Ultraconservative party to push for Islamic Egypt - Atlanta Journal Constitution

The Associated Press

CAIRO — Anticipating a strong presence in the new Egyptian parliament, ultraconservative Islamists outlined plans Friday for a strict brand of religious law, a move that could limit personal freedoms and steer a key U.S. ally toward an Islamic state.

An Egyptian waves a national flag while wearing a clown mask during a rally in support of the ruling supreme council of the armed forces, SCAF, at Abbasiya Square, in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. Islamists appear to have taken a strong majority of seats in the first round of Egypt's first parliamentary vote since Hosni Mubarak's ouster, a trend that if confirmed would give religious parties a popular mandate in the struggle to win control from the ruling military and ultimately reshape a key U.S. ally. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)
Thousands of supporters of the ruling supreme council of the armed forces, SCAF, shout national pro council slogans during a rally at Abbasiya Square, in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. Islamists appear to have taken a strong majority of seats in the first round of Egypt's first parliamentary vote since Hosni Mubarak's ouster, a trend that if confirmed would give religious parties a popular mandate in the struggle to win control from the ruling military and ultimately reshape a key U.S. ally. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)
A banner supporting Egyptian parliamentary candidate Ahmed Abd El Hameed Mohammed is pasted on a wall in the al-Azhar quarter in Cairo, Egypt, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011. The fundamentalist Brotherhood is emerging as the biggest winner in partial results from the first voting this week in Egypt's landmark election, in which voters turned out in unexpected droves. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
Egyptian supporters of the ruling supreme council of the armed forces, SCAF, wave by a national flag in Abbasiya Square, in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. Islamists appear to have taken a strong majority of seats in the first round of Egypt's first parliamentary vote since Hosni Mubarak's ouster, a trend that if confirmed would give religious parties a popular mandate in the struggle to win control from the ruling military and ultimately reshape a key U.S. ally. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Egypt's election commission announced only a trickle of results from the first round of parliamentary elections and said 62 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the highest turnout in modern history.

However, leaked counts point to a clear majority for Islamist parties at the expense of liberal activist groups that led the uprising against Hosni Mubarak, toppling a regime long seen as a secular bulwark in the Middle East.

The more pragmatic Muslim Brotherhood is poised to take the largest share of votes, as much as 45 percent. But the Nour Party, which espouses a strict interpretation of Islam in which democracy is subordinate to the Quran, could win a quarter of the house, giving it much power to affect debate.

A spokesman, Yousseri Hamad, said his party considers God's law the only law.

"In the land of Islam, I can't let people decide what is permissible or what is prohibited," Hamad told The Associated Press. "It is God who gives the answers as to what is right and what is wrong."

The Nour Party is the main political arm of the hard-line Salafist Muslim movement, which espouses a strict form of Islam similar to that practiced in Saudi Arabia. Salafis, who often wear long beards and seek to imitate the life of the Prophet Muhammad, speak openly about their aim of turning Egypt into a state where personal freedoms, including freedom of speech, women's dress and art, are constrained by Islamic law — goals that make many Egyptians nervous.

Salafis object to women in leadership roles, citing Muhammad as saying that "no people succeed if led by women." However, when election regulations forced all parties to include women, Salafi cleric Yasser el-Bourhami relented, saying that "committing small sins" is better than "committing bigger ones" — by which he meant letting secular people run the government.

In the end, the party put women at the bottom of its lists, represented by flowers since women's photos were deemed inappropriate.

This week, Salafi cleric and parliamentary candidate Abdel-Monem Shahat caused a stir by saying the novels of Egypt's Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz, read widely in Egyptian schools, are "all prostitution."

Salafis are newcomers on Egypt's political scene. They long shunned the concept of democracy, saying it allows man's law to override God's. But they formed parties and entered politics after Mubarak's ouster, seeking to enshrine Islamic law in Egypt's new constitution.

By contrast, the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest and best organized political group, was officially banned under Mubarak but established a nationwide network of activists who built a reputation for offering services to the poor. After Mubarak's fall, the group's Freedom and Justice Party campaigned fiercely, their organization and name-recognition giving them a big advantage over newly formed liberal parties.

Stakes are particularly high since the new parliament is supposed to oversee writing Egypt's new constitution. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which took control of the country when Mubarak fell, has tried to impose restrictions on membership in the 100-member drafting committee. The Muslim Brotherhood has said it will challenge the move, and a strong showing by Islamists in the elections could boost its popular mandate to do so.

Hamed, the Nour Party spokesman, said democracy can't pass laws that contradict religion.

"We endorse Egyptian democracy," he said. "However, I don't give absolute freedom to people to legislate to themselves and decide on what is right or wrong.

"We have God's laws that tell us that."

