Is anyone paying attention to Egypt?

Is anyone paying attention to the deterioration of Egypt? Over a year ago, when I was watching the so-called new spring of Arab liberties on the television in America, I knew, from history and the long desire of the Muslim Brotherhood that the spring was a ruse. Those encouraging the real liberty-seekers, the Westernized youth and the educated, were of a different ilk. Now, the great Spencer and other honest and open journalists have noted the take-over of Egypt, slowly but surely by the sharia law party, the Muslim Brotherhood. Here is a bit from the Associated Press on Spencer's website.


CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's Islamist-dominated parliament on Saturday voted overwhelmingly in favor of ensuring that its own lawmakers make up a large portion of a panel writing the country's first constitution after the ouster of longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak.

Lawmakers at a joint meeting of both houses approved a quota giving lawmakers half of the seats on a 100-member panel that will draft the new constitution.

The remaining 50 panel members will be chosen by parliament, and are likely to be legal experts, academics and Muslim and Christian scholars.

The makeup of the panel has been hotly debated. Islamists, who dominate the newly elected parliament, wanted lawmakers to have a significant role in the panel. But many Christians and liberals had pushed for more outsiders on the constitution writing body.

Amr Hamzawy, a lawmaker from a minority liberal party, said that the quota selected on Saturday is not representative enough of women, youth and other segments of Egyptian society who have little to no representation in parliament.

"What happened today lessens the chance for a wide representation of the country," Hamzawy said, adding that he voted to have only 30 lawmakers on the panel. "I would have liked that there are less members of parliament."

The Muslim Brotherhood, the country's most powerful political party, has promised that the constitution will be inclusive and are not likely to support changing key wording from its current state about the role of Islam in the government. The current language says the state religion is Islam and the principle of Islamic Sharia law is the main source of legislation.

In another article, Spencer highlights this news: and the reason why the question of divorce is important for Islamic women, is that the vast majority of marriages are forced and frequently include domestic violence, as the Koran oks the beating of wives. Unless the women of the West defend these women in Muslim countries, the situation will get worse, not better, as the sharia law parties take over.

ZeeNews, March 18 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Cairo: An Egyptian lawmaker has proposed a controversial draft law to limit the legal provisions for women to divorce or separate from their husbands.

Mohamed al-Omda, deputy head of the People's Assembly's Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, has submitted the draft to cancel a woman's right to divorce (Khula) or separate from her husband, privately-owned Al-Shorouk newspaper reported today.

Khula is the right of a woman in Islam to divorce or separate from her husband.

The term "Khula" is used here somewhat interchangeably in two senses: in the sense in accordance in Sharia, and as an umbrella term for women's access to divorce, even where lawmakers intend to roll back that option for women.

In the bill's explanatory memorandum, Omda said women's right to divorce through courts was granted to satisfy the National Council for Women (NCW), which was chaired by former first lady Suzanne Mubarak, allegedly to save women from persecution in eastern countries.

Sharia has been under siege since then, Omda claimed. In 2000, the parliament issued a law on the regulation of litigation procedures in personal status matters.The law applied Sharia, in which the woman can obtain a divorce if she returns the financial settlement her husband paid her when they married. If a husband refuses to divorce his wife, the woman has the right to petition a judge in order to obtain to a divorce.

This law applies only to Muslim women as Christian women have a separate personal status law.

In recent months, the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party has launched an attack on laws regulating personal status in the country.

They accuse the NCW of implementing Western strategies to spoil the family and social life in Egypt.

Last week, a number of Islamist MPs criticised the Khula law and the law regulating child custody, saying they contradict Sharia.

What I find despicable in all of this are travel agents in Ireland and Great Britain pretending there are no changes to the Arab Spring into the Arab Winter, and pushing cheap flights. I have met many people in the last six months who were going to or on their way to Egypt. The same is true for some American or South American based cruises. The West cannot continue to support regimes which are becoming repressive and which may even put tourists in danger. Why no one wants to talk about this is a symptom of political correctness. When will Americans and other nations recognize that supporting uprisings without democratic leaders leads to harsh sharia law groups who have been waiting in the wings to take over? See my post of http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.fr/2012/02/no-revolution-works-without-democratic.html