Egypt, No press freedom

New crackdown on free speech in Egypt as government investigates popular TV comedian for making fun of country’s Islamist president

A popular television satirist is being investigated for allegedly insulting the Egyptian president as Islamist lawyers continue to bring cases against outspoken media personalities in the country.

TV host Bassem Youssef is accused of insulting President Mohammed Morsi by putting the Islamist leader’s image on a pillow and parodying his speeches.

Youssef, a doctor, catapulted to fame when his video blogs mocking politics received hundreds of thousands of hits shortly after the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime leader Mubarak.

 

Under investigation: Egyptian TV host Bassem Youssef is accused of insulting President Mohammed Morsi by parodying his speeches and printing the leader’s image on a pillow

 

Satire: Youssef has mocked President Mohammed Morsi, pictured, and ultraconservative clerics on his video blogs

 

Youssef’s program is modeled after Jon Stewart’s ‘The Daily Show’, where he has appeared as a guest.

Unlike other local TV presenters, Youssef uses satire to mock fiery comments made by ultraconservative clerics and politicians, garnering him a legion of fans among the country’s revolutionaries and liberals.

Among his most popular clips are the ones where he pokes fun at the president’s speeches and decisions.

While holding a red, furry pillow with Morsi’s picture on it, Youssef satirizes Morsi’s style of speech.

‘The president understands us. He understands us better than we understand ourselves,’ Youssef says in a clip. ‘He tells us things we never knew,’ he adds, before going to wordy clips of Morsi going into detail about the day of the week and other basic facts.

‘It’s October 6! Tell us when it’s Christmas!’ Youssef shouts to the camera as the audience erupts in laughter and applause.

 

Youssef accuses President Mohammed Morsi, pictured signing into law the country’s Islamist-backed constitution, of being a dictator in one of his shows

 

An Egyptian woman casts her vote during a referendum on a disputed constitution drafted by Islamist supporters of President Mohammed Morsi in Fayoum, south of Cairo

 

In another clip filmed shortly after Morsi issued power-grabbing decrees that placed him above judicial oversight, Youssef asks whether Egyptians created a revolution to remove a dictator and bring in another one.

Youssef, 38, is one of Egypt’s most popular TV presenters with 1.4 million fans on Facebook and nearly 850,000 followers on Twitter, just shy of the president’s number of followers.

The case against Youssef comes as opposition media and independent journalists grow increasingly worried about press freedoms under a new constitution widely supported by Morsi and his Islamist allies.

Other cases have been brought against media personalities who have criticizsd the president since Morsi’s victory in the country’s first free presidential election last summer. Some of the cases have ended with charges being dropped. Morsi’s office maintains that the president has nothing to do with legal procedures against media critics.

A local committee of journalists and editors has called for stronger guarantees of press freedoms and a rejection of the current constitution, fearing it allows for jailing journalists under broadly-worded articles regarding media offenses.

 

Violent clashes: Opponents of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi clash with Islamist supporters of the president ahead of voting on the country’s contentious constitution that has deeply polarized the nation

 

Controversial: Protest were held across the country against the new constitution which places the president above judicial oversight

Authorities ordered the closure of TV station ‘Al-Fareen’ last summer after bringing its owner, Tawfiq Okasha, to trial for scathing attacks against Morsi and his Brotherhood group.

Okasha had emerged as one of the most popular TV personalities of post-Hosni Mubarak Egypt by railing against the uprising that toppled Mubarak’s 29-year rule in February 2011.

Another prominent case involved the editor of a prominent opposition newspaper, al-Dustour, who has since stepped down. He went on trial briefly for ‘spreading lies’ and fabricating news.

This latest case against a media personality comes as police today said they arrested a suspect in a shooting that seriously wounded a protester in Cairo’s central Tahrir Square, where an open-ended sit-in protesting the Morsi regime is taking place.

According to witnesses, before dawn on Monday, gunmen shot and wounded 19-year-old Muhanad Samir, who has said he was jailed and tortured under Egypt’s former ruling military council after he witnessed the killing of another activist. Lawyers say the attacked appeared to target Samir, who is battling for his life with pellets embedded in his head.

Security officials dismiss allegations Samir was the victim of a political assassination. They said they arrested the owner of a cafe in downtown Cairo who told police that he fired on the square after people manning makeshift checkpoints there searched his car and shot at him. The officials spoke anonymously in line with regulations.

Muslim Brotherhood’s supporters erode

Support for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Erodes in an Islamist Bastion

 

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

A school with old posters of Mohamed Morsi, now the president, in Al Talbeya, a neighborhood in Giza, where disaffection with the government is growing

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

AL TALBEYA, Egypt — Mohamed Salamah used to vote with the Muslim Brotherhood. But in Saturday’s referendum on the Islamist-backed constitution, Mr. Salamah says he is voting against it, mainly because he no longer trusts the movement.

