Christians & Muslims hold vigil on massacre's anniversary

Los Angeles Times

Egypt's Christians, Muslims hold vigil on anniversary of massacre 

October 9, 2012

CAIRO -- Thousands of Egyptians on Tuesday marched to Maspero, the country's television headquarters, to commemorate the killings of 27 people, mostly Coptic Christians,  a year ago by thugs and soldiers during a protest over a church destroyed by arson.

Muslims and Christians marched in solemn procession, carrying flowers and photos of the dead and chanting calls for justice for what has been dubbed the Maspero Massacre.  They called for the death penalty for Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, former head of the military-led government.

"I'm recalling everything that happened last year. I'm remembering how we approached the television building. I can still hear the gunfire and I remember the army tanks as they ruthlessly chased us," said Amir Roshdy, a 30-year-old Copt. "Till now we can still smell the blood of the martyrs, we still feel them here."

Protesters also chanted against Egypt's new Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. They accused him of striking deals with the former military rulers to secure power. Morsi was sworn into office in June and none of the nation's commanders have been charged.
"Morsi is a liar and he is out of tune with the people," said Hoda Khouzam, a Copt who came to

Maspero to mourn those who died. "I don't want retribution or revenge. We want justice. If the blood of those who died gave us one thing, it's freedom of speech. This is why our fight now is in the constitution."

Many say the military had to have given orders for such an attack, in which unidentified armed men attacked the protest and soldiers indiscriminately fired live ammunition into the crowd. Army personnel carriers also drove into the demonstration.

Last month, "a military court sentenced three soldiers to 2-3 years for errors leading to deaths of 14 people. Their sentence can be appealed," Heba Morayef, Egypt's director for Human Rights Watch, posted Tuesday on her Twitter account.

Human Rights Watch issued a report last year that said as many as 18 of those who died were shot. Others suffered from crushed skulls and wracked bodies when  army vehicles ran over them.
"There will never be accountability for the military’s crimes in Egypt until military officers can be tried by civilian courts," Morayef said.

Shortly after he was inaugurated, Morsi appointed a fact-finding committee to investigate attacks on peaceful protesters while the military was in power. Morayef said many human rights lawyers on the committee resigned after complaining that the presiding judge was not impartial and supported the military’s contention that a “third party” was involved.

Egypt's military council assumed power in February 2011 after a popular uprising toppled former President Hosni Mubarak. Morsi, who was inaugurated 16 months later, forced the country's military leaders into retirement, giving himself sweeping powers.


*Photo courtesy of Khaled Elfiqi / European Pressphoto Agency 

Activists urge justice for civilians jailed by army courts

REUTERS

Egypt activists urge justice for civilians jailed by army courts

CAIRO | Wed Aug 29, 2012 

Shaimaa Fayed

  

(Reuters) - Mohamed Fawzy was just 21 when he was jailed by an Egyptian military court for 25 years, accused of stealing refrigerators.

"Since his arrest last year, I have been exhausted and hysterical," said his mother Sabreya Fahmy, choking back tears. "I could kneel at the president's feet to bring me back my innocent son."
 
At least 12,000 civilians have gone before army courts in the security vacuum that followed the fall of Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, according to the campaign group No to Military Trials, and at least 5,000 are still in jail.

Many of those jailed were arrested in the protests that erupted during the 18 months an interim military government was in charge in Egypt, and some have even been tried since civilian President Mohamed Mursi took office in June.

Mursi has pardoned 630 civilians on the recommendation of a committee he formed to study the cases of 2,165 prisoners. The committee said the cases of the remaining prisoners needed to be investigated further.

Activists want the remainder to be released or at least referred to civilian courts for retrials. Until Mursi acts, they say, his claim to champion the cause of last year's Arab Spring uprising will be open to question.

"It is shameful that President Mursi, who rose to power because of these civilians' struggle and the time they are spending in jail, is sitting in his palace eating with his family, while we have no clue what has become of the people inside those prisons," said prominent activist Ahmed Domma.

They also say the situation is a direct - and dangerous - challenge to Mursi, Egypt's first elected head of state in 5,000 years. Mursi earlier this month dismissed the country's top generals in a bold show of power after 60 years of military leadership.

"The military is still continuing to sentence people and use military tribunals as if it is saying to the president you are not the only one in power," said Salma Abdel-Gelil, a member of No to Military Trials.

