CSM: Egypt targets Muslim Brotherhood moderates

Egypt targets Muslim Brotherhood moderates

President Hosni Mubarak's regime is clamping down on the banned opposition group ahead of next month's local elections.

By Liam Stack Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
March 26, 2008

Cairo - Hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood members waited under the hot spring sun on the Hikestep Army Base near Cairo on Tuesday to hear the verdict against 40 other influential members on trial for participating in the banned opposition movement.

Many traveled from far away provinces to hear the decision, only to be told that the verdict was being delayed – again.

It was a repeat of a similar scene in February, when around 1,000 Brotherhood members holding banners, photographs of the defendants, and copies of the Koran filled the parking lot of the base, only to be told then that the decision was postponed.

Members of the opposition group, human rights activists, and other reform advocates here see the 14-month-old military trial as part of the government's ongoing crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood to diminish its political prospects ahead of next month's polls in which more than 10,000 local council seats are up for grabs. They say the trial has targeted key moderates in the movement, as well as important financiers, in an attempt to push it further to the margins of Egyptian public life.

"The fact that they keep delaying the verdict means that this case is purely political and there are no actual, serious charges," says Mohamed Habib, deputy leader of the Brotherhood, who himself was sentenced to five years in prison by a military court in 1995 for membership in a banned group. "The regime is mainly interested in keeping pressure on the Brotherhood to prevent us from taking any action."

Detained, intimidated, on the run

More than 800 Brotherhood members who have been involved in campaigns for local council seats have been detained in recent months and many of its prominent members have gone into hiding around the country.

Thousands of aspiring Brotherhood candidates have been barred from filing their paperwork by a mix of bureaucratic trickery and violence, says Mr. Habib, who estimates that the group will not be able to field more than 15 candidates in next month's race.

While the Muslim Brotherhood is officially banned in Egypt, its members run in elections as independents. In parliamentary elections in 2005, the group stunned President Hosni Mubarak's regime by winning one-fifth of the seats in the country's People's Assembly.

The group renounced violence in the 1970s and focused on establishing a vast network of charitable activities for the country's poor, such as schools, clinics, and youth centers.

In recent years, it has emerged as a major advocate of democratic reform in Egypt, coupling calls for elections with its longstanding arguments for Islamic law.

Brotherhood members and outside observers say the crackdown has weakened the influence of the movement's moderates and empowered its more conservative ideological elements.

Ibrahim El Houdaiby, an editor of IkhwanWeb, the group's English-language website, says the government is cracking down on moderate Islamists because they are more willing to engage with the international community and to work across party lines with opposition groups of different ideological stripes.

He points to the recent arrest of a senior IkhwanWeb editor, Khaled Hamza, who was detained on a busy street just hours after meeting with visitors from an international human rights group.
Moderates increasingly targeted

"People with a greater ability to reach out to those with different ideologies and backgrounds, like secular opposition groups in Egypt and the international community, are at a higher risk of being detained," he said.

That view is shared by Zahraa El Shater, the daughter of Khairat El Shater, the movement's No. 3 leader and a lead defendant in the case.

Ms. El Shater says it will take "a miracle" for her father and her husband, Ayman Abdel Ghani, who is also on trial, to be released.

If the regime wanted to give them a fair trial, she says, it would abide by the multiple acquittals they received in civilian courts.

Instead, she thinks the regime wants to punish the men for their moderate views and openness to the West.

"My father was taken because he was moderate and liked to open dialogue with Western people, with American people," she says. "The government here hates that. It does not want the Muslim Brotherhood to talk to Western people.

The imprisonment of Mr. El Shater and other moderates has had "a tremendous effect on the internal workings of the group" by upsetting the balance between pragmatists and conservatives, says Joshua Stacher, a fellow at Syracuse University who specializes in Middle Eastern politics.

This case is the first time the government has gone after the finances of Brotherhood members, says Samer Shehata, a professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University.

That is significant, he says, because it strikes a blow at the charitable activities that draw in many of its supporters, and also sends a warning to the movement's donors.

"If the government goes after its funding, then this stops the money used to fund these activities," says Shehata. "Now the government is not only jailing people, but also threatening their families' well-being."

Guardian Weekly: Rough Justice for Egypt's Brotherhood

Rough Justice for Egypt's Brotherhood

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is the country’s most popular political movement, despite a 1954 ban. It won one-fifth of the seats in the People’s Assembly in 2005, becoming the largest opposition bloc in Egypt’s history. Stunned by their success, the regime has come down hard on political opponents. Zahraa El Shater is the daughter of Khairat El Shater, the Brotherhood’s third-highest ranking member; her husband, Ayman Abdel Ghani, is a member too. Both men are standing trial at a special military tribunal, where the verdict has been postponed until late March. Meanwhile Zahraa struggles to explain the world to her four children and to keep them focused on a peaceful future

My husband has been arrested four times since we got married. They take him away every time there is an election.