“They aren’t even doing anything very Islamic,” said Mr. Salamah, a 24-year-old waiter in a cafe in Al Talbeya, a working-class neighborhood in Giza across the Nile from Cairo that was an Islamist stronghold in previous votes. “They are just doing things that aren’t very competent.”

Throughout the neighborhood, both loyal supporters and critics of the Brotherhood described a deep erosion in the group’s street-level support. That was evident, they said, even before the low turnout and narrow margin in last weekend’s first round of voting on what residents here call “the Brotherhood constitution.”

The results so far appear to have surprised leaders of the Brotherhood and their opposition. And even if the draft constitution is approved, as expected, on Saturday in the second half of the vote, the new questions about the charter’s popularity and the Brotherhood’s mandate could prolong Egypt’s political turbulence and, as a result, defer badly needed economic reforms as well.

Residents here and around Cairo say the damage to the Brotherhood’s popularity is unrelated to its religious ideology. It reflects a consistent trio of complaints: confusing economic policies of the Brotherhood-led government, a near-monopoly on power and civilian supporters’ use of force against opponents in a street battle two weeks ago. Even so, many say the Brotherhood remains the most potent political force, in part because of the incoherence of the opposition, which has often focused on accusing the Brotherhood of imposing religious rule.

But for now economists say the battle for power is jeopardizing progress on the bread-and-butter issues that are paramount across the ideological spectrum. “What the economy needs are decisions that are politically courageous and credible, and no government can do that now,” said Ragui Assaad, an economist at the University of Minnesota with an office in Cairo.

A critical loan of more than $4 billion from the International Monetary Fund, expected to be signed this month, has been delayed until the political situation settles. The Egyptian pound is slipping against the dollar. And the most obvious step to improve the growth and fairness of the economy requires a government with credibility and political skill. Attempts at overhauling Egypt’s vast subsidies to energy prices have in the past set off riots.

“What we have now is a government that lacks legitimacy but also economic competence,” Mr. Assaad said. “I don’t see anything better coming out of this government.”

Brotherhood leaders have acknowledged the emergence of hostility against them. Mobs attacked more than three dozen Brotherhood offices, including its headquarters, in the prelude to the first round of voting on the constitution. “I am telling everyone, do not hate the Muslim Brotherhood so much that you forget Egypt’s best interest,” said Mohamed Badie, the group’s spiritual leader. “You can be angry at us and hate us as much as you want; we cannot control affection. But I say to you, be rational. Protect Egypt. Its unity cannot survive what is happening.”

For many in Al Talbeya, the defining moment of the prelude to the referendum was the night of Dec. 5, when the Brotherhood called its supporters to defend President Mohamed Morsi against protesters outside his office. Ten died in the fight. And although the Brotherhood has claimed all those killed were its members, seemingly everyone in Al Talbeya still blamed the group for the violence.

“People don’t like the Muslim Brotherhood as much as they used to, because they saw how they tried to control everything and how they beat people up,” said Emad Mohamed Yosri, 37, a tailor who still counts himself a supporter of the group.

Omar Ateh, 30, a shopkeeper and Islamist, said he was trying to defend the Brotherhood. “We are trying to make people understand, they are not from another planet,” he said, “they just like politics more than we do.”

But Ahmed Ragab, 14, interjected, “If they are such good people, why are they beating people up in the streets?” 

Many here accused Mr. Morsi, of the Brotherhood’s political party, of focusing too exclusively on his Islamist base. Others pointed to Mr. Morsi’s decree — which he later repealed — elevating his decisions above the judiciary until the passage of a constitution.

“No, no, no, that does not work for us,” said Mohamed Omar, 37, a street cafe owner. “Morsi tried to take everything for himself.”

Others pointed to policy missteps. Mr. Morsi campaigned on an elaborate “renaissance project” to turn around Egypt’s bureaucracy, but no plans have materialized.

Al Talbeya residents complained about the Morsi government’s plan to impose a 10 p.m. closing hour on the restaurants and shops of this all-night metropolis to save electricity, a plan that was abandoned at the last minute. Others noted that during the heat of the constitutional battle this month, the Morsi government unveiled tax increases on liquor, cigarettes and other goods to reduce a deficit. That, too, was suspended, through a 2 a.m. statement on Facebook.

A few criticized Mr. Morsi as both an authoritarian bully and a pushover. “He shouldn’t have made the order, and then he shouldn’t have retracted it,” Mr. Omar said. “It made him look weak.”

