Category Archives: Egypt

Egypt’s constitution approved in vote, say rival camps

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H/T Magic Martin

 

Reuters

Birds fly over mosques during sunset in Old Cairo December 22, 2012. Early indications showed Egyptians approved an Islamist-drafted constitution after Saturday's final round of voting in a referendum despite opposition criticism of the measure as divisive. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

By Yasmine Saleh and Shaimaa Fayed

CAIRO (Reuters) – A constitution drafted by an Islamist-dominated assembly was approved by a majority of Egyptians in a referendum, rival camps said on Sunday, after a vote the opposition said drove a wedge through the Arab world’s most populous nation.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which propelled President Mohamed Mursi to power in a June election, said 64 percent of voters backed the charter after two rounds of voting that ended with a final ballot on Saturday. It cited an unofficial tally.

An opposition official also told Reuters their unofficial count showed the result was a “yes” vote.

 

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Nonie Darwish: What Egyptians Are Afraid to Know

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Gatestone Inst:

The problem with Egypt and many other Islamic nations is that they are ignorant of what they are demanding, and are left ignorant by their own media and educational system. By now it seems apparent that Egyptians do not even want to learn the truth about Sharia, in case they might reject it — an act that would turn them into apostates, eligible for death.

The chaos in Egypt today is an indication of an old culture that has lost its way and its connection to a great civilization over 3000 years old. Pure Islamists who hate their ancient history and are threatening to blow up the pyramids and sphinx as idols of the pharaohs are now back in full swing to stop any further weakening of Islam by a secular government. But is it the Islamists’ fault or the fault of the Egyptian public who continually vote in favor of Sharia [Islamic law – “The Path”]?

Once Islam takes hold of a nation, the turmoil never ends — between human nature, which aspires for freedom and dignity, and forces of domination and oppression, which see and understand nothing in the political life of a country other than enforcing Sharia law on others.

During the last 1400 years of Islamic domination, Egyptians discarded their past and adopted the culture of Arabia through the process of Arabization and Islamization. Islamists in Egypt and in any other country, for that matter, understand that for their country to remain Islamic, it must be ruled from the top down by Sharia. Muslim leadership has no confidence that Islam would survive without government enforcement through fear, intimidation and harsh punishments. Without government control and enforcement by means of a tyrannical legal system, Islamist leaders believe that the religion cannot survive through choice. That is why, wherever Islam travels, the goal is always to control government.

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Salafi Islamists torch HQ of Egypt’s Wafd party

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H/T Magic Martin

 

Al Arabia:

 Saturday, 15 December 2012

By Al Arabiya

The headquarters of Egypt’s Wafd Party in Cairo was torched on Saturday by supporters of Salafi Islamist politician Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, an Al Arabiya correspondent reported.

The liberal party’s deputy chairman Fouad Badrawi was injured in the attack, in which the radical Islamist’s supporters managed to break into the party’s building despite heavy security presence.

El-Said Badawi, head of the Wafd Party, told Al Arabiya in an interview, “Today, the Egyptian state, represented by the ministry of interior, has collapsed. The ministry cannot maintain order, allowing militias to roam freely in the country.”

The when law enforcement falls, the law of the jungle prevails,” Badawi said.

The violence broke out as Egyptians voted in a referendum on a new constitution intended to pull the country out a growing political crisis.

The Wafd party had pulled out from the Constituent Assembly that drafted a controversial constitution that was put to vote on Saturday.

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The constitution problem in Egypt:

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The following post was sent to me from France. I also have an interview with the Egyptian politician, a man who has over 100,000 registered members of his freedom party and stands very publicly against Morsi and the new sharia based constitution.

Unfortunately the audio is so poor that after many days and many many hours of attempting to reconstruct it I have not been able to translate it for titles. But I am hoping that one of the people present at the interview will send me a French transcript and I will be able to work off of that.

Meanwhile, here is an article about the man interviewed and what happened to him within 48 hours of the interview he did in Paris.

Eeyore for Vlad

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Egyptians endorse Islamist-backed constitution in first round

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Toronto Star:

Amr Nabil/The Associated Press Egyptian referendum officials count votes at a polling station in Cairo late Saturday.
Nancy A. Youssef and Amina Ismail
McClatchy Newspapers

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CAIRO—Egyptians endorsed a controversial Islamist-backed constitution after the first day of voting but without the support of the capital, according to initial results, raising new doubts that it could bring stability to an increasingly polarized Egypt.

