Muslim Brotherhood Set to Take Egypt’s Parliament and Impose Sharia Law
As Egypt prepares its upcoming Nov. 28 elections to build a new government, the rising power of the Muslim Brotherhood may pose great dangers to the Christians living there.
The Middle East Media Research Institute revealed in a report that the Brotherhood first said that they will not force radical Islam on the country, but the group is now focused on winning the elections and it plans to impose Sharia law.
Egypt’s new anti-discrimination law — hastily announced by the transitional government in the wake of an international outcry over the October 9 killing of 27 mostly Coptic protestors in Cairo’s Maspero district — is being put to the test. The brutal murder of a teenage Christian student in southern Egypt on October 16 illustrates the ongoing threat that Egypt’s Christian minority faces from growing religious extremism, including within its public school system, and the discriminatory denial of justice in cases involving religion.
Ayman Nabil Labib was a 17-year-old high school student in the Upper Egyptian town of Mallawi, in the governorate of al-Minya. Egyptian media reports have claimed that he was killed in a fight at school that had no religious overtones.
Egyptian Coptic politician says army responsible for deadly Maspero violence
Egyptian businessman and founder of the Free Egyptians Party, Naguib Sawiris, said extremist Islamist groups were being funded from abroad. (Al Arabiya)
By Al Arabiya DUBAI
Egyptian businessman and founder of the Free Egyptians Party, Naguib Sawiris, is holding the ruling military council responsible for the deadly Maspero clashes, which he described as an unforgiveable crime.
Tunisia, where the 2011 Arab uprisings began,
remains an ominous model for where these uprisings will end.
Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of Tunisia's dominant Islamist party, raises one ink-stained finger after voting: "One man, one vote, one time"?
The nation's first round of elections are in, and,
as expected, the Islamist party, al-Nahda, won by a landslide, gaining over 40% of the seats in the national constituent assembly. As
usual, the mainstream media, interpreting events exclusively through a Western
paradigm, portrayed this largely as a positive development.
President. − The next item is the statement
by the Vice-President of the Commission/High Representative of the Union for
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy on the situation in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria
and Egypt.
The military cannot investigate itself with any credibility. This had been an essentially peaceful protest until the military used excessive force and military vehicles ran over protesters. The only hope for justice for the victims is an independent civilian-led investigation that the army fully cooperates with and cannot control and that leads to the prosecution of those responsible.
Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch
President plays active role in America’s decline, Islam’s rise
President Obama is empowering radical Islam across the Arab world. He is presiding over both the American decline and the rapid advance of our mortal jihadist enemies. From the Middle East to North Africa, the Arab Spring has turned into an Islamist winter. Contrary to the administration’s claims, the popular uprisings have not led to a “rebirth of freedom” - the emergence of liberal democracies in distant Arab lands. Rather, Muslim fundamentalists have used street protests against corrupt, autocratic regimes as a Trojan horse to expand Islamic militancy.
Christians Under Threat as Radical Islam Spreads in 'New
Middle East'
Attacked by
mobs and terrorists, repressed by the growing popularity of fundamentalist
Islamic law and cut off from crucial business ties, Christians are fleeing the
Middle East in an unprecedented exodus.
More than half of Iraqi
Christians — an estimated 400,000 people — have left that country over the last
decade as power has fallen in the hands of increasingly hostile Shi'a Islamic
leaders.
In Egypt, home to at least 8 million Copt Christians — a number
that exceeds the populations of Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, and Tunisia — at least
95,000 Christians have emigrated since March 2011. The number could reach
250,000 by the end of this year, reports the Egyptian Federation of Human
Rights.
Is there a place for Christians in the new Middle East?
BY JAMES TRAUB
The sickening violence inflicted on Coptic Christian demonstrators in Cairo on Oct. 9 shocked Egyptians, and may have ended for good whatever remaining faith democracy activists had in the country's interim military government, which appears to have orchestrated the violence. But Copts have been suffering attacks with growing regularity over the last several years, and this latest outburst only increased the fears among them that their status in Egypt, and possibly even their survival as a community, is now in jeopardy.
BARAK OBAMA AND WILLIAM HAGUE ON THE MASPERO MASSACRE OF THE COPTS BY THE EGYPTIAN ARMY ON 9 10 11 – WHAT THEIR PATHETIC RESPONSES TELL US? WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
by Dioscorus Boles
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – People use their mobile phones to photograph the bodies of Coptic protesters at a hospital morgue after they were massacred by the Egyptian army on the Coptic Bloody Sunday on 9 October 2011. In total 25 Copts were killed and over 300 injured. Photo: STR / AP
ON 9 10 11 THOUSANDS OF CHRISTIAN COPTS gathered at Maspero, the State TV, which has become a focal point for peaceful protest following the 25 January 2011 Revolution. They were protesting the ransacking of a Coptic church in Aswan; the complicity of the Aswan Governor and his local security forces; and the lack of any response from current Egypt rulers, headed by Field-Marshal Muhammad Hussain Tantawi, in taking an action to address the injustice. The response which the Coptic people, estimated at 15 million strong, got from Egypt’s rulers was unprecedented in Egypt’s modern history: they allowed the national army to attack the an armed civilians which culminated in the killing of over 25 Copts – some of whom were run over by military vehicles, and many bodies tossed into the Nile River in a failed trial to conceal the massacre. In a shocking development, Egyptian TV stations, which are run by the Ministry for Information, presented the attacks in a reverse way as an attack by the Copts against the national Egyptian military, and asked the Muslims of Egypt to get out on the streets to protect their army. Consequently, in many places in Egypt, Muslims set upon Copts and beat them. I do not intend to give full account here of the Maspero Massacre (also called the Coptic Bloody Sunday; the Massacre of the Copts by the Egyptian Army; the 9 10 11 Massacre) – I will simply produce below a few links that can help him in understanding the origin of the problem and the events that had led to the massacre. Here they are:
Egypt's State Media Implicated In Violence Against Christian Demonstrators
By Mary Abdelmassih
(AINA) -- Egyptian state television has been accused of spreading false information and inciting violence against Christians protesting in front of the TV building in Maspero on October 9. Calls have been made for the Information Minister Osama Heikal to resign. Egyptian lawyer Hamdi el-Assuiti filed a complaint with the Prosecutor General against the Minister of Information and TV presenter Rasha Magdi, accusing them of "deliberate broadcast of false news, information and rumors, which disturbed public security, causing terror among the public, and harming public interest."
