Sisi left without a prayer in Egyptian mosques
CAIRO — The Egyptian Ministry of Religious Endowments has
prohibited praying for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in mosques —
marking the first time in its history it has taken such action. The
move is part of the ministry’s plan to separate religion and
politics, which was prompted by prominent Egyptian cleric Sheikh
Mohammed Jibril's call July 13 for God to punish those who
have "oppressed" the Egyptian people. The people, however,
perceived the call as wishing bad luck specifically upon Sisi and his
regime.
Prominent
journalists including Ahmad Moussa, and politicians such as Mortada Mansour, in
addition to clerics — mainly Minister of Religious Endowments Mohamed Mokhtar
Gomaa — accused Jibril of siding with the Muslim
Brotherhood and terrorist groups. Jibril then was forbidden to
practice his role as imam in all mosques across Egypt.
However,
the Egyptian Ministry of Religious Endowments had made a habit of
encouraging preachers to pray for the president at the end of
religious sermons because it considered praying for the nation’s guardian in
line with Sharia. A prominent example of this was when the ministry issued a
directive in 2010 to all imams in Egypt to mention then Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak in their prayers so he would recover from his
illness. The ministry had stressed that it was a duty imposed
by Sharia on everyone, quoting Muslim scholar Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, “If I knew
my prayers were answered, I would dedicate them all to the ruler.”
But
now the ministry has changed course. Gomaa justified his decision to
prohibit prayer for Sisi in a July 28 interview with Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper, saying,
“Legally speaking, praying for someone and wishing them good luck is pursuant
to Sharia. However, at this stage, the president does not need anyone to pray
for him.” Gomaa added, “I refuse to pray for President Sisi in mosques, so
as not to open new doors for imams, for this might lead to exaggeration in
praying for President Sisi." Political prayer in general should be
avoided, he said.
In
a July 14 memorandum, the ministry had accused Jibril of using prayers for
political ends and forbade him to leave Egypt. Jibril had been accustomed
to traveling between Western and Muslim capitals to preach in big mosques
and Islamic centers in Europe and the United States.
Jibril
had led prayers since 1988 for tens of thousands of believers who flock to Amr ibn al-As
Mosque in Cairo during the last three days of Ramadan — until the Egyptian
government banned him from doing so during the holy month in 2014. He was
granted permission to resume carrying out prayers at this mosque during Ramadan
of this year.
In
his controversial July 13 statement, Jibril said, “Dear God, punish those who
killed worshippers, those who shed our blood and orphaned our children. Dear
God, punish corrupt journalists, pharaoh’s wizards. Dear God, punish corrupt
politicians, punish those who oppressed us, those who assaulted our homes. Dear
God, punish those who dominated by tyranny, punish the sultan’s sheikhs.”
Jibril’s
use of the pharaoh’s wizards metaphor to refer to journalists is an allusion to
the wizards whose assistance Egypt’s
pharaoh sought to help him defeat Moses. The wizards did whatever the pharaoh
asked them to do.
There
was a media wave denouncing the
decision to prohibit prayer for Sisi, considering the ban contrary to
an Islamic norm that has been practiced for hundreds of years.
Sheikh Shawki Abdel Latif, former undersecretary of the
Ministry of Religious Endowments, told Al-Monitor he opposes the
prohibition. “Praying and wishing good luck, maturity and success upon the
president has been a common custom since the dawn of Islamic history,” he said,
adding, “We should not look at individual positions, even if some were
offensive. Whether or not Jibril made a mistake doesn’t mean we should prevent
praying for rulers, which is legitimate.”. Praying
for the president is praying for the nation’s welfare, he
said: "In our prayer for the president we say: Dear God, may he be
lucky and may you point him in the right direction."
Meanwhile,
Sheikh Ali Abu al-Hassan, former head of Al-Azhar’s fatwa committee, believes Gomaa made a wise decision by preventing prayer for Sisi.
“Although praying for the ruler is legislated in Islam, worshippers should be
spared the dispute in the event that people do not unanimously support the same
ruler. This way, the gap between supporters and opponents would not widen and
the mosque would not turn into a place that differentiates between Muslims,” he
told Al-Monitor.
In
terms of the punishment of Jibril, Abu al-Hassan said, “Instead of saying
his prayer out loud and letting people interpret it as they please, he should
have kept it to himself. Nonetheless, he should not have been punished as long
as was not referring to anyone specific.”
Latif,
however, said Jibril’s punishment was justified because
Jibril intended to be offensive. But on the issue of praying for
political leaders, he said, “Supporting a ruler as long as he is on the
right track is not wrong; it is rather a national duty."
Egyptian mosques are still a
touchy subject for the Egyptian government, as they have always
been used as an important card in the hands of political Islamic groups to
reach Egyptians of all ages and affiliations.
Lawyers
shout slogans against the Interior Ministry during a protest at the High Court
headquarters in Cairo,
March 1, 2015. (photo by REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany)
Egyptians
are left
in the dark about secret abduction cases
in the dark about secret abduction cases
CAIRO
— Since May, the hashtag #Al-Ikhtifa_al-Qasri_Garima
(#Forced_Disappearance_Is_A_Crime) has been filling social media pages, and
blogs are documenting forced disappearance and arrests of young
adults as part of security campaigns that started in May in Cairo and in
other governorates. Over three months have passed without knowing the detention
place or details about the victims.
Although the Egyptian police deny any arrest campaign, activists say the arrests are a bid to prevent protests and generally occur before important events, such as the anniversary of the June 30 Revolution or the inauguration of the new Suez Canal.
