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you are welcomE ************* ********************** |
Morsi's promises for his first 100 days in office
Morsi's promises for his first 100 days in office
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Female genital mutilation: 30 million girls 'at risk
More than 30 million girls are at risk of being subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM) over the next decade, a study by Unicef has found. Country Prevalence Country Prevalence Note: Data from the Republic of the Sudan only. Data not collected from South Sudan. Source: UnicefIt said more than 125 million girls and women alive today had undergone a procedure now opposed by the majority in countries where it was practised. Ritual cutting of girls' genitals is practised by some African, Middle Eastern and Asian communities in the belief it protects a woman's virginity. Unicef wants action to end FGM. The UN Children Fund survey, described as the most comprehensive to date on the issue, found that support for FGM was declining amongst both men and women. FGM "is a violation of a girl's rights to health, well-being and self-determination," said Unicef deputy executive director Geeta Rao Gupta, "What is clear from this report is that legislation alone is not enough." http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image...lation_464.jpg Somalia 98% Ivory Coast 36% Guinea 96% Kenya 27% Djibouti 93% Nigeria 27% Egypt 91% Senegal 26% Eritrea 89% Central African Republic 24% Mali 89% Yemen 23% Sierra Leone 88% Tanzania 15% Sudan* 88% Benin 13% Burkina Faso 76% Iraq 8% The Gambia 76% Ghana 4% Ethiopia 74% Togo 4% Mauritania 69% Niger 2% Liberia 66% Cameroon 1% Guinea-Bissau 50% Uganda 1% Chad 44% |
Texas students dress in burqas, taught to call Muslim terrorists ‘freedom fighters’
http://media.washtimes.com/static/im...cial-white.pnghttp://media.washtimes.com/static/im...cial-white.png A Texas lawmaker is launching an investigation after a high school teacher reportedly invited her female students to dress in burqas and refer to Muslim terrorists as “freedom fighters.” State Sen. Dan Patrick told Fox News he is very disturbed by a Facebook photograph posted by one of the students in a world geography class at Lumberton High School, which showed them in Islamic garb. He also is investigating reports that the students were forced to write an essay based on an article in The Washington Post that blamed Egypt’s turmoil on democracy rather than the Muslim Brotherhood. “Parents are very sensitive to any issue that seems to be anti-American — that blames democracy for some sort of trouble in the world,” he told Fox. “I felt like the line had been crossed,” a parent of the daughter who posted the Facebook photo told Fox. “Christian kids who want to pray have to do it outside of school hours — yet Islam is being taught to our kids during school hours.” The girl’s father is confused why a geography class is teaching religion at all. “She went from learning about Mexico to learning about Russia to learning about Islam,” he told Fox. “Islam is not a country. Islam is not a continent.” The school district released a statement to Fox News defending the class: “The lesson that was offered focused on exposing students to world cultures, religions, customs and belief systems. The lesson is not teaching a specific religion, and the students volunteered to wear the clothing.” The parents contacted the principal, who defended the program required under CSCOPE, a controversial electronic curriculum system that provides online lesson plans for teachers, Fox News reports. “This is the normal answer from every school using CSCOPE,” said Janice VanCleave, the founder of Texas CSCOPE Review, which monitors what is being taught in the state’s schools. “They are definitely promoting the Islamic religion.” Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/25/texas-students-dress-burqas-taught-call-muslim-ter/#ixzz2ZpKMNh00 Follow us: *washtimes on Twitter |
Will Egypt get a second chance at democracy?
