- Egypt violates human rights -
Egyptian News
- Egypt & Human Rights - News about Palestinian/PA Project
Ap 5/05 - BBC - Thousands of Egyptian university students have demonstrated angrily against the government, in the largest such protest yet to be staged.
The students - mostly from the Muslim Brotherhood movement - marched at five campuses in Cairo and the Nile Delta.
Hundreds of police prevented them from taking their protests outside university gates onto the streets.
Islamists, liberals and nationalists want an end to Egypt's 24-year-old state of emergency.
They also called for an end to the presidency of Hosni Mubarak.
Mr Mubarak has been the country's leader since 1981. He is hoping to win a fifth term in office in elections in September - for the first time in a multi-candidate poll.
Campus protests
Reports quoting police say 4,000 students marched inside the grounds of al-Azhar university in the historic heart of old Cairo.
Many students at this important seat of Sunni Muslim learning flashed V for victory signs and waved small copies of the Islamic holy book, the Koran.
Egyptian Students: 'Declare war on Israel'
ICEJ - Mar 24/05 - Thousands of Egyptian university students have urged Arab
leaders, meeting at a summit in Algeria, not to compromise with Israel
with regard to the Middle East peace process. "We don't want meetings or
negotiations again," the students chanted Tuesday at Cairo's Al-Azhar
Islamic University. In the southern Egyptian town of Assiut some 7,000 students
also demonstrated on Tuesday calling on the Arab League to declare war on
Israel. "Leaders, be strong," the protestors chanted "we want the
summit to declare war."
BBC - Mar 17/05 - A new Egyptian ambassador has arrived in Israel to take up a post that has been vacant during more than four years of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Mohammed Ibrahim was welcomed at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport by officials from the Israeli foreign ministry.
Egypt and Jordan, the only Arab states to sign peace treaties with Israel, downgraded relations in 2000 after the outbreak of a Palestinian uprising.
Mr Ibrahim has previously served in Sudan, Kenya and Ethiopia.
Cairo and Amman pulled their senior envoys from Israel to protest against what they saw as Israel's excessive use of force against Palestinian demonstrators.
Mr Ibrahim will present his credentials to Israeli President Moshe Katsav on Monday together with the new Jordanian ambassador, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said.
Correspondents say Mr Ibrahim is known to be close to President Hosni Mubarak, who has been leading efforts to improve Arab-Israeli relations.
CAIRO, Egypt - An opposition leader just freed from jail declared his candidacy for president Wednesday with a dramatic vow before cheering supporters that Egypt's long-governing party will fall. But with the odds heavily against any rival to President Hosni Mubarak , Ayman Nour is so far alone in stepping forward.
Other opposition leaders are waiting for now, dismayed by what they call "the impossible conditions" they say guarantee that Mubarak — 76 years old and the unquestioned ruler of Egypt for nearly a quarter century — will be the winner in elections this September as usual, even after he decided to open the vote to competition.
At a rally in an impoverished district of Cairo, Nour — leader of the al-Ghad party — threw kisses to a crowd of over 1,500 supporters, who chanted "Welcome, Mr. President" and sported balloons and scarves in his campaign color, orange. From the doorstep of a charity he runs in the district, he announced his candidacy.
"This party will fall," Nour said, referring to Mubarak's ruling party. "They have to apologize for the false elections during the past miserable 50 years. ... We have never chosen a president before."
But the scene suggested the difficulties any competition to Mubarak faces. Truckloads of security forces surrounded the party headquarters, pushing and shoving with Nour's supporters before he arrived. Even before the rally began, a banner in support of Mubarak had been strung between two light poles directly in front of the building.
Nour's candidacy is widely regarded as a long shot, because of the ruling party's control of the media and its ability to stop — through emergency laws — any gatherings or protests, if it wishes. Yet by being the sole candidate so far, Nour also could gain the publicity and focus needed for him to do better than expected.
The 40-year-old populist politician, who has long called for multi-candidate elections, claims the government was trying to eliminate him as a rival when it arrested him six weeks ago on suspicion of forging nearly 2,000 signatures to obtain a license for his party last year.
His detention became an international issue — sparking tensions with the United States, which demanded his release — and made him the most prominent figure in the increasingly vocal reform movement in Egypt.
If Nour stands tall as a rival to Mubarak, it's in part because no one else does.
Mubarak's 24 years of autocratic tactics managed to get rid of anyone seen as a threat — either because of growing power, or popularity. Now, many analysts say, people find it difficult to think of a politician who can be an alternative to Mubarak.
The result is an open election no one is ready for.
"It looks like someone wrapped a man with heavy iron chains, handcuffed him and threw him with great enthusiasm in the waters to see if he can swim," said Mohammed Habib, an influential member of Egypt's oldest political Islamic group, the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Muslim Brotherhood, which enjoys the widest popular base, has decided to refrain from joining the race for now, according to Habib. "When we see the restrictions are eased, we will see," he said.
