Archive for Anwar Sadat

Jama’a al-Islamiya calls for Eid prayers outside US embassy

by admin
October 24th, 2012

Jama’a al-Islamiya and the family of Omar Abdel Rahman, a former leader of the group who is serving a life sentence in the United States, announced Wednesday that his son Mohamed would deliver Eid prayers outside the US embassy to demand his release.

The sermon will be delivered by his son, Mohamed.

His other son, Abdallah, blamed President Mohamed Morsy and the government for his father’s condition. “If the Brotherhood feels it made sacrifices for the revolution, my father did so at the time of Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak,” he said.

“The president must tell us what he is doing for my father, if anything at all,” he said, adding that the Muslim Brotherhood was not involved in that issue. “We have been protesting for 15 months without the government responding.”

Jama’a al-Islamiya said it is sending a message to the embassy that it will never abandon Abdel Rahman and leave him behind bars.

Abdel Rahman, often known as the “Blind Sheikh” was tried in front of both military and high state security courts in Egypt for involvement in the assassination of former president Anwar Sadat. He was found innocent and set free in 1984. He was convicted in 1995 of terrorism conspiracy and plotting to overthrow the US government in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm

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Minister: No evidence Mubarak gave antiquities away as gifts

by admin
September 28th, 2012

Investigations have so far produced no evidence proving that former President Hosni Mubarak gave antiquities from the Egyptian Museum as gifts to visiting dignitaries, said on Friday Antiquities Minister Mohamed Ibrahim Ali.

In his statement, Ali asked that anyone with evidence regarding the case submit that information to the general prosecutor. Egypt’s antiquities belong to the people, he stated, and the ministry is committed to protecting them.

Sobhy Attiya Younis, the dean of the Faculty of Tourism and Hotels at Mansoura University, is amongst those who accuse Mubarak of gifting away Egypt’s patrimony.

“Mubarak and his family gave many genuine relics as gifts. Whenever they expressed admiration for a certain piece, it would disappear from the Egyptian Museum,” Younis told the Shura Council’s committee on culture, information and tourism on Wednesday.

Younis added that former presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat had also given antiquities as gifts to international figures.

Ali noted in his statement that 54 artifacts went missing from the Egyptian Museum during the revolution, 25 of which have since been recovered. The Interior Ministry is coordinating with Interpol in their search for the rest of the pieces, he said.

Edited translation from MENA

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Wafd Party to support Moussa for president

by admin
April 4th, 2012

The liberal Wafd Party’s supreme authority decided Tuesday to endorse Amr Moussa for president, following a six-hour discussion.

The party had announced last month it would support presidential hopeful Mansour Hassan, the former head of the Advisory Council who later withdrew from the race.

Abdel Aziz al-Nahhas, the party’s assistant secretary general, said the party’s supreme authority and parliamentary bloc had to either endorse a presidential candidate or wait until other hopefuls express intent to run.

Nahhas added that party leader Al-Sayed al-Badawy said Moussa had asked for the party’s support.

The party also called a meeting for all political groups to be held Thursday at the Wafd’s headquarters to endorse Moussa.

Moussa served as Mubarak’s foreign minister from 1991 to 2001, and then as Arab League secretary general from 2001 until last May.

Young activists have repeatedly protested at Moussa’s campaign rallies, starting when he announced his intention to run for president at El Sawy Culture Wheel last March. These disturbances eventually prompted Moussa to issue a statement in May accusing “rioters” of concocting a plan to disrupt his campaign.

In March, the Wafd Party announced its support for Moussa, then stepped back from the decision when Hassan said he would run.

Last month, Hassan said he would not run for president because of a lack of support due to divisions between and within political forces. The former minister under Anwar Sadat explained that after reassessing the circumstances, he realized he would not be able to achieve the political consensus he believes in.

