Islamist lawyer Montasser El-Zayyat raised eyebrows across the nation earlier this summer when he announced he was forming a new secular political party. In the weeks since, his Union for Freedom has reportedly attracted scores of moderate Muslim Brotherhood members and former Gama’a Al-Islamiya supporters.

One of the nation’s most visible lawyers, El-Zayyat has made his name defending members of the Brotherhood, Al-Gama’a and other Islamist groups in more than a dozen extremely high-profile cases. A committed Islamist and chairman of the Lawyers’ Syndicate’s Freedoms Committee, he is also the author of the Arabic-language book Ayman Al-Zawahri as I Knew Him, which is highly critical of the terrorist leader.

The groundswell of Islamist support for El-Zayyat’s Union comes on the heels of the Shura Council Political Parties Affairs Committee (PPAC)’s decision to recognize the liberal Democratic Front, formed by Ossama Ghazali Harb, a dissident from the governing National Democratic Party.

The two developments have prompted speculation that Egypt may be witnessing the birth of the next crop of opposition parties. While the Brotherhood remains the nation’s most powerful opposition group, the constitution’s prohibition on religious-based parties means it cannot directly contest for power. Old-line parties — including Al-Tagammuah, the Nasserists and the once-powerful revival of the pre-revolutionary Wafd Party — are bankrupt forces, both politically and financially. Al-Ghad, which in October 2004 became one of the first opposition parties to win official recognition since the early 1980s following a lengthy court battle, has languished since the imprisonment in early 2005 of former leader and erstwhile presidential candidate Ayman Nour.

Alarm bells sounded for secularists when El-Zayyat said he would permit reformed militants into his party. Secular analysts remain skeptical of the former insurgents’ ability to integrate into the political system and play a constructive role without resorting to force of arms.

The Union for Freedom is expected to apply to PPAC for recognition when the Shura Council resumes session after Ramadan, but its odds of winning acceptance remain slim.

Khaled Habib Ossama Ghazali Harb has a party of his own, but will Islamist lawyer Montasser El-Zayyat be able to say the same thing this fall?

Harb, on the other hand, has already won approval for his Democratic Front, which calls for “democracy, the rule of law, the regular and peaceful transfer of power and a civil society” under the slogan “freedom and justice for a civil nation.”

“There is a great difference between the Democratic Front and newly emerging parties,” Harb said in an interview with Egypt Today. “There are a lot of conditions to forming a party in Egypt: You have to collect a minimum of 1,000 signatures; 50 from each governorate. You have to have a program, headquarters, among others. But any party [being formed] should be welcomed as long as it sticks to the constitution and the law. It’s what the parties practice, and public opinion will decide how good they are in the end. I welcome the formation of new parties and call for the government to ease the procedures needed to [obtain] a license.”

Harb, who is also editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram’s Al-Siyasa Al-Dawlia magazine, was recruited into the NDP and its top Policy Secretariat by Gamal Mubarak, but left nearly two years ago, saying the party wasn’t committed to genuine reform. Harb claims the Democratic Front will strike a balance between the NDP and the banned Muslim Brotherhood and help end the NDP’s “monopoly” on political life.

“After the elections in 2005, the picture was that the NDP won 23 percent of the seats and the Muslim Brotherhood won 21 percent. The NDP is supported by the government, but it is hated by the people, and the Muslim Brotherhood isn’t supported by the government, but it enjoys wide popularity. So what happened is that independent candidates were the most popular and they won a lot of seats,” says Harb.

“But after the elections, the NDP drew a large portion of those independent candidates to their ranks and they became members of the NDP, despite the fact the people voted for them as independents. About 60 percent of the population are totally alienated from the NDP; keeping in mind that the percentage of people who vote is rather small. So there was a gap on the political arena; there was a political void. In any society that claims to be a democracy, this political void must be filled and there have to be political parties representing the political powers and the silent majority. We call for this silent majority to speak up and participate in the political arena.”

Khaled Habib For some, running water has become a privilege, rather than a right.

Among the Front’s founding members were TV drama mogul Osama Anwar Okasha and former MP Anwar El-Sadat. This is one of the reasons, Harb argues, that his party was approved. Egypt’s position in the spotlight after its recent election to the UN Human Rights Council —and the fact that the government would welcome any party that splits support for the Brothers — also ensured Harb a sympathetic hearing in front of the PPAC.