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/ass...al-gallery.jpg That’s what the world is asking, a week after Egypt’s military forced President Mohamed Morsy from office, after a year of what the opposition called tyrannical governance. “Second chances are rare in any country,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns said in Cairo on Monday, after meeting with the interim leader, Adly Mansour. Speaking with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Frank Wisner, the former U.S. envoy to Egypt, said that Egypt should seize the opportunity. “[It’s] a second chance,” he said. “One worth achieving, and there’s a chance Egypt can do it. Last week, Egypt’s acting foreign minister, Mohamed Kamel Amr, said that there would be a “maximum of six to seven months” before new presidential elections are held. “It’s an adventuresome goal, but it’s not impossible,” Wisner said in reaction. “Much of the construction has already been written, Egypt has a very sophisticated election machinery.” What is critical between now and then, Wisner said, was consensus-building. “I can’t predict what the Muslim Brothers will do,” he said. “I know they are being called upon to join. But it is an opportunity for Egypt to bind up its wounds and come together.” |
May Allah reward you Mister Mohamed on this effort Allah made it in your balance |
Thanks a lot
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Egypt death toll soars as Obama leads muted international condemnation Egypt death toll soars as Obama leads muted international condemnation
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/...und-up-008.jpg Egyptian security forces clashed with supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood for a second day on Thursday as muted international condemnation led by Barack Obama failed to quell violence now said to have killed at least 638 people and wounded many thousands more. The death toll from the ongoing *****down is likely to be far higher, with many bodies remaining unaccounted for in mosques near the scene of the two major assaults on Brotherhood sit-ins on Wednesday. The violence achieved its aim of clearing both protest sites but led to widespread rage and revenge attacks by supporters of the Brotherhood who torched a number of government buildings. In the early hours of Friday the Brotherhood called for a nationwide "millions' march of anger" after noon prayers, Reuters reported. "Despite the pain and sorrow over the loss of our martyrs, the latest coup makers' crime has increased our determination to end them," the Islamist group said in a statement. Responding to the army's brutal *****down on protesters, Obama announced the cancellation of joint US military exercises with Egypt in a carefully calibrated rebuke that stopped short of a more significant suspension of aid. The US president interrupted his family vacation on Martha's Vineyard to condemn the bloodshed, but stressed that any move toward peaceful democracy was a difficult process that could take decades. "We appreciate the complexity of the situation," he said. "We recognise that change takes time. There are going to be false starts and difficult days. We know that democratic transitions are measured not in months or even years, but sometimes in generations." Egypt's presidency said early on Friday Obama's remarks were not based on "facts" and would strengthen and encourage violent groups, Reuters reported. His statement disappointed many in the diplomatic community who had hoped for a suspension, or even cancellation of $1.3bn in annual US military aid to Egypt, but the administration is anxious to retain this link for future leverage over the generals. "If I'm an Egyptian general, I take notice and think President Obama is trying to take the least painful step to demonstrate to various constituencies in the US that he means what he says about democracy in Egypt," said Amy Hawthorne, who until recently was an Egypt policy official at the State Department. "But only the least painful step, so we won't take him that seriously." The White House's limited intervention came as clashes took place for a second day in the capital Cairo, where an angry crowd stormed a security building in Giza and sporadic fighting was reported in at least four other parts of the country, including central Egypt where at least one police station and several churches were torched. In Beni Suef, a southern city, locals said demonstrators attacked the security headquarters and a Coptic school. In Ismaïlia, a city near the Suez C****, protesters backing the ousted president Mohamed Morsi attempted to attack a police station with a car, while Brotherhood members held a protest after the start of the evening curfew. Overall, though, violence was markedly lower than on Wednesday – a day that appeared to be worse than the fears of some politicians and even Brotherhood backers, who had been bracing for an imminent attack on their hubs in north-eastern and western Cairo. Bodies were still being counted in three mosques, three hospitals and two morgues, said Brotherhood spokesman Gehad el-Haddad early on Thursday, hours after a major assault led by interior ministry forces left behind scenes of shocking carnage at two sites used by supporters for the past six weeks. Morgue officials struggled to cope with the number of bodies arriving at the premises. As a result, dozens of decaying bodies lay in coffins outside, relatives piling them with ice to stop the rot. Many claimed the police had refused to record their deaths as murder. By daybreak, both protest sites were ravaged wastelands. Throughout Thursday, cleaners picked through the wreckage-strewn remains of the sites in an attempt to create a sense of normality. Protesters who had been encamped there had all fled or been arrested. Several groups made symbolic attempts to establish new hubs elsewhere in Cairo, but Brotherhood leaders continued to call on supporters to refrain from violence and hold only peaceful demonstrations. Meanwhile, Egypt's military-backed interim government remained defiant, pledging in a statement to confront "terrorist actions and sabotage", laying the blame for the violence at the feet of the Brotherhood. "The cabinet expressed its determination to confront the terrorist actions and sabotage by elements of the Muslim Brotherhood organisation," it