Israel will cease to exist within a decade, says Muslim Brotherhood official
A senior Muslim Brotherhood official has said that Israel will cease to exist within a decade, the latest in a series of inflammatory comments by figures close to Egypt's Mohammed Morsi.
Essam el-Erian speaks during a session at the Shura Council building in CairoPhoto: AP
Essam el-Erian, deputy head of the Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, was trying to lay to rest a controversy over comments he made in an interview last week, in which he invited Egyptian-born Jews to return to the country.
In an interview with the Saudi-backed newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat, Mr Erian said that the "ideology of Zionism" had ended in failure and that "Palestine's occupiers" should leave to make way for the return of Palestinians.
EU president tells Egypt’s Islamist leader: freedoms required to restore investment, tourism
By Associated Press,
CAIRO — The EU president has told Egypt’s Islamist president that guarantees of freedoms of expression and religions are essential for attracting foreign investors and tourists.
Herman van Rompuy added that genuine democracy can be achieved only through consensus and inclusiveness. He spoke after meeting Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, who is facing an economic crisis brought on by two years of political turmoil
Morsi is Egypt’s first freely elected president, but the six months he has been in office have been defined by what his liberal and secular critics see as attempts by his fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood to monopolize power and the hurried adoption of a constitution drafted by his Islamist allies and adopted by nearly 64 percent of the voters in a referendum, with a turnout of just 32 percent.
Family Sentenced to 15 Years In Prison for Converting to Christianity in Egypt
A criminal court in Egypt has sentenced a family of eight in Beni-Suef to 15 years in prison for converting to Christianity and changing their place of residence. The court also sentenced seven employees in the local authority of Beni-Suef's city of Beba to five years in prison.
The court, headed by Judge Ashraf abdel-Naby Shahin and Judge Tamer abdel-Rahman, sentenced Nadia Mohamed Ali and her children Mohab, Maged, Sherif, Amira, Amir, and Nancy Ahmed Mohamed abdel-Wahab to 15 years in prison.
They also sentenced Nabil Adly Hana, Ayad Naguib Ayad, Hany Bebawy Reyad, Amgad Awad Bebawy, Shehata Wahba Ghobrial, Mohamed Oweis abdel-Gawad, and Mohamed abdel-Fatah el-Berawy to five years in prison.
US 'WON'T EVEN LET ABU HAMZA COMB HIS HAIR' MOANS WIFE
By James Murray
THE wife of hook-handed Islamic hate preacher Abu Hamza has attacked American prison authorities for keeping him locked up 23 hours a day and refusing to let him use a comb.
Hamza, 54, was finally extradited to New York last October and is awaiting trial on 11 terrorism-related offences. It took Britain eight years to get rid of him as he fought extradition to the US.
The legal and prison bills cost taxpayers at least £1million.
His wife, Najat, who is believed to be still living on benefits in London with some of her seven children, complained on a supporter’s website about his living conditions. She complains he has been denied any face-to-face meetings since his incarceration. Even when he meets with his lawyers he cannot see them because they sit behind a glass screen with a curtain.
A planning lawyer and self-styled 'mosque buster' claims he is fighting to stop the 'tide of Islam' by successfully blocking plans for the building of mosques across the UK.
Gavin Boby, once linked to the far-right English Defence League, boasts he has already blocked plans for 16 out of 17 mosques being built.
By Our Sudan Correspondent JUBA, South Sudan, January 10, 2013 (Morning Star News) – Sudanese authorities rang in the new year by bulldozing a church building outside Khartoum because it belonged to Christians of South Sudanese origin and lacked a permit, a source said.
South Sudanese have been ordered to leave the country following the new republic’s secession from Sudan in July 2011, but thousands are reportedly stranded in the north due to loss of jobs, poverty, transportation limitations and ethnic and tribal conflict in South Sudan.
The only female judge to sit on Egypt's highest court said Tuesday she has filed the first legal challenge against the country's highly contentious constitution, which cost her the seat she held.
Tahani el-Gebali said she filed her complaint to the Supreme Constitutional Court questioning the legality of the charter, which she said was drafted and passed illegally.
Egyptian troops foiled a bomb attack on a church in the frontier town of Rafah timed to coincide with Coptic Orthodox Christmas, the authorities said on Monday.
Army units received a tip-off about the attack, and in the early hours of Monday morning, Coptic Christmas Day, discovered a Toyota car packed with explosives and weapons near the church, according to the state news agency.
Mother jailed for life for beating son to death for not learning Qur'an
Sara Ege: a postmortem revealed that Yaseen suffered multiple injuries caused by three months of physical punishment. Photograph: South Wales police/PAA
mother who beat her seven-year-old son to death for failing to learn the Qur'an by heart and then burned his body in an attempt to hide her
Sara Ege, 33, collapsed and had to be helped sobbing from the dock after being told on Monday she would serve 17 years before she could be considered for parole.
Cardiff crown court heard that Ege treated her son Yaseen "like a dog" when he struggled to memorise passages of the holy book of Islam. She beat him on the hands and his body until he collapsed on the floor of his bedroom and died.
Ordinary Muslims in Indonesia Violating Rights, Study Finds Most religious rights violations were directed at Christians in 2012.
By Our Asia Correspondent
NEW DELHI, January 4, 2012 (Morning Star News) – Concerns are growing over at least 50 cases of religious freedom violations against Christians in Indonesia last year, as not only extremists but ordinary Muslims were responsible for many of the acts of intolerance and violence, according to a recent study.
