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Egypt Revolts—Islamists Get 72 Percent Of Seats In Parliament

Posted by Olog-hai on Thu Jan 26 01:41:12 2012, in response to Egypt Revolts!, posted by JayZeeBMT on Fri Jan 28 16:01:55 2011.

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Final results confirm Islamists winners in Egypt’s elections

By Leila Fadel, Published: January 21, 2012

CAIRO — The political wing of Egypt’s most historic Islamist party won by far the largest number of seats in the first post-revolutionary parliament, final results confirmed Saturday, and is now poised to play a dominant role in the drafting of a new constitution.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party took 47 percent of seats in the lower house of parliament, and the ultraconservative Salafist Nour Party won 25 percent of the elected seats.

The Brotherhood was banned under former president Hosni Mubarak but has emerged as a major force on the political scene since the uprising last year. The group’s Freedom and Justice Party has vowed that all political factions will play a major role in parliament, which is tasked with appointing a body to write the new constitution.

The secretary-general of the Freedom and Justice Party, Mohammed Saad Katatny, resigned his party position in anticipation of his role as parliament speaker.

Members of parliament say they expect to have full legislative powers, although the country’s ruling generals who assumed power Feb. 11 have made it clear they want to influence the constitution-writing process. That document will lay out the new parliament’s powers.

Egypt used a complicated voting system in which voters cast their ballots in three phases over about six weeks. Voters were asked to choose a party or bloc and individual candidates. A third of the seats will be filled by people who ran as individuals, and two-thirds are from winning parties or coalitions.

No women won individual seats; only about 1 percent of the body will be female.

The head of the ruling military council, Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, exercised his executive power to appoint the final 10 members of the 508-seat chamber. His selections included three women and five Coptic Christians.

Legislators are expected to choose their speaker and deputies when the lower house convenes for the first time Monday.

Some legislators expressed their intent to end military rule. Many activists say the country’s military rulers have botched the transitional period and accuse them of human rights abuses that rival those committed under Mubarak.

“It’s not close to over and it won’t be easy, but with pressure and popular insistence it will end,” said Mostafa Mizar, from the Justice Party, which won two seats.

The head of the judicial electoral commission, Abdel Moez Ibrahim, congratulated the winners Saturday but warned that “the responsibility under the circumstances that our country is going through needs a lot of work and little talk from you.”

The ruling generals have promised that presidential election will take place no later than the end of June.

Also Saturday, Tantawi pardoned 1,959 people convicted by the military court since Mubarak was ousted, including prominent blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad. Nabil was sentenced to three years in jail for insulting the military, and activists point to his case as an example of the generals’ heavy-handed response to their critics.

More than 12,000 civilians have been convicted in hasty military trials since the military assumed power.

Special correspondent Ingy Hassieb contributed to this report.

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Egypt Revolts, engages in "war on democracy"

Posted by Olog-hai on Thu Feb 2 01:40:15 2012, in response to Egypt Revolts!, posted by JayZeeBMT on Fri Jan 28 16:01:55 2011.

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Egypt's "war on democracy" threatens U.S. ties

By Tom Perry
Wed Feb 1, 2012 2:41pm EST

CAIRO (Reuters) — Arriving in Egypt last year, Julie Hughes had hoped to help write history by aiding the country's new generation of politicians and civil society groups to build a democratic future.

Instead, the American director of the National Democratic Institute is under investigation by authorities for funding irregularities at her U.S.-based group and is banned from leaving Egypt, a measure that prompted other activists to seek refuge this week in the U.S. embassy in Cairo.

Her hope for change, inspired by the fall of Hosni Mubarak at the hands of hundreds of thousands of protesting Egyptians, was punctured on December 29 when her offices were raided in connection with an investigation by Egypt's new military rulers.

The work of NDI, which is loosely linked to the U.S. Democratic Party, had fallen prey to what Egyptian pro-democracy campaigners say is a war between remnants of Mubarak's inner circle and a rapidly developing civil society.

It's a war, some campaigners say, that is more vicious than the one they fought under Mubarak, and it could further sour relations between Cairo and Washington, putting $1.3 billion of annual U.S. military aid in jeopardy.

But for the authorities, it is a matter of law; the non-governmental organizations broke it by receiving foreign funding without government approval.

For Hughes, the first casualty has been NDI's work with Egypt's budding new political class. "That is more than a little heartbreaking for us," Hughes told Reuters at her Cairo home.

Refuge

A handful of Americans, including a son of a member of President Barack Obama's cabinet, are sheltering behind the fortress-like walls of the U.S. embassy for protection.