After the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, the Brotherhood’s party and ultraconservative Salafis received more than 70 percent of the vote in the first parliamentary elections. Mr. Morsi’s victory in the presidential runoff was closer, with about 52 percent of the vote. But his opponent, Ahmed Shafik, was a well-known former prime minister with the networks of the former governing party at his back.

The up-or-down vote on a new constitution, however, should have been an easy win for the Brotherhood, many analysts said. The charter would end two years of transitional chaos, and the organized opposition was negligible. But on the first day of voting, turnout was less than 33 percent, and only about 56.5 percent voted yes, according to the Brotherhood’s own tabulations.

Some say they will vote yes this Saturday even though they have lost confidence in the Brotherhood, in the hope of establishing a more stable political process. “Every time there is a problem now we have a fistfight, because we are still learning the culture of dialogue,” said Sayed Abu Gabal, 45, a German teacher who previously voted for Islamists. “We can’t choose a new president every day.”

But after this, he said, “I am not going to vote for the Muslim Brotherhood or the Salafis ever again.”

 

 

False Plot against the Egypt’s leadership

UAE Says Egypt Media Carried False Plot Claims

 DUBAI (Reuters) – The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has rebuffed claims carried by Egyptian media that it was behind a plot against the Egypt’s leadership, saying they were “fabricated”, state news agency WAM reported. 

UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan has summoned Egypt’s ambassador to discuss the claims aimed “to damage the interests of the two countries and their historic and special relationship”, WAM said late on Monday.

Sheikh Abdullah called on the Egyptian government “to follow up on these unfounded and slanderous fabrications”, WAM said.

It did not directly quote the comments which gave offence.

Egyptian official sources, who declined to be named because of the political sensitivity of the matter, said the UAE was responding to accusations by Mohammed Yaqout that the Gulf state was involved in a plot to kidnap Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi.

Yaqout is a former member of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, according to independent newspaper al-Masry al-Youm.

The UAE has arrested about 60 local Islamists this year, accusing them of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood – which is banned in the country – and conspiring to overthrow the government.

Thanks to cradle-to-grave welfare systems, the UAE and other Gulf Arab monarchies have largely avoided the Arab Spring unrest which unseated rulers elsewhere.

But they fear that the rise of the Brotherhood in Egypt, and of other Islamist groups elsewhere, could increase dissent on their own turf.

A Muslim Brotherhood official in Cairo, contacted by Reuters, said the Brotherhood had not accused the UAE of a plot and that he did not know Yagout.

The organization, which rose to power in Egypt after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak last year, has consistently sought to reassure Gulf Arab states it has no plan to push for political change beyond Egypt’s borders.

Mursi, propelled to power by the Brotherhood, has said there is no plan to “export the revolution”. His comments were welcomed by the UAE.

But relations between the two countries have undergone some rough patches since the toppling of Mubarak, a longtime Gulf ally. In June, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry summoned the UAE ambassador over comments made on the social media site Twitter by Dubai’s chief of police that the ministry described as being against Egypt’s interests.

Who did kill Ramses III?

Pharaoh’s murder riddle solved after 3,000 years

An assassin slit the throat of Egypt’s last great pharaoh at the climax of a bitter succession battle, scientists have discovered while investigating the 3,000-year-old royal murder.

mummy of Ramses III, killed in an 1155 BC palace coup attempt

Forensic technology suggests Ramses III, a king revered as a god, met his death at the hand of a killer, or killers, sent by his conniving wife and ambitious son.

And a cadaver known as the “Screaming Mummy” could be that of the son himself, possibly forced to commit suicide after the plot, they added.

Computed tomography (CT) imaging of the mummy of Ramses III shows that the pharaoh’s windpipe and major arteries were slashed, inflicting a wound 70 millimetres (2.75 inches) wide and reaching almost to the spine, the investigators said.

The cut severed all the soft tissue on the front of the neck.

“I have almost no doubt about the fact that Ramses III was killed by this cut in his throat,” palaeopathologist Albert Zink of the EURAC Institute for Mummies and the Iceman in Italy told AFP. 

“The cut is so very deep and quite large, it really goes down almost down to the bone (spine) – it must have been a lethal injury.”

Ramses III, who ruled from about 1188 to 1155 BC, is described in ancient documents as the “Great God” and a military leader who defended Egypt, then the richest prize in the Mediterranean, from repeated invasion.

He was about 65 when he died, but the cause of his death has never been clear.

Sketchy evidence lies in the Judicial Papyrus of Turin, which recorded four trials held for alleged conspirators in the king’s death, among them one of his junior wives, Tiy, and her son Prince Pentawere.

In a year-long appraisal of the mummy, Mr Zink and experts from Egypt, Italy and Germany found that the wound on Ramses III’s neck had been hidden by mummified bandages.