Translated from Al-Masry Al-Youm

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Update: With heavy grief, Copts march after Pope Shenouda’s coffin

by admin
March 20th, 2012

Hundreds of thousands of Coptic Christians dressed in black marched with the casket of Pope Shenouda III as it was transported from St. Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Abbasseya to a military air base, from which it will be flown to a monastery in the desert northwest of Cairo.

Thousands gathered around and grabbed at the army vehicle carrying the casket before it left for the Almaza air base.

As the convoy proceeded from the cathedral, people raised banners reading, "Goodbye our pope," "We love you" and "All our love to Pope Shenouda III."

Due to the overcrowding outside the cathedral, clergymen were unable to catch up with the car transporting the pope's body.

As the procession took place, army and security forces withdrew from the area surrounding the cathedral to allow ambulances access to mourners who had fainted or were suffering from breathing problems. Several women and girls fainted during the ceremony and had to be hospitalized.

After the funeral concluded, a stampede erupted as the coffin was taken down the stairs and the crowd pushed to get closer to the body.

Shenouda's body will be transferred to St. Bishoy Monastery in Wadi al-Natrun, where he was banished in 1981 after criticizing then-President Anwar Sadat's handling of an Islamist insurgency in the 1970s and Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel. He had requested before his death that his body be buried there.

"It's a feeling of sadness you can't imagine," a tearful Mina Rizq Saad, 21, of Beni Suef, told Egypt Independent. "I want the earth to feel sad and the sky to feel joy."

Earlier in the morning, thousands of Copts arrived at the cathedral to attend the funeral for the pope, who died Saturday after a long struggle with disease.

Citizens and public figures attended the mass, which was scheduled to run from 10 to 11 am. An earlier mass, attended only by priests, was held at 5 am.

Before 10 am, hundreds of people had already gathered outside the entrance of the cathedral in an attempt to get in — some had official invitations from the church — but the door was closed. Military and riot police formed a cordon nearby.

Prayers began shortly after 10 am. Thousands of people gathered outside the cathedral to watch the mass on a large screen set up by the church.

"I don’t know who can replace him, he saw everything. But it will be God’s choice," said Erian Gad, 60, who traveled from Suez with his wife to attend the funeral mass.

"I haven’t absorbed his death yet," said a woman who traveled from Qena, which is about 600 km away.

The mourners all display a great affection for the late pope.

"He was my father, my life, my love," Enad Zaghloul, an elderly woman from Cairo, said while weeping. "I’m afraid of the future. We’re living in difficult times."

She said to herself through her tears: "May the joy of the sky be with you, Father."

Amid an “unprecedented” security plan, police and army forces only allowed a limited number of Copts and some public figures with special invitations to attend the funeral on Monday.

Members of Egypt’s ruling military council and members of the Millet Council — a 24-member secular body in charge of the Coptic Orthodox Church’s administrative affairs — as well as an assortment of political figures and members of Parliament took the front seats.

Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi did not attend the funeral, but state-run news agency MENA reported that five members of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, along with 26 army generals, were present.

British Ambassador to Cairo James Watts told Egypt Independent that the service was nice, but crowded.

Among presidential hopefuls in attendance were Amr Moussa, Hamdeen Sabbahi, Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh, Ahmed Shafiq and Hesham al-Bastawisi. In addition, prominent Coptic businessman and politician Naguib Sawiris, artist Hany Ramzy, Egyptian Social Democratic Party MP Zyad Elelaimy and activist John Talaat attended. Sawiris could be seen crying.

Sabbahi, a Nasserist presidential candidate, told Egypt Independent: "His death is a very sad occasion. [Pope Shenouda] was a symbol of unity for all Egyptians."

Some visitors reportedly suffered from breathing problems after scrambling to sit in the front row for the mass.

Correction: An earlier version of this story had incorrectly reported that Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi attended Pope Shenouda's funeral. The story has been amended to correct the error.