All employees of U.S.-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that have loose links to America's two leading political parties, they say they have been accused of running groups that were not properly licensed in Egypt and receiving foreign funding illegally.

A judicial source said on Wednesday the travel ban had been extended to three more Americans, taking the total to 17 U.S. citizens out of a total of 28 foreigners who have been prevented from leaving Egypt. The source expected the release of the probe's results next week.

The government has yet to confirm the specific charges, leaving the activists guessing as to what the punishment could be.

The groups work on everything from educating voters to advising politicians on how to build a successful coalition.

Hughes sums up the euphoria with which many activists arrived in Egypt.

"It's an honor to be right here now at this point in history: to see history being rewritten and being remade and people grabbing hold of their political future and helping them participate in the democratic transition," she told Reuters.

NDI has trained around 14,000 Egyptians in advocacy, voter education and election monitoring since April 1 last year and has brought speakers including former leaders of Poland and Chile, countries with an experience of democratic transitions.

But the investigation shows how far Egypt has to go before such organizations can operate as freely as they do in much of the world, highlighting what Egyptian activists describe as the persistence of the Mubarak-era mentality — one of fear of allowing too much debate.

Egyptians have also been targeted by the investigation. They accuse the military rulers of trying to row back on democratic reforms by silencing their number.

"It is one of the frontlines of the revolution," said Nasser Amin, head of an Egyptian-run organization working to advance judicial independence, which is also being investigated over its legal status.

"It is the counter-revolution that is attacking us."

Egyptian activists said the fact that the investigation has been spearheaded by a government minister who served under Mubarak showed it was being pursued in his image.

But Faiza Abu el-Naga, minister of international cooperation, who has survived repeated cabinet reshuffles before and after Mubarak was driven out, has said the investigation is simply a matter of law.

"The rights groups that are being investigated received funds from abroad without government knowledge and in violation of the law," she told a news conference on the subject.

Some political analysts said the steps were being orchestrated by the ruling generals to try to secure leverage over Washington while rallying support around anti-American sentiment and undermining the reputation of their most vocal critics in the Egyptian-led NGO community.

But the generals will be careful not to lose the $1.3 billion in aid they get yearly in return for Egypt becoming the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.

Congress has approved this year's payout, but it has also set conditions, including requiring that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton certify the Egyptian government is supporting the transition.

For now, Pentagon officials said the alliance with Egypt was still on solid ground.

"There are going to be differences of opinion. There were before the popular revolution there ... Part of what makes a relationship a relationship is the ability to continue to discuss and try to find a way to move forward even beyond the differences you might share," Pentagon spokesman Captain John Kirby said in Washington.

On a visit to Cairo, Michael Posner, the U.S. State Department's top human rights official, urged Egypt to resolve the NGO issue. And it will almost certainly be discussed in Washington, where an Egyptian military team is visiting.

Too Much Foreign Money

Some Egyptian media have said American money poured into NGOs last year, proving there was a plot to subvert the course of change in Egypt.

The U.S. ambassador to Cairo had spoken of "close to $40 million" invested in organizations including NDI and the International Republican Institute, an NGO affiliated with the Republican Party which is also under investigation.

Hafez Abou Saeda, chairman of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights, said the state's aim was to sway public opinion against the pro-democracy movement.

"It is using this card to influence domestic opinion: to give the impression that the whole revolution is a foreign product," he told Reuters.

Abu Saeda's organization has faced no formal accusations in the current investigation, though he said his bank accounts were examined by investigators as part of the probe.

The case has a sense of déjŕ vu for him. He was jailed in 1998, accused of receiving foreign funds to write a report in which he documented cases of torture by the security forces.

"Instead of putting the officers on trial, they arrested me and put me on trial and said I had received foreign funds to distort the image of the country," said Abu Saeda.

"It's always the issue of foreign funding that is used to defame the rights movement in Egypt," he said, adding that his organization gets most of its funds from the European Union.

Old Regime Remains

The restrictions placed on NGOs over the years have encouraged many to register their organizations in other ways.

The Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession, the organization led by Amin, has been registered as a not-for-profit company since it was set up in 1997.

"All of a sudden they have discovered that we have been working for 15 years without an (NGO) license," he said from his organization's office overlooking the Nile, describing being questioned for seven hours on Monday over the group's legal status and funding.

His 11^th-floor office was among those raided on December 29 by investigators who confiscated documents and computers. Staff were still using their own laptops on Tuesday because the equipment had yet to be returned.