“This was a big mystery that remained, what really happened to the king,” he said. The study was published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

“We were very surprised and happy because we did not really expect to find something. Other people had inspected the mummy, at least from outside, and it was always described (as) ‘there are no signs of any trauma or any injuries.'”

It is possible that Ramses’s throat was cut after death, but this is highly unlikely as such a practice was never recorded as an ancient Egyptian embalming technique, the researchers said.

In addition, an amulet believed to contain magical healing powers was found in the cut.

“For me it is quite obvious that they inserted the amulet to let him heal for the after-life,” said Mr Zink.

“For the ancient Egyptians it was very important to have an almost complete body for the after-life,” and embalmers often replaced body parts with sticks and other materials, he said.

The authors of the study also examined the mummy of an unknown man between the ages of 18 and 20 found with Ramses III in the royal burial chamber.

 

^{The Screaming Mummy: Scientists now believe it may belong to Prince Pentawere who is believed to have been executed for his involvement in the Ramses III murder plot}

They found genetic evidence that the corpse, known as the Screaming Mummy for its open mouth and contorted face, was related to Ramses and may very well have been Prince Pentawere.

“What was special with him, he was embalmed in a very strange way…. They did not remove the organs, did not remove the brain,” said Mr Zink.

“He had a very strange, reddish colour and a very strange smell. And he was also covered with a goat skin and this is something that was considered as impure in ancient Egyptian times” – possibly a post-mortem punishment.

If it was Pentawere, it appears he may have been forced to hang himself, a punishment deemed at the time as sufficient to purge one’s sins for the after-life, the researchers said.

History shows, though, that the plotters failed to derail the line of succession. Ramses was succeeded by his chosen heir, his son Amonhirkhopshef.

Egypt: The Next India or the Next Pakistan?

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

I WANT to discuss Egypt today, but first a. small news item that you may have missed 

Three weeks ago, the prime minister of India appointed Syed Asif Ibrahim as the new director of India’s Intelligence Bureau, its domestic intelligence-gathering agency. Ibrahim is a Muslim. India is a predominantly Hindu country, but it is also the world’s third-largest Muslim nation. India’s greatest security threat today comes from violent Muslim extremists. For India to appoint a Muslim to be the chief of the country’s intelligence service is a big, big deal. But it’s also part of an evolution of empowering minorities. India’s prime minister and its army chief of staff today are both Sikhs, and India’s foreign minister and chief justice of the Supreme Court are both Muslims. It would be like Egypt appointing a Coptic Christian to be its army chief of staff.

“Preposterous,” you say.

Well, yes, that’s true today. But if it is still true in a decade or two, then we’ll know that democracy in Egypt failed. We will know that Egypt went the route of Pakistan and not India. That is, rather than becoming a democratic country where its citizens could realize their full potential, instead it became a Muslim country where the military and the Muslim Brotherhood fed off each other so both could remain in power indefinitely and “the people” were again spectators. Whether Egypt turns out more like Pakistan or India will impact the future of democracy in the whole Arab world.

Sure, India still has its governance problems and its Muslims still face discrimination. Nevertheless, “democracy matters,” argues Tufail Ahmad, the Indian Muslim who directs the South Asia Studies Project at the Middle East Media Research Institute, because “it is democracy in India that has, over six decades, gradually broken down primordial barriers — such as caste, tribe and religion — and in doing so opened the way for all different sectors of Indian society to rise through their own merits, which is exactly what Ibrahim did.”

And it is six decades of tyranny in Egypt that has left it a deeply divided country, where large segments do not know or trust one another, and where conspiracy theories abound. All of Egypt today needs to go on a weekend retreat with a facilitator and reflect on one question: How did India, another former British colony, get to be the way it is (Hindu culture aside)?

The first answer is time. India has had decades of operating democracy, and, before independence, struggling for democracy. Egypt has had less than two years. Egypt’s political terrain was frozen and monopolized for decades — the same decades that political leaders from Mahatma Gandhi to Jawaharlal Nehru to Manmohan Singh “were building an exceptionally diverse, cacophonous, but impressively flexible and accommodating system,” notes the Stanford University democracy expert Larry Diamond, the author of “The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World.”

Also, the dominant political party in India when it overthrew its colonial overlord “was probably the most multiethnic, inclusive and democratically minded political party to fight for independence in any 20th-century colony — the Indian National Congress,” said Diamond. While the dominant party when Egypt overthrew Hosni Mubarak’s tyranny, the Muslim Brotherhood, “was a religiously exclusivist party with deeply authoritarian roots that had only recently been evolving toward something more open and pluralistic.”

