Ini­tial unof­fi­cial results are in and it looks like the sup­port­ers of the Islamists’ draft con­sti­tu­tion won the first round of the ref­er­en­dum, although it was much clos­er than many expect­ed (56% vot­ed “Yes”). And if reports of vote-rig­ging from the oppo­si­tion are accu­rate, it was actu­al­ly a lot clos­er:

Egypt oppo­si­tion alleges ref­er­en­dum rig­ging as Islamists claim vic­to­ry

Mus­lim Broth­er­hood’s polit­i­cal wing says 56% vot­ed for draft con­sti­tu­tion but oppo­si­tion warns of vio­la­tions in first round poll
Ian Black in Cairo
guardian.co.uk, Sun­day 16 Decem­ber 2012 16.08 EST

Egyp­t’s Mus­lim Broth­er­hood has claimed vic­to­ry in the first round of the coun­try’s bit­ter­ly divi­sive con­sti­tu­tion­al ref­er­en­dum, with oppo­si­tion forces com­plain­ing of large-scale rig­ging and vio­la­tions.

Unof­fi­cial results from Sat­ur­day’s first round showed 56% approval to 43% rejec­tion on a low turnout of 33%, with a clear no win in Cairo, one of the 10 gov­er­norates where polling took place. The ref­er­en­dum is to be held in the coun­try’s remain­ing 17 gov­er­norates next Sat­ur­day — where prospects for a no win are poor­er.

The fig­ures were report­ed by the Free­dom and Jus­tice par­ty (FJP), the polit­i­cal wing of the Broth­er­hood, which has been accu­rate in pre­vi­ous elec­tions.

If, as expect­ed, the trend is con­firmed, the ref­er­en­dum will bol­ster the Broth­er­hood’s Mohamed Mor­si, who was elect­ed pres­i­dent on a 51% man­date last June. But no end is in sight to the coun­try’s grave polit­i­cal cri­sis.

Sit-in protests against the con­sti­tu­tion were con­tin­u­ing on Sun­day night in Cairo’s cen­tral Tahrir Square and at the pres­i­den­tial palace in Heliopo­lis, where nine peo­ple were killed last week.

Gehad El-Had­dad, a senior Broth­er­hood and FJP advis­er, said: “We thank Allah and the peo­ple of Egypt for such hon­ourable prac­tice of demo­c­ra­t­ic par­tic­i­pa­tion and although approval [is] low­er than expect­ed, [we are] glad it’s yes.”

The oppo­si­tion Nation­al Sal­va­tion Front (NSF) claimed 66% were against the con­tro­ver­sial draft basic law. It said it had detect­ed “unprece­dent­ed rig­ging,” includ­ing 750 vio­la­tions. These includ­ed unstamped bal­lot papers, the names of deceased peo­ple on lists and the absence of observers at polling sta­tions. The Egypt­ian Coali­tion for Human Rights report­ed the use of reli­gious slo­gans and finan­cial induce­ments for those vot­ing yes.

Mohamed ElBa­radei, the co-ordi­na­tor of the NSF, warned Mor­si in Twit­ter mes­sages: “In light of Egyp­t’s evi­dent, and dan­ger­ous, divi­sion, will you real­ize the neces­si­ty of being a pres­i­dent for all Egyp­tians? Coun­try split, fla­grant irreg­u­lar­i­ties, low turnout, dis­il­lu­sion with Islamists on the rise. Illit­er­a­cy remains a hur­dle.”

Many Egyp­tians, alarmed by a grow­ing bud­get deficit and the weak­ness of the pound against the US dol­lar, agree that sta­bil­i­ty will remain elu­sive through next mon­th’s sec­ond anniver­sary of the out­break of the rev­o­lu­tion which over­threw Hos­ni Mubarak, who had ruled Egypt for near­ly 30 years.

“Even with all this rig­ging and intim­i­da­tion the Broth­er­hood could only get 56%,” Hisham Kassem, a polit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor, told the Guardian. “So next week will be much worse. Egypt is head­ing for dis­as­ter.”

The ref­er­en­dum was large­ly peace­ful, but vio­lence erupt­ed on Sat­ur­day night when the Cairo head­quar­ters of the lib­er­al Wafd Par­ty, part of the NSF, came under attack. The Wafd accused the Salafist preach­er Hazem Abu Ismail of being involved but he denied respon­si­bil­i­ty.

...