Amin said it was the return of the old days. The two judges investigating the case against his organization had formerly worked for Egypt's State Security Prosecution, part of a widely-hated security agency that was formally dissolved last year.

"The members of state security are still there in the apparatus," he said. "A year after the revolution, the old regime has started to regain its strength."

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Tolba in Cairo and Andrew Quinn in Washington; Editing Edmund Blair and Elizabeth Piper)

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Re: Egypt Revolts, engages in ''war on democracy''

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Egypt Revolts—ties with US nearing "precipice" over NGO detainees

Posted by Olog-hai on Thu Feb 16 00:14:43 2012, in response to Egypt Revolts!, posted by JayZeeBMT on Fri Jan 28 16:01:55 2011.

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US lawmakers warn US-Egypt ties nearing 'precipice'

By Jim Mannion (AFP)
February 15, 2012

WASHINGTON — US lawmakers from both parties stepped up their warnings Wednesday that Egypt's crackdown on democracy activists will force a review of US aid to the longtime Mideast ally if the crisis is not quickly resolved.

"I truly believe we are approaching a precipice beyond which our bilateral relations could suffer permanent damage," said Representative Gary Ackerman, a Democrat from New York.

The warnings came as Egyptian authorities proceeded toward a trial of at least 43 activists, including 19 US citizens, working for non-governmental groups aiding the country's transition to democracy.

The United States provides about $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt a year, plus development assistance.

Republican Representative Steve Chabot urged Egyptian authorities to drop charges and travel bans that have been slapped on the American and Egyptian NGO employees, and allow the groups to operate free of restraints.

Failure to do so, he said at a congressional hearing, "will certainly have a most negative effect on the broader US-Egyptian relationship, and will necessitate a reconsideration of US assistance."

Ackerman said US-Egyptian relations have already been damaged by the crisis.

"Until it is resolved, or worse spirals out of control, it could very quickly legally foreclose our ability to provide any bilateral assistance," he said.

He added, "If people here conclude that Egypt is not on a path of democracy, but is instead on its way to becoming another Iran, a bilateral relationship will not survive.

"We're not at that point yet, but we are getting closer every day," he said at the hearing, which was held by a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Middle East.

Washington's relationship with Cairo is a pillar of US policy in the Middle East, key to Egypt's 1979 peace with Israel and of crucial importance to US counter-terrorism efforts and broader relations in the Arab world.

Experts testifying at the hearing noted, however, that a recent Egyptian poll found that 70 percent of Egyptians say they do not want US aid, and that the crackdown on NGOs plays to nationalist sentiments.

They singled out Fayza Abul Naga, Egypt's minister of planning and international cooperation and a holdover from the regime of Hosni Mubarak, for orchestrating the crackdown with the backing of the military to turn public opinion against the country's pro-western liberals.

"As the chief agent provocateur in this whole ordeal, Abul Naga has shown very clearly that she cannot be trusted as the custodian of US taxpayer dollars, and accordingly US assistance should be conditioned on her removal as the administrator of foreign aid," Chabot said.

But Ackerman urged both sides to redouble their efforts to defuse the crisis, and cautioned against pushing Egyptian leaders into a corner.

"We can't just turn our back on this very big relationship, of 80 plus million people, the largest country in the Arab world, and not expect bad things to happen," he said. "We learned from September 11 that if you don't visit bad neighborhoods, they will visit you."

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Re: Egypt Revolts—ties with US nearing ''precipice'' over NGO detainees

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Egypt Revolts, US liberals have "bitter awakening" to Islamic future

Posted by Olog-hai on Tue Feb 28 18:44:50 2012, in response to Egypt Revolts!, posted by JayZeeBMT on Fri Jan 28 16:01:55 2011.

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Washington and Cairo: America's Bitter Awakening

February 28, 2012
by Zvi Mazel

Western countries, it appears, deluded themselves about the so-called Arab Spring and the compatibility of Islam and democracy.

Since Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979, it has received $70 billion from the United States in military and civilian grants. Civilian grants were intended to help improve education, infrastructure and develop the economy, as well as further democracy. Grants to the army were meant to ensure the stability of the country and help Egypt sustain its role as a leader of the Arab world against Iran and terror organizations.

Hundreds of modern F-16 planes, Abrams tanks and other state-of-the-art materiel replaced outdated Soviet-era equipment. Joint exercises were held; thousands of officers were sent to the US for advanced training, in the hope that they would discover and appreciate the merits of democracy.