Activists have long complained that military trials were used by Mubarak to secure convictions that might not have been possible in more open and accountable civilian courts.

A QUESTION OF PRIORITIES

Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood, the socially conservative movement from which he hails, came late to the uprising against Mubarak that was begun by liberal and left-wing activists.

While voicing the same commitment to democracy as those of revolutionaries, and pressing the army to stick to its timetable for elections, the Brotherhood generally avoided direct confrontation with the generals when they were temporarily in charge.

To its critics, the Brotherhood has shown more dedication to the pursuit of power than to human rights and the rule of law.

"The track record of the Brothers during this period is characterized by promises broken and silence in the face of abuses, such as military trials for civilians and the application of the emergency law for most of the SCAF's tenure," Michael Wahid Hanna of The Century Foundation wrote in Foreign Policy, referring to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

"The Brothers, in tandem with the SCAF, also sought to tarnish those intent on continuing the protest movement through mass mobilization and public actions," he said.

Mubarak's overthrow and the election of Mursi has transformed Egypt's stale politics. But many Egyptians say the unreformed security forces still disregard the basic rights of citizens.

Activists say the use of torture by security officials is still common, though officials in the past have routinely denied such practices are routine and say any allegations of torture are properly investigated.

"WE WERE LUCKY"

Karim El Kennany, a member of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, said he was detained and beaten last month on charges of insulting an army council member during a demonstration near the house of a general in Cairo.

"We were just standing silently holding up posters about the constitution," said Kennany, 26. "On my way home some plainclothes men tied my arms, blindfolded me and threw me to the ground. They just kept beating us, unthinkingly.

"We found ourselves on a floor of a civilian jail that housed dangerous criminals. The truth is we found among those criminals more humanity than the officers and informants.

"We were lucky that our party backed us and helped us, but there are thousands inside those jails that nobody knows anything about," said Kennany.

On August 12, Mursi pensioned off Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, Mubarak's defence minister for 20 years, replaced the chief of staff and cancelled constitutional provisions that conferred wide powers on the army leadership.

The move gave Mursi powers rivalling those of Mubarak. It also removed any doubt that he would be able to release or retry the detainees facing military trial.

"It gives us new grounds to push for all our demands," said Abdel-Gelil of No to Military Trials. "Now he has the legislative and executive power to take the actions he should have taken from the start."

Campaigners say a new constitution being prepared must bar military courts from trying civilians - a practice employed under Mubarak to muzzle Islamists and other political opponents.

At the moment, an army decree still allows troops to arrest civilians on drug charges or on the vague crime of "thuggery".

Mohamed El Zarea, a rights lawyer and member of the committee Mursi appointed to review the military trial cases, said the body would recommend a civil retrial of all the civilian cases it is handling when it issues its final report, due by the end of August.

Critics of the process say the committee risks overlooking the many others detained by the army in often chaotic and arbitrary round-ups.

Others say Mursi seems to be looking after his political allies first; last month he pardoned at least 17 Islamists jailed for militancy during the Mubarak era.

"Mursi is biased because the youth in those jails are not part of his political current," said Samir Ghattas, head of the Middle East Forum, a Cairo-based think tank dealing with regional issues.



*Additional reporting by Tom Pfeiffer; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall

The Muslim Brotherhood: Egypt's new NDP?

Ahram Online
The Muslim Brotherhood: Egypt's new NDP?

Sunday 26 Aug 2012

Khaled Elgindy

While many welcomed the president's recent sacking of the military's top brass as a necessary step toward civilian rule, others saw it as a naked power grab and precursor to a new form of tyranny. Which interpretation is right?

President Mohamed Morsi's recent sacking of the military's top brass, including former head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and de facto interim president of Egypt Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, has drawn both praise and condemnation from the country's fractured revolutionary and pro-democracy forces.

While some welcomed the move as a necessary step toward genuinely democratic civilian rule, others saw it as a naked power grab and a precursor to a new form of tyranny.

Whatever one thinks of Morsi's move, it has renewed concerns over the role of the Muslim Brotherhood, effectively the country's new ruling party in post-revolutionary Egypt. Indeed, many Egyptians are beginning to wonder whether they haven't simply traded in one single-party dictatorship for another.

