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See my previous diary where I picked up the signals it wasn’t President Morsi leading the nation but influence of a Muslim Brotherhood Islamist agenda – Calling the Shots in Egypt, Meet MB Leader El-Shater. Prof. Juan Cole seems to agree …
Egypt: Faction Fighting in the Streets Threatens Stability, leaves 5 dead, 450 wounded
(Informed Comment) – Egypt has descended into faction-fighting in the streets that left some 6 dead and 450 wounded on Wednesday, as President Muhammad Morsi prepared to make a major address to the nation on Thursday. Violence has broken out not just in Cairo itself but also in provincial cities such as Suez, Port Said, Ismailiya, Zaqaziq and Alexandria.
After massive demonstrations staged around the country on Tuesday by liberals, leftists and centrists that involved millions of Egyptians, on Wednesday the Muslim Brotherhood struck back. At the Ittihadiya presidential palace in Heliopolis, the small group of remaining protesters had set up tents and painted anti-Morsi grafitti on the walls of the palace. Wednesday afternoon, a huge crowd of Muslim Brothers came to the presidential palace and attacked the left-liberals with iron bars, sticks, knives molotov cocktails, stones, and in some cases live fire. The secularists threw stones and molotov cocktails back, but they were overwhelmed and pushed from the square into side streets, their tents destroyed. The fighting continued into the wee hours of the morning, when the state security forces showed up. By Thursday morning, the army had stationed tanks in front of the presidential palace.
“The grandson of former Brotherhood Supreme Guide Hassan el-Houdeibi, Ibrahim el-Houdeibi, was reported to have said the violent attack by the Brotherhood to disperse protesters was orchestrated and called for by top Brotherhood leader and businessman Khairat el-Shater.”
No one can understand why Morsi has been silent through the crisis he provoked on Saturday, when he announced that he would put a hastily-completed and fundamentalist-tinged constitution to a national referendum on December 15, which many observers complained does not allow time for a national debate on the some 25 articles that liberals view as dangerous to civil liberties.
Egypt in Crisis: Foes Protest Morsi, Brotherhood
(CBS News) – The Egyptian army deployed tanks outside the presidential palace Thursday following fierce street battles between supporters and opponents of Mohammed Morsi that left five people dead and more than 600 injured in the worst outbreak of violence between the two sides since the Islamist leader’s election.
The intensity of the overnight violence, with Morsi’s Islamist backers and largely secular protesters lobbing firebombs and rocks at each other, signaled a turning point in the 2-week-old crisis over the president’s assumption of near-absolute powers and the hurried adoption of a draft constitution.
Opposition activists defiantly called for another protest outside the palace later Thursday, raising the specter of more bloodshed as neither side showed willingness to back down.
Time To Think Ahead: Women In the Egyptian Constitution
March 25, 2011 – The constitution unfortunately allows for religion to be a main factor in discrimination against women. For example article 2 of the Egyptian constitution [ Islam as being the state religion] and article 11. [The State shall guarantee coordination between woman’s duties towards her family and her work in the society, considering her equal to man in the political, social, cultural and economic spheres without detriment to the rules of Islamic jurisprudence (Sharia) ]. Who decides the principles of Sharia? Those conservative judges did, and so did other sheiks. They claimed to know what exactly Islamic jurisprudence is and for them it says that women are not capable of and shouldn’t be allowed to hold certain positions. One of the prominent judges actually stated that women’s primary role is in their homes taking care of their children and husbands.
Perhaps we should be less surprised, considering that article 10 in the constitution emphasizes the traditional role of women as mothers. It brings that that the state shall guarantee the protection of motherhood and childhood! I wished to see an article that openly emphasizes that women and men are equal when it comes to labor rights and that they are both partners in the development of this country!