Harb says the party has already elected its executive body, which is now headed by Yehia El-Gamal, the respected former head of Maglis El-Dawla (the State Council). El-Gamal, who initially said he had no interested in an executive post in the party, accepted the top job on the condition he be allowed to step down in the first quarter of 2008.

Among the 12 would-be parties whose applications for recognition the PPAC rejected last month for not having produced the required 1,000 signatures were the Islamist-leaning Al-Shari’a and the Liberal Egyptian Party.

The latter, which has already marked its first birthday, calls for Egyptian nationalism, secularism and democracy, and was formed by Mohsen Lotfy El-Sayed, nephew of the late nationalist figure Lotfy Pasha El-Sayed.

All dried up — that’s what protestors in the town of Al-Borg in Kafr El-Sheikh seemed to be saying when they lined up their fishing skiffs on the highway, blocking the road leading to governorates north and south of the city for almost 12 hours.

Citizens of Kafr El-Sheikh have always had inadequate access to water, but the previously unthinkable sight of people speaking out against their suffering caused journalists to probe into the water shortage issue elsewhere. Al-Ahram reported that the village of El-Hammad has never had a working sewage system, and children there have only seen faucets and showers on television. The cause of infectious skin diseases diagnosed in dozens of children in Sinai has been attributed to a “lack of showering.” Even the urban oasis of Heliopolis has been experiencing week-long water shortages within the past year.

Officials have been very defensive toward what Kafr El-Sheikh Governor Salah Salama described as “hooligan behavior” on the part of the water-deprived citizens.

“I get water only at night,” Mohamed Abu Risha, head of distribution at Kafr El-Sheikh Water Company, told Egypt Today. “But because I know how hard it is to supply water to all these people, and how hard the government is working to achieve it, I don’t complain.”

Abu Risha added that they had already begun working on a central mega-pump that would supply water to all villages in the governorate, but it would take three years to complete. A short-term not-so-mega pump will be working by August to ensure that everyone gets some water at some point during the day.

Al-Jazeera Ayman El-Zawahri’s sympathizers in Egypt had the Metro on high alert.

“But no one will be without water at all,” Abu Risha promised.

In a TV interview, Minister of Housing Ahmed El-Maghrabi said he is working hard to get people consistent access to water.

One protestor in the Al-Borg demonstration who refused to budgeremarked that either the demonstration would get the government to give them water or send them to jail, in which case he’d finally have water to drink. (RH)

The Ministry of Interior brought another flare-up between Muslims and Copts under control last month, offering a midway solution over the issue of whether or not Copts who convert to Islam should be allowed to return to their original religion on national identification papers.

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The Supreme Administrative Court issued an interim ruling in July that citizens who convert once then wish to convert back could do so, but did not oblige the ministry to change their status on personal papers.

Ramses Al-Naggar, the lawyer handling the case, told Egypt Today this was a step up from the verdict he had appealed in April, which banned Christians who turned Muslim from converting back to Christianity. Still, he hopes the final verdict will force the Interior Ministry to allow status changes. In the meantime, Al-Naggar claims some the ministry has begun changing the papaers of some Coptic petitioners.

The issue started making headlines when a Muslim convert was accepted back into the Church, but was denied the right to have the religion entry on her personal documents altered because the ministry employees felt that to do so would be aiding and abetting apostasy. The convert, a female student, promptly launched a lawsuit to change her personal status documents.

“The law is on our side and the court has spoken loud and clear,” Al-Naggar says. “This whole outburst about Muslims not being able to convert was started by some interfering lawyers.”

Indeed, the outburst has angered and confused many Muslims who are wondering how the court, whose main source of law under the constitution is Shariah, could allow Muslims to declare themselves apostates when the punishment for this in Islam is death. (It is not a capital offense under Egyptian law, however.)

Tsafrir Abayov African migrants are joining Palestinians on the Rafah border crossing.

