
The military council originally promised to return to barracks within six months of the fall of Mubarak, but then set a timetable for elections and drawing up the constitution that would have left it in power until late next year or early 2013.
The United States and European nations, alarmed at the violence of the past few days, have urged Egypt to proceed with what has been billed as its first free vote in decades.
The army and the Muslim Brotherhood, which expects to do well in the election, say it must go ahead, but many protesters do not trust the military to oversee a clean vote. Some scorn the Brotherhood for its focus on gaining seats in parliament.
(Additional reporting by Shaimaa Fayed, Edmund Blair, Ali Abd El-Ati and Patrick Werr; Writing by Tom Pfeiffer; Editing by Jon Hemming)

[vector7]

Egypt's 'plans for farewell intercourse law so husbands can have sex with DEAD wives'

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 04:28 EST, 26 April 2012 | UPDATED: 11:28 EST, 27 April 2012

Comments (857)

Alleged proposals to allow Egyptian husbands to legally have sex with their dead wives for up to six hours after their death have been branded a 'complete nonsense'.

The controversial new 'farewell intercourse' law was claimed, in Arab media, to be part of a raft of measures being introduced by the Islamist-dominated parliament.

They reported it would also see the minimum age of marriage lowered to 14 and the ridding of women's rights of getting education and employment.



Controversial: The 'farewell intercourse' law is 'a complete nonsense', according to sources

But sources inside the Egyptian Embassy in London have said the claims were 'completely false', 'forbidden in Islam' and 'could never imagine it happening'.

The source said the proposal, if it even existed, had not reached the parliament - although it was also admitted it could be the work of an extremist politician.

Although not officially rebutted, the claims that someone inside Egypt could introduce such a law provoked widespread scepticism.

More...
100,000 women undergo brutal genital mutilation illegally in Britain (and some of the victims are as young as TEN)

'Down with military rule': Tens of thousands pack Tahrir Square to protest against army generals and pro-Mubarak election candidates
Democracy in action: death doth not them part in Egypt


The initial report, published on reputable English language website alarabiya.net, claimed Egypt's National Council for Women was reportedly campaigning against the changes.

It said the group said that 'marginalising and undermining the status of women would negatively affect the country's human development'.

Dr Mervat al-Talawi, head of the NCW, wrote to the Egyptian People’s Assembly Speaker Dr Saad al-Katatni addressing her concerns.


Outrage: The 'proposals' could have seen Egyptian husbands allowed to have sex with their dead wives (file picture)

Egyptian journalist Amro Abdul Samea reported in the al-Ahram newspaper that Talawi complained about the legislations which are being introduced under 'alleged religious interpretations'.

The subject of a husband having sex with his dead wife arose in May 2011 when Moroccan cleric Zamzami Abdul Bari said marriage remains valid even after death.

He also said that women have the right to have sex with her dead husband.

TV anchor Jaber al-Qarmouty slammed the notion of letting a husband have sex with his wife after her death under the so-called 'Farewell Intercourse' draft law.

He said: 'This is very serious. Could the panel that will draft the Egyptian constitution possibly discuss such issues? Did Abdul Samea see by his own eyes the text of the message sent by Talawi to Katatni?

'This is unbelievable. It is a catastrophe to give the husband such a right! Has the Islamic trend reached that far? Is there really a draft law in this regard? Are there people thinking in this manner?'

Read more:

• Egypt's women urge MPs not to pass early marriage, sex-after-death laws: report

[American Patriot]

OMG I heard this BullShit on the freakin' Bob and Tom show the other day and thought it was a JOKE.

[American Patriot]

Egypt’s Judges and Generals Dissolve Parliament: Is the Revolution Now Truly Over?

Confident that raw power and divisions among the opposition preclude any serious challenge, the junta overturns the table on a democratic transition
By Tony Karon | @tonykaron | June 14, 2012 | +

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Suhaib Salem / Reuters
A protester shouts as he stands on top of a barricade in front of soldiers outside the Supreme Constitutional Court in Cairo June 14, 2012.