Anoth­er anom­aly in first is the fact that ini­tial reports were of unex­pect­ed­ly high vot­er turnout, and yet a day lat­er we find that there was an unusu­al­ly low 33% par­tic­i­pa­tion rate. That dis­crep­an­cy might be con­sis­tent with the vote-rig­ging alle­ga­tions:

Turnout is high as Egyp­tians vote on draft con­sti­tu­tion
Post­ed: 12/16/2012 12:01:00 AM MST
By Stephanie McCrum­men and Griff Witte
The Wash­ing­ton Post

CAIRO — Egyp­tians turned out in large num­bers Sat­ur­day to begin vot­ing on a con­tentious draft con­sti­tu­tion that has become a ref­er­en­dum on whether Pres­i­dent Mohammed Mor­si and his Islamist back­ers are trust­wor­thy guardians of the diverse rev­o­lu­tion that oust­ed strong­man Hos­ni Mubarak near­ly two years ago.

Despite weeks of protests that have at times turned into bloody, rock-throw­ing brawls, vot­ing appeared to be large­ly peace­ful on the first of two Sat­ur­days the bal­lot­ing is being held.

Mor­si had empow­ered the mil­i­tary to pro­tect polling sites and arrest civil­ians if nec­es­sary. But across Cairo, sol­diers seemed more relaxed than tense as they min­gled with police, smoked cig­a­rettes or helped elder­ly vot­ers up stairs. Offi­cial results will not be announced until after vot­ing ends Dec. 22.

...

The draft char­ter was passed by an Islamist-dom­i­nat­ed assem­bly after many lib­er­al, Chris­t­ian and more mod­er­ate mem­bers walked out, say­ing their con­cerns about wom­en’s rights, free speech and oth­er pro­tec­tions were being ignored. As the pre­vi­ous con­sti­tu­tion did, the draft char­ter estab­lish­es Islam as the basis of leg­is­la­tion. But it also enshrines al-Azhar, the respect­ed cen­ter of Sun­ni Mus­lim schol­ar­ship, as a non­bind­ing inter­preter of Islam­ic law, pos­si­bly shift­ing pow­er away from the courts.

Ana­lysts say the con­sti­tu­tion leaves some room for inter­pre­ta­tion on rights. For instance, it enshrines a right to free speech but also makes it ille­gal to insult “an indi­vid­ual per­son.” The char­ter estab­lish­es equal­i­ty between men and women but con­tains a pro­vi­sion requir­ing the state to bal­ance wom­en’s rights with their “oblig­a­tions to fam­i­ly.” Mus­lims, Chris­tians and Jews are explic­it­ly pro­tect­ed but mem­bers of minor­i­ty reli­gions are not.

But many wait­ing in polling lines Sat­ur­day were less wor­ried about those specifics than about the way Mor­si and his Islamist sup­port­ers in the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood’s Free­dom and Jus­tice Par­ty pushed the char­ter to a vote. On Nov. 22, Mor­si issued a con­sti­tu­tion­al dec­la­ra­tion — since rescind­ed — plac­ing his actions beyond judi­cial review. Oppo­nents saw it as a pow­er grab, and many who said they vot­ed no on the draft char­ter cit­ed a lack of trust in a gov­ern­ment that would behave in such a man­ner.

“I feel if we say yes to this, it will be yes, yes, yes, for­ev­er,” said a young woman wait­ing to vote in the mid­dle-class neigh­bor­hood of Manial. She did not want to give her name because, she said, “a lot of peo­ple are afraid of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood.”

The Green­shirts are back in Egypt.

http://www.germanywatch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/the-middle-east-nazi-party-comes-to.html

Islamist fas­cism and democ­ra­cy: it’s not a good mix:

Fear keeps Egyp­t’s Chris­tians away from polls
9:02p.m. EST Decem­ber 19, 2012

ASSIUT, Egypt (AP) — A cam­paign of intim­i­da­tion by Islamists left most Chris­tians in this south­ern Egypt­ian province too afraid to par­tic­i­pate in last week’s ref­er­en­dum on an Islamist-draft­ed con­sti­tu­tion they deeply oppose, res­i­dents say. The dis­en­fran­chise­ment is hik­ing Chris­tians’ wor­ries over their future under empow­ered Mus­lim con­ser­v­a­tives.

Around a week before the vote, some 50,000 Islamists marched through the provin­cial cap­i­tal, Assi­ut, chant­i­ng that Egypt will be “Islam­ic, Islam­ic, despite the Chris­tians.” At their head rode sev­er­al beard­ed men on horse­back with swords in scab­bards on their hips, evok­ing images of ear­ly Mus­lims con­quer­ing Chris­t­ian Egypt in the 7th Cen­tu­ry.

