Category Archives: Egypt

‘Sharia Harassment’ Plagues Egyptian Women

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This is the third story today that seems to indicate a massive and rapid decline in individual rights within Egypt since the election of Morsi.

Al-Monitor:

Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood’s presidential candidate Mohamed Morsy watch celebrations at Tahrir Square in Cairo June 18, 2012. (photo by REUTERS/Suhaib Salem)

posted on Wednesday, Jul 4, 2012

Several areas in Egypt are currently witnessing a rise in the phenomenon some are calling “Sharia harassment.” Veiled women, and often men as well, intimidate unveiled women and girls for not wearing clothing in line with the rules of Sharia law.

In Egypt, “bearded men” attack pool hall seriously injuring four

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Bikyamasr:

Pool hall in Giza’s Haram district attacked by “bearded men.”

CAIRO: Egyptian media reports mentioned the details of a pool hall shooting and affirmed that “bearded men” are behind the incident that left four seriously injured in Giza’s Haram area on Friday.

Four young men were shot in the arm and chest during a game of pool when three men came inside the game room and asked the young men to stop playing and “do something useful.”

Eyewitnesses reported that the men told them what they were doing was “haram,” or forbidden, in Islam.

When a young kid replied rudely to the men, they came back a few minutes later and opened fire. Eyewitnesses said at least 15 people took part in the attack. They used live ammunition and rubber bullets.

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Calls to Destroy Egypt’s Great Pyramids Begin

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h/t Don L

Raymond Ibrahim:

According to several reports in the Arabic media, prominent Muslim clerics have begun to call for the demolition of Egypt’s Great Pyramids—or, in the words of Saudi Sheikh Ali bin Said al-Rabi’i, those “symbols of paganism,” which Egypt’s Salafi party has long planned to cover with wax. Most recently, Bahrain’s “Sheikh of Sunni Sheikhs” and President of National Unity, Abd al-Latif al-Mahmoud, called on Egypt’s new president, Muhammad Morsi, to “destroy the Pyramids and accomplish what Amr bin al-As could not.”

Has the sun finally set for Egypt’s Great Pyramids?

This is a reference to the Muslim Prophet Muhammad’s companion, Amr bin al-As and his Arabian tribesmen, who invaded and conquered Egypt circa 641. Under al-As and subsequent Muslim rule, many Egyptian antiquities were destroyed as relics of infidelity. While most Western academics argue otherwise, according to early Muslim writers, the great Library of Alexandria itself—deemed a repository of pagan knowledge contradicting the Koran—was destroyed under bin al-As’s reign and in compliance with Caliph Omar’s command.

However, while book-burning was an easy activity in the 7th century, destroying the mountain-like pyramids and their guardian Sphinx was not—even if Egypt’s Medieval Mamluk rulers “de-nosed” the latter during target practice (though popular legend naturally attributes it to a Westerner, Napoleon).

Now, however, as Bahrain’s “Sheikh of Sheikhs” observes, and thanks to modern technology, the pyramids can be destroyed. The only question left is whether Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood president is “pious” enough—if he is willing to complete the Islamization process that started under the hands of Egypt’s first Islamic conqueror.

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New Egyptian TV station

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Of course, the purpose of it will be to make sure women study nothing but their subservient role to men, using the proxy of Islamic teachings to hammer that message home. Unless that doesn’t work. Then of course they will use an actual hammer.

Hey when the Beatles wrote Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, was there any Arabic names in the lyrics?

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Obama invites Egypt’s Islamist leader Mohammed Morsi to U.S.

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H/T Sheik Yermami

Haaretz:

Move reflects shift in Washington’s policy to open formal contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood, the group behind Morsi’s win but from whom he formally resigned.

By Reuters | Jul.08, 2012 | 5:23 PM | 2

U.S. President Barack Obama arrives on the South Lawn of the White House on July 6, 2012.

U.S. President Barack Obama arrives on the South Lawn of the White House on July 6, 2012. Photo by AP

U.S. President Barack Obama has invited Egypt’s newly elected Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, to visit the United States in September, an Egyptian official said on Sunday, reflecting the new ties Washington is cultivating with the region’s Islamists.

“President Obama extended an invitation to President Morsi to visit the United States when he attends the UN General Assembly in September,” Egyptian aide, Yasser Ali, said after Morsi met U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns.

Burns did not mention the invitation at a news conference earlier.

Washington, long wary of Islamists and an ally of ousted President Hosni Mubarak, shifted policy last year to open formal contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood, the group behind Morsi’s win. Morsi formally resigned from the group when he won the presidency.

