Jewish occupied Egyptian
Authority muzzles a political party!
CNN, May 20, 2000 - Web posted at: 10:09 AM EDT (1409 GMT)
CAIRO, Egypt (Reuters)
Egyptian authorities Saturday effectively
froze the activities of the Islamist-oriented opposition Labor
Party (Hizb-alâmal ) and closed its gadfly
newspaper al-Shaab.
A gouvernemental committee that regulates
political parties announced that it did not recognise any of the
three men currently contesting the leadership of the small Labor
Party.
It said al-Shaab and other party
newspapers would stay closed until the dispute was settled and
referred accusations against the party and its leaders to the
state-appointed socialist prosecutor for investigation.
Al-Shaab, long a thorn in the government's
side, led a campaign this month against the re-printing by the
Culture Ministry of "A Banquet for Seaweed" by Syrian novelist Haider
Haider, which defamed Islam.
Protests against the 1983 novel turned
violent when religious students at al-Azhar university
clashed with police on May 8. About 55 students were hurt and 60
were arrested.
After calls in state-owned newspapers for
the Labor Party and al-Shaab to be closed for
their alleged role in inciting the riots, two "dissident" Labor
Party factions held separate meetings this week to oust party
leader Ibrahim Shukri.
"This is a serious setback for democracy and
pluralism in this country," Labor Party secretary-general
Adel Hussein told Reuters by telephone after Saturday's
decision.
"I didn't imagine the authorities would be
that stupid and I think all political parties and democratic forces
will resist the decision, which is completely illegal."
He said the government was reacting to the
party's attacks on corruption, but had "picked the wrong moment to
express its despair and frustration" by "aligning itself against the
nation" over the campaign against Culture Minister Farouk Hosni.
Hussein said Shukri's two supposed
"leadership rivals", Hamdi Ahmed and Ahmed Idris, had no connection
with the Labor Party.
Al-Azhar, the highest authority in Sunni
Islam, this week condemned "A Banquet for Seaweed," a recognized
literary work previously published in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and
Egypt.
Some commentators have linked the student
riots and subsequent disarray in the Labor Party, informally
allied to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, to November's
parliamentary elections, from which Islamists are likely to be
excluded.
On Thursday police arrested 40 suspected
brotherhood members and security sources said an Interior
Ministry report on the student riots blamed them on
"agitators," a description officials often use for brotherhood
members.
al-Shaab
has repeatedly run into trouble
with the authorities for its attacks on government ministers, and
some of its editors and staff have been fined or jailed for
libel.
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