Liberal Islamic thinker Gamal El-Banna, the brother of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan El-Banna, says the court is in a “critical position” because it is obliged by legal traditions to rule according to the doctrine of Abu Hanifa, which indeed states that the punishment for apostasy is death. “However, if we return to the Qur’an and Sunna, there is no worldly punishment for Muslims who convert, and the Prophet never punished such people unless they had gone on to become traitors of the nation.”

As the flames of controversy spread, public attention turned to the large number of converts from both sides. Al-Naggar, who has 400 such cases lying on his desk, says what we know of is a drop in the ocean. “There are many more who never speak out. Converting has its merits for Christians who wish to divorce and for Muslims who want easy access to a visa for a Western country,” he alleges.

While El-Banna agrees that it is acceptable for people to convert under pressure, he says that nevertheless, “It should be said in their papers not only that they are Muslims or Copts, but also whether they have held previous religions before, to prevent manipulation of religion.”

The Coptic Church was further shaken last month by Pope Benedict VI’s statement that the Catholic Church is Christ’s only true church. Pope Shenouda III retorted that Pope Benedict insisted on “making enemies” in the Middle East, first by insulting Muslims a few months back, and now offending Orthodox Christians. Copts all over Egypt reacted similarly. “We will not tolerate the Pope’s [Benedict’s] nonsense,” vowed the priest of the Hanging Church.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian Catholic Council attempted to soften the blow by announcing that the Vatican’s statement is specific to Western Catholicism and that while the Catholic Church holds a certain ranking, this does not lessen the value of other churches.

Nazif expects $1.6 billion from the sale of Banque du Caire.

The status of Christians in Egypt remains a hot-button issue, and in the next parliamentary round, a new civil status code for Copts is set for discussion. (RH)

Last month, the Prosecutor General’s Office announced it was charging 35 fundamentalists belonging to a radical Islamist organization linked to Al-Qaeda. According to local media, the Islamists, who had been arrested in April, were moved to Torah prison after investigators found evidence of ties to Al-Qaeda.

Security officials say the 35 were part of a plot to attack American and tourist targets in Egypt.

Hours later, police tightened security throughout the Cairo Metro system after a series of calls claimed explosives were planted at the Shoubra El-Kheima station. The underground has since been on high alert, with even female passengers having to submit to bag searches before entering stations.

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Local media reports claim the calls were hoaxes; security officials confirm that they found no explosives.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the suspects, most of whom come from the governorates of Qalyoubeya and Beni Sueif, had received calls from Al-Qaeda members operating out of Yemen, Pakistan, and Iraq and had been recruited online to join the organization.

Khaled Mustafa, the group’s alleged leader, was reportedly able to escape to Gaza with the help of Palestinian Islamists. Authorities say they uncovered the cell when another suspect, Ihab Aboul Kheir, blew up a crude bomb he was preparing in his home.

State Security investigators also report having found links between the group and the Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders.

The suspects were remanded to 15 days in custody pending further investigation after being charged with joining an illegal group aimed at preventing the state and government institutions carrying out their functions, obstructing justice and the constitution, and sabotaging national unity and social peace through the use of terror. They are also charged with owning printed material that spreads and encourages terrorist thought. Charges included the establishment of an online radio station, Sawt Al-Khilafa.

Shabola is set to, uhm, croon about chicken flu.

In his weekly column in Al-Masry Al-Yom, Diaa Rashwan, one of the world’s top experts on Islamism, pointed out that not a day passes without the discovery of a new group or cell affiliated with Al-Qaeda somewhere in the world. Although this often saves the lives of thousands, he went on to say that in many cases the discovery is not based on substantial information or definitive proof. These discoveries, he explained, are sometimes based on erroneous analysis and exaggerations about information coming from unreliable sources.

In most cases, even when the suspects have been sentenced, courts and investigations were not able to prove a direct link between these new formations and the Al-Qaeda of Ossama bin-Laden and Ayman El-Zawahri.

The question to ask, Rashwan writes, is the nature of these cells and groups “belonging” to Al-Qaeda and how they had been recruited to join the organization. It is common knowledge among analysts and security experts that Al-Qaeda is no longer a typical organization with a tightly knit, closed internal structure subject to a single intellectual and operational leadership. The world has now bypassed this idea, which originated from American intelligence post-9/11.

Al-Qaeda now, according to Rashwan, is a network of ideas rather than an organization, although its center remains strong and coherent in Afghanistan and areas of neighboring Pakistan.