Moreover, adds Diamond, compare the philosophies and political heirs of Mahatma Gandhi and Sayyid Qutb, the guiding light of the Muslim Brotherhood. “Nehru was not a saint, but he sought to preserve a spirit of tolerance and consensus, and to respect the rules,” notes Diamond. He also prized education. By contrast, added Diamond, “the hard-line Muslim Brotherhood leaders, who have been in the driver’s seat since Egypt started moving toward elections, have driven away the moderates from within their party, seized emergency powers, beaten their rivals in the streets, and now are seeking to ram a constitution that lacks consensus down the throats of a large segment of Egyptian society that feels excluded and aggrieved.”

Then there is the military. Unlike in Pakistan, India’s postindependence leaders separated the military from politics. Unfortunately, in Egypt after the 1952 coup, Gamel Abdel Nasser brought the military into politics and all of his successors, right up to Mubarak, kept it there and were sustained by both the military and its intelligence services. Once Mubarak fell, and the new Brotherhood leaders pushed the army back to its barracks, Egypt’s generals clearly felt that they had to cut a deal to protect the huge web of economic interests they had built. “Their deep complicity in the old order led them to be compromised by the new order,” said Diamond. “Now they are not able to act as a restraining influence.”

Yes, democracy matters. But the ruling Muslim Brotherhood needs to understand that democracy is so much more than just winning an election. It is nurturing a culture of inclusion, and of peaceful dialogue, where respect for leaders is earned by surprising opponents with compromises rather than dictates. The Noble Prize-winning Indian economist Amartya Sen has long argued that it was India’s civilizational history of dialogue and argumentation that disposed it well to the formal institutions of democracy. More than anything, Egypt now needs to develop that kind of culture of dialogue, of peaceful and respectful arguing — it was totally suppressed under Mubarak —  rather than rock-throwing, boycotting, conspiracy-mongering and waiting for America to denounce one side or the other, which has characterized too much of the postrevolutionary political scene. Elections without that culture are like a computer without software. It just doesn’t work. 

Burglar Mubarak

Spanish police have seized assets worth 28 million euros (£22.7 million) belonging to Hosni Mubarak, the ousted former president of Egypt.

Spanish police have seized assets worth 28 million euros (£22.7 million) belonging to Hosni Mubarak, the ousted former president of Egypt

Authorities froze bank accounts containing 18.4 million euros in cash and financial investments, and seized a string of luxury properties across Spain.

Egypt requested Spain’s help under UN anti-corruption conventions to find and block assets owned by Mubarak, his family, top aides and their related companies, said a statement issued by Spain’s national police.

In all, a list of 130 people connected to Mubarak and the former Egyptian regime were passed to Spanish authorities.

Among the assets seized were two houses in La Moraleja – one of Madrid’s most desirable residential districts – with a combined value of around seven million euros.

Seven other properties in and around Marbella, the glitzy resort on Spain’s south coast that is a popular destination for wealthy Arabs, were seized with an estimated combined worth of around 3 million euros. 

Five luxury cars were also held.

“The assets could be the proceeds of crimes such as the embezzlement of public funds, corruption, or the illegal enrichment committed during his mandate,” police said.

The 84-year old Mubarak, who governed Egypt for three decades, was ousted in February last year in a popular uprising that saw the deaths of more than 800 anti-government protesters.

In June he was sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in their killing and is currently in a military hospital suffering health problems.

Egypt has asked several countries in Europe and elsewhere to locate assets of Mubarak and people close to him.

The former Egyptian president is suspected of amassing a fortune of more than 5 billion dollars and using the 18 days it took for his regime to topple to shift his vast wealth overseas.

Barricades around the Egyptian president palace

Egypt’s president Mohammed Morsi raises barricades around palace in preparations for fresh protests against constitution referendum

Egyptian army officers were seen constructing the third line of the hastily erected barricades around the presidential palace of leader Mohammed Morsi today.

The security measures followed threats of protests against President’s Morsi’s decision not to delay the referendum on his controversial draft constitution, set to be held next Saturday.

Hundreds of Egyptians today marched on the presidential palace and the newly build barricades, despite Morsi rescinded a decree that would stop the judiciary challenging his rule.

Building barricades: A man talks with Egyptian army officers as they construct a third line of concrete blocks outside of the Egyptian presidential palace in Cairo today

His decision to renounce his planned ‘Pharaoh’ powers was a desperate bid to end the violence in which at least seven have died and hundreds have been injured.

Liberal and secular opponents say the framework of the draft constitution is too deeply influenced by Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood party.

 

The ratification of the constitution would seal the democratic transition that began when the country’s 2011 uprising saw dictator Hosni Mubarak ousted after three decades of one-man rule.

National Salvation Front leader Ahmed Said called the race to a referendum an ‘act of war’. His  movement called for a mass protest at the palace in Cairo. The building was stormed last week by activists angered by the power grab.

