(AP) CAIRO — On her first day to school, 15-year-old Christian student Ferial Habib was stopped at the doorstep of her new high school with clear instructions: either put on a headscarf or no school this year.
Habib refused. While most Muslim women in Egypt wear the headscarf, Christians do not, and the move by administrators to force a Christian student to don it was unprecedented. For the next two weeks, Habib reported to school in the southern Egyptian village of Sheik Fadl every day in her uniform, without the head covering, only to be turned back by teachers.
One day, Habib heard the school loudspeakers echoing her name and teachers with megaphones leading a number of students in chants of “We don’t want Ferial here,” the teenager told The Associated Press.
Habib’s was allowed last week to attend without the scarf, and civil rights advocates say her case is a rare one. But it stokes the fears of Egypt’s significant Christian minority that they will become the victims as Islamists grow more assertive after the Feb. 11 toppling of President Hosni Mubarak. It also illustrates how amid the country’s political turmoil, with little sense of who is in charge and government control weakened, Islamic conservatives in low-level posts can step in and try to unilaterally enforce their own decisions.
Wagdi Halfa, one of Habib’s lawyers, said the root problem is a lack of the rule of law.
“We don’t want more laws but we want to activate the laws already in place,” he said. “We are in a dark tunnel in terms of sectarian tension. Even if you have the majority who are moderate Muslims, a minority of extremists can make big impact on them and poison their minds.”
In the past weeks, riots have broken out at two churches in southern Egypt, prompted by Muslim crowds angered by church construction. One riot broke out, near the city of Aswan, even after church officials agreed to a demand by local ultraconservative Muslims, called Salafis, that a cross and bells be removed from the building.
The violence is particularly frustrating for Christians because soon after Mubarak’s fall the new government promised to review and lift heavy Mubarak-era restrictions on building or renovating churches. The promise raised hopes among Christians that the government would establish a clear legal right to build, resolving an issue that in recent years has increasingly sparked riots. But the review never came, and Salafi clerics have increased their rhetoric against Christians, including accusing them of seeking to spread their faith with new churches.
Well, at least the Egyptian Islamists are not burying land mines under the women’s beach volleyball courts as the Islamists are did at the Caspian Sea in Russia.
One lady lost he leg above the knee.
Her ”crime?”
Playing on the beach (legally) with other ladies.
In their bathing suits.
Muslim morality police decided that 20% Muslim population was enough to throw their weight around a bit more than mere dirty looks.
Next thing you know only men are enjoying the beach.
Women are melting under their burkhas.
Or staying home.
And Russia is not even an Islamist state…..yet.
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STUPID Egyptian Christians!
Didn’t they know it was all just a ploy?
Words are cheap.
Promises of freedom and respect can easily be ignored based on a mere rumor of a slight insult.
Tens of thousands of Coptics have already left Egypt.
One family of Coptics moved in on my block, just a few weeks ago.
But Islamism is so dysfunctional that the requirement of a slave-labor class means more spreading of Sharia will take place.
And the new and improved Egypt just keeps getting better… /sarc
Egypt’s generals ban religious slogans in vote, Muslim Brotherhood mulls its motto
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/09/idUS214449556720111009
The Muslim Brotherhood’s motto:
“Islam is the solution.”
But the Muslim Brotherhood has sought to quell concerns by saying it wants a pluralist democracy and did not want to impose Islamic law.
“The slogan is a way of life for us but it isn’t necessarily an electoral slogan, ” said Mohamed el-Beltagy.
And to emphasize the point that the Muslim Brotherhood is just SAYING what it thinks non-Muslims want to hear:
Brotherhood angry at Erdogan call for secular Egypt
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=238021
Update… seems that martial rule for transition to “democracy” post Mubarak plowed a few tanks into Coptic Christian protestors…. yet the “military ruling council” seems to indicate they have no control over the army..
???
Yeah.. that’s much better than Mubarak. /sarc