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Egypt court acquits Zawahiri brother in new trial

by admin
March 19th, 2012

An Egyptian military court on Monday acquitted Mohammed al-Zawahiri, the brother of Al-Qaeda's leader Ayman, overturning a death sentence in a new trial, his lawyer and his son told AFP.

The court also acquitted Mohammed Islambouli, whose Islamist brother Khaled assassinated president Anwar Sadat in 1981, they said. They had been convicted of planning militant attacks.

"Thank God, he was found innocent," Zawahiri's son Abdelrahman told AFP by telephone after the verdict.

"We expect him to be released in the next few days," his lawyer Kamel Mandur said.

In 1998, Zawahiri and Islambouli were sentenced on charges of undergoing military training in Albania and planning military operations in Egypt.

Mandur said the trial also acquitted several other former militants including Sayyed Imam Fadl, once the spiritual leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and mentor of Ayman al-Zawahiri.

But Fadl, like the others acquitted, had shunned violence in the late 1990s and engaged in a war of letters with Ayman al-Zawahiri, denouncing Al-Qaeda's attacks.

Islambouli returned from exile in Iran after a popular uprising overthrew president Hosni Mubarak in 2011, joining a number of Egyptian Islamist militants returning to the country after the ouster of their nemesis.

Under the military, which took power after Mubarak's ouster, several jailed Islamist militant leaders have been released, including Islamic Jihad leader Aboud al-Zomor.

The formerly militant Gamaa Islamiya, involved in Sadat's murder, has even formed a party with representation in the Islamist-dominated parliament.

Mohammed al-Zawahiri was released by the military along with other prisoners after Mubarak's fall before the rulers appeared to have a change of heart and had him rearrested within 48 hours.

His son said that Zawahiri had disappeared in the United Arab Emirates and was then secretly renditioned back to Egypt after his sentencing.

He said that in 2001, the United States asked Egypt for help in identifying a charred skull found in caves in Afghanistan's Torah Bora mountains after a battle with Al-Qaeda militants, suspecting it to be the remains of Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The United States asked Egypt for a DNA sample from Mohammed al-Zawahiri, said his son Abdel Rahman.

Following Sadat's assassination, Mubarak took power and led a wide-ranging crackdown on the Islamists.

They in turn conducted bombings and attacks throughout the 1980s and 1990s, culminating in the massacre of more than 60 people, mostly tourists, by Jama'a al-Islamiya militants in a complex of pharaonic temples in Luxor.

Shortly after the massacre, jailed Islamist militant leaders published recantations of violence.

In a May interview, Zomor told AFP that the mass protests that toppled the regimes in both Tunisia and Egypt had sapped support for militant groups because they showed there was another way to confront tyrants.

"They have created a new mechanism to hold regimes accountable," he said. "This has lessened the support and importance of armed struggle."

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Pope Shenouda, Coptic Church head in an era of change

by admin
March 17th, 2012

Pope Shenouda III was born Nazeer Gayed in August 1923 to a conservative Christian Family. By his teens, he was teaching at a Coptic Sunday School program.

In 1949, he completed his undergraduate studies in history at Cairo University. Upon graduation, he joined the Coptic Orthodox Seminary, becoming a faculty member after ordination.

In July 1954, he became a monk and later, a monk priest. In 1962, he was appointed by Pope Cyril VI as bishop of Christian Education and President of the Coptic Orthodox Theological Seminary. He was given the clerical name Shenouda then, after the Coptic saint and author, Saint Shenouda the Archimandrite.

Early on in his clerical career, he called for the unity of the Coptic community around the church.  Not long after taking on his education responsibilities, he successfully mobilized thousands of youths around this vision. Each Friday, he delivered a lesson in the cathedral on daily matters such as dating, studying and family planning.

His sermons attracted thousands of Copts each week. He was also known for his radical views and his attempts at politicizing the church since first entering the clergy. In his speeches, he dared to hint at criticism of then-President Gamal Abdel Nasser, at a time when his regime was held up as infallible.

 In 1971, he was elected as the 117th pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See St. Mark.