Protecting the palace: Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi ordered the barricades to be built after threats of further protests escalated earlier today

Taking it back: Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, pictured yesterday, has announced that he will give up his ‘Pharaoh’ decree, which granted him near-absolute powers and immunity from courts

The concrete wall is the third barrier built outside the presidential palace and as hundreds marched on the palace today Morsi’s worried proved not to be unfounded.

However, Mori’s choice to lift the decree last night could persuade many judges to drop their two-week strike to protest against it, which means they would oversee the referendum as is customary in Egypt.

It was the decrees that initially sparked the wave of protests against Morsi that has brought tens of thousands into the streets in past weeks.

However, the rushed passage of the constitution further inflamed those who claim Morsi and his Islamist allies are monopolizing power in Egypt and trying to force their agenda.

The draft charter was adopted amid a boycott by liberal and Christian members of the Constituent Assembly, meaning not all members voted.

The document would open the door to Egypt’s most extensive implementation of Islamic law or Shariah, enshrining a say for Muslim clerics in legislation, making civil rights subordinate to Shariah and broadly allowing the state to protect ‘ethics and morals’.

It fails to outlaw gender discrimination and mainly refers to women in relation to home and family.

Protect and serve: Egyptian army engineers and soldiers work on the barricades outside the Egyptian presidential palace

In his late night announcement on Saturday, Morsi replaced the scrapped decrees with a new one that doesn’t give him unrestricted powers, but allows him to give voters an option if they decide to vote “no” on the disputed draft charter.

In the new decree, if the constitution is rejected, Morsi would call for new elections to select 100-member panel to write a new charter within three months.

The new panel would then have up to six months to complete its task, and the president calls for a new referendum with a month. 

Bassem Sabry, a writer and activist, called the partial concession a ‘stunt’ that would embarrass the opposition by making it look like Morsi was willing to compromise but not solve the problem.

‘In the end, Morsi got everything he wanted,’ he said, pointing out the referendum would be held without the consensus Morsi had promised to seek and without giving people sufficient time to study the document.

Yesterday Morsi was warned by the powerful Egyptian army that ‘anything other than dialogue will force us into a dark tunnel with disastrous consequences.’

The statement, broadcast on Egyptian state TV was attributed to an anonymous official who promised the military would not allow this to happen.

Planning president: Behind the barricades, inside his palace, President Morsi prepares his next move after Egyptian army leaders gave an ultimatum to him and the opposition to hold talks

Good idea: The building works may have been justified as it was reported that several hundreds of Egyptians marched on the palace to protest against the vote on the draft constitution next Saturday

The other face of Muslim Brotherhood

Muslim Brotherhood ‘paying gangs to go out and rape women and beat men protesting in Egypt’ as thousands of demonstrators pour on to the streets

Egypt’s ruling party is paying gangs of thugs to sexually assault women protesting in Cairo’s Tahrir Square against President Mohamed Morsi, activists said.

They also said the Muslim Brotherhood is paying gangs to beat up men who are taking part in the latest round of protests, which followed a decree by President Morsi to give himself sweeping new powers.

It comes as the Muslim Brotherhood co-ordinated a demonstration today in support of President Mohamed Morsi, who is rushing through a constitution to try to defuse opposition fury over his newly expanded powers.

 

Danger: women protesting in Cairo’s Tahrir Square face the increased danger of sexual assault by large gangs of men

Egyptian supporters of Muslim Brotherhood taking part in a demonstration near Cairo University, in Cairo, in support of President Mohamed Morsi’s recent constitutional declaration

Just 24 hours earlier around 200,000 people gathered in Tahrir Square, the heart of last year’s revolution which toppled President Hosni Mubarak, yesterday to protest against a new draft constitution.

Large marches from around Cairo flowed into the square, chanting ‘Constitution: Void!’ and The people want to bring down the regime.’

But amid the calls for democracy a sinister threat has emerged.

Magda Adly, the director of the Nadeem Centre for Human Rights, said that under Mubarak, the Government paid thugs to beat male protestors and sexually assault women.

‘This is still happening now,’ she told The Times. ‘I believe thugs are being paid money to do this … the Muslim Brotherhood have the same political approaches as Mubarak,’ she said.

Huge rally: Tens of thousands of Islamists demonstrated in Cairo today in support of Morsi

Devout: Muslim Brotherhood supporters perform a prayer as they stage a rally in front of Cairo’s University

One protestor, Yasmine, told the newspaper how she had been in the square filming the demonstrations for a few hours when the crowd suddenly turned.

Before she knew what was happening, about 50 men had surrounded her and began grabbing her breasts. She said they ripped off her clothes, starting with her headscarf and for nearly an hour, indecently assaulted her with their hands.