Everyone was happy when the Muslim Brotherhood won the elections in 2005. I was happy too, of course, but I was also upset; I knew that they would come and arrest my husband. And that is exactly what happened. They took him away for six months.

We were all in the car when they took him. We had moved house and the police didn’t have our new address, so they were looking for him in the streets. We had just collected the children from school when suddenly there were officers jumping on the car, screaming: "Stop trying to escape!" My husband wasn’t trying to escape; he hadn’t even known that they wanted him. If he had he would have gone to see the prosecutor by himself.

The officers pulled him out of the car in a very violent way. My children were screaming: "They are trying to kill my father! No, don’t kill him!" One of the officers was crying as he did it. (Afterwards, many of them asked me to forgive them. They said that they were just following orders. They went and bought sweets for my children.)

The officer in charge insisted on taking me and the children with them to the State Security station. My husband said to them: "Let her take the children and go; she knows how to drive. I am the one you want. Let her leave." But they refused. My husband asked them to let us go in the same car so the soldiers would not do bad things to me, but the officer made us go in different cars.

All of my children were crying and screaming, and my husband started to shout to passers-by in the street. It was 3pm and there were a lot of people around. They were gathering to see what was happening. My husband gave people my father’s phone number and asked them to call it. He was afraid that no one would know what had happened to us. The police didn't want anyone to know, so they beat him harder.

The police usually arrest members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the middle of the night when everyone’s asleep. The first thing they do when they attack a house is take out all the phone wires so the inhabitants can’t call anyone.

When they brought us to the State Security station they kept my children and me inside our car in a big garage for seven or eight hours. My children were shocked and scared and have not been the same since. My son soiled himself out of fright and since then has had the same problem when he is sleeping.

They kept asking me questions: "Why did they take him this way? What did he do?" I had to try to calm them down, but I needed someone to calm me down too. I couldn't really do anything for them because I was too upset.

When we left I asked the officer to please give me back my mobile phone – and he did. This was very kind of him. I think he was upset as well. He was a human being and thought what was happening was wrong.

When they let us out I called my father. No one knew that we had been taken from the street. He sent a friend to come and collect us because I was too shocked to drive.

My husband spent six or seven months in jail. After that he was free for only three months before the police came back to arrest him. I was so surprised; we weren’t expecting them to come back. We were planning to go to Mecca to make our pilgrimage a week later, but of course we couldn’t.

Then my father was arrested. I never thought they would arrest him; he’s a very moderate and diplomatic member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Also, it's unusual for the Supreme Guide or his deputies to be arrested, and this was the first time it had happened. It was a big shock.

It was 3am when I heard the phone ringing. I was scared something bad had happened so I tried to ignore it. I said to myself: "OK, just keep sleeping."

A minute later there was loud knocking at the door, but my husband did not wake up. I wasn't veiled, so I ran to the door to say: "Wait, please let me get veiled." My younger brother Saad was with them on the other side. I asked him what was happening and he said: "It’s State Security. They’re here."

When I opened the door my husband asked: "Why me? I have only been out for three months. I haven’t had a chance to do anything new." The police officer said: "Show me where you keep all your books and papers." But they had taken everything the last time they came and we had nothing for them to see. It had only been three months. We didn’t have time to buy anything new.

When my children woke up and discovered their father been taken again, and their grandfather, they were shocked. In the Muslim Brotherhood, we try to bring up our children with peaceful values. We want them to live in a good way. But now my oldest daughter Sara – she is 10 – asks me dangerous questions. She says things like: "You are so weak. You couldn’t defend our father. Isn’t he a strong man? He should not allow them to take him so easily every time. You are weak people."

It is astonishing to my children that their father should be taken if he is a good man. I try to explain to Sara how things are, but she does not understand. I told her: "Your father and grandfather are good people, but the problem is this government."

She asked me once: "If they put good people in prison and let bad people go free, then why should we be good people?" I explained it to her from an Islamic point of view. I told her that in order to make our community a good community we should be patient and try to be good people. We have to make sacrifices and do the right thing.

My children have begun to understand that we are living in a mess and I’m afraid that they will learn bad values from it. I try to tell them that their father is political prisoner, not a criminal. In Arabic, I tell them that he is mo’ataqal, a detainee; not masgoon, which means prisoner. I tell them there is a special kind of prison that is not for bad people, that sometimes good people can become mo’ataqal.

Every now and then I bring my children with me to protest against the trial. But it just convinces them that peaceful ways don’t work. Now, when we go to demonstrations, my children say to me: "Nobody hears you, nobody is listening to you." Knowing that my children think this way makes me afraid.

The Muslim Brotherhood wants to change society in a peaceful way, not in a violent way. But I am convinced that pressure produces pressure. If the government is violent there will be violence in society. What the government is doing makes a lot of young people feel upset and that the peaceful ways are useless.