They made sure to go through main­ly Chris­t­ian dis­tricts of the city, where res­i­dents, fear­ing attacks, shut­tered down their stores and stayed in their homes, wit­ness­es said.

The day of the vot­ing itself on Sat­ur­day, Chris­t­ian vot­ing was min­i­mal — as low as sev­en per­cent in some areas, accord­ing to church offi­cials. Some of those who did try to head to polling sta­tions in some vil­lages were pelt­ed by stones, forc­ing them to turn back with­out cast­ing bal­lots, Chris­t­ian activists and res­i­dents told the Asso­ci­at­ed Press this week.

The activists now see what hap­pened in Assi­ut as a barom­e­ter for what Chris­tians’ sta­tus will be under a con­sti­tu­tion that enshrines a greater role for Shari­ah, or Islam­ic law, in gov­ern­ment and dai­ly life. Even under the sec­u­lar regime of auto­crat Hos­ni Mubarak, Egyp­t’s Chris­tians com­plained of dis­crim­i­na­tion and gov­ern­ment fail­ure to pro­tect them and their rights. They fear it will be worse with the Islamists who have dom­i­nat­ed Egyp­t’s polit­i­cal land­scape since Mubarak’s ouster in Feb­ru­ary 2011.

...

Egyp­t’s main Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church and small­er ones have tak­en an unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly assertive approach in the con­sti­tu­tion­al strug­gle. They with­drew their six mem­bers from the Con­stituent Assem­bly to protest Islamist dom­i­na­tion of the process and lat­er refused to send rep­re­sen­ta­tives to a “nation­al dia­logue” called for by Mor­si.

The new Cop­tic pope, Tawadros II, enthroned last month, pub­licly called some of the char­ter’s arti­cles “dis­as­trous.”

In response, the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood — which usu­al­ly keeps a mod­er­ate tone toward Chris­tians — has turned toward more inflam­ma­to­ry rhetoric.

Senior Broth­er­hood fig­ure Mohammed el-Belt­a­gi in a news­pa­per inter­view this week depict­ed mass anti-Mor­si ral­lies out­side the pres­i­den­tial palace in Cairo this month as main­ly made up of Chris­tians, hint­ing at a Chris­t­ian con­spir­a­cy against the pres­i­dent.

In a recent speech, Safwat Hegazi, a famous Islamist preach­er linked to the Broth­er­hood, warned Chris­tians against join­ing forces with for­mer Mubarak regime fig­ures to top­ple Mor­si.

“I tell the church, yes, you are our broth­ers in Egypt, but there are red lines. Our red line is Mor­si’s legit­i­ma­cy. Who­ev­er dares splash it with water, we will splash him with blood,” he said, using an Ara­bic say­ing.

...

Hamas’s attempts at win­ning hearts and minds:

Gaza Police Dole Out Head-Shav­ings & Beat­ings for ‘Inde­cent’ Hair
KARIN LAUB and MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH April 7, 2013, 4:46 PM

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Police in Hamas-ruled Gaza have start­ed grab­bing young men with long or gel-styled spiky hair off the streets, bundling them into jeeps, mock­ing them and shav­ing their heads, two of those tar­get­ed and a rights group said Sun­day.

It’s the lat­est sign that the Islam­ic mil­i­tants are impos­ing their strict prac­tices on the pop­u­la­tion.

Hamas has been slow­ly forc­ing its fun­da­men­tal­ist inter­pre­ta­tion of the reli­gion on already con­ser­v­a­tive Gaza since it over­ran the ter­ri­to­ry in 2007, but the new crack­down on long hair and tight or low-waist pants — in sev­er­al cas­es accom­pa­nied by beat­ings — appears to be one of the most aggres­sive phas­es of the cam­paign so far.

It began last week, and two of those tar­get­ed told The Asso­ci­at­ed Press said they were round­ed up in sep­a­rate sweeps in Gaza City that includ­ed more than two dozen young men.

House painter Ayman al-Sayed, 19, had shoul­der-length hair before police grabbed him and shaved his head Thurs­day.

“The only thing I want to do is leave this coun­try,” said al-Sayed, who despite his ordeal defi­ant­ly wore styl­ish but out­lawed nar­row-leg tan khakis Sun­day. “I am scared. They just take you from the street with­out rea­son. I don’t know what they are going to do next.”

Hamas offi­cials played down the cam­paign — a stance adopt­ed in the past that allows the group to dis­tance itself from a con­tro­ver­sial crack­down while at the same time instill­ing fear in those it tar­get­ed.