A few men tried to help her but they were beaten away. Eventually some residents who had seen the attack from their windows came to her aid and an elderly couple pulled her into their home. She suffered internal injuries and was unable to walk for a week.

Four of Yasmine’s friends were also sexually assaulted in the square that day, in the summer.

Show of force: Today’s rally, organized by the Muslim Brotherhood, are an attempt to counteract large opposition protests held earlier this week by liberal and secular groups

Protest: liberal opponents of President Morsi took to the streets yesterday angry at his decision to grant himself sweeping new powers

Afaf el-Sayed, a journalist and activist, told the newspaper she was assaulted by a group of men while protesting in Tahrir Square just over a month ago and she was sure her attackers were ‘thugs from the Muslim Brotherhood’.

In February 2011 the correspondent for the American network CBS, Lara Logan, endured a half-hour sexual assault in Tahrir Square by a group of men. She said after the ordeal that she had been ‘raped with their hands’.

While the exact frequency of these attacks is unknown, activists have reported nearly 20 attacks in the last ten days and say there has been a dramatic increase in mob sex attacks on protestors in the last year.

Most attacks take place in one particular corner of the square, at roughly the same time every evening, and usually starts with a group of men forming a human chain around women as if to protect them.

 

Sit in: Anti-Morsi protesters gather in Tahrir Square in Cairo on Friday night

Terror: CBS Correspondent Lara Logan described her assault by a mob in Tahrir Square as being ‘raped with their hands’. This photo was taken moments before the attack

Yasmine said she was almost sure the assault was planned. She managed to throw her camera to a friend and was able to watch the footage later. She told The Times: ‘Just before the attack it looks like men are getting into position. They look like they’re up to something, they don’t look like random protestors.’

The newspaper spoke to two men who admitted they were paid to target female protestors. Victor and Tutu, both in their thirties, said they operate in a group of around 65 local men and got paid between £10 and £20 a time. But they would not reveal who pays them.

‘We’re told to go out and sexually harass girls so they leave the demonstration,’ Victor told The Times. He said the aim was to cause disruption and instil fear in protesters. He said members of the public sometimes joined in. 

Protestors in Tahrir Square yesterday angrily vowed to bring down a draft constitution approved by allies of President Morsi.

Face-off: Some demonstrators yesterday wore masks, such as this man, who has an ‘anonymous’ mask on the back of his head similar to those worn by Occupy protestors in the US last year

Religious liberty: although this protestor holds up a Qu’ran and a crucifix, human rights groups warn that the draft constitution is bad news for minorities in Egypt such as the Coptic Christian community

The protests have highlighted an increasingly united opposition leadership of prominent liberal and secular politicians trying to direct public anger against Morsi and the Islamists – a contrast to the leaderless youth uprising last year which toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Figures from a new leadership coalition took the stage to address the crowds. The coalition, known as the National Salvation Front, includes prominent democracy advocate Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, leftist Hamdeen Sabbahi and former Arab League chief Amr Moussa.

‘We are determined to continue with all peaceful means, whatever it takes to defend our legitimate rights,’ ElBaradei told the crowd. He later posted on Twitter that Morsi and his allies are “staging a coup against democracy” and that the regime’s legitimacy ‘is eroding’.

Sabbahi vowed protests would go on until ‘we topple the constitution’.

The opposition announced plans for an intensified street campaign of protests and civil disobedience and even a possible march on Morsi’s presidential palace to prevent him from calling a nationwide referendum on the draft, which it must pass to come into effect. Top judges announced Friday they may refuse to monitor any referendum, rendering it invalid.

Oppression: An anti-Morsi protester chains his hands during yesterday’s demonstrations, to symbolise the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood

A protester in a Pharaoh headdress holds up a placard reading ‘no to a dictator’ during a demonstration on Tahrir Square on Friday

If a referendum is called, ‘we will go to him at the palace and topple him,’ insisted one protester, Yasser Said, a businessman who said he voted for Morsi in last summer’s presidential election.

Islamists, however, are gearing up as well. The Muslim Brotherhood drummed up supporters for its own mass rally today and boasted the turnout would show that the public supports Morsi’s efforts to push through a constitution.

Brotherhood activists in several cities handed out fliers calling for people to come out and “support Islamic law”. A number of Muslim clerics in Friday sermons in the southern city of Assiut called the president’s opponents “enemies of God and Islam”.

The week-long unrest has already seen clashes between Islamists and the opposition that left two dead and hundreds injured. On Friday, Morsi opponents and supporters rained stones and firebombs on each other in the cities of Alexandria and Luxor.

