In Egypt, the Arab Spring is turning into a nightmare for advocates of secular democracy, Christians, and anyone else who doesn’t embrace 7th-century Sharia law:
Last week in Egypt, when Muslim Brotherhood supporters terrorized the secular media, several Arabic websites—including Arab News, Al Khabar News, Dostor Watany, and Egypt Now—reported that people were being “crucified.” The relevant excerpt follows in translation:
A Sky News Arabic correspondent in Cairo confirmed that protestors belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood crucified those opposing Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi naked on trees in front of the presidential palace while abusing others. Likewise, Muslim Brotherhood supporters locked the doors of the media production facilities of 6-October [a major media region in Cairo], where they proceeded to attack several popular journalists.
That there were attacks and violence—both in front of Egypt’s presidential palace and at major media facilities, is well-documented. An August 9 report by El Balad, a widely read Egyptian website, gives the details:
Last Wednesday, August 8, “thousands of the Muslim Brotherhood’s supporters” attacked 6-October’s media facilities, beat Khaled Salah—chief editor of the privately-owned and secular Youm 7 newspaper—prevented Yusif al-Hassani, an On TV broadcaster, from entering the building, and generally “terrorized the employees.”
El Balad adds that the supporters of Tawfik Okasha, another vocal critic of President Morsi—the one who widely disseminated the graphic video of a Muslim apostate being slaughtered to cries of “Allahu Akbar”—gathered around the presidential palace, only to be surrounded by Brotherhood supporters, who “attacked them with sticks, knives, and Molotov cocktails, crucifying some of them on trees, leading to the deaths of two and the wounding of dozens.”
Far from condemning these terrorists, Al Azhar, Egypt’s most authoritative Islamic institution, has just issued a fatwa calling for more violence and oppression, saying that “fighting participants in anti-Muslim Brotherhood demonstrations planned for 24 August is a religious obligation.”
Most of the aforementioned Arabic sites point out that these attacks are part of the Muslim Brotherhood’s campaign to intimidate and thus censor Egypt’s secular media from exposing the group’s Islamist agenda, which Youm 7, On TV, and Okasha do daily. [Note: the latter’s channel was recently shut down, despite Morsi’s previous reassurances that “no station or media will be shut down in my era.”]
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In reality, there is little reason to doubt this crucifixion story. Militant Muslims crucifying their opponents is a regular feature of the Islamic world—recent cases coming from the Ivory Coast, where two Christian brothers were crucified, similarly by supporters of a Muslim president who ousted a Christian; Indonesia, where Islamic separatists crucified a fellow Muslim for being a military informant; and in Iraq, where Muslim militants crucified Christian children.
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Finally, it is telling that only a few months ago, and for the first time in Egypt’s modern history, an Egyptian MP proposed to institutionalize Sharia’s most draconian punishments—including crucifixion.
In short, under the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the bottle has been uncorked and the Islamic Genie set loose. Expect much worse to come.
The Muslim Brotherhood, to which newly elected Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi belongs, has been courted by the Obama administration, which describes these perpetrators of crucifixion and terrorism as “peaceful and committed to non-violence”:
Since the beginning of the Arab Spring, the Obama administration has snubbed the secular pro-democracy organizations and instead embraced the Muslim Brotherhood. It’s even sending $1.5 billion in aid to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood government in defiance of a congressional ban on such aid “unless the State Department certifies that Egypt is making progress on basic freedoms and human rights.” It’s hard to certify progress on human rights when regime opponents are being crucified.
Maybe the Obama administration’s fondness for the Muslim Brotherhood is linked to the close familial ties that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff, Huma Abedin, has to the organization. Or maybe it’s a consequence of the president’s anti-colonialist ideology.
Whatever the reason, this administration is on the side of the 7th-century barbarians.