“Cases of intolerance against Christians remained high in the country” in 2012, Bonar Tigor Naipospos, deputy chairman of the Jakarta-based group Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace, told Morning Star News.
Christians were targeted in at least 50 of 264 cases of religious freedom violations in 2012, more than any other group, Naipospos added. Setara recorded 54 such cases against Christians in 2011, following the especially volatile year of 2010, when there were 75 cases against Christians.
Sudan Bombings Kill More Nuba Christians Around Christmas
Several children dead after aerial attacks.
By Our Sudan Correspondent JUBA, South Sudan, December 31, 2012 (Morning Star News) – Non-Arab Christians in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains said they feel forgotten after Sudanese air forces killed at least 11 of the faithful in bombings before and after Christmas, according to area sources.
Following bombings of non-Arab civilians in Christian villages in Sudan’s South Kordofan state from Dec. 18 to Dec. 26, the ethnic Nuba Christians are praying for a change of government in Khartoum, said a church leader from the state who recently visited Juba.
Bomb kills 2 at Egyptian Coptic church in Libya’s 3rd-largest city, Misrata
By Associated Press
Egypt’s ambassador visited the church in the coastal city after the attack and urged Libyan security forces to ensure the property is guarded.
A Libyan security official says the deadly attack was caused by a bomb made from an explosive material that typically requires a detonator. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the incident is still under investigation.
Tens of thousands of Egyptian workers have returned to work in Libya following last year’s civil war, despite security dangers.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Sudanese authorities have arrested two priests of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Sudan and accused them of baptizing a convert from Islam, sources said.
As part of heightened persecution of Christians since South Sudan seceded from Sudan last year, Sudanese security forces on Dec. 16 arrested the Rev. Markus Anthony, a Sudanese citizen of Egyptian origin based in El-Haj Yousif in northern Khartoum, and the Rev. Sarbion Hussein of the Moro tribe in the Nuba mountains, sources from the Coptic Orthodox Church told Morning Star News.
“There was a Muslim woman identified as Eman, who was a student from Khartoum Applied College, who accepted the Lord two years ago but remained secret in her faith,” said a Christian lawyer by phone. “Recently Eman made a decision for baptism and was baptized by the two Coptic priests.”
12 Christians Killed in Christmas Bloodshed in Nigeria
Gunmen attack two churches in Borno, Yobe states on Christmas Eve.
By Our Nigeria Correspondent
JOS, Nigeria, December 26, 2012 (Morning Star News) – Christmas Eve attacks by suspected Islamic extremists in northern Nigeria’s Borno state – already reeling from the slaughter of at least 10 Christians earlier this month – took the lives of six people at a Baptist church, as gunmen killed six others in Yobe state the same night.
CAIRO (Reuters) - President Mohamed Mursi admitted on Wednesday that Egypt's economy faces serious problems after he enacted a new, bitterly contested constitution that is supposed to help end political unrest and allow him to focus on the financial crisis.
Egypt referendum: opposition calls for fraud inquiry
National Salvation Front claims referendum result was secured by fraud after Brotherhood claims backing of 64% of voters
Egyptian referendum row – a man shows his inked finger after casting his vote during the second-round ballot on a disputed constitution. Photograph: Khalil Hamra/AP
Egypt's opposition has called for an investigation into allegations of fraud in the referendum on the country's contentious draft constitution, after the Muslim Brotherhood claimed 64% of voters had backed the new charter.
U.S. Facilitating Muslim Brotherhood's Extremist Agenda
Clare Lopez
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton listens to Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoglu at the Global Counterterrorism Forum in Istanbul. (Photo: Reuters)
First the U.S. allowed itself to be gulled into co-sponsoring an international “Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF)” together with Turkey that deliberately excluded Israel. Now, at the most recent GCTF conference, held December 14, 2012 in Abu Dhabi, the Muslim Brotherhood has succeeded in getting the U.S. to lend its name – and its taxpayers’ money – to the so-called “International Centre of Excellence for Countering Violent Extremism.”
Once Courted by FJP, Egypt's Christians Fear Persecution
by Jason Ditz
Egypt’s ruling Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) has made a very public point of courting the nation’s Christian minority since its founding, an effort to convince people that despite its Islamist leadership it is a party aiming to representing all Egyptians, even religious minorities.
Yet ahead of the constitutional referendum, Christian communities in southern Egypt report concerted efforts by many of these same Islamists to intimidate and discourage them from voting. 50,000 Islamists marched through Assiut chanting that Egypt would be “Islamic, despite the Christians.”
Die Welt, a German daily, has published an interesting report on al Qaeda's plans for Syria and Egypt. The original can be found here and Worldcrunch has produced a translation of the article, "Has Syria become Al-Qaeda's New Base for Terror Strikes on Europe?"
Die Welt's reporting jibes with what we've reported at The Long War Journal concerning the ties between al Qaeda-linked jihadists in Egypt and the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.
Here are the key excerpts [emphasis added]:
Al-Qaeda boss Ayman al-Zawahiri is focusing his efforts on Syria and Egypt, trying to build new structures in these two key countries since many of the established al-Qaeda offshoots no longer listen to the network's leadership after the death of Osama Bin Laden, according to information from Western intelligence sources.
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