Similarities between the Muslim Brotherhood and the now-defunct ruling party of Hosni Mubarak, the National Democratic Party (NDP), are difficult to ignore. Like its former nemesis, the Brotherhood’s political arm the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) represents the most formidable force on the Egyptian political scene today, with an unrivalled political machine backed by substantial business interests and extensive patronage networks at all levels of Egyptian society.

And like the NDP, the Brotherhood/FJP has sought to consolidate its primacy through an accommodation with the military, which despite the recent house-cleaning still wields considerable economic and political power.

The sacking of Tantawi et al, which probably could not have occurred without the backing of other senior officers, has reconfigured the power balance between the Brotherhood and the military, but does not amount to a subordination of the military to civilian rule.

Even more worrying is the Brotherhood’s long history of unilateralism, as well as its own hegemonic tendencies, including its attempts to dominate both the parliament and the constituent assembly (before both were dissolved by court order). Most recently, the wave of media censorship and attacks on free speech directed at voices critical of or hostile to the Brotherhood are eerily reminiscent of the Mubarak era.

The Brotherhood and its supporters dismiss such comparisons as patently unfair – and with some justification. Unlike Mubarak's NDP, whose political domination was built on vote-rigging, intimidation and other forms of institutional thuggery, the Brotherhood's enormous electoral success, whether in recent presidential elections or last winter's parliamentary races, was earned fairly in competitive elections.

Similarly, after just a few months in power, the Brotherhood has nothing like the kind of institutional control over the bureaucracy and state institutions, many of which are semi-autonomous and remain deeply distrustful of the Brotherhood, that was accrued by the NDP over the past several decades.

Such differences are by no means trivial. The introduction of electoral democracy in particular marked a clear and dramatic break with the past, and one that many believe will militate against the emergence of a new dictatorship. After all, as in any democracy, should Morsi and/or the Brotherhood fail to deliver on their promises, Egyptian voters will have an opportunity to "throw the bums out."

Indeed, given Morsi's and the Brotherhood's rather ambitious campaign promises – which include everything from improving Cairo’s notoriously gnarled traffic, to reviving the country's ailing economy, to reforming Egypt’s abusive and incompetent security sector – failure would seem all but guaranteed. This assumes, however, that the political game is taking place on a level playing field, which is certainly not the case in Egypt.

In reality, failure at the governance level does not necessarily mean imminent defeat at the polls. The Brotherhood has already won five of five electoral contests since Mubarak’s ouster. And given its superior organisation and resources, as well as the various levels of disarray and dysfunction of most non-Islamist parties, future parliamentary elections are likely to return similar results.

While we would expect the political fortunes of any group to rise and fall with the ebb and flow of realities on the ground, certain conditions could make the Brotherhood's electoral supremacy much more impervious to change.

Theoretically at least, it is possible for the Brotherhood to fail and still succeed. The most obvious challenge comes from the Brotherhood's preeminent role in drafting Egypt's next constitution, allowing it to write its political dominance directly into the script.

That role was recently enhanced by Morsi's own unilateral 'constitutional declaration' granting himself the power to name a new constituent assembly in the event the current one fails. But there are other, more subtle ways by which the group can institutionalise its dominant position.

As is well known, the Muslim Brotherhood is far more than just a political actor, or even a source of patronage. And despite the FJP's declared independence, decision-making within the 'party' continues to flow directly and organically from the 'association.'

This effectively places the Brotherhood's vast social, charitable and educational operations at the service of its political wing. Add to this the inherent lack of transparency and accountability associated with a highly secretive and, as yet, unlicensed organisation whose internal workings and finances remain beyond public scrutiny and a more problematic picture begins to emerge.

The potential manipulative impact of such a machine goes far beyond mere patronage, particularly when combined with another highly potent force – religion. The ability to claim religious legitimacy gives the Brotherhood an aura of moral superiority, if not infallibility, over its non-Islamist (or 'un-Islamic') political rivals, which could be used to stifle legitimate political dissent.

Recent threats by pro-Brotherhood clerics against anti-Morsy voices, some of whom attempted to make opposition to the president tantamount to apostasy, may not have been sanctioned by the Brotherhood, but could easily become a more pervasive (and acceptable) phenomenon down the road.

Ironically, even the Brotherhood's electoral legitimacy could be used to justify anti-democratic behaviour, signs of which are evident in Morsy’s somewhat SCAF-esque constitutional declaration granting himself sweeping executive and legislative powers.

