Archive for Al-Azhar University

Muslim Brotherhood students to hold pro-Morsy rally Tuesday

by admin
December 10th, 2012

The Egyptian Student Union (ESU) announced it would participate in a mass demonstration planned for Tuesday to show support for President Mohamed Morsy and the 15 December referendum on the new constitution.

The union plans to march from Al-Rashdan Mosque in Nasr City.

The ESU is a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated umbrella group of different student unions.

Various marches have been planned for Tuesday both in support of, and in opposition to, Morsy’s recent decisions — including a controversial constitutional declaration through which the president placed himself above judicial oversight, but which he subsequently annulled. The upcoming constitutional referendum is another point of contention, with secular opposition alleging that the constitution writing process was dominated by Islamists.

ESU Vice President Sohaib Abdallah said in a news conference on Monday at Al-Azhar University that secretary generals of 14 student unions attended a conference to show support for the president's decisions.

Mohamed Sobhy, coordinator of the Al-Azhar University Islamist Forces Coalition, said he was mobilizing students to vote for the new constitution.

Political elites who accuse the Egyptian people of illiteracy are “fools,” said Sohaib Abdel Maqsoud, the student union president of Al-Azhar University. He held the media responsible for the deaths of protesters in recent clashes by misleading the masses.

“Morsy is the first Islamist president who is trying to cleanse politics with Islam,” Maqsoud said. “Islam is the soap.”

Muslim Brotherhood members studying at Ain Shams University have postponed a march slated for Monday to support the president’s decisions, allegedly fearing they would be assaulted by students of other political affiliations.

Spokesperson Ahmed Karama said they might stage their demonstration at the gate of the university instead.

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm

Tags: , ,
Categories Egypt, Egypt Top Stories
Comments (0)

Al-Azhar University students demonstrate in support of Morsy

by admin
November 26th, 2012

Hundreds of Al-Azhar University students demonstrated on campus Monday in support of President Mohamed Morsy’s constitutional declaration and his decision to dismiss former Prosecutor General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud.

The students demanded the cleansing of the judiciary, the Interior Ministry and the media, and chanted “Egypt is an Islamic state,” while some university professors joined them.

Salafi Nour Party spokesperson Nader Bakkar delivered a speech, claiming there is a conspiracy within the judiciary to dissolve the Constituent Assembly and the Shura Council, and to rescind Morsy’s decision to dismiss former Defense Minister Hussein Tantawi.

Since Morsy issued the declaration on Thursday, thousands of Islamists, mostly Muslim Brotherhood and Freedom and Justice Party members, took to the streets to show support for the decree.

The demonstration is widely considered a show of force against liberals and secularists, who are also protesting against the declaration, which they say made Morsy a dictator.

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm

Tags: , ,
Categories Egypt, Egypt Top Stories
Comments (0)

The swaying culture ministry

by admin
August 4th, 2012

 

Less than 40 days after he resigned from his post, Saber Arab, a professor of history at Al-Azhar University, was reappointed by Prime Minister Hesham Qandil as Egypt’s culture minister on Thursday.

Arab, who is Egypt’s fifth culture minister since the January revolution began, came into office in May only to resign on 28 June.  Arab had been nominated for the State Award in Social Sciences by the Supreme Council of Culture, and won the award two days after his resignation. The award is normally not granted to officials actively holding office.

After cultural groups such as the National Cultural Stream criticized Qandil’s first choice of culture minister, Osama Abu Taleb, Arab was re-nominated for the post. Taleb was thought to have close ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and writes a regular column for the Freedom and Justice Party’s daily newspaper.

Poet Farouk Gweida was also nominated but declined the position.

Tags: , , , ,
Categories Egypt, Egypt Top Stories
Comments (0)

FJP to start proceedings to dismiss cabinet

by admin
March 27th, 2012

The Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party has said it would start the proceedings for dismissing Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri’s cabinet on Wednesday by rejecting its parliamentary briefing.

“Nineteen parliamentary committees and all political parties agree with the FJP’s desire to dismiss the cabinet,” said FJP MP Abdel Aziz Khalaf. “It is the cabinet that is plotting all the crises [from which] we suffer.”

Islam Fares, a young member of the Brotherhood, told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the young members were assigned to organize demonstrations against the cabinet in all universities on Tuesday, beginning with Al-Azhar University and ending in Tahrir Square.

Around 4,000 students protested inside the campus of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, calling for the Muslim Brotherhood to form a new government, Al-Masry Al-Youm reported.

Emad Abdel Ghafour, president of the Salafi-oriented Nour Party, said only a coalition government would be able to resolve the economic crisis.

“It is time the military council listened to the voice of reason and immediately dismissed the cabinet for its failure to manage the country during this difficult phase,” Abdel Ghafour said.

“It should also absolve itself of responsibility for overseeing the presidential elections and the preparation of the constitution, and leave it up to the political parties to handle,” he added.

FJP spokesperson Yousry Hammad said Ganzouri should meet with the Islamist parties in Parliament to consult with him on how to run the government if the military council decides not to remove him.

According to the Constitutional Declaration, only the SCAF has the right to appoint and dismiss the cabinet.

Translated from Al-Masry Al-Youm

Tags: , , ,
Categories Egypt, Egypt Top Stories
Comments (0)

Brotherhood seeks to repeal military verdicts against prominent members

by admin
February 21st, 2012

The Muslim Brotherhood will take legal action to request reconsideration of military tribunal sentences issued against Khairat al-Shater, the group’s deputy guide, and Hassan Malek, a businessman member of the group, as well as five other leading Brotherhood members.

Shater and 139 other leaders of the group were arrested in December 2006 when Brotherhood students staged demonstrations at Al-Azhar University. They wore black clothes and masks similar to those worn by members of the Palestinian group Hamas and the Lebanese group Hezbollah.

In 2007, former President Hosni Mubarak referred Shater and Malek to a military court by presidential decree after they were cleared on charges of money laundering and financing a banned organization (the Brotherhood) by a civilian criminal court.

In 2008 the military court jailed Shater and Malek for seven years. Twenty-three other members of the Brotherhood received various sentences. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces released them in March 2011, weeks after the fall of Mubarak.

“We seek to annul the verdicts in the case known as the ‘Al-Azhar militias’ via legal procedures before the military prosecution,” said the group’s lawyer, Abdel Moneim Abdel Maqsoud, adding that “a military court is the only body entitled to acquit the defendants.”

Abdel Maqsoud said that the group is also taking similar action with regard to five other leading members sentenced to three to five years imprisonment.

Egypt's stock market announced on Monday that it was ordered by an Egyptian court to unfreeze all the assets owned by Shater and Malek. The court order has allowed them to trade on the stock exchange.

Translated from Al-Masry Al-Youm

Tags: , , ,
Categories Egypt, Egypt Top Stories
Comments (0)