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The Situation in Egypt

S

Sahar

Well-Known Member
I'd like to talk a little about the persecution of Muslims under the rule of the ousted regime. If you were a Muslim scholar who used to criticize the government, you would be banned from giving speeches in mosques or in any gathering. If you were a Muslim preacher who didn't criticize the government and didn't speak about politics at all but had popularity, for sure you would be banned from giving any speech in any gathering, and you could be expelled from your country Egypt. Examples: Amr Khaled, Wagdi Ghonim and others. All mosques were under surveillance of the Ministry of Interior. This ministry arrested and jailed many Egyptian Muslims because they had beards, regularly prayed at the mosque or taught Qur'anic recitation at the mosque. I remember a story of a teenage who were jailed for years and was released recently for the charge of teaching others how to recite the Qur'an. I have a neighbor who were arrested at the early morning 3 am because he was of those who have a beard and pray at the mosque regularly.
Girls who wear niqab did have hard time to have their exams because they must take off the face veil...girls were banned to wear the face covering if they wanted to join the university student housing.
After the events of the church bombing in Alexandria (which appeared to be planned by the ministry of interior), they arrested a young Salafi man; Sayyed Bilal they torutred him up to killing him then the next day his family had a call to receive their son's dead body from the hospital.

If you're a woman and changed your religion from Christianity to Islam then the church would lock you up, threaten you with the permission and encouragement of the state security agency as it appeared in their leaked papers in the case of two women; Wafa' Qustantin and Kamilia Shehata.

If you are a member in a the Muslim Brotherhood then expect every type of oppression. They were jailed and tortured. No political party or opposition faced oppression and terrorism like what the MB and Islamists in general faced.
Some of the political detainees narrated stories how the police officers of the jail collected their copies of the Qur'an and burned them to humiliate them. Of course, in addition to all sorts of humiliation and oppression.

Conclusion: we were ruled by a gang of thieves and criminals who didn't respect the law. The Egyptians with their different sections faced a lot of humiliation and injustice. At last, we could revolt and say Enough!
It's well known that the revolution was revolution of the people with all its factions. The MB did have an important role in stabilizing and protecting the revolution because they are well-organized (despite the oppression they faced) and they have a wide public ground and support.
 
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Revoltingest

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
I didn't read the prior 70+ pages of posts, so I'm perplexed.
Why is persecution of Muslims in Egypt happening if the state religion is Islam? It is....isn't it?
 
S

Sahar

Well-Known Member
Well Revoltingest, the truth is Muslim and non Muslim Egyptians faced a lot of injustice and oppression in every field and in every thing, you were excluded from this if you had money or knew someone in a position of authority. If you had the money and the authority, you could buy anything and you could do anything, you become the law yourself.

(Look how the poor citizen was treated in the police station: [youtube]pJc4LmZ4pqk[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJc4LmZ4pqk)

But why persecuting Muslims specifically based on religious reasons? This makes us return to the original point, no respect for the Law and the Constitution. Basically the past regime repeated the slogan "no religion in politics and no politics in religion". Egypt wasn't an Islamic state in the sense that the reference for our law, systems and values is Islam. No, the presence of Islam was minimal in the government, in politics, in economics. Maybe Islam had stronger presence in the Personal Status Law and of course in the social life. Sometimes the regime used religion to have some political gains (e.g persecuting a non Muslim minority to please a section of Muslims, or ordering scholars in an Islamic institution to issue fatwas that justify the regime's actions, etc). True that Egypt have an Islamic history and the majority of its population are Muslims and Islam have a role in our lives but Egypt's regime and its systems were largely secular. Also, the class of intellectuals, writers and journalists mostly are secular because this orientation was allowed to appear and move more freely than those who have an Islamic orientation.
So the point of Egypt being an Islamic state meant nothing to the regime. What meant to them is their personal gains. The number of corruption cases that the previous officials are charged with and for which are prosecuted now, is very huge. The best description of the previous era is that we were ruled a gang of thieves and criminals, unfortunately, and they weren't held accountable.

Imagine that the regime itself was responsible for bombing of a church to make up a problem between Muslims and Christians to distract us away from their ugly and wide forgery in the last Parliamentary elections!! After which they arrested an innocent young citizen Sayyed Bilal and killed him! It was Mafia!! What can I say?!

If you let people know Islam and if you let Islam motivate them, they will wake up from their sleep, ask for their rights, threaten the corrupt officials. Islam is a very strong motive for us. If you nourished this inside us, we can liberate the entire Muslim Ummah in a very short time so the current Arab regimes fear Islam, so the West fear Islam.
 
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S

Sahar

Well-Known Member
And if the country is an Islamic country, so what? Didn't Mubarak and his regime kill and injure hundreds of youth and Egyptians in general to stay in power? Isn't the criminal Gaddafi killing his people who are Muslims, in cold blood? Isn't the regime in Yemen killing the people there who are also Muslims?
Why would they care if the people are Muslims or if the country is Muslim?!
 