According to newspaper tallies of the votes, 56 per cent of Egyptians in the 10 governorates who voted Saturday endorsed the constitution. But in Cairo, 57 per cent rejected it. The vote continues Dec. 22, when the remaining 17 governorates are scheduled to vote.

The vote appeared to be as much a referendum on Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, the party through which Morsi ascended to the presidency, as the constitution itself.

Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood heralded the new document as the pathway to stability. But the opposition groups — Christians, secularists, liberals and moderates — called it divisive and unrepresentative.

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Counting under way in Egyptian referendum

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Yahoo

 

An Egyptian woman walks past a wall stained with ink by voters who tried to clean their marked fingers at a polling station in the historical City of the Dead district in Cairo, on December 15, 2012. Tensions were rising late Saturday over a divisive new constitution being put to Egyptian voters in the first round of a referendum pushed through by President Mohamed Morsi.AFP © <p>An Egyptian woman walks past a wall stained with ink by voters who tried to clean their marked fingers at a polling station in the historical City of the Dead district in Cairo, on December 15, 2012. Tensions were rising late Saturday over a divisive new constitution being put to Egyptian voters in the first round of a referendum pushed through by President Mohamed Morsi.</p>

 

CAIRO (AFP) – Counting was under way early Sunday after a first-round referendum on a divisive new constitution pushed through by President Mohamed Morsi and his Islamist allies despite weeks of opposition protests.

Polling stations in half the country, including the biggest cities of Cairo and Alexandria, were tallying the results from Saturday’s voting.

The second round of the referendum is to be held next Saturday, after which the official result is to be given.

Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood and main media outlets said that, based on very early unofficial figures, it appeared that the polling was trending towards 70 percent support for the draft charter.

But the opposition disputed that, saying its preliminary figures suggested that 66 percent of the voters had rejected the proposed constitution. It claimed the Muslim Brotherhood had sought to “rig” the vote.

If those contradictory positions are maintained, Egypt’s turmoil of the past three weeks over the draft constitution will not subside.

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H/T Magic Martin.

Below, OT audition line up for the new Broadway play, ‘the Merry Penguins of allah’. Critics are predicting a bomb.

AFP Egypt opposition cries fraud in referendum

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Yahoo News:

AFP Updated December 16, 2012, 12:37 am
An Egyptian dips his finger in ink after casting his vote in a referendum on a new constitution at a polling station in Cairo on December 15, 2012. Egypt s opposition cried fraud in the first round of a divisive referendum on a new constitution, accusing President Mohamed Morsi s Muslim Brotherhood of rigging votes to adopt the Islamist-backed text.AFP © An Egyptian dips his finger in ink after casting his vote in a referendum on a new constitution at a polling station in Cairo on December 15, 2012. Egypt’s opposition cried fraud in the first round of a divisive referendum on a new constitution, accusing President Mohamed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood of rigging votes to adopt the Islamist-backed text.

CAIRO (AFP) – Egypt’s opposition cried fraud in Saturday’s first round of a divisive referendum on a new constitution, accusing President Mohamed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood of rigging votes to adopt the Islamist-backed text.

But the National Salvation Front opposition coalition did not immediately make good on a threat to call a boycott if it perceived violations, instead stepping up an appeal to Egypt’s 51 million voters to reject the draft charter.

The Front’s allegations, which included unsealed ballot envelopes and a judge preventing Christians from voting at one Cairo polling station, underlined the highly charged conditions in which the two-stage referendum was taking place.

Three weeks of anti-Morsi protests and clashes in Cairo last week that killed eight people and injured hundreds failed to prevent the referendum going ahead on the draft, largely shaped by Morsi’s Islamist allies.

To ensure security, some 120,000 troops were reinforcing 130,000 police.

Voting was being staggered across the country on Saturday and a week later because many judges were not willing to oversee polling.

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RTV Arabic: EGYPT – Clashes in Alexandria today

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Watch the guy in Wee-Willie-Winkie costume lob a chunk of concrete and people opposed to Morsi’s theocratic tyranny

They used to say that Beirut was the “Paris of the Middle East”. That honour now clearly falls on Alexandria Egypt. The video below reminds me so much of Paris in the spring.

H/T Magic Martin

Alexandria Egypt Dec 14 2012

Organized Islamic movements and supporters of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi demonstrations and rallies in front of Rabaa Adawiyyah Mosque in Nasr City the day before the referendum on the new constitution, a bone of contention between the forces of political Islam and civil forces and revolutionary.
And raise the protestors in Tahrir Square anti-regime slogans such as “sit-in until the regime falls.” Protesters chanted in front of the Federal Palace during the passage of Mercy: “leave the people want to overthrow the regime”