...

The hair crack­down came just days after the Hamas-run par­lia­ment in Gaza passed an edu­ca­tion bill man­dat­ing sep­a­rate class­rooms for boys and girls from the age of nine.

Gen­der sep­a­ra­tion is already wide­ly prac­ticed in Gaza schools, as it is in the West Bank, where Hamas rival Mah­moud Abbas, the West­ern-backed Pales­tin­ian pres­i­dent, admin­is­ters some areas.

Enshrin­ing such sep­a­ra­tion in law marked anoth­er step for­ward in Hamas’ cam­paign of impos­ing Islam­ic prac­tice.

Since seiz­ing Gaza from Abbas six years ago, Hamas has moved grad­u­al­ly in spread­ing its ultra-con­ser­v­a­tive ver­sion of Islam. It has issued rules restrict­ing women or requir­ing them to cov­er up in the tra­di­tion­al Islam­ic dress of long robes and head­scarves, but relent­ed if met by protests.

...

In anoth­er inci­dent, a Gaza teen, who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty for fear of ret­ri­bu­tion, said he saw police beat three young men in down­town Gaza City for wear­ing tight, low-rise pants. The wit­ness said the police­men beat the three with clubs on the backs of their knees and told passers-by watch­ing the scene to move along.

Ahmed Yousef, a Hamas fig­ure iden­ti­fied with the more prag­mat­ic wing of the move­ment, said the police behav­ior is “absolute­ly wrong” and must stop. Hamas is often divid­ed over such cam­paigns, but the prag­ma­tists have been unable to stop the more zeal­ous mem­bers.

Hamas is also com­pet­ing with the even more fun­da­men­tal­ist Salafis, a move­ment that has gained in strength and pop­u­lar­i­ty in Gaza in recent years. Salafis have crit­i­cized Hamas for not imple­ment­ing Islam­ic law in Gaza quick­ly enough.

...

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100213666/the-muslim-brotherhood-wants-spain-back-can-the-christians-have-egypt-in-exchange/

The Mus­lim Broth­er­hood wants Spain back. Can the Chris­tians have Egypt in exchange?

By Tim Stan­ley Reli­gion Last updat­ed: April 24th, 2013

The Mus­lim Broth­er­hood wants this back

The Islam­ic Soci­ety of North Amer­i­ca, an off­shoot of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, has pub­lished an arti­cle that calls Andalu­sia – the hottest bit of Spain – a “par­adise” that will return when “the only vic­tor is Allah.” It reads like part trav­el­ogue and part reli­gious tract, claim­ing that Andalu­sia was a region of tol­er­ance “for 800 years” when occu­pied by Mus­lims, was then ruined by “the insan­i­ty fol­low­ing the Span­ish recon­quista” and, only today, has regained some of its for­mer lus­tre thanks to grow­ing inter­est in Islam in the region. Quote: “In 2006, Span­ish prime min­is­ter José Luis Rodríguez Zap­a­tero said that Spain was indebt­ed to Islam for its great his­tor­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions.” Mr Zap­a­tero also legalised gay mar­riage, so it’s fair to pre­sume that he’s not too keen for the Caliphate to come back.

The arti­cle actu­al­ly makes some very good points. Islam­ic Andalu­sia was a cul­tur­al cen­tre for west­ern Europe, did tol­er­ate the pres­ence of Jews and Chris­tians and did see a great many natives con­vert to Islam. With­in Spain, that inter­pre­ta­tion of his­to­ry has become insti­tu­tion­alised as the coun­try has tried to make peace with its Mus­lim minor­i­ty and preach its own brand of mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism. But it’s only half the sto­ry. Accord­ing to the New York Times:

Andalu­sian gov­er­nance was … based on a reli­gious trib­al mod­el. Chris­tians and Jews, who shared Islam’s Abra­ham­ic past, had the sta­tus of dhim­mis – alien minori­ties. They rose high but remained sec­ond-class cit­i­zens; one 11th-cen­tu­ry legal text called them mem­bers of “the dev­il’s par­ty.” They were sub­ject to spe­cial tax­es and, often, dress codes. Vio­lence also erupt­ed, includ­ing a mas­sacre of thou­sands of Jews in Grena­da in 1066 and the forced exile of many Chris­tians in 1126.

Of course, even this was arguably prefer­able to what fol­lowed the Span­ish recon­quista – an era char­ac­terised by vio­lent mass pogroms against the Jew­ish pop­u­la­tion.