During the long rule of Hosni Mubarak, the army was often called "the silent partner." Generals did not try to interfere in the ruling of the country, though they quietly started taking over greater and greater segments of the economy. First military industries then industrial and trade companies; the army now holds about one third of the economy. The partnership was not always one-sided: during the great bread crisis of 2008, the army started baking bread and selling it at reduced prices to ease the shortage.

Army leaders were careful not to let Islamist militants into their ranks. They remembered only too well the Sadat assassination, carried out in 1981 by a member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad movement during a military parade.

Mubarak, who had survived that day, was convinced that by favoring his generals and letting them enrich themselves he would ensure their continuing loyalty and support.

Yet it took only one week of violent street demonstrations in Cairo for America to abandon its ally of 43 years and for President Barack Obama to tell Mubarak to go. He probably thought that freed of the chains of dictatorship, a new regime would turn to democracy and strengthen its ties with America. It was a very bad miscalculation.

There was an outpouring of hatred towards the United States; worse, extremist Islamic parties won 75 percent of the seats of the new parliament. The Muslim Brotherhood, reaping the results of years of grassroots activism and surfing on the wave of a system furthering Islamic education from first grade to graduation, defeated democracy by knockout.

What now? America watches impotently as the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) now ruling Egypt emulates Mubarak: security forces turn on demonstrators with a vengeance, killing dozens of civilians and wounding thousands as well as imprisoning hundreds. The same Council accused the American University of Cairo, situated not far from Tahrir Square, of fomenting troubles; worse, it stated that shots had been fired from that institution toward security forces which had no choice but to return fire — thus killing protesters. The generals may have been trying to deflect criticism in a time-honored Egyptian manner by throwing the blame on another — and America made a convenient scapegoat.

Then came the December raid on 17 NGOs, including well known American civil organizations. Documents were seized, offices closed in what was seen as a deliberate provocation against America. A government set up and controlled by the SCAF could not have acted without the open support of the army. Though Egypt insists that it is a purely legal issue and that the organizations did not have the necessary permits to operate, adding that they should apply to register and would then be allowed to re-open, it is not a satisfactory explanation: instead of launching the raids with no advance warning, why not first warn the United States that if the organizations did not register within a given number of days or weeks, sanctions would be taken? In the meantime, 43 NGO employees, including 19 American citizens, are being prevented from leaving the country.

Some of the Americans have taken refuge in their embassy.

The SCAF appears unfazed by the turn of events, as if it has come to the conclusion that channeling against the hated Americans the frustration of increasingly disillusioned masses who have yet to see some positive results of the revolution is a sound political move. Both the Muslim Brothers and the Salafists, who view American democracy as their most dangerous enemy, support them. When Congress threatened to cut off aid, public opinion polls showed that 71% of the Egyptians declared that Egypt did not need that money and that they could get the same amount from Arab states, a position which was backed by Prime Minister Kamal Ganzouri as well as by the head of Al-Azhar University.

However, and at the same time, Issam Alarian, one of the leaders of the Brotherhood, warned that should the Americans stop their aid, it would lead to a review of the peace treaty with Israel, since, he claimed, American aid was part of that treaty. Which is obviously false; there is no mention of that help in the treaty. The US has been assisting Egypt as part of their strategic alliance.

Egypt, which has pledged to honor its international engagements, must respect a treaty it has signed and which has greatly contributed to its stability.

But what happened to the much touted friendship between American top brass and their Egyptian counterparts? What about a little gratitude for the considerable sums poured into Egypt to help the country's development and the modernization of its army? What about the generations of young officers who studied and trained in the US? Is the SCAF ready to forgo all this, perhaps trying to curry favor with the Brothers in the hope that they will not look too closely at the army's attitude during the Mubarak years? American public opinion is increasingly incensed; a number of Congressmen call for a suspension of American aid until NGO employees are being allowed to leave. However, the Obama administration, while well aware that it has to do something, is reluctant to take a stand which might put an end to the strategic cooperation with Egypt.

To sum up: Far from leading to greater openness and democracy, the ouster of Mubarak has led to brutal oppression and an open rift with the United States — but that country is not ready to come to terms with the outbreak of anti-American feelings or with the fact that its strategic alliance is a thing of the past. As for the Muslim Brothers, though well aware of the importance of American aid, they see in democratic America a major stumbling block on the road to setting up an Islamic regime in Egypt and doing away with the peace treaty with Israel.

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Re: Egypt Revolts, US liberals have ''bitter awakening'' to Islamic future

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