The coup d’etat that began 18 months ago in Egypt with the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak initially camouflaged itself in the language of “revolution” and promises of democracy, even as it worked to prevent the collapse of the old order and divide and conquer its challengers. But Thursday’s rulings by the Supreme Constitutional Court have shed the “revolutionary” disguise: Egypt will be effectively ruled by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces junta and its backers in the bureaucracy and judiciary until further notice.
The court, a holdover from the Mubarak era not only slapped down a law passed by the democratically elected parliament to bar officials of the former regime from running for office; it effectively dissolved the legislature itself. The first ruling upholds the candidacy of the military’s preferred option, former Mubarak Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik, in Saturday’s presidential election runoff against the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi. And given events of recent weeks, the smart money wouldn’t bet against him coming out on top in the race for a position whose powers have not yet been defined, a process over which the military retains a prerogative. Dissolving parliament on the grounds that one third of its seats were allegedly elected in an unconstitutional manner (albeit under the supervision of the junta and judiciary) may have even more far-reaching consequences: The Constituent Assembly, a highly contested body appointed by the parliament to draft a new constitution, is unlikely to survive the dissolution of the legislature that created it.
(PHOTOS: Egyptians Head to the Polls)
“Today’s moves by the Constitutional Court on behalf of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) seem difficult to overcome and likely to push Egypt onto a dangerous new path,” warns George Washington University analyst Marc Lynch, who was an adviser to the Obama Administration during last year’s Arab rebellions. “With Egypt looking ahead to no parliament, no constitution, and a deeply divisive new president, it’s fair to say the experiment in military-led transition has come to its disappointing end. Weeks before the SCAF’s scheduled handover of power, Egypt now finds itself with no parliament, no constitution (or even a process for drafting one), and a divisive presidential election with no hope of producing a legitimate, consensus-elected leadership. Its judiciary has become a bad joke, with any pretense of political independence from the military shattered beyond repair.”
The military has effectively closed the chapter of “revolution” and ended hope that the Mubarak’s regime would be followed by a democratic political order. Whereas some Muslim Brotherhood leaders had spoken of Egypt following the model of today’s prosperous and relatively democratic Turkey (governed by moderate Islamists), the generals and their allies have followed a different Turkish model: the “Deep State” Turkey of the past century, in which electoral politics were a sideshow intended to create a veneer of legitimacy for the authority of Kemalist generals and judges styling themselves as guardians of secularism. As if by way of exclamation point on their latest rulings, the judges on Wednesday reimposed de facto martial law, restoring the security forces’ blanket authority to make arbitrary arrests until such time as a new constitution is in force. Right now, there’s no timetable for tabling a new constitution. And the only institution with any democratic legitimacy has now been dissolved, with no clarity on how and when it will be replaced.
(MORE: Some Egyptians Leery of U.S. Military Money’s Impact on Their Election)
The events that saw Mubarak unceremoniously wheeled off stage-left in February 2011, and later imprisoned, were more of a palace coup than a revolution. A junta of generals responded to the crisis presented by the massive protests in Tahrir Square and elsewhere to ease out the helmsman in order to save the regime. They weren’t guided by a clear plan or even a coherent strategy; the generals and their allies have simply improvised their way through the political turmoil of the past 18 months to emerge in an improbably dominant position.
The Egyptian Deep State’s efforts to reassert its dominance has been enabled in no small part by the rolling chaos that is Egypt’s increasingly ineffectual post-Mubarak politics: The “revolution” in Tahrir Square was bereft of a coherent leadership or strategy, and it has found itself increasingly marginalized as Islamist parties, primarily the Muslim Brotherhood, used their extensive grassroots organizational reach to emerge as the dominant force in the new parliament. Although leftist candidate Hamdeen Sabahi finished in a strong third place, and his share of the vote combined with that of liberal Islamist Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh in fourth place still amounted to some 40% of the ballots cast, the runoff race gives Egyptians a choice between the old regime, represented by Shafik, and the mainstream Muslim Brotherhood represented by Morsi. That’s a choice many of the revolutionaries refuse to make, calling instead for a boycott of the poll. But that may simply be a sign that events have left them on the sidelines. And the failure of the Brotherhood and the secular opposition parties to agree on a common program to ensure democracy and civilian rule may yet prove to be the undoing of both camps.
(VIDEO: Egyptians Gather Together (But Not United) in Tahrir Square)
Political gridlock may not be the generals’ ideal outcome: they’d clearly prefer to see the reins of government in the hands of pliant politicians who accept the tacit mandate, including a substantial stake in the economy and a veto on matters of national security, claimed by Egypt’s military along lines familiar in Pakistan today. The fact that the Islamists have emerged as the leading political force appears to have panicked the “Deep State,” which has responded by essentially short-circuiting the process of creating a new government based on representative democracy. That leaves in place a status quo in which authority remains in the hands of the junta.
One leading judge last weekend made clear the aggressive agenda of the Deep State. Ahmed al-Zend, the head of the influential Judges Club representing 8,000 jurists launched a scathing attack on the parliament democratically chosen in an election overseen by the very judges he represents, denouncing it as “a thorn in Egypt’s side” and threatening to block implementation of its legislation. Indeed, in a statement as comical as it was chilling, al-Zend declared that if the judges had known the outcome that the recent parliamentary elections would produced, they’d never have agreed to oversee them.
“From this day forward,” al-Zend warned, “judges will have a say in determining the future of this country and its fate. We will not leave it to you to do with what you want.”
(MORE: Egypt’s Revolutionaries Return to Tahrir Square, but Their Protests Are Flailing)
The junta appears to be reading off the same script, although its actions may be less the outcome of a coherent strategy for restoring power, than the result of clumsy improvisations driven by a desire to protects its core interests and demobilize the revolutionaries. Lynch believes the latest moves from the junta are based on “its belief that it had effectively neutered revolutionary movements and protesters” and that it was unlikely to face a renewed revolutionary upsurge as a result of its own repression, as well as the divisions among its opponents and the growing weariness of the wider Egyptian public after 18 months of turmoil.
“It doesn’t feel threatened by a few thousand isolated protestors in Tahrir, and probably is gambling that they won’t be joined by the masses that made the Jan. 25 revolution last year,” Lynch notes. ”They may also feel that the intense rifts of suspicion and rage dividing the Muslim Brotherhood from non-Islamist political trends are now so deep that they won’t be able to cooperate effectively to respond. Or they may feel that the Brotherhood would rather cut a deal, even now, than take it to the next level. They may be right, they may be wrong. But I wouldn’t bet on stability.”