Nev­er­the­less, there’s some­thing both creepy and pre­sump­tu­ous about a Mus­lim writer vis­it­ing a Chris­t­ian coun­try and yearn­ing for its “return” to the fold. Creepy because, for many Islamists (the author of this trav­el­ogue not includ­ed), that return will be by com­pul­sion rather than evan­gel­i­cal out­reach and church pic­nics: Has­san al-Ban­na, the founder of Egyp­t’s Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, once wrote that “Andalu­sia, Sici­ly, the Balka­ns, south Italy, and the Roman sea islands were all Islam­ic lands that have to be restored to the home­land of Islam… it is our right to restore the Islam­ic Empire its glo­ry.” Such sen­ti­ments are also pre­sump­tu­ous because they imply that cer­tain parts of the globe spir­i­tu­al­ly “belong” to peo­ple who “owned” them for a bit in the past. And if we’re real­ly going to divide up the world by that log­ic, I’d like to make a counter offer to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood.

Can we Chris­tians have North Africa back? After all, it was once a cen­tre of Chris­t­ian civil­i­sa­tion – some of the ear­li­est Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ties were found there. You want bril­liant the­olo­gians – Africa gave us St Augus­tine. You want devo­tion – Africa gave us the Desert Fathers. You want beau­ty – Africa gave us stun­ning iconog­ra­phy. You want learn­ing – Africa gave us the libraries and schools at Alexan­dria. So Andalu­sia for Egypt seems a fair swap. After all, those pagan pyra­mids can sure­ly be of no use to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood.

@Vanfield–

This might seem utter­ly delu­sion­al to some, and it may turn out to be illu­so­ry.

How­ev­er, with Ger­many melt­ing down south­ern Europe for hard cur­ren­cy, and with cen­tripetal forces push­ing Spain, among oth­er poor nations, to frag­ment, I would­n’t dis­miss the pos­si­bil­i­ty that MONEY may prove to be the dom­i­nant con­sid­er­a­tion.

We might see Qatar or some oth­er sim­i­lar enti­ty pour mon­ey into Andalu­sia and/or oth­er areas, expand­ing the Islam­o­fas­cist Euro­pean foothold already estab­lished in Bosnia and Koso­vo.

Who knows, maybe Dages­tan and Chech­nya if and when the transna­tion­als’ and Under­ground Reich’s Mus­lim Broth­er­hood proxy war­riors suc­cess­ful­ly split up Rus­sia.

Maybe Xin­jiang in Chi­na, with Uighur/MB ele­ments in ascen­sion.

Recall that, in the exhaus­tive For The Record series about the Arab Spring, we not­ed that pow­er­ful transna­tion­al cor­po­rate inter­ests, the GOP and its relat­ed ele­ment of the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty and, under­ly­ing and con­trol­ling it all—the Under­ground Reich–were employ­ing the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood as proxy war­riors.

The goals: Get Israel and the Jews; tar Oba­ma with the “ter­ror­ist brush;” attack, harass and/or destroy the Unit­ed States as need­ed; above all, dri­ving a deep wedge into the heart of the Earth Island, split­ting-off the fos­sil fuel-rich areas of Rus­sia and Chi­na.

The Boston Marathon bomb­ing is deriv­a­tive of this rela­tion­ship.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, nei­ther the insuf­fer­able main­stream media, the so-called pro­gres­sive sec­tor nor the blo­gos­phere seem to be able to wrap their minds around the fun­da­men­tal nature of the Broth­er­hood, its fas­cist nature and history,nor its cor­po­rate rela­tion­ships.

It is a rela­tion­ship not unlike that between Hitler, Mus­soli­ni et al and the pow­er­ful cor­po­rate and finan­cial inter­ests that backed fas­cism.

It is WAY beyond the “agent/provacateur designed to jus­ti­fy a police state” sce­nario being advanced.

WAY, WAY beyond.

Best,

Dave Emory

(Glenn Beck and com­pa­ny are doing just that; the so-called pro­gres­sive sec­tor and the blo­gos­phere can’t seem to fig­ure out the janus-faced nature

Click the link to see a sub­ti­tled video of this
http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5682.htm

Founders of the Egypt­ian Nazi Par­ty: All We Want is World Suprema­cy for the Egypt­ian Race

Fol­low­ing are excerpts from a TV talk show fea­tur­ing mem­bers of the Egypt­ian Nazi Par­ty, which aired on Dream1 TV on Sep­tem­ber 22, 2011.