At first, it looked like a repeat of the worst state brutality during the January 25 uprisings that unseated the ex-president of Egypt, Husni Mubarak: On Sunday, October 9, security forces deployed tear gas, live bullets and armored vehicles in an effort to disperse peaceful protesters in downtown Cairo. Joined by Muslim sympathizers, thousands of Coptic Christians had gathered that afternoon in front of the capital’s state television and radio building, known as Maspero, and in many other parts of Egypt, to protest the burning of a church in the Upper Egyptian village of al-Marinab. A few days earlier, their initial demonstrations had also been met with violence.
Anti-Copt violence, consequence of 30 years of bad policies, said Catholic priest
The military is incapable of dealing with the situation. Egyptian Catholic Church spokesman appeals to Western government to prevent the country’s implosion and a drift towards fundamentalism.
Cairo (AsiaNews) – “Clashes between Coptic demonstrators and soldiers yesterday are the consequence of 30 years of policies based on repression and security. without laws favourable to society and education, tensions will continue to rise,” said Fr Rafic Greiche, spokesman for the Egyptian Catholic Church. In an interview with AsiaNews, he called on Western nations to prevent Egypt from imploding.
What is happening in Egypt to the Copts is the Kristallnacht of our times
Whatever the origins of the West's unwillingness to recognise the existence of religion as a causal agent of conflict, this is a naivety which we can no longer afford to possess.
The Bible has had a hard time living next to the Qur'an in Egypt
Some years ago in Dover I fell into conversation with an elderly man on a bus. He expressed an admiration for our nation whose depth I found perplexing.
He said this was due to the “restraint” Britons had shown when reacting to 7/7, an attack which had then only recently taken place.
What clearer sign that Egypt is turning rabidly Islamist than the fact that hardly a few weeks go by without a church being destroyed, or without protesting Christians being attacked and slaughtered by the military?
The latest chaos in Egypt—where the military opened fire on unarmed Christians and repeatedly ran armored vehicles over them, killing dozens—originates in Edfu, a onetime tourist destination renowned for its pharaonic antiquities, but now known as the latest region to see a church destroyed by a Muslim mob.
As the first ‘free’ elections in Egypt rapidly approach, the struggle for domination and supremacy has dramatically intensified. The National Association for Change (NAC) released a statement on Friday condemning the proposal made by the Muslim Brotherhood to hold presidential elections before a new constitution is drafted, asserting ‘it shows the Brotherhood are working for their “narrow interests” alone.’
In addition the Brotherhood’s Political Party “freedom and Justice” announced yesterday they will revert to their decade old slogan “Islam is the Solution” resulting in widespread condemnation.
Egypt’s liberal party Wafd recognised the danger signs and have broken off their electoral alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Egyptian Coptic Christians shout slogans during a demonstration outside the Cairo High Court on May 8, 2011. Hardline Islamists have targeted Coptic churches for arson attacks Photo | AFP |
By DALLIA M. ABDEL MONIEM Posted Thursday, October 6 2011 at 10:11
History teaches us that with change, with revolution, comes improvement. But it seems that is not always the case, especially if the improvement is expected but fails to materialise.
The number may increase to 250,000 by the end of 2011, according to Naguib Gabriel, the head of the Egyptian Federation of Human Rights, which released the report.
In Paris, last week, when a Muslim cab driver picked me up I noticed a slight discomfort came over me. I realized, at that moment, that American religious fanatics had succeeded at convincing me to be afraid. Religion, at its best, furthers deep value formation and creates bridges and connections whereas religion at its worst is destructive and spreads fear throughout society. There is a growing religious fanaticism, with diverse manifestations, that seeks to promote fear of the other and that fear almost inevitability leads to hate. This fear and hate is unfortunately not absent from major segments of the Jewish communal discourse.
I believe religious freedom has to be one of the most important and fundamental rights a person should have. No one should be persecuted or discriminated against because of his or her faith. We are fortunate to live in a country that honors freedom of religion as a fundamental right. Sadly, this is not the case in many parts of the world. One of the primary reasons colonists first came to a then-unknown land was to flee religious persecution in Europe.
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