MUBARAK DEMANDS IDF LEAVE GAZA BORDER ZONE
Talks with Mofaz overshadowed by Jericho impasse
ICEJ - Mar 10/05 - Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak told Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz on in the Red
Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Thursday that he expects a full Israeli
withdrawal from the entire Gaza Strip - including the narrow Gaza-Egypt border
buffer zone - as part of the disengagement plan.
Mubarak also stressed the need for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to keep to the understandings reached during the Egyptian-sponsored peace summit last month on a day when Israeli paratroopers killed one of the planners of the recent Tel Aviv suicide attack, an operation the Palestinians consider to be in breach of Israel's side of the bargain.
But the talks, described as "positive" by Mubarak's spokesman, were overshadowed by the failure of Israeli and Palestinian security teams to bridge their differences over the long-expected handover of Jericho to full PA security control.
Despite the agreement reached in principle between Mofaz and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in face-to-face meetings late Tuesday night, Israel is refusing to give in to Palestinian demands for full control of Highway 90 fearing the renewal of roadside sniper attacks on the main route between Jerusalem and the Galilee
BBC- Mar 10/05 - Egypt has rebuffed President George W Bush's claim that democracy is fast gaining ground in the Middle East.
Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said the US is wrong to assume recent events vindicate its policies in the region.
"What model are we talking about in Iraq? Bombs are exploding everywhere and Iraqis are killed everyday," he said in a Washington Post interview.
Mr Bush says Palestinian and Iraqi polls and rallies in Lebanon signal a "thaw" for authoritarian regimes.
Mr Gheit also attacked the US for calling on Egypt to speed up reforms.
The pace at which Cairo moves towards democracy "will be set by Egypt and the Egyptian people and only the Egyptian people", he said.
"The Egyptian people will not accept what we call trusteeship."
Iraq criticism
Mr Aboul Gheit warned the US it could destabilise Lebanon if it misreads recent anti-Syrian protests as a sign of support.
Lingering suspicions hold up deal to deploy Egyptian forces along Philadelphi route
Mar 7/05 - Haaretz - In parallel with preparations for withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and renewal of talks with the Palestinian Authority, Israel is holding talks with Egypt on the deployment of its forces along the border in Sinai, to prevent the smuggling of weapons to the Palestinians
For Israel, effective action by the
Egyptians to counter the infiltration of arms to the Gaza Strip constitutes an
important component of its decision to withdraw from the Philadelphi route in
Rafah, along which the smuggling - and the battle against it - is being waged.
Discussions with Egypt relate to changes in the security arrangements determined
by the 1979 peace treaty, which sanction the deployment of only policemen along
the border, and declare that the Sinai must remain demilitarized. Both parties
are now interested in replacing the policemen with higher-quality soldiers -
members of Egypt's border guard - who have superior training and equipment.
At first glance, this is merely a technical military matter, which could be
rapidly agreed upon and authorized in a document a few lines long. However, due
to the deep suspicions between the military establishments in Cairo and Tel
Aviv, the talks have gone on for several months and have not yet reached a
conclusion.
The main Israeli concern is the mission that would be assigned to the Egyptian
force, aside from prevention of smuggling. The Israeli defense establishment is
concerned about the proposed upgrading of the Egyptian military with advanced
American weapons systems at a time when its commanders still consider Israel a
potential threat against which they must prepare themselves.
EGYPT UNDER FIRE FOR RETURNING AMBASSADOR
The condemnation comes as Dubai's director of economic development came under fire in the United Arab Emirates for being the first public official to participate in a trip to Israel.
In an editorial Monday, the UAE's official daily Al-Ittihad, called his private contacts with Israelis "irresponsible and unacceptable," though in Israel they were seen as representing a tangible thawing in relations with the Arab world brought on by the death of Arafat and the Israeli-Palestinian talks in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh earlier this month.
Since the summit, both Egypt and Jordan have decided to upgrade diplomatic ties by returning their ambassadors to Tel Aviv after a four and a half year absence. Deputy Education Minister Michael Melchior, meanwhile, has been in the Gulf State of Qatar, meeting with government officials and taking part in a high profile BBC television debate as the guest of the wife of the Emir.
But most remarkably of all, Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali decided on Friday to invite Prime Minister Sharon to Tunisia to attend an information technology convention in his country in November. According to Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev Sharon intends to accept the offer making him the first visiting Israeli leader to the Arab nation that for years was a sworn enemy of the Jewish State and the operating base of the PLO.
Egypt calls for Israeli border pullout
ICEJ - Feb 24/05 - Egypt
demanded on Wednesday that Israel withdraw from the Gaza- Egyptian border
corridor, known to Israelis as the Philadelphi Road, as part of an agreement
they are negotiating to complement an Israeli withdrawal from the rest of Gaza.