“Our Polit­i­cal Goal is to Make the Arab Race, or Ara­bic Speak­ers, the Best Race”

TV host Wael El-Ebrashi: “A group of young Egyp­tians have found­ed a Nazi polit­i­cal par­ty, even though Nazism is a tyran­ni­cal Fas­cist polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy, which brought ruin and destruc­tion upon the entire world.” [...]

Egypt­ian Nazi Par­ty mem­ber Dr. Mam­douh Man­sour: “This is a new par­ty with a new ide­ol­o­gy. It oper­ates out in the open. It is not a secret or Freema­son soci­ety. The par­ty’s ide­ol­o­gy offers solu­tions to the prob­lems afflict­ing Egypt.” [...]

Egypt­ian Nazi Par­ty mem­ber Sayyed Gamal: “We have adopt­ed the pos­i­tive aspects of the Nazi Par­ty, not the neg­a­tive. We will not car­ry out holo­causts against the Jews, and we will not fight them. This has to do with the poli­cies of the state, in which we do not inter­fere.

“Nobody finances us – nei­ther at home nor abroad.”

Head of the Egypt­ian Nazi Par­ty Muhi Al-Din Gamal: “My vision for the future is that with­in 10 years, we will have rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the par­lia­ment, and the pres­i­dent will be one of ours as well. Our polit­i­cal goal is to make the Arab race, or Ara­bic speak­ers, the best race. They will be at the top lev­el, and we will help to spread the Ara­bic lan­guage through­out the world.”

Egypt­ian Nazi Par­ty mem­ber Rami Gan: “Sev­er­al busi­ness­men want to finance us, and we have to choose between them. We do not rec­og­nize the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.

“We want to build an Egypt­ian nuclear reac­tor – a reac­tor that will be built by Egyp­tians and will have Egypt­ian com­po­nents. All Egyp­tians will unite around this nation­al project.”

“The One and Only Thing We Have Adopt­ed from Nazism is Racial Suprema­cy”

TV host Wael El-Ebrashi: “Heil Hitler! We have in the stu­dio with us ‘Amr Fouad, a mem­ber of the Nazi Par­ty. Wel­come, ‘Amr.

“Muham­mad Abd Al-Rah­mad, a mem­ber of the Nazi Par­ty. Hel­lo, Muham­mad.

“And Ahmad Sayyed, a mem­ber of the Nazi Par­ty. Wel­come, Ahmad. [...]

“Why should we, in Egypt, import these tyran­ni­cal, Fas­cist polit­i­cal move­ments, and evoke them from his­to­ry, after they have been vom­it­ed by the entire world?”

Egypt­ian Nazi Par­ty mem­ber ‘Amr Fouad: “First of all, the Egypt­ian cit­i­zen has been great­ly humil­i­at­ed. The thing we want most is to draw the line.”

TV host Wael El-Ebrashi: “What do you mean?”

‘Amr Fouad: “The suprema­cy of the Egypt­ian race.”

TV host Wael El-Ebrashi: “The suprema­cy of the Egypt­ian race?”

‘Amr Fouad: “That’s our num­ber one goal.”

TV host Wael El-Ebrashi: “Like Hitler said that the Aryan race was supe­ri­or to the rest of mankind? That is extreme racism. We excel through our suc­cess and our capa­bil­i­ties. No race is excep­tion­al. Do you want to make the Egypt­ian race excep­tion­al? Should we call for that?”

‘Amr Fouad: “Not at present. We don’t want to be supe­ri­or to the world...”

TV host Wael El-Ebrashi: “Are you say­ing that the Egypt­ian race should rule?”

‘Amr Fouad: “At a cer­tain point. We are talk­ing about the Egypt­ian race and the Arab race. The Egypt­ian race should rule first, and then the Arab race.” [...]

Egypt­ian Nazi Par­ty mem­ber Muham­mad Abd Al-Rah­man: “The idea emerged through a Face­book group, of course. We got togeth­er and real­ized that each of us had believed in this idea before...”

TV host Wael El-Ebrashi: “In what idea?”

Muham­mad Abd Al-Rah­man: “In the suprema­cy of the Egypt­ian race. We won’t be a Nazi par­ty like the Ger­man one. It will not be like Hitler’s par­ty that every­body remem­bers. We are gov­erned by the pre­cepts of Islam­ic law. For exam­ple, Hitler was hos­tile towards all the Jews. We as Egyp­tians – and as Mus­lims in gen­er­al – believe that Judaism is a monothe­is­tic reli­gion, which we must respect. I am not hos­tile towards all the Jews. I am hos­tile towards the Zion­ist enti­ty. The Zion­ist enti­ty pos­es a dan­ger to the Arabs, so I am hos­tile towards it. [...]

