It seems that the Arab governments have never learnt any lesson from their history which is full of tragedies and defeats. They had led their poor peoples from disaster into another since the foundation of their modern national states until now.

Unfortunately, these governments are addicted to tyranny and oppression against their own people. They oppress liberals, democrats, secularists, human right activists, and any enlightened movement. To achieve this goal, these governments have aliened themselves with the religious institutions, especially the Salafi who alone enjoyed freedom of expression, and have almost total control of the Arab masses, while denying any sort of freedom of speech to those pro democracy and liberalism or even the moderate Muslim scholars.

The Islamists extremists are taking advantage of ignorance of the masses and rampant illiteracy, to disseminate their misleading ideas amongst the youth, radicalizing them, charging them with hatred and animosity against the non-Muslims and even against the moderate Muslims who do not agree with their ideas.

They have distorted the very concept of Islam and appeared it to the world as a religion advocating violence and rejecting the others. As a result of this alliance between the despotic Arab governments and religious institutions with Wahhabi doctrine, Islamic extremism has become rampant, with spread of Islamic terrorism everywhere. These terrorists have put Islam and Muslims in an unequal bloody confrontation with the civilised world.

It was the Selefi extremist doctrine and the Saudi money behind the foundation of Muslim brotherhood party in Egypt, indoctrinating the youth. As a result, a new Islamic movement was founded called (Ahlulquraan (people of Quraan or Quraanists) by the well known theologian figure and religious reformer, Dr. Ahmed Subhi Mansour, who himself is Al-Azhar University graduate and ex- professor of Quraanic studies in the same university.

Professor Mansour’s aim from this group is to protect the Muslims and in particular the youth from getting radicalized by the extremists, and to propagate enlightenment and to show the moderate and tolerant face of Islam to the world, that Islam is a religion of peace and abhor