LUXOR,
Egypt (AP) — A teacher in southern Egypt punished two 12-year-old
schoolgirls for not wearing the Muslim headscarf by cutting their hair,
the father of one girl said Wednesday, in an incident that stokes
concerns over personal rights following the rise of Islamist
political movements.
The
governor of Luxor province where the incident occurred called the
teacher's actions "shameful" and said she had been transferred to
another school. But rights groups say that some Islamic conservatives
have been emboldened by the success of groups like
and the ultraconservative Salafi trend in parliamentary and
presidential elections and have been increasingly brazen about forcing
their standards on other Egyptians.
The
incident follows a surge in legal cases against Egyptians, mostly
Christians, who allegedly showed contempt for religion. The trial of
one,
, opened Wednesday but was postponed.
It
also comes amid a fierce debate over how the role of religion will be
defined in the country's new constitution. The preponderance of
Islamists on the panel drafting the document has alarmed liberals and
religious minorities.
In the village of Qurna in Luxor province, 500 kilometers (300 miles) south of Cairo,
Berbesh Khairi El-Rawi
said the teacher forced the two girls to stand with their hands above
their heads for two hours and then cut their hair in their school.
El-Rawi, the father of one of the two girls, told
The Associated Press that he filed a complaint after the Oct. 10 incident with the prosecutor's office in Luxor. He had no further comment.
The
prosecutor's office declined to comment on the case. Provincial
governor Ezzat Saad confirmed the teacher had been transferred for a
"shameful" act but did not otherwise comment.
The teacher,
Eman Abu Bakar,
could not be reached. She told the Egyptian semi-official newspaper
al-Ahram that the amount of hair she cut off of the girls' heads "did
not exceed two centimeters" (one inch).
Abu
Bakar was quoted as saying she only resorted to cutting her students'
hair after warning them repeatedly to cover their heads. After these
repeated warnings, a student handed her a scissors from his bag, and
that he and other students asked her to "implement" her threats.
In a photo published by Al-Ahram, Abu Bakar is shown wearing the niqab, a garment that covers everything but a woman's eyes.
Most Muslim women in Egypt wear the headscarf, but increasing numbers now wear the more conservative niqab.
Ziad Abdel Tawab of the
Cairo Institute for Human Rights said the incident was alarming but not surprising.
"Whether
in schools or outside schools, the general sentiment is that any
abusive action, if it is justified as protection of Islam, is
tolerable," he said.
Meanwhile,
a Cairo court postponed proceedings in the trial of 27-year-old Coptic
Christian activist Alber Saber, who faces charges of insulting religion,
to November 14.
Saber
was arrested last month after neighbors complained he had posted an
anti-Islam film that has sparked protests across the Muslim world to his
Facebook page, but investigators didn't find them. Nonetheless, Saber
was put on trial and now faces a six-year prison sentence and fines.
His lawyer
Ahmed Ezzat
said in an emailed statement that all proceedings against Saber have
involved serious legal breaches that should result in the nullifying of
any evidence put forward against him.
Ezzat
also said that after Saber's arrest on September 13, a police officer
incited others detained in the station to attack Saber, resulting in
detainees beating him and cutting him with a razor blade. A police
officer at the station denied the report, speaking anonymously as he was
not authorized to talk to the media.
Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui of
Amnesty International
said in a statement Wednesday that blasphemy cases like the one against
Saber "set a dangerous precedent for the Egyptian authorities'
tolerance of freedom of expression in the country."
"Criticism
of religions and other beliefs and ideas is a vital component of the
right to freedom of expression," Sahraoui said. "Laws - such as
blasphemy laws - that criminalize such criticism violate human rights."
The
rights group said that Saber's lawyers "fear for his safety in prison
and outside if released. They also fear for the safety of his mother and
sister who have been threatened and forced to leave their home which
was surrounded by angry mobs."
In
another incident that raised concerns over the freedom of expression, a
top parliamentarian suspended the editor-in-chief of a state-owned
newspaper for publishing a report deemed an offense to the military.
Ahmed Fahmy, the head of the Islamist-dominated
Shura Council upper house of parliament, named a replacement for
Gamal Abdel-Rahim
after his paper, al-Gomhuria, published a Wednesday report claiming
that authorities would soon bar the country's former top military
leaders from traveling abroad pending an investigation into alleged
corruption and the deaths of protesters during their 17 months in power.
The paper quoted an unnamed judicial source. The report was later denied by the
Ministry of Justice, and a member of the armed forces protested what he called an "offense" to the military, the state
Middle East News Agency said.
The
move to replace Abdel-Rahim prompted criticism from journalists and
media watchdog groups. Although the state-owned media formally belong to
the Shura Council, which appoints the editors, journalists say it is
not the business of the council to take disciplinary measures for
publishing offenses.
A
group of Abdel-Rahim's colleagues gathered at the paper's offices to
protest the decision and declared a strike. Abdel-Rahim told them that
he will not abide by the decision. He said that Egypt's union of
journalists should decide if there is to be an investigation into
the matter.
Fahmy, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood's political party, could not be reached for comment.
The state-owned papers, run for years by secular-leaning editors, had a reputation as a mouthpiece for President
Hosni Mubarak, who was deposed last year.
Gamal Eid, the head of the
Arab Network
for Human Rights Information media watchdog, said the decision was
"arbitrary" and is a continuation of the same "mistakes" of the
previous regime.
* Maggie Fick contributed reporting from Cairo
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