Islam Khalil disappeared more than 80 days ago, and his
parents’ attempts to get any information about his detention place failed. A
police unit arrested him with his brother and father on May 24 at dawn from
their house in Gharbia governorate. The father and brother were released two
weeks later as there were no accusations and the police did not refer their
case to the judiciary. Khalil’s fate remains unknown.
Regarding
the search for his brother, Nour Khalil told Al-Monitor, “We have so far
submitted four reports to the public prosecutor and sent dozens of letters to
Minister of Justice Ahmed el-Zend and Minister of Interior Magdy Abdel
Ghaffar. But we haven’t received any responses, after having searched all the
detention places in Gharbia and after the [Egyptian Interior Ministry] Prison
Service asserted that Islam is not in any of its detention centers.”
Nour
added, “Islam is illegally detained without any accusation, and he does not
even have the right to appear before an investigation in the attendance of his
lawyers, as is his and every Egyptian’s right according to the constitution and
the Code of Criminal Procedure.” He described his brother’s abduction as
“illegal.”
Nour
assumes that “Islam’s disappearance is due to the intense torture he has
endured.” Refraining from disclosing his whereabouts aims at hiding this crime.
He might have even died and been buried without his family knowing. “It
is like we are waiting for Islam Atito’s fate,” he added.
On
May 19, Islam
Atito, who was a student at the Faculty of Engineering of Ain Shams
University, was abducted after taking his exam and disappeared for a whole day.
His body was found the next day, and it seemed that he was shot in a desert
region, east of Cairo.
His family asserted that there were clear torture marks on his body. That was
the first case of murder after a forced disappearance.
The
Interior Ministry said in a press release that Atito was a member of a terrorist group,
and he was killed during a fight with the police in the desert in east Cairo. But Atito’s
friends said that Atito attended his exam and was kidnapped after it.
The
wave of security raids and forced displacement significantly increased in the wake of the second
anniversary of the June 30, 2013, incidents and the ousting of pro-Muslim
Brotherhood Mohammed Morsi.
On
the third anniversary of the January 25 Revolution, and in light of the growing
number of arrests of students and activists who have not committed any crime, a
group of political activists launched the Al-Horriya lil Gedaan initiative. It compiled a database
documenting 163 forced disappearance cases without investigation from different
governorates from April until June 7. Among these cases, the whereabouts of 66
people were unknown, and the fate of 31 was unclear. Sixty-four people were
found 24 hours after they were detained without investigation, which is against
the constitution. Two people were killed after their disappearance.
Israa
al-Tawil, Suhaib Saad and Omar Mohammad are three students and activists who
were abducted without prior threats. They had dinner plans on Monday June 1 in
Cornish el-Nile. Tawil appeared two weeks after her arrest in al-Qanater women’s prison in Qalyubia, while Saad appeared
20 days later in a video posted by the armed forces, in which he admitted to
conducting terrorist acts. Mohammad is still in prison today.
While
security sources denied any forced abduction incidents in
statements published in Egyptian newspapers, the Egyptian Ministry of Interior
did not issue any official statement to comment on these incidents reported by
the victims’ parents.
Although
the security apparatus remained silent and did not comment on the incidents, on
June 6 several rights groups and political parties launched anti-forced disappearance campaigns to communicate with the
abducted people’s parents and to pressure the state to reveal their
whereabouts. It is noteworthy that Egypt refuses to sign
the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons From
Enforced Disappearance to this day.
The
rights groups called for legal awareness through their campaign and demanded
the state to take all necessary measures to protect the security of its
citizens. On May 30, activists launched awareness campaigns to teach citizens how to deal
with forced disappearance cases and how to report it to the public prosecution.
The
Egyptian Journalist Syndicate (EJS) also intervened. The president of the EJS, Yahya Qalash, submitted a report to the public prosecutor
on June 22 in which he condemned the Ministry of Interior for practicing forced
disappearance against journalist Mohammad Saber al-Batawi who worked in the
state-owned Akhbar al-Youm newspaper. Police members had kidnapped Batawi from
his house in Tokh city June 17 on charges of being a member of the Muslim
Brotherhood. This abduction violates the law of
the syndicate, the constitution and the Code of Criminal Procedure, while
the EJS considered it an escalation against journalists and a breach of the
people’s right to know the truth.
Mokhtar
Hamida, a lawyer at the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression who
handles dozens of forced disappearance cases, told Al-Monitor, “Most forced
disappearance cases involved arresting the victims in their houses at dawn.
They were often security campaigns related to incidents like the revolution’s
anniversary.”
“Forced
disappearance has become a systematic security method. Similar cases are
classified under one big case and dubbed ‘cell,’ after the detainees are forced
to admit to committing crimes,” Hamida said.
Regarding
litigation procedures, Hamida explained, “Most forced disappearance cases are
often referred to the Supreme State Security Court, which is the competent
court in examining national security cases. In such incidences, stubbornness
prevails, and we are not allowed to attend as lawyers and defend the people
involved.”
“These
developments are a result of the security measures aiming at widening the
circle of suspects. There are hundreds of detained people who did not practice
any political activities,” he said, adding, “It is hard to limit the number of
detentions so far, especially with its increase in the past two months.”
The
forced disappearance issue in Egypt stirs the anger of activists, rights
workers and parents of detainees who are still searching for information that
can reassure them that their children are alive or indicate to them their
whereabouts. This is yet another case among the dozens of human rights-related
cases in Egypt.
Down with the Military rule
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