The network is growing through what Rashwan calls self-recruitment.

“The allure of Al-Qaeda and its intellectual and operational model which become more obvious in the face of the aggressive American policies versus the Islamic world attracts groups and organizations, cells and individuals, who recruit themselves and seek to be part of Al-Qaeda.” This was the case with al-Tawhid wal Jihad, Rashwan cites, which was founded by Abu Mossab al-Zarqawi in Iraq, after which he declared his allegiance to bin Laden in 2004. (MJ)

With little prior warning, the Arab Contractors company installed speed bumps on the 26th of July Corridor to prevent drivers from speeding on what has become one of the nation’s deadliest stretches of road. Separating throngs of motorists from a beach weekend at the North Coast or Alexandria, the heavily trafficked stretch of road has suddenly become even more difficult to navigate.

Since the road linking Lebanon Square to the Cairo-Alex Desert Road was built several years ago, motorists have complained about its winding path; others have alleged that the links holding it together were not properly installed.

But the problems don’t end there. Because of the construction, three of the road’s four lanes have closed. As a result, many North Coast and Alexandria vacationers using the road have experienced delays —instead of taking 15 minutes to reach the beginning of the Alexandria desert road from the 26 of July Corridor, it can take up to 30 minutes during the day and an excruciating hour and a half at night or during the weekend.

The road will continue to be under construction for a minimum of six months, and has left motorists wondering why the work couldn’t take place during the winter months when there is less traffic and the vacation season has ended. (YM)

The Rafah crossing point to Gaza, long a point of tension between Egypt and Israel, which claims Palestinian fighters have taken advantage of “lax” border security to smuggle people and weapons into and out of the Gaza Strip, has recently become a route for East Africans looking to move to the West.

Over the past two months, 26 Sudanese refugees, three Eritreans and one Somali have been arrested for allegedly illegally crossing from Egypt into Israel in search of better work opportunities.

Egypt, Israel, and Gaza authorities recently tried to increase security at this high-traffic border, making securing the crossing point one of the few things the three can agree on. Because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the European Union (EU) has been brought in to serve as a watch-dog over the highly valued point of passage.

The runaway border crossers, who admitted paying bedouins from the area thousands of dollars to help them enter Israel, were detained separately in small groups at separate locations near Rafah. After their arrests, the migrants were taken to Cairo, where they await deportation to their home countries.

This group of illegal immigrants is a small percentage of the estimated 900 people who have crossed the border in recent weeks.

The Sudanese men among the group were attempting to enter Israel seeking political asylum. Sudanese refugees hoping for asylum in Egypt and Israel undergo tremendous hardships including harassment, arrests, homelessness, and extreme difficulty finding work.

In its recent report for World Refugee Day, the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHCR) reported some 686,000 Sudanese under its care, making them one of the largest refugee groups in the world.

Besides the border being a means of migration (or escape) for the refugees, the Rafah crossing point is of high importance to Egyptians, Palestinians and Israelis because it is the Gaza Strip’s only border crossing with a country other than Israel – making it a key economic stronghold. Currently over 4,000 Palestinians are trapped in the Sinai after fleeing Gaza in June. The Rafah crossing was closed last month after Hamas took control of the Gaza strip, and Israel refuses to let the stranded Palestinian refugees across. Israel has offered to let the them enter through their border with Gaza so they can keep security tabs on who enters, but Hamas has threatened to use it as a military target. (MH)

Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif’s privatization program continues with the decision to put Banque du Caire up for sale in a public auction open to foreign bidders.

Nazif predicts the sale will raise more than $1.6 billion.

Though the announcement sparked anger among economic nationalists over the possibility of foreign control, Nazif has refused to order restrictions on who can bid.

Analysts have welcomed the government’s two-year-old banking-sector reform program, which has seen the Central Bank of Egypt force weak banks to merge and clean up their balance sheets in a bid to restore order to a sector that verged on dysfunctional.

As part of the reforms, the state is backing out of the banking business. The government has liquidated most of its stakes and those state-owned companies held in the banking sector, with last year’s $1.6 billion sale of 80% of the Bank of Alexandria to Italy’s San Paolo being the largest such sale to date. Prior to the sale, BoA was the smallest of the “Big Four” public-sector banks, trailing behind Banque du Caire, Banque Misr, and industry leader National Bank of Egypt.