Struggle: opponents of President Morsi vowed to keep fighting until the constitution rushed through by the Government is thrown out

Supporters of Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi chant pro-Morsi slogans during a protest in front of the Sultan Hassan and Refaie Mosques’ at the old town in Cairo on Friday

The Islamist-led assembly that worked on the draft for months passed it in a rushed, 16-hour session that lasted until sunrise on Friday.

The vote was abruptly moved up to pass the draft before Egypt’s Constitutional Court rules on Sunday whether to dissolve the assembly. Liberal, secular and Christian members and secular members had already quit the council to protest what they call Islamists’ hijacking of the process.

The draft was to be sent to Morsi today to decide on a date for a referendum, possibly in mid-December.

The draft has a distinctive Islamic bent – enough to worry many that civil liberties could be restricted, though its provisions for enforcing Sharia, or Islamic law, are not as firm as ultra-conservatives wished.

Protests were first sparked when Morsi last week issued decrees granting himself sweeping powers that neutralized the judiciary. Morsi said the move was needed to stop the courts – where anti-Islamist or Mubarak-era judges hold many powerful posts – from dissolving the assembly and further delaying Egypt’s transition.

Opponents, however, accused Morsi of grabbing near-dictatorial powers by sidelining the one branch of government he doesn’t control.

Alabaster Mosque

This mosque is one of the best known in Cairo, and dominates the skyline. The pencil-thin minarets and silvered domes glow in the sunset. The Mohammad Ali Mosque is built of alabaster (hence the common name, Alabaster Mosque). It was built between 1824 and 1848, although the current domes are reconstructions in the 1930s.

Up close, it is an impressive monuments, even if the domes are not silver, but tin, and the walls and arches are dimmed by the hands of hundreds of tourists and years of Cairo smog. When Mark visited 20years ago, their guide held a lighter to the walls to show how translucent they were — there is a dark ring around the mosque where I’m sure thousands of guides have done the same thing. Now, the mosque is lit with graceful spirals of chandeliers and globe lamps. It was dark and gloomy — Mark kept repeating that it looked nothing like what he remembered.

 

THe red carpets on the floor are original, and fit exactly to the floor o fthis enormous mosque. According to our guide, they were recently removed, cleaned, and relaid, which is why they aren’t quite so tight anymore.

The domes are stunning from the inside — decorated in bright colors and lit by the shafts of sunlight through stained-glass windows.

Behind a bronze grille is the mausoleum of Mohammed Ali himself. The mosque is unusual, since it has two minbars (for sermons). The larger, more elaborate one was put in by Mohammed Ali, but it is in the center of the mosque and because of the acoustics, the sermons cannot be heard well from the minbar.

 

In the courtyard is floored in marble and surrounded by arches. In the center is an ornate ablutions fountain (Muslims must ritually wash before prayers) and the stupendously ugly clock tower. The clock was given to Egypt by the French as a trade for the obelisk that stans in teh Place d’Concorde. The clock has never worked.

 

 

 

 

Citadel of Saladin

The citadel — called Al-Qala’a al-Gabal, Citadel of the Mountain), or Al-Burg — dominates the hill over looking Cairo. It was built by Saladin (1171-1193) as part of the fortiifcations of the city. The original design is very Palestinian, looking much like the crusader castles built there and in Syria.

It was begun in 1176, and pieces of the giza pyramids, ruined mosques, and other salvaged stone were used in its construction. It includes two walled enclosures with the military tothe northeast and the residential quarters to the southwest.

There is a tower roughly every 100m along the walls, with internal passageways that run the entire circumference of the site.

Sultan Al-Nasir added a number of buildings to the site in the 14th century, including a mosque. The citadel was “upgraded” by the Turks to support the use of cannons. The great Alabaster Mosque (the Mosque of Mohammed Ali Pasha) is perhaps the latest addition to the citadel.

Most of the walls and towers along the northern enclosure still date from the period of Saladin. The walls are 10m high and 3m thick. The length of the walls is over two kilometers. There are a number of gates in the walls — Bab al-Azab on the west, with two round towers, Bab al-Qullah connects the the two courtyads, and Bab al-Gadid (the New Gate) which was built in 1828.

THe largest tower in the CItadel is Burg al-Muqattam, built in 16th century. It is 24 m in diameter and designed to withstand artillery attacks.

There are a number of mosques on the grounds, including the Mosque of Ali Pasha (Alabaster Mosque), the Mosque of Sulemian Pasha, the Mosque of Ahmed Katkhua al-Azab. A few museums are also open to the public — a Carriage Museum, a Military Museum, and an odd Police Museum and Siezed museum, hodling items taken from smugglers and travelers.

The views from the gardens and walls of the citadel are fabulous – on a clear day you can see to the plateau of Giza and the pyramids. However, the city is usually very hazy, so you can only look over the closer parts of the city.