He suggested, for example, that alcohol should be banned and that a state agency could penalize Muslims for eating during the day during the holy month of Ramadan, when the devout fast from dawn to dusk.

The Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis have both cooperated and disagreed in the past.

They tried to form an electoral alliance, which broke down over disagreements about including Christians and women in their electoral lists. However, the two parties campaigned together in some areas and declined to contest certain seats so as not to split the Islamist vote and allow liberal candidates to win.

The strong Islamist showing worries liberal parties who fear the two groups will work to push a religious agenda. It has also caused many youth activists who launched the anti-Mubarak uprising to feel that their revolution has been hijacked. Still, the liberal Egyptian Bloc coalition, which is competing with the Salafis to be the second-largest parliamentary bloc, could counterbalance hard-line elements.

Cooperation between the Brotherhood and Salafis in parliament isn't guaranteed, said Shadi Hamid, Middle East expert with the Brookings Doha Center. The Brotherhood is a pragmatic organization that will work with other parties to achieve its goals, while the Salafis shun compromise.

Once the parliament is seated, Hamid expects the Brotherhood to focus on establishing a strong parliamentary system, reforming state institutions and boosting the economy — goals they share with liberal groups.

"Banning alcohol or passing laws on women's dress are not on their priority list, and they see these issues as a distraction from the issues at hand," he said.

Still, a strong Salafist bloc in parliament will have a "massive effect," he said, by giving the group a larger platform for its views.

"The Salafis are going to insert religion into the public debate in a way that would not have happened otherwise," he said.

Many in Egypt's Coptic Christian population, which makes up 10 percent of the country, fear the Salafis will push for laws that will make them second-class citizens.

Even some religious Egyptians see the Salafi as too extreme.

"I am religious and don't want laws that go against my beliefs, but there shouldn't be religious law," said Ahmed Abdel-Rahman, a geography teacher. "I don't want anyone imposing his religious views on me."

The election commission said Friday that more than 8 million eligible voters — 62 percent — participated in the first round. But it announced final results in only a few races. It remains unclear when complete final results will be released.

This week's vote, held in nine provinces, will determine about 30 percent of the 498 seats in the People's Assembly, parliament's lower house. Two more rounds, ending in January, will cover Egypt's other 18 provinces.

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Egypt women fear rise of conservative Islam - Bikya Masr

Be modest. Those are the words of potential Egyptian presidential candidate Hazem Salah Abu Ismail to his supporters, and especially to the country’s female population. His firebrand rhetoric, which endorses “Islamic dress” has begun to spark fears among Egyptian women that he wants a Saudi Arabian styled future for Egypt, where women are forced to cover and are barred from beaches.

At least two-piece swimsuits, Abu Ismail said at a recent interview on a TV program called “90 minutes.” He also said that if elected, he would bar alcohol from public places, even for tourists, would end the peace treaty with Israel, and more frightening to the over 40 million women living in the country, he would “embark on a conservative dress campaign,” which would “force the Islamic dress on all women.”

He added that if women were seen wearing two-piece bikinis on the beach or in public, “they would be arrested.”

For many in the country, it is a scary proposition that would see many of the real, and perceived, freedoms that have come slowly as a result of the January uprising that ousted the former government here, dissipate in favor of conservatism.

Nawal el-Saadawi, the foremost Arab feminist, told Bikyamasr.com in a recent interview that the revolution was largely “because women took to the streets. But we cannot have a better Egypt without women, they are the foundation of any society.”

With the rise of the conservative Salafists in late July – they held a million man march on Cairo’s Tahrir Square – and their increasing popularity, women are now being pushed aside, says Nadia Fahmy, an Egyptian-American researcher based in Cairo and works in rural villages, attempting to gather an understanding of rural culture in the country.

“Look around and all the positives and optimism that were part of the post-revolution Egypt are all but gone,” she begins. “We have returned to how things were before Mubarak, but now it is the Salafists who are gaining the peoples’ strength, especially in rural areas where religion is so important.”

Around 12 percent of Egypt’s population are Coptic Christian and do not veil. A small percentage of Muslim women in the country also do not adorn the veil, and Abu Ismail’s comments have left many frustrated over the rising power of the Islamists in the country.

“I talk to my friends, who are not veiled and drink and go to the beach, and these kind of statements really worry us, partly because we know that people like Abu Ismail are popular among the lower classes,” added Fahmy.

Abu Ismail, who started his public life as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, split from the group in order to run in the presidential election, vaguely set for by the ruling military council for some time in 2013.

Ismail is one of the stronger and popular potential candidates, although he will be running against a former MB member, Abdel Moneim Aboul Foutoh, who also had to quit the group to be able to run.