Revoltingest

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Sahar said:
And if the country is an Islamic country, so what? Didn't Mubarak and his regime kill and injure hundreds of youth and Egyptians in general to stay in power? Isn't the criminal Gaddafi killing his people who are Muslims, in cold blood? Isn't the regime in Yemen killing the people there who are also Muslims?
Why would they care if the people are Muslims or if the country is Muslim?!
Click to expand...
I had an impression that Egypt's religious oppression was directed at Muslims, which struck me as odd in an Islamic country.
Your explanation of political oppression as the cause is plausible. Why would I care? I ask so I can understand.
 
kai

kai

ragamuffin
Sahar said:
This is the one that I was talking about specifically. The previous Minister of Interior is being charged with plotting the entire thing (after leaked papers from the dissolved state security agency).
Click to expand...

Is that Habib el-Adly?
 
S

Sahar

Well-Known Member
Revoltingest said:
I had an impression that Egypt's religious oppression was directed at Muslims, which struck me as odd in an Islamic country.
Your explanation of political oppression as the cause is plausible. Why would I care? I ask so I can understand.
Click to expand...
I said "why would they care", "they" refers to the Arab rulers and regimes. :)

I am very pleased to reply to your questions. :) I hope you forgive my terrible language mistakes.
 
Mr Spinkles

Mr Spinkles

Mr
I think it is a little more complicated than the U.S. government being against Islam, Sahar. The U.S. government is just essentially against anything that might interfere with its global interests, whether that interference is caused by Islamic, secular, Marxist, or Christian movements.
 
Alceste

Alceste

Vagabond
Mr Spinkles said:
I think it is a little more complicated than the U.S. government being against Islam, Sahar. The U.S. government is just essentially against anything that might interfere with its global interests, whether that interference is caused by Islamic, secular, Marxist, or Christian movements.
Click to expand...

Yep, and to be even clearer, by "interests" they specifically mean the business interests of US based corporations.
 
S

Sahar

Well-Known Member
It seems Yes for the constitutional amendments is going to win! :D

Mr Spinkles, yes true, it's all about its interests and when it comes to Arabs and Muslims, Islam will definitely take the lead in standing against its interests, that is why any attempt to establish an Islamic government, the US and its allies dismantle it with every possible means. If there was Islamic awakening and Islamic political orientation, it means an inevitable clash with the Western interests without any single doubt. Islam have a very great influence on the people here...we might say it's a part of their structure that can't be separated, maybe weakened but it just comes again and stronger.

Actually, I tell people around me, if MB dominated the next government, it would be very problematic to us Egyptians and we are not ready to stand against the world. MB or any party that adopt similar principles might be a later step...but God only knows what will happen! We all thought the Egyptian and Arab people generally are asleep and there were no signs of uprising and here we are; having two revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, in addition to the turmoil in Yemen, Libya, Bahrain, etc.

Anyway, I like the philosophy and approach of Al-Wasat (Centre) party that acknowledges our Islamic history, shaping, the Islamic values and hold them as its reference but at the same time it strongly adopts the liberal principles. I support this party and I believe this is what Egypt needs for the coming time.

Unfortunately, followers of the strict Islamic school, Salafiya, decided to work in politics subsequent to the revolution, after they detached themselves from politics in the passing era, but we have to accept their presence if we are talking about democracy. So, we are going to see different streams and approaches among Islamists. Hopefully, the moderate stream will have a wider public ground.
 
Mr Spinkles

Mr Spinkles

Mr
Thanks for the info Sahar, very educational. I read an article abou tthe al-Wasat party platform here: Center (al-Wasat) Party – Egypt Elections

Although I pretty much agree with everything you said, I would not say the US will dismantle any Islamic government "with every possible means". The US supported the creation of Islamic governments in Iraq and Afghanistan. And this is the second time the US has supported Islamists in Afghanistan (once before, against the Soviets). The US has good relations with Muslim-majority republics such as Turkey and Indonesia. And the US is a close ally of Saudi Arabia, a very hard-line Islamist government.

I am sure you are right that Islam is a part of democratic / nationalist movements in your part of the world, I am just saying that from the U.S. perspective it's not important that it's Islamic, what the U.S. fears are nationalist/democratic movements, whatever their religious flavor.

But I could be wrong ...
 
kai

kai

ragamuffin
Sahar the US is not concerned what religion the government is partial to, its concerned firstly over how that government acts and reacts on the international stage, and how that affects US interests. The same for any government outside Egypt really.

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This may be of interest;


Cairo, Asharq Al-Awsat – Hizb Al-Wasat Al-Jadid [The New Center Party] is the first political party in Egypt licensed to operate following the 25 January revolution, after its previous application for legal status was rejected by the former regime. This is the first political party in the history of Egypt that openly proclaims that it intends to follow Islamic Sharia principles as part of its general framework. Abu Ila Madi is the founder and president of the New Center Party, and he is a well-known Islamist and a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood.


http://www.ocnus.net/artman2/publis...eader-of-Egypt-s-Newest-Political-Party.shtml



The Wasat story
The idea of establishing the Wasat Party began when a group of Islamist youths, who belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood at the time, felt the need to form a political entity that promotes a civil approach while representing moderate Islam.

http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/02/20/138425.html
 
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Mr Spinkles

Mr Spinkles

Mr
Yes that particular link is down but I accessed it earlier today .... when I looked at their platform, the "Sharia law" part is quite mild. It's just what Sahar described. Equal rights for everyone, freedom of association, voting, fighting illiteracy, etc. They clearly favor a more liberal sort of Sharia law than the Salafis, the Saudis, or the Taliban, or the other extremists, exactly as Sahar said.
 
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