said. "These actions are carried out as part of a criminal plan that clearly aims at toppling the state." State television quoted the interior ministry as saying the security forces would again use live ammunition to counter any attacks against themselves or public buildings. The curfew that had been announced in a declaration of emergency that was imposed across the country for 30 days will now be imposed from 9pm to 6am. In the street outside Cairo's Zeinhom morgue, families of victims vowed to resist the new curfew, refusing to leave the street until their relatives' bodies were accepted by the mortuary. "Curse the curfew," said Atef Fatih, whose brother was shot dead on Thursday. "We don't care about it. We will wait until they let the body inside." Brotherhood leaders warned they could not restrain the anger of supporters across the country and said they feared the outbreak of more widespread violence in coming weeks as the full scale of the massacre in Cairo sinks in. Christian leaders said that violence against Egypt's minority Coptic community was now at its highest for many decades. Islamists have angrily denounced Egypt's Christians as having given political cover to the new government, which was ushered into power by military chief, General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, who ordered his officers to arrest Morsi and his aides on 3 July. The six-week standoff between the state and the Brotherhood failed to reach any form of compromise, setting the scene for the violent clashes of this week. Brotherhood leaders had persistently said that the protest sites in Cairo would remain peaceful. Two earlier assaults by security forces had led to an estimated 300 deaths. Morsi has been held incommunicado on a military base throughout the crisis. He is understood to have threatened to start a hunger strike should security forces carry through with their threat to attack both protest sites |
Paying the price http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/Media/New...80_resized.jpg http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/Media/New...16_resized.jpg http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/Media/New...93_resized.jpg http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/Media/New...81_resized.jpg Egypt’s Copts and other Christians face tough times. Since the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi on 3 July churches and the homes of Christians have been the targets of regular attacks, some of them under the eyes and ears of an indifferent police force. “We now see all the houses of Copts in a village being attacked. This signals a shift from the individual discrimination faced by many Copts towards wholesale persecution. The state needs to interfere, strongly, to stop thisThe attackers identify themselves as Islamists. Indeed, the writing on the walls of burned churches and houses in Upper Egypt over the last month has conveyed a single, chilling message — that Egypt is exclusively an Islamic country and Copts should move elsewhere. “This is collective punishment. The message is that Copts should find themselves somewhere else to go,” says Suleiman Shafik, a researcher into Coptic affairs. “The fact is, though, that Egypt is their home and Copts are staying.” Speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly in the wake of growing numbers of attacks on Christians, Shafik is less concerned about the slogans daubed on walls than he is with the identity of the attackers. “For the first time in decades we are seeing Muslim Brotherhood members directly involved in attacks against Copts. Previous attacks against Copts have been by and large the doing of other Islamist groups, Jihad and Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya. The Muslim Brotherhood has not been directly involved in any such attacks since 1950,” says Shafik. The Muslim Brotherhood, which was established in 1928, instigated some attacks against Christian targets in the 1930s and 1940s. Otherwise, says Shafik, relations between the Islamist group and Egypt’s Copts, while they witnessed ups and downs, have remained manageable. In the run-up to the presidential elections of 2012 Muslim Brotherhood leaders, including Morsi, tried to solicit Coptic support through positive public statements and appearances at the Coptic Cathedral. “We are talking about a serious shift in positions here, and it’s very disturbing,” notes Shafik . He adds that “there is no doubt” in his mind about the “Muslim Brotherhood identity of the attackers” not only because there is no attempt to conceal this identity but also because “it is a well-known fact” that the villages in Upper Egypt where the attacks have happened “fall squarely in the area of Muslim Brotherhood influence”. Equally disturbing for Shafik is the context in which the attacks take place. “I am not just talking about a police force that stands by while churches and houses are being burned down. I am talking about people being attacked for no reason other than the fact that they are Copts, and Copts participated in the 30 June demonstrations that led to the ouster of Morsi.” During the final months of Morsi’s year in office, Muslim Brotherhood leaders began to complain about the presence of Copts in anti-Morsi demonstrations. Mohamed Al-Beltagui, whose anti-Coptic statements from the Rabaa Al-Adaweya sit-in fall squarely within the realms of hate speech, was among the most vociferous. What people like Al-Beltagui fail to realise, argues Shafik, is that “Copts are fully-fledged Egyptian citizens who have the right to protest against anything they happen to dislike, especially when it comes to a president determined to deny their existence.” The size of Egypt’s Christian population has been the subject of debate for decades, not least because the national census studiously avoids any religion-based count. According to many independent sources, Christians, whether Copts, Catholics or evangelicals, constitute one fifth of the population rather than the officially touted 10 per cent. “To put things in black and white, Copts are being punished for exercising the perfectly legitimate citizenship right of protesting against the president,” Shafik says. “And the only body that is intervening to stop this is the army.” During the past month army vehicles have been deployed in the villages of Upper