Thus, while the Brotherhood may lack the institutional powers of the old NDP, it enjoys several other significant advantages over the former ruling party, which could ultimately prove more resilient. With the exception of the military, whose interests do not lie primarily in ensuring the emergence of a democratic political order, there remain few checks on Morsi's (and by extension the Brotherhood's) authority. Equally worrisome, there has yet to emerge a viable and cohesive political force capable of challenging the Brotherhood's dominance.

This does not mean, however, that the Brotherhood has replicated the tyrannical order that existed under Mubarak, or even that it necessarily will – only that it has the potential to do so with very little standing in the way.

So, has the Muslim Brotherhood become the new NDP? The answer is no – or at least not yet. Until such checks are put in place, however, it is prudent for Egyptians to keep asking the question.

Egypt: Safe exit for criminal Generals Tantawi & Anan

Daily News Egypt

Safe exit for Tantawi and Anan

August 13, 2012  

Ahmed Aboul Enein  

 

Morsy appointed Tantawi and Anan as presidential advisers and awarded Tantawi Egypt’s top state honour

 

Following President Mohamed Morsy’s decision on Sunday to retire most of the military’s top brass including former Commander-in-Chief Hussein Tantawi and Chief of Staff Sami Anan and the quiet military response, it remains unknown whether or not the generals saw it coming.

Morsy appointed Tantawi and Anan as presidential advisers and awarded Tantawi Egypt’s top state honour, the Order of the Nile, for “invaluable services to the nation.” Anan was also honoured, receiving the prestigious Order of the Republic.

Former navy commander Mohab Mamish, air defence commander Abd El Aziz Seif-Eldeen and air force commander Mahmoud Hafez, the three service branch commanders who were retired alongside Tantawi and Anan, were all appointed to top civilian posts.

Mamish was made Chairman of the Suez Canal Authority, Seif-Eldeen Chairman of the Arab Organization for Industrialisation, and Hafez was appointed Minister of State for Military Production.

This list of honours and the lucrative civilian posts the retired generals have been awarded suggests that the reshuffle was amiable, or that Morsy at least aimed to avoid confrontation.

Major General Mohamed El Assar, who was promoted from Assistant Defence Minister for Armament Affairs to overall Assistant Defence Minister, told the press that Morsy had informed the Supreme Council of Armed Forces, which El Assar and all the retired generals sit on, of his decision in advance.

“The decision was based on consultation with the field marshal [Tantawi] and the rest of the military council,” El Assar told Reuters news agency.

Morsy did hold a meeting with SCAF on Saturday, one day before announcing the list of sackings and appointments.

However, Morsy’s presidential advisor for legal affairs, Mohamed Fouad Gad-Allah, told the press that SCAF leadership, including Tantawi and Anan, were taken by surprise by the news of their retirement and were not informed beforehand.

“The removals did not come as a result of the Rafah incident. [President] Mohamed Morsy is the authority elected by the people and he is responsible for enacting their will, which is to cancel the supplementary constitutional declaration so that the president could have all his powers,” Gad-Allah told Al-Masry Al-Youm.

“Morsy is the only one who can take any decision and there was no agreement between the president and the military council,” he added.

Nonetheless, the fact that both Tantawi and Anan were given high honours and appointed advisors and that the service branch commanders were all appointed to very influential posts that are nominally civilian but have traditionally been entrusted to retired generals favoured by the president, has raised concerns that Morsy’s latest move came with the blessing of SCAF and that it was a way to provide a “safe exit” for the once ruling generals.

The idea of a safe exit, where the military leaders willingly give up power in exchange of escaping legal or criminal prosecution for their actions, most notably the killing of hundreds of protesters in dozens of demonstrations since they took over, has been discussed before.

In order for Morsy to take such a bold step, he would need assurances from inside the military that there would be no retaliation. Tantawi and Anan’s replacements both come from within SCAF and El-Assar was promoted.

Even if the president did in fact sack the top two leaders without their knowledge, he would have to ensure support from the rest of the military.

The appointments of Mamish, Seif-Eldeen, and Hafez to three of the most lucrative posts, two of which (AIO chairman and minister of military production) mean being responsible for overseeing the military’s vast economic empire, estimated to make up from ten to 40 percent of the Egyptian economy, combined with other promotions within SCAF, could very well be the price for Tantawi and Anan’s removal.

*Photo courtesy of REUTERS