Banque du Caire currently has debts worth LE 12-14 billion, about six times its entire capital worth. The state had initially planned to merge BdC with Banque Misr, but recently decided that cleaning up Banque du Caire’s balance sheet and selling it separately would be the more efficient strategy.

At press time, no announcements had been made regarding potential buyers. Banque du Caire officials told the local press that, “It is still too early to receive expressions of interest from potential bidders.” (MH)

The media outcry over Bodour paled in comparison to the reaction over the case of another victimized little girl, Hend. The 11-year-old from Qalyoubeya made headlines last month when she gave birth to a baby girl, Menatallah, after allegedly being raped nine months earlier by 21-year-old Mohammed Samy.

According to local press reports, the initial results of a DNA test indicate there was no genetic link between Samy and the baby.

Hend claimed that a man, whom she later identified from police photos as Samy, forced her to go with him to a deserted house under the threat of a weapon. There he raped her and beat her so she wouldn’t tell her family. Hend claimed Samy was accompanied by three friends who refused to participate in the rape for fear of conviction.

Samy flatly denied the accusations, claiming that he had never seen Hend before. He declared himself ready for the DNA test to prove the baby does not belong to him.

It was by coincidence that Hend’s mother discovered her daughter’s pregnancy when she took her for a checkup at the local hospital. Oddly enough, Hend’s medical checkup also revealed that the 11-year-old girl was “still a virgin” (hymen intact).

The case has raised alarm concerning child safety, prompting activists to embark on awareness campaigns informing young children of the dangers posed by strangers. Hend’s father meanwhile has been making rounds on popular local and satellite TV channels claiming he had approached Samy’s family to try and “right” the situation but had been told that “Samy was not interested in girls or even women at all.” (HO)

Although she was just one case among countless others to die during or after a female genital mutilation (FGM) procedure, 12-year-old Bodour has succeeded in causing a landslide awareness campaign that could eventually see the practice being wiped out for good.

Bodour was undergoing a circumcision operation, which cost around LE 50, when she was injected with an overdose of anesthetic and died shortly after. The clinic where she was being operated on was subsequently shut down and the doctor who performed the operation now faces investigation on charges that could see him serve two years in prison.

Local media reported allegations made by the victim’s family that the doctor offered them a LE 15,000 bribe in return for their silence. Bodour’s parents declined the bribe and have opted to continue with legal proceedings.

A demographic and health survey conducted by USAID in 2000 shows that 72 percent of the women questioned were in favor of FGM and that 98 percent of young girls undergo the procedure. A UNICEF report conducted in 2005 shows that 96 percent of Egyptian women between the ages of 15 to 29 have undergone circumcision. The figure among females aged between 10 and 18 is less alarming, although still at a whopping 50 percent.

FGM is more common in lower-income areas and is generally practiced across religious lines. Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa attributed the practice to a cultural habit as opposed to a religious custom, declaring in a recent fatwa that female circumcision is haram.

Hours after Bodour’s death, First Lady Suzanne Mubarak requested a national minute of silence to mourn the loss of the young girl and subsequently called for the creation of an awareness campaign as well as a total ban on the procedure.

Soon after the girl’s death, activists headed by Ambassador Moushira Khattab’s National Council for Childhood and Motherhood launched an aggressive campaign against the practice, educating people about the dangers of clitoridectomies and heavily playing up the recent fatwa forbidding them. As part of the campaign, Khattab marched against FGM in Minia, Bodour’s hometown, where human rights organizations and media representatives from all over the world joined relatives to mourn her tragic death. At press time, 5,000 girls had gathered for a follow-up march.

In the wake of the protests, Minister of Health Hatem El-Gabali issued a decree prohibiting FGM operations in all public and private clinics and hospitals. The decree overturns the 1996 decision allowing FGM in some hospitals and clinics.

Neither the decree nor the law criminalized the private practice of using unlicensed dayas or midwives to perform the procedure.