The crux of the matter seems to be the growing divide between the secularists, who for the most part have left women’s issues on the side, arguing they are divisive and “not part of the overall social justice demands” of the revolution. This has angered many women’s activists in the country, including Saadawi.

“This is ridiculous,” she began, “because you can’t have anything without women, so the women are very important.”

While the Muslim Brotherhood on Wednesday came out and called on the Salafists, including Abu Ismail, to “tone down” their language, the reality on the ground is that women’s issues are falling away as quickly as the conservatives and the military increase their grip on power and public opinion.

“We have to be weary of the future of this country right now, because there are elections soon and if these people are gaining popularity, it could mean a lot of downsides for women and freedom,” added Fahmy.

For now, with presidential elections two years off, activists are beginning to entrench themselves for a long battle for social justice and freedom. Saadawi and Fahmy hope that candidates such as Abu Ismail will begin to lose popular support in favor of freedom and justice.

Egypt: two Christian girls kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam-weasel zippers

Of course these are Muslim women kidnapped and forced to secretly Christian if we never heard the end of it would in the West Christian victims of the Government since there is a peep.

Cairo (AsiaNews) — upper Egypt's Copts continue attacks on the abduction of women and young. Last Saturday, in the village of Awlad (Suhaj, upper Egypt) collar, extremists set fire to hundreds of injured people in the Christian vol. 3. , Two young Coptic women have been kidnapped translates Islamic Minya, force.

Upper Egypt, where police and military violence against anti-often with side has become a daily event in the Muslim, a source said: from Asianews Extremist Christians, churches and homes destroyed, using any excuse to push for Muslim civilians in the area policed under the nation's ….

The power vacuum created by the Mubarak's kidnapping had increased the number of Coptic youth and young women. Hijacking at home or away, they are forced to marry Muslim men converting.

The latest case, two girls, 14-year-old and a 16-year-old Christine Nacy, disappeared on June 12 and who is included. Wearing a niqab after them, the police, and the cross tattoo on their wrists was found.

Despite complaints by their family until the end of the two surveys and are kept in the psychiatric hospital.

"Daily kidnapping and financed by Saudi Arabia Muslims forced Islamisation 25 to a new level of minors carried out by the Coptic has passed on after the January revolution" Coptic activists mark Ebeid said. It is also "greatly angered the Copts. You can now both intolerable provocation Islam over continuous fear. "

No going back to the Egypt not converted Copts - The Australian

In the upheavals in Egypt since January, reports began to emerge of a surge in the disappearances of Coptic girls.

A priest in the budget of the Cairo at least 21 young girls, as young 14, disappeared from his single parish.

In most cases, when a Christian girl who disappears is found by her family, she was converted to Islam and married. The Coptic authorities even set up a series of shelters in monasteries to manage the growing number of girls who want to return to their families, of which many are not accepted by their family of origin.

But a worse problem for these women is that their conversion to Islam is irreversible.

Religion is indicated on the Egyptian ID documents and even though the secular law provides meshes, in the growth of the Shariah, they are very difficult, except to give them legal advocacy.

This situation is not unique in Egypt. Reported consistent the girls being forced Islamic conversion and marriage in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

It is not in doubt that many of these girls are first runaway. However, there is also evidence that a large number are converted and married against their will.

The situation was documented in a controversial report in 2009 on the conversion and marriage forced Coptic women by Christian Solidarity International, based in Washington DC. The authors are Washington academic Michele Clark and Coptic Egyptian broadcast journalist Nadia Ghaly, based in Melbourne.

Between 2005 and 2008, they were interviewed and documented 50 Egyptian women mainly aged 14 to 25, which had decided to return to their families. All claim would have been misled, compulsion or raped, converted to Islam and married. Most of the interviewees were trying to reconvert to their Christian identity, with little or no success. The conclusions of the report were printed in several major publications, including Forbes magazine.

Since the so-called Arab spring and the riots that followed in the Christian churches, the authors are trying to turn the purpose of forced conversion and marriage with greater importance.

The two groups live very closed and very traditional separate and the standards surrounding marriage and sex are almost medieval, said Ghaly.

Thus, for example, it is not of a young Christian girl from a poor family to escape an arranged marriage. However, a high proportion of these women claim coercion, rape, same, despite the shame that causes such a claim if the girl wants to return.

Many claim that they were kept as virtual slaves. Others who have been able to leave could not bring their children. Ghaly argues that it is more that religious oppression manifest and is equivalent to "a form of cultural genocide."

It cites a document published by Human Rights Watch in November 2007, who said that even if Coptic women can obtain a divorce from their Muslim husband, those who wish to return to Christianity "meet refusal and harassed by the Department of State Civil of the Ministry of the Interior".

Under the Act of Sharia, conversion is considered apostasy punishable by death.

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