Read more: http://world.time.com/2012/06/14/egy...#ixzz1xmuxhLDI

[American Patriot]

Some cry 'coup' as Egypt's highest court annuls parliament, military extends power

From Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Josh Levs, CNN
updated 1:17 PM EDT, Thu June 14, 2012


Cairo (CNN) -- Egypt's highest court declared the parliament invalid Thursday, and the country's interim military rulers promptly declared full legislative authority, triggering a new level of chaos and confusion in the country's leadership.

The Supreme Constitutional Court found that all articles making up the law that regulated parliamentary elections are invalid, said Showee Elsayed, a constitutional lawyer.

The ruling means that parliament must be dissolved, state TV reported.

Parliament has been in session for just over four months. It is dominated by Islamists, a group long viewed with suspicion by the military.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, in control of the country since Mubarak's ouster, said that it now has full legislative power and will announce a 100-person assembly that will write the country's new constitution by Friday.

The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest Islamist party, said SCAF leaders were taking matters into their own hands "against any true democracy they spoke of."

The court also ruled that former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik. the last prime minister to serve under ousted President Hosni Mubarak, may run in a presidential election runoff this weekend.

The court rejected a law barring former members of Mubarak's regime from running in the election.

The runoff Saturday and Sunday pits Shafik against Mohamed Morsi, head of the Muslim Brotherhood's political arm.

"We do not need a court ruling to ban Shafik," said Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan. "We will put all our efforts into the upcoming elections so that Morsi wins and we avoid the rebirth of the old regime overnight."

"All this equals a complete coup d'etat through which the military council is writing off the most noble stage in the nation's history," said Mohamed el-Beltagy, a member of parliament and a senior member of Morsi's Freedom and Justice Party, in a Facebook posting. "This is the Egypt which Shafik and the military council desire."

Shafik, at a news conference in Cairo, praised the high court for rejecting the rule preventing former regime members from running. "The age of settling accounts is over and gone. The age of using the law and the country's institutions against any individual is over," he said.

Some analysts also called it a coup.

"Egypt just witnessed the smoothest military coup," said Hossam Bahgat of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, in a tweet after the high court's decisions Thursday. "We'd be outraged if we weren't so exhausted."

Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center, said the court rulings are the "worst possible outcome" for Egypt and the transition to civilian rule is "effectively over."

"Egypt is entering into a very dangerous stage and I think a lot of people were caught by surprise," he said.

Riot police and military personnel, some in armored vehicles, were outside the court ahead of the rulings. Military intelligence officers were also present.

After the ruling about Shafik was announced, a crowd of citizens shouted their disapproval. Military police moved to block the road in front of the court -- a major Cairo artery.

Protesters outside the court chanted slogans against the former Mubarak regime and Shafik.

Ahmed Yousef, a protester with the April 6 Movement, said: "The military wants Shafik, the court will not rule against him -- but we don't care, we will continue to fight against him."

"Those who don't want to see a return to the oppression of the past ... are very unhappy with this ruling," CNN's Ben Wedeman said from Cairo.

Many voters were unhappy with both choices in the runoff.

Morsi and Shafik are the most non-revolutionary of all candidates and represent "two typically tyrannical institutions: the first (Morsi) being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the second (Shafik) a senior official of the former regime," Sonya Farid wrote for Al Arabiya earlier.

"Everything about Egypt's revolution has been unexpected, and the first-round results in the country's first-ever competitive presidential elections are no different," Omar Ashour, director of Middle East studies at the University of Exeter and a visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution in Doha, Qatar, wrote for Project Syndicate previously.

Egypt's voters "overwhelmingly chose the revolution over the old regime ... but their failure to unite on a single platform directly benefited Shafik," Ashour said.

The rulings come a day after Egypt's military-led government imposed a de facto martial law, extending the arrest powers of security forces.

Egypt's Justice Ministry issued a decree Wednesday granting military officers the authority to arrest civilians, state-run Egy News reported.

The mandate remains in effect until a new constitution is introduced, and could mean those detained could remain in jail for that long, the agency said.

Lawyers for the Muslim Brotherhood filed a court appeal Thursday against the decree.

A decades-old emergency law that critics said gave authorities broad leeway to arrest citizens and hold them indefinitely without charges expired on May 31.

The political scene in Egypt remains tense after the parliament failed to agree on a committee to write a new constitution defining the powers of the president and the parliament.

Mohamed Fadel Fahmy reported from Cairo for CNN; CNN's Josh Levs reported from Atlanta; CNN's Ben Wedeman, Amir Ahmed, Laura Smith-Spark, and Mark Bixler contributed to this report.