If my husband and father were found guilty by a civilian court it would mean they had done bad things and I would not try to defend them. But to watch them go to jail when they haven’t done anything wrong, when they were found innocent by [three separate] civilian courts? The government thinks that the Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t deserve to have justice. Criminals in Egypt have justice, and we deserve it too.

• Zahraa El Shater was talking to Liam Stack in Cairo.

Al Jazeera English - Interview: Cindy Sheehan

Interview: Cindy Sheehan

By Liam Stack in Cairo

Cindy Sheehan is in Cairo to protest the Egyptian government's decision to try members of the Muslim Brotherhood in a military court
Cindy Sheehan, an American activist who was nicknamed the "Peace Mom" by the media for her criticism of the Iraq War, retreated from her public campaigns in 2007.

The death of her son Casey, a US soldier, in a Baghdad battle in 2005 had transformed Sheehan into a public figure in the US.

But she resurfaced in Cairo last week as a member of a delegation from the Muslim American Society which is in Egypt to protest against the military trial of 40 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood.

She spoke to Al Jazeera about her journey from peace activist to Congressional candidate, her thoughts on Iraq and her experiences in Egypt.

Al Jazeera: You first became famous for your protests against the Iraq war in August 2005, but you have not been an active anti-war figure for a while now. What happened?

Sheehan says she wants to put impeachment of George Bush back on the agenda [GETTY]Sheehan: In May 2007, I decided to quit actually being the face of the anti-war movement in America. I quit and I have not gone back to that. When I left the movement I was broke, I was tired, I was sick – literally sick and in pain.

I wanted to just totally be out of the political realm and not have anything to do with it. The establishment that runs our country just disgusted me and I was tired of it. It is very corrupt and I definitely saw that when I was focusing on anti-war activism.

The leaders of both parties work together to keep normal people out of the process. In many ways the Democratic leadership, especially in Congress, has been complicit with George Bush, the US president, in his crimes against humanity.

How can [Democratic Speaker of the House] Nancy Pelosi say unequivocally that water-boarding is torture and that Bush and [Richard] Cheney, the US vice-president, should not only be impeached but they should be charged with war crimes when in 2002 she herself was briefed on water-boarding and shown video of the rendition places where water-boarding happened?

Impeaching George Bush was a popular demand among liberal Americans at one time, but very few people talk about it anymore. Is that what turned you into an activist again?

When George Bush commuted [vice-presidential aide] Scooter Libby's sentence, the Democrats in Congress didn't do anything about it. When the Administration said they would not cooperate with subpoenas against [presidential aide] Harriet Myers, the democrats didn't do anything about it.

That's what pulled me back into activism. I thought how can they do that? How can they say 'I'm just not going to come to your stupid trial,’ and no one will say anything about it?

When the Democrats took impeachment off the table, I decided enough was enough. On July 23, 2007, I officially announced that I was running for Congress against Nancy Pelosi.

Why the focus on Nancy Pelosi?

I don't think politicians who make political decisions necessarily think about how they are going to affect people and their families. I decided if Nancy Pelosi wasn't going to put impeachment on the table then I would run against her.

You can't take any part of the Constitution off the table, even though they have rendered it almost meaningless between George Bush and Karl Rove. Since they came to power they have institutionalised torture and spying against Americans.

They have passed the Military Commissions Act and just done away with habeas corpus. They have practically rendered it meaningless. That is why I decided to challenge Pelosi for her seat. I always say if you want change you have to vote out the enablers, and Pelosi is the biggest enabler there is.

If your new focus is on unseating Nancy Pelosi, what are you doing in Egypt?

My anti-war work evolved into work for global human rights because I saw the problem was much deeper than just George Bush.

It's about militarism and violence, globalisation and free trade.

I decided I wanted to do human rights work on behalf of people around the world who have been harmed by US imperialism.

Part of why I am here, also, is to draw attention to the parallels between the military courts here and the same kinds of courts that are being used to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay by the US.
If this becomes the standard for the world, and there is no international outcry, then everyone is in big trouble.

But what does the US have to do with a military trial in Egypt?

Egypt is a major recipient of US foreign aid, and there is no relationship between American aid and human rights.

If we [America] really want to promote democracy in this region then we cannot silence the voices of the Muslim Brotherhood because they're the moderate voice here and they are the ones who are actually working for democracy.

Do you think your presence in Egypt will have an effect on the trial?

Well, we have been doing a lot of media work since we came to Egypt and we hope this will put pressure on the Egyptian government to treat the prisoners better and to also maybe alleviate their punishment.

Hopefully we will draw some international attention to what is happening here, too, and that will help the situation.

You also went to the National Council of Women in downtown Cairo to request a meeting with Suzanne Mubarak, Egypt's First Lady. How did that go?