Egypt where attacks have taken place to provide the Coptic community with a sense of security. Such scenes are in sharp contrast to the images Copts have lived with since 9 October 2011 when military vehicles were used to kill Coptic demonstrators in front of the Maspero television headquarters. “During the first interim phase churches and people were attacked in the context of disputes between neighbours or feuds over a love affair between a Muslim and a Copt. Now we are seeing attacks for no reason at all,” says Shafik . Sectarian violence against Copts has been a recurrent story since the late 1970s. Indeed, late president Anwar Al-Sadat is blamed by many historians for inciting sectarianism as he courted Islamist groups as a counterbalance to the lingering influence of leftists. Sadat himself criticised the Coptic Patriarch Shenouda III and placed him under house arrest. Shenouda remained secluded until Hosni Mubarak came to power in 1981 and turned a new page in relations with the Church. Implicit in the new dispensation was the understanding that the patriarch would keep the Coptic population “within the walls of the church”. “For years Copts would demonstrate inside the walls of the Cathedral grounds. All that changed when they took part in the 25 January Revolution. There were repeated attempts to force them back inside the churches but neither the Copts nor the Church complied. Instead, the opposite happened. They defied these attempts. One result of this was the marked presence of Copts in every demonstration that led the way to 30 June,” argues Shafik. Now, he says, the homes and places of worship of Copts and other Christians are being attacked as a form of “collective punishment”. |
Copts in the line of fire
On 14 August supporters of toppled president Mohamed Morsi torched at least 50 churches, Christian-owned schools and businesses across Egypt. Eyewitnesses stated that the attacks were perpetrated by the Muslim Brotherhood and their supporters in areas which lacked a police presence and protection. Attackers threw Molotov cocktails at churches as well as firebombs. According to the website nilerevolt.wordpress.com, there was one church burnt in Alexandria, one in Arish, eight in Assiut, two in Beni Suef, one in Cairo, six in Fayoum, one in Gharbiya, two in Giza, around 12 in Minya, one in Qena, five in Sohag, and five in Suez. One of Egypt’s oldest churches, the Virgin Mary in Minya was engulfed in flames. The church goes back to the fourth century. Among more churches burnt were St Mina, Baptist church status of Bani Mazar, Saint Mark, Jesuit Fathers, the Greek church and Franciscan fathers, Saint Maximus, Saint Mark, Virgin and Anba Abram, Saint George, Virgin Lady, and Prince Taodharos Elchatbi. This is in addition to at least 11 Christian institutions in Cairo, Fayoum, Assiut and Minya. Many Copts were also injured. It was reported that at least 15 worshipers were seriously injured while praying in churches. Nuns and priests fled to neighbouring rooftops after their churches were torched. Smoke and flames rose while the screams of nuns filled the air. Citizens banded together in front of churches all over Egypt’s governorates to protect them against attacks by the Muslim Brotherhood. Many Coptic political ****ysts believe that Christians are being scapegoated for the toppling of Morsi. Emad Gad, political ****yst at Al-Ahram Centre for Strategic and Political Research, said the severity of the attacks against Copts has never happened before. “Police and armed forces must exert more efforts to protect Christian entities and Copts as well. There have throughout the past decades been minor attacks against Copts; this time is the fiercest. Copts are being slaughtered and massive churches are being burnt down and security forces are doing nothing to protect innocent people and their houses of worship,” said Gad. Gad believes that the security silence over what is happening to Copts is disturbing. “Muslims and Copts do not want the dominance of one faction over the other in society. But Islamists either want everything under their control or will destroy the country,” Gad explained. “Islamists have a natural aggression against Copts. During the rule of Morsi, Copts were suppressed. Most were excluded from almost all important posts in the country. The Muslim Brotherhood who wanted to Islamise the country and its different entities as if Muslims are the only ones who are living in Egypt.” After the escalating sectarian violence against Copts, Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II called on Egyptians to stop the bloodshed and violence. “I ask every Egyptian to preserve Egyptian blood and exercise self-restraint and stop any assault against anyone,” said Tawadros. In the same context, the pope cancelled his weekly sermon for the third successive week due to the escalating violence against Copts since the ousting of Morsi on 3 July. Some ****ysts blamed the media for ignoring attacks on Copts and churches. They said the media focused too much on the evacuation of Rabaa Al-Adaweya and Al-Nahda sit-ins by Islamist supporters of Morsi and neglected other incidents in society caused by the Muslim Brotherhood. “The media should not be bias. All calamities should be covered by the media equally,” said Gad. Muslims have been seen helping in putting out fires in churches. Muslims along with Copts were reported defending churches and Christian-owned businesses and schools. Former MP Georgette Qullini denounced the attacks against churches, Copts, their homes and businesses. Qullini said what happened was an attempt to disrupt the country’s unity. “Egypt is witnessing a bloody phase in the country’s history at the hands of Islamist terrorist militias. There is an organised scheme against the country’s unity and people as well,” said Qullini. Qullini blamed leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood for encouraging their followers to launch violent attacks against innocent citizens and unarmed Christians. “They want to keep power and maintain it by force. They do not listen to the people. What they did instead is gain the public’s hatred,” she said. “Egypt is going through a critical phase. They are risking the country’s stability. Police and armed forces should intervene in order to end this farce |
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