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Student murder stokes fears of Egypt’s Islamists

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H/T Hermes

Times of Israel:

Bearded men approached unmarried couple sitting together in a park, demanding they separate, and fatally stabbed the young man

By July 5, 2012, 3:43 am

 

>Boys hold posters of Ahmed Hussein Eid, who was fatally stabbed by three bearded men, during his funeral procession in Suez, Egypt, on Wednesday, July 4, 2012. (photo credit: AP)
Boys hold posters of Ahmed Hussein Eid, who was fatally stabbed by three bearded men, during his funeral procession in Suez, Egypt, on Wednesday, July 4, 2012. (photo credit: AP)

CAIRO (AP) — Three bearded men approached a university student and his girlfriend during a romantic rendezvous in a park and ordered them to separate because they weren’t married, according to security officials. An argument broke out, ending with one of the men fatally stabbing the student.

The June 25 attack has alarmed Egyptians concerned that with an Islamist president in office, vigilante groups are feeling emboldened to enforce strict Islamic mores on the streets.

Islamists, including members of one-time violent groups, were empowered after last year’s ouster of Hosni Mubarak’s secular regime by a popular uprising. They formed political parties and won about 70 percent of parliament seats in elections held some six months ago, although a court dissolved the legislature.

Moderate Muslims along with liberal and women’s groups now worry that Mohammed Morsi’s presidency will eradicate what is left of Egypt’s secular traditions and change the social fabric of the mainly Muslim nation of 82 million people.

Some activists say Islamists already are flexing their muscles in areas outside Cairo and other main cities, taking advantage of the absence of civil society groups and tenuous security in the areas.

They cite reports of efforts to persuade drivers of communal taxis, mostly minibuses that can seat up to 16, to segregate women and men passengers. In some instances, women’s hairdressing salons were told to get rid of male employees or threatened with closure.

“If Islamists are to try and take over the streets and enforce their version of Islam, they will do it in rural areas, at least initially,” said Yara Sallam from Nazra, a women’s rights group.

The security officials said there was no concrete evidence linking the June 25 killing to radical Islamic groups in Egypt, but it still has stoked fears.

Islamist groups, including Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood and the ultraconservative Salafis, denied any link to the murders.

Rights groups say they have sent teams to investigate the Suez killing and establish whether Islamists were behind the attacks.

On the same day, two musicians, who were brothers, were murdered as they were traveling home after performing at a wedding in the Nile Delta province of Sharqiyah, officials said. Radical Muslims consider music “haram” or prohibited, as a distraction from religious duties.

Two ultraconservative Salafi Muslims were arrested, but officials said it was not clear if the killings were religiously motivated.

 

 

Egypt’s new president shakes up US relations?

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At the risk of sounding a little arrogant, I think Ikhwan even has the expert fooled a bit on this show. The Muslim Brotherhood are no more ‘moderate’ than the ‘Salafists’ whatsoever in policy or in any other way. The difference is the use of taqyyia and abrogation by the Brotherhood in order to achieve an islamic state, while the Salafists do not hide their ambitions. These are tactical differences but not strategic.

Mohamed Morsi vows to free blind sheikh jailed in US

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Guardian:

During rousing speech in Tahrir Square, Egypt’s president-elect promises to work to free Omar Abdel-Rahman

guardian.co.uk, 

Mohamed Morsi
Egypt’s president-elect, Mohamed Morsi, greets the crowd upon arriving in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Photograph: Khaled Elfiqi/EPA

Egypt‘s president-elect Mohamed Morsi has vowed to free the blind sheikh jailed in the US for a plot to blow up New York City landmarks.

In his first public speech, addressing tens of thousands of people in Tahrir Square, Morsi promised to work to free Omar Abdel-Rahman, the spiritual leader of men convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

He also promised to free detained Egyptian protesters facing military tribunals.

Morsi earlier read the oath of office and defied the country’s military rulers by saying: “I fear no one but God.”

He has been speaking on the eve of his official swearing-in ceremony, which had been scheduled to take place in front of a high court. But many protesters called on him to take the oath in the square to defy the ruling generals who took power after Hosni Mubarak’s ouster.

“There is no power above people power,” Morsi said to wild cheers from the crowd, many of whom were supporters of the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood.

“Today you are the source of this power. You give this power to whoever you want and you withhold it from whoever you want, with God’s blessings.”

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A bit on the old Blind Sheikh

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