I didn't really understand a lot of what was going on. There was a lot of yelling in Arabic. They weren't the right people to get us a meeting with Suzanne Mubarak ... I left a letter for Madame Mubarak and they promised that she would see it.

We thought it was important to go there because there are women and children who are being harmed by having their fathers and husbands detained, so I wanted to talk to Suzanne, mother to mother.

We brought along mothers and wives of the detainees and they were actually able to file complaints, and it was really great.

Have you spoken to many of the families of the defendants in the military trial? Have you spoken to many female members of the Brotherhood mother-to-mother?

My conversations with the mothers and children of the detainees have been really emotional. They told me about the hardships [the arrests and trials] have placed on their families, from financial hardships to emotional and physical hardships.

It is very emotional for me because my family has gone through the same things since my son died. It has been really hard for us.

People always say to me, 'Cindy, why do you always make everything personal?'.

But in the end, everything affects people, whether it's war or economics or human rights violations. I don't think politicians who make political decisions necessarily think about how they are going to affect people and their families.

That is why when I meet people who have been harmed by the policies of their own countries, or the policies of my country, it just makes me resolved to work harder to make the world a better place.

DNE: Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark denounces Brotherhood trial

Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark denounces Brotherhood trial

By Liam Stack
First Published: November 8, 2007

CAIRO: Ramsey Clark, the former attorney general of the United States, is visiting Cairo this week to denounce the military trial of Khayrat El Shater and 39 other leaders of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

In a wide reaching speech delivered at the Lawyer’s Syndicate, Clark drew parallels between the Brotherhood case and the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.

He accuses the Mubarak regime of trampling on human rights and the rule of law, and says that respect for both is the key to peace and prosperity throughout the Middle East.

“The major reason for the tragedy of Palestine in my lifetime has been the world’s failure to live up to the sacred covenant enshrined in Article 22 of the League of Nations Charter, which promised a free and independent Palestinian state on Palestinian soil more than 80 years ago,” he said, referring to the document that founded the now defunct League in 1919.

“If the world had fulfilled that sacred covenant, I think it would be fair to say that we would all live in a different and much better world — not just for the Palestinians but for all people, brothers and sisters living together in peace and respect,” he added.

Clark argues that by trying the civilian Brotherhood leaders before a military court, the government is violating a “sacred covenant” of its own. The 40 members standing trial are accused of money laundering and membership in a banned organization.

He says the trial is illegal, and in violation of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights that the regime signed in 1984. The treaty guarantees defendants the right to a fair public trial before a legally competent court that is both fair and impartial, and forbids the referral of civilians to military courts.
“The violation of this covenant against the Muslim Brotherhood is as clear as anything before law and life may be,” said Clark.

“But we know why the military court is trying this case — because the president told them to,” he added. “In a free society living under the rule of law, the president cannot tell the court who to try and how, especially if he is sending people to a military court.”

Clark served as attorney general from 1967 to 1969 under the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson.

During his time as the head of the Justice Department, he supported a number of important advances in the American civil rights movement, including the desegregation of schools that had formerly divided black and white students.

Since then, he has embarked on a second career as an international human rights campaigner.

But his activism has brought him a controversial reputation as the outspoken defender of men such as former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic and Liberian dictator Charles Taylor.

Clark says that he has defended such controversial figures because he believes that they are the most likely to be treated unfairly in emotionally charged court cases.

“I feel like the most important cases are those that involve the most hated and feared people,” he said. “Whatever they have done, they are still human beings and still have the same civil rights as anyone else.”

“If you don’t stand up for these people, then you say that not everyone has the same rights all the time,” he added. “And that is a world of enormous sadness and danger.”

The controversy surrounding political Islam in the West drew Clark to the Brotherhood case. He sees the trial as an important test of Egypt’s commitment to democracy and the rule of law.

He says the group is a beneficial part of Egypt’s national life.

The Brotherhood is the country’s largest political opposition group, but has been banned since 1954.

Despite the ban, the group has long been tolerated. In the 2005 parliamentary elections, the group startled both the government and its allies in Washington by capturing 88 of the 454 seats in the lower house of parliament. The members ran as independent candidates.

Since then, more than 1,000 members of the group have been detained by the government.

Many analysts say the military trial against El Shater is part of a larger crackdown meant to weaken the group.

Clark says that the United States has been scared away from previous commitments to democracy in Egypt by the war in Iraq and Hamas’ election victory in the Palestinian Territories.

Unwilling to upset an old ally, he says the American government has decided to turn a blind eye to the military trial and other human rights abuses committed by the Egyptian government.

“A case like this is a dilemma for the United States,” he says. “For its own domestic politics, it needs to support democratic rulers and democratic societies. But the US wants to stay away from this case because it is an assault on democracy that they don’t want to appear to support.”