“By now, we have more than 300 mem­bers. [...]

“I adopt­ed the Nazi ide­ol­o­gy of Hitler’s Nation­al Social­ist Ger­man Work­ers’ Par­ty, because it is the only ide­ol­o­gy that is suit­able for us. Accord­ing to the Nazi ide­ol­o­gy, the insti­tu­tions in any coun­try will gain promi­nence by means of the mil­i­tary insti­tu­tion. My first pri­or­i­ty is the strength of the mil­i­tary insti­tu­tion, and when we become a strong coun­try among the nations, no unnec­es­sary for­eign treaty will be imposed upon us. You will be able to reex­am­ine any for­eign treaty thanks to your mil­i­tary strength.” [...]

Egypt­ian Nazi Par­ty mem­ber Ahmad Sayyed: “Sir, we do not want a full-fledged Nazi par­ty. All we want is the state­ment that our coun­try’s race will rule. We pre­ced­ed the rest of the world. We have a 7,000-year-old cul­ture. We have taught the world things that daz­zle it to this day. [...]

“I’d like the Arab world to unite, so that we become a unit­ed force, like the EU.”

TV host Wael El-Ebrashi: “But do Hitler’s Nazi ideas con­sti­tute part of your par­ty’s plat­form?”

Egypt­ian Nazi Par­ty mem­ber ‘Amr Fouad: “Some of his ideas, like respect for the Egypt­ian cit­i­zen. For exam­ple, a Ger­man offi­cer was killed dur­ing the Ger­man occu­pa­tion of France. In order to restore the hon­or of this offi­cer, 95 of the French were killed. That way, wher­ev­er a Ger­man tourist goes in Europe, he is treat­ed with respect. We will not gain respect with blood, but through indus­try, agri­cul­ture, tourism, and devel­op­ment.”

TV host Wael El-Ebrashi: “You want us to excel.”

‘Amr Fouad: “Yes, to excel. All we want to take from Nazism is the respect. That’s it. We want to have suprema­cy over our world.”

TV host Wael El-Ebrashi: “I noticed in the report that one of you had Hitler’s Mein Kampf.”

Egypt­ian Nazi Par­ty mem­ber Ahmad Sayyed: “We have noth­ing to do with Hitler. The one and only thing we have adopt­ed from Nazism is racial suprema­cy. That’s it.” [...]

http://freebeacon.com/georgetown-university-to-host-member-of-egypts-nazi-party/

George­town Uni­ver­si­ty to Host Mem­ber of Egypt’s Nazi Par­ty
Will par­tic­i­pate in event with Mus­lim Broth­er­hood lead­ers
BY: Adam Kre­do
Novem­ber 19, 2013 7:25 pm

George­town Uni­ver­si­ty is sched­uled to host an event on Egypt that fea­tures a mem­ber of Egypt’s Nazi Par­ty.

George­town University’s Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Cen­ter for Chris­t­ian Mus­lim Under­stand­ing is sched­uled to host a Dec. 5 event on “Egypt and the Strug­gle for Democ­ra­cy.”

The event fea­tures a slew of speak­ers sym­pa­thet­ic to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, as well as Cop­tic Chris­t­ian Ramy Jan, who cut his teeth on the Egypt­ian polit­i­cal scene as a mem­ber of the country’s Nazi Par­ty, accord­ing to mul­ti­ple sources.

The event is sched­uled to take place all day at Georgetown’s ICC audi­to­ri­um and fea­ture a keynote address by Rep. Kei­th Elli­son (D., Minn.).

In addi­tion to Jan, a who’s who of Mus­lim Broth­er­hood-affil­i­at­ed speak­ers are sched­uled to be flown in from Egypt to attend and par­tic­i­pate in the forum, which includes mul­ti­ple pan­el dis­cus­sions about Egypt’s recent coup and the cur­rent state of the country’s democ­ra­cy.

Egypt experts crit­i­cized both George­town and event orga­niz­ers for hold­ing an event that will pri­mar­i­ly fea­ture pro-Mus­lim Broth­er­hood pro­pa­gan­da under the guise of free and open dis­cus­sion.

They also expressed sur­prise at the inclu­sion of Nazi Par­ty mem­ber Jan, who was fea­tured in a 2011 doc­u­men­tary on the Nazi Party’s “pur­suit of world suprema­cy for the Egypt­ian race.”