"Israel must withdraw from the Salaheddin corridor before Egyptian forces
move into the Egyptian-Palestinian border line," Egyptian Foreign Minister
Ahmed Aboul Gheit told Beirut's Daily Star. Israel has insisted on retaining a
troop presence in the narrow border strip to combat Hamas-led weapons smuggling
operations, and to secure its southern border with Egypt.
PM Sharon speaks with Egyptian Pres Mubarak and Jordanian King Abdullah II
IFM - Jerusalem - February 9, 2005 - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon this
afternoon (Wednesday), 9 February 2005, telephoned Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak and thanked him for hosting the Sharm el-Sheikh summit yesterday
(Tuesday), 8 February 2005; the Prime Minister Sharon also him to thank the
Governor of Sinai [Province] for the tour through the streets of Sharm
el-Sheikh.
Prime Minister Sharon repeated his invitation to Egyptian President Mubarak to
visit Israel. The Prime Minister said that the Sharm el-Sheikh summit symbolized
a new beginning and added that together with Egyptian President Mubarak it will
be possible to attain the goals that we all aspire to. The Egyptian President
thanked Prime Minister Sharon for accepting his invitation and attending the
summit; he added that he was prepared to make all necessary efforts in order to
advance the peace process.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon spoke this afternoon (Wednesday), 9 February 2005,
with Jordanian King Abdullah II, who had telephoned in order to congratulate
Prime Minister Sharon on the Sharm el-Sheikh summit yesterday.
King Abdullah said that Prime Minister Sharon's speech was very important and
added that yesterday's summit gives hope to the entire region and was a source
of pride to both its participants and their peoples.
Prime Minister Sharon thanked King Abdullah and said that the latter's
participation in the summit was very important. The Prime Minister also thanked
the Jordanian monarch for their excellent meeting at yesterday's summit.
Latest Cairo Talks Urge Hamas, Islamic Jihad to Join Truce
ICEJ - Feb 3/05 - Egyptian intelligence officials are hosting talks with leaders of the Palestinian terror militias Hamas and Islamic Jihad on a possible ceasefire with Israel ahead of next week's Sinai summit. Joining the Cairo talks, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said Wednesday his faction would accept a temporary truce on condition that the Israelis halt their targeted killings of Palestinian militants and release all Palestinian prisoners. Israel has resisted pledging to halt attacks on members of Palestinian groups but has offered to "respond to quiet with quiet."
Mubarak invites Abbas, Sharon to Red Sea summit
ICEJ - Feb 2/05 - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas have agreed to hold their first face-to-face talks since Abbas' election in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm e-Sheikh on Tuesday, accepting the invitation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Jordan's King Abdullah II was also invited to participate and his Foreign Minister confirmed on Wednesday that he would attend. It will be the first meeting between Sharon and Mubarak since the Israeli leader was elected in 2001. The invitation was described by Israeli officials as the latest example in the "heating up of security contacts and coordination," with Egypt.
Egyptian Training for Palestinian [PA] Police to Start
CAIRO (Reuters) - Jan 30/05 - Some 40 Palestinian police officers will come to Egypt for training next week as part of Egypt's contribution to the new security arrangements in Gaza, Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said on Saturday.
Egypt will also receive delegations from the Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which new Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is trying to coax into a truce with Israel, he told Reuters by telephone after talks between Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (news - web sites).
Under an earlier plan, Egypt had offered to host a dialogue between the Palestinian Authority (news - web sites) and the militants but Shaath said that would no longer be necessary.
"We have concluded really the agreement with them but Egypt needs to support that agreement and continue to monitor and so we are happy that they are going to do that," he added.
The training for Palestinian police officers has been under discussion for months and almost took place late last year but the officers were unable to cross the border into Egypt.
Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, has tried to end attacks on Israelis by deploying Palestinian security forces more widely in the Gaza Strip (news - web sites). Israel has responded by reducing its military operations in the area.
Shaath said this cleared the way for Egypt to carry out its part in the Gaza security plan, including the training.
UN inspectors now looking at
nuclear lab in Egypt: diplomats
VIENNA (AFP) - Jan 20/05 - UN inspectors investigating undeclared nuclear activity in Egypt that could be related to atomic weapons development are checking out a reprocessing lab for making plutonium, diplomats said.
The lab, apparently put together in the 1980s but never used, raises questions about an Egyptian nuclear program which is peaceful but may also be carefully structured to be able to move towards weapons development if Cairo decided to take this step, diplomats said in recent comments.
"It's not empty, the Egyptian story," a diplomat close to the UN's nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency told AFP commenting on the ongoing investigation and hinting there are more undeclared activities than inspectors of the Vienna-based IAEA had originally thought.