Around 120 million women around the world today are circumcised, according to reports issued by the UK Department of Health. (NS)

SENTENCED, Mohamed Saber, the Egyptian nuclear engineer arrested for spying on Egypt for Israel, to life imprisonment after a five-minute-long sentencing hearing. The spy was arrested in February after allegedly using his position as an employee in Egypt’s atomic agency to hand over confidential documents to Israel in return for $17,000. His three accomplices received the same sentence, in absentia. Saber insists he is innocent, arguing that the documents he confessed to taking had already been published and didn’t contain any classified information. His lawyers have announced they will contest the ruling. (NS)

CHICKEN SONG RE-MIXED. As the threat of bird flu continues to fly, the Ministry of Health is doing all it can to make sure the epidemic is under control. Their most recent panacea? A song by singer Shaaban Abdelrehim about the dangers of our feathered friends. “Egyptians relate to him and his singing,” explained Minister of Health Hatem El-Gabali. The soon-to-be-recorded song comes at a vital time; the virus was recently discovered in poultry imports from France and Germany, raising fears that the flu is far from flown. The Ministry of Health has decided to stop importing poultry from these countries, as three swans in France and 38 birds in Germany tested positive for the avian virus in early July. Egypt has had more recorded cases of Bird Flu than any other country outside of Asia and has the third most in the world, behind Indonesia and Vietnam. The attempts to contain the disease have become a priority as its fifteenth victim is laid to rest. (HH)

AT LARGE, a crocodile reportedly lurking in the waters along the Maadi Corniche. At press time, the sharp-toothed critter, which was speculated to have escaped from its owner, had eluded water police and environmental officials for over four weeks. The reptile was reportedly last seen on the stretch of corniche spanning Manial Shiha, where eyewitnesses reported it had emerged out of the water and swallowed a sleeping dog. Pedestrians have been avoiding the promenade, especially after newspapers ran warnings cautioning parents of the risks a crocodile on the loose could pose to small children. (NM)

MURDER SHE WROTE. A 400-kilogram Moroccan female camel was murdered at the Giza Zoo last month. Investigations revealed that the culprit at least had the decency to slaughter the animal according to Islamic Shariah — by first slicing the victim’s neck. While the carcass was left behind, the ribs, shoulders and liver were missing — six kilograms worth of meat. Dr. Saeed Yousri, head groundskeeper at the zoo announced it was, “the first time anything like this has happened.” The zoo is now taking measures to increase security around the animals. (MH)

50percent, the expected slash in ADSL prices starting next month. Minister of Communications and Information Technology Tarek Kamel announced the price cut was part of a concerted effort to crack down on illegal internet access.

3billion Egyptian pounds, the amount we spend annually on fuul, tameya and other snacks. The figure was revealed at a lecture entitled “Oils, Munchies and Citizen Health” organized by the Alexandria Friends of the Environment Society last month. The study was carried out by economic researcher Alaa Hasaballah, who also estimated we spend LE 22 million on cigarettes a day, LE 1.3 billion a year on tea and LE 630 million on chocolate annually.

40.7million dollars, the jump in profits raked in by the Suez Canal in June. The Canal brought in $358.8 million, up from $318.1 million the same month last year.

722million Egyptian pounds, to be spent on the new air traffic control facility for Borg El-Arab Cairo International Airport, according to local press reports. Orascom Construction Industries beat out seven other companies in bidding for the project.

2, the number of families in the Upper Egyptian village of Mahrousa in Qena, who found a new way to scar each other without the use of blades. Members of one feuding family shaved the moustache, beard, hair and eyebrows of a rival family member and then set him free. Shortly afterwards, the family of the shaved man took revenge on a member of the first family. They then celebrated by firing gunshots in the air. A fight ensued and police had to step in, arresting the family members and confiscating weapons.

The existence of a water problem in some areas does not mean the whole of Egypt will die of thirst.

It’s the biggest sign of neglected responsibility when it comes to general education in Egypt. And it’s the frankest proof of our failed education policies.

Palestine doesn’t belong to Abu Mazen, nor does it belong to Haniya.

Pervez Musharraf will not stop until he [wipes out] Islam from Pakistan.

Our Thanaweya Amma system could have been among the winners of the seven wonders of the world.

Egypt has the highest rate of Hepatitis-C worldwide, and 14% of its population is infected with the disease.