“Sev­er­al busi­ness­men want to finance us, and we have to choose between them,” Jan told inter­view­ers in Ara­bic, accord­ing to a trans­la­tion of his remarks by the Mid­dle East Media Research Insti­tute (MEMRI).

“We do not rec­og­nize the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel,” Jan said before explain­ing his desire for Egypt to build a nuclear reac­tor.

“We want to build an Egypt­ian nuclear reactor—a reac­tor that will be built by Egyp­tians and will have Egypt­ian com­po­nents,” he said. “All Egyp­tians will unite around this nation­al project.”

Egypt’s Nazi Par­ty is very small and com­prised of only a few key mem­bers, includ­ing Jan.

Jan is fea­tured in a pro­mo­tion­al fly­er for the event as a mem­ber of the lit­tle-known group, “Chris­tians Against the Coup.”

Egypt experts dis­missed the event as an attempt by Mus­lim Broth­er­hood sup­port­ers to push their agen­da with the back­ing of a promi­nent Amer­i­can uni­ver­si­ty.

“I think George­town has some seri­ous ques­tions to answer,” such as why are they pro­vid­ing a “plat­form for the Egypt­ian Nazi Par­ty,” said the Hud­son Institute’s Samuel Tadros, author of Moth­er­land Lost: The Egypt­ian and Cop­tic Quest for Moder­ni­ty.

“Out of 17 speak­ers, most of these peo­ple are mem­bers of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood” except for the “one token Christian—and the one Cop­tic out of mil­lion of Copts who also hap­pens to be a sup­port­er of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood,” Tadros said.

“It’s remark­able to find such a guy,” he said. “Just by invit­ing him that tells us some­thing about the nature of the con­fer­ence and those orga­niz­ing it.”

Most Cop­tic Chris­tians sup­port­ed the removal of Mus­lim Broth­er­hood-backed Pres­i­dent Mohamed Mor­si.

They also have been the vic­tims of vio­lence and van­dal­ism in the months since Mor­si was deposed by the Egypt­ian mil­i­tary.

“The vast major­i­ty of Copts, as well as the Cop­tic church itself, sup­port­ed Morsi’s removal,” said Eric Trager, an Egypt expert at the Wash­ing­ton Insti­tute for Near East Pol­i­cy (WINEP).

“So why would George­town hold a con­fer­ence on Egypt in which the lone Cop­tic speak­er opposed Morsi’s removal, espe­cial­ly when the con­fer­ence fea­tures a num­ber of Mus­lim Broth­ers and oth­er Islamists who will also advo­cate a pro-Mor­si posi­tion?” Trager asked.

“It should be empha­sized that [Jan’s group] ‘Chris­tians Against the Coup’ is a bare­ly-known, periph­er­al move­ment,” Trager said. “So who­ev­er chose its leader to speak at George­town must have been specif­i­cal­ly look­ing for a Copt who opposed Morsi’s removal, rather than a Copt whose views are more rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Egypt’s Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty.”

Oth­er fea­tured speak­ers include Wael Had­dara, a Cana­di­an-based Mus­lim Broth­er­hood backer who for­mer­ly served as a senior advis­er to Mor­si; Abdel Maw­goud al-Dard­ery, a one­time mem­ber of the Brotherhood’s Free­dom and Jus­tice Par­ty who is now fight­ing against the coup; and Mohamed Abbas, an Islamist and long­time sup­port­er of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood.

Oth­er par­tic­i­pants include Dalia Moga­hed, who was picked by Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma to advise White House’s Office of Faith-Based and Neigh­bor­hood Part­ner­ships.

Moga­hed said on Twit­ter Tues­day that orga­niz­ers of the event had no knowl­edge that Jan was a mem­ber of Egypt’s Nazi par­ty.

“I can assure you the orga­niz­ers had no idea about his ‘oth­er bag­gage,’” she said.

When reached for com­ment Tues­day about the event, an offi­cial at Georgetown’s Alwaleed Cen­ter direct­ed a reporter to con­tact event orga­niz­ers at the Egypt Free­dom Foun­da­tion, which did not respond to sev­er­al requests for com­ment.

Hours after being con­tact­ed by the Free Bea­con, the event orga­niz­ers scrubbed his name from the event fly­er and qui­et­ly repost­ed an altered ver­sion.

Chris­tine Kid­well, the Alwaleed Center’s asso­ciate direc­tor, did not respond to mul­ti­ple requests for com­ment.

Ellison’s spokesman Mike Cas­ca also did not respond to a request for com­ment.