But the diplomat, who asked not to be named, said Egypt's undeclared work was small scale and not even comparable to South Korea (news - web sites), a non-atomic-weapons state which has admitted to carrying out rogue nuclear experiments.
A second diplomat said the main question with Egypt is not what it is hiding but the range of its nuclear activities, in a country that is a regional power concerned about alleged nuclear weapons programs in Israel and Iran.
"Egypt is building a physical and manpower infrastructure which, added to past know-how and experience, enable it to master an important part of the nuclear fuel cycle technology.
"This infrastructure could be used to promote a military nuclear program," the diplomat said.
Egyptian Coptic (Christian) protesters freed
BBC - Dec 22/04 - Thirteen Egyptian Coptic Christians detained after clashes with police have been released on humanitarian grounds, the prosecutor-general said.
Maher Abdel Wahed told reporters he had extended the detention of 21 others pending further investigations.
Policemen were injured when stones were hurled by protesters who had occupied the main Coptic cathedral in Cairo earlier this month.
Tensions between Christians and Muslims in Egypt have flared in recent weeks.
The protests began after rumours spread that a priest's wife, Wafa Constantine, had been abducted and forced to convert to Islam.
Government officials had said Mrs Constantine, 48, wanted to convert to Islam but was being prevented from doing so by her family.
The clashes at the cathedral ended when protesters were told that Mrs Constantine was back under the Church's protection.
Last week, Egypt's prosecutor-general said that Mrs Constantine had gone to police saying she wanted to change her religion, but had decided to remain a Christian after meeting Church officials.
Calm
The violence has prompted the Coptic Christian pope, Shenouda III, to go into seclusion at a monastery in protest at the treatment of Copts.
Also this month, police said they had arrested 25 people after sectarian violence erupted in the Upper Egyptian village of Munqateen.
Police were reported to be keeping Muslims and Christians apart after three Christian-owned shops and homes were attacked and police cars were wrecked.
Egyptian pope goes into seclusion
BBC- Dec 20/04 - The top Coptic cleric (Head of the Coptic
Church of Egypt) has withdrawn to a desert monastery to draw attention to grievances among Egyptian Christians.
Pope Shenouda III went into retreat at Anba Bishoy monastery in Wadi Natrun on 8 December, but his whereabouts were initially kept secret.
Tensions flared during the last three weeks over fears that Christians were being forced to convert to Islam.
At least 34 Copts were arrested during a demonstration in Cairo and sectarian violence also erupted in Upper Egypt.
"The seclusion of His Holiness the Pope will continue until he reaches a solution [with the government] that satisfies his conscience to the problems related to the Copts," the pope's secretary Bishop Armia told Reuters news agency.
The Islamic revival in Egypt
BBC - The Islamic call to prayer billowing out of loudspeakers atop of Cairo's mosques five times a day has become a landmark of the city's soundscape.
Even the smallest mosque is nowadays equipped with a loudspeaker - a major culprit in the city's ever rising noise pollution.
At times, you could hear raucous voices coming at you from all directions against the constant cacophony of car honks, street vendors and general street noise in one of the world's most densely populated metropolises.
Gone are the days when the call to prayer came from a mellifluous tenor or baritone unaccompanied by the crackle of a rusty loudspeaker. It used to be the beauty of the voice that was part of the seduction to pray.
It is not only volume which has gone up over the years in Egypt, but numbers too.
During the early 1970s when I studied in Egypt, I used to walk by a man with a long beard on the corner of a busy street in downtown Cairo, a loudspeaker in hand urging passers-by to donate money to build yet more mosques.
Nearly 30 years later, I found him still standing there. His beard is now grey, but little else has changed. I wonder how many mosques he has collected money for!
Palpable transformations
Estimates of how many new mosques have been built in Egypt over the past few decades vary a lot, from tens to hundreds of thousands, depending on whom you ask: the government or its critics, who say it has done little or nothing to stem the tide of Islamism sweeping across the country.
The magnified call to prayer, the building of mosques are both symptoms of a relentless rise of Islamist politics
FREE
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THERE IS NOT ONE CHRISTIAN NATION ON EARTH WHERE MUSLIMS ARE PERSECUTED.
Yet in most nations where the majority of the population are Muslims, there is systematic government persecution of Christians.
"Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."
--Article 18 of the Universal
Declaration of
Human
Rights--
Christian Conversions - According to the Bible - Can NEVER be forced.
Any Conversion to Christianity which would be "Forced" would NOT be recognized by God. It is in
His True and KIND nature, that those who come to Him and choose to believe in Him, must come to Him OF
THEIR OWN FREE WILL.
Don't Let anyone tell you that Christians support Forced Conversions.
That is False. True Christianity is NEVER forced.
Core Universal Rights
The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one's belief or religion
The right to join together and express one's belief