His ascent to the highest religious position within the Coptic community coincided with the rise of Anwar Sadat to the presidency.

Soon after Shenouda’s papal ordination, he began to deviate from his predecessor's passive approach toward the ruling regime. He adopted a radically confrontational discourse in response to Sadat's policies that he said had allowed for the resurrection of Islamist groups.

Upon his ordination, Shenouda accused the state of discriminating against Copts on personal status matters, government appointments and the construction of churches. In the meantime, he openly opposed Sadat's "religiosity-based" policies.

In late 1981, Sadat put him under house arrest at the Monastery of Saint Bishoy where he remained for almost four years. This isolation experience appeared to leave a lasting impression on Shenouda, prompting him to check his formerly aggressive approach.  After his release in 1986, Shenouda adopted a rather quiescent manner towards former President Hosni Mubarak's regime.

That was, until the 2010 parliamentary elections, when the pope reportedly cast his ballot in favor of the Wafd opposition party rather than Mubarak's National Democratic Party. Some Coptic intellectuals said that the Pope's choice on the ballot signaled a new era for relations between the regime and the church.

They said the NDP's failures in protecting Copts or preventing sectarian attacks on the Christian minority might have motivated Shenouda to withdraw his support.

But the Shenouda-led church did not take its dissent any further after the 25 January revolution broke out last year. Rather, Shenouda repeated his support of Mubarak during the 18-day uprising and most churches discouraged Copts from taking to the streets. Many Copts expressed frustration at the Church’s intractable support for Mubarak.

Secular Coptic intellectuals who insisted that divorce regulations be eased and that the mechanism for electing the next pope be amended also challenged Shenouda. They argued that the electorate should be expanded and that the draw be abolished.

In the last step of electing a Coptic pope, a blindfolded child chooses which of the top three candidates will take the position. Critics say the practice is outdated and undemocratic.

Under Shenouda’s tenure, the Coptic Church spread in the West, especially in the United States where the number of Coptic churches jumped from four in 1971 to over 100 at the time of his death. The pope also established branches of the Coptic Seminary in America, Australia and the United Kingdom.

Under the church's bylaw issued in 1957, the next pope shall be elected by bishops, former and current Coptic cabinet members and MPs, Coptic notables, and Coptic newspaper owners and editors. Once the vote is completed, a blindfolded child will choose the pope from the three candidates with the highest number of votes. Candidates must be at least 40 years old and have spent at least 15 years in monastic life.

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Egypt releases brother of Sadat assassin for health reasons

by admin
February 27th, 2012

Authorities on Sunday released for health reasons a Jama'a al-Islamiya leader convicted of killing tourists in the 1997 Luxor massacre whose brother was executed for assassinating former President Anwar Sadat.
 
Mamdouh Ismail, Showky al-Islambouli's lawyer and an MP, said the court released his client pending tiral in the case in which he is charged with attempting to overthrow the regime, Reuters said.
 
Ismail said Islambouli suffered a heart attack when the prisoners' truck transporting him to court Sunday was in an accident.
 
Islambouli was sentenced to death in absentia in 1992 in a case known in the media as "The Returnees from Afghanistan."
 
He was only recently arrested upon returning from Iran to Egypt in August after the uprising that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak.
 
Iran had asked Islambouli to return either to Egypt or Pakistan. He came to Egypt after failing to gain access to Pakistan or Turkey.
 
Islambouli was convicted again in 1999, in a trial that included more than 100 members of Jama'a al-Islamiya, of massacring 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians in Luxor.
 
Group pemembers were also charged with blowing up the Egyptian Embassy in Pakistan and a series of killings and attempted assassinations, one of which targeted Mubarak.
 
Islambouli's brother Khaled, an army officer, was executed for Sadat's assassination.
 
Jama'a al-Islamiya several years ago said it renounced violence. Many of its members were elected into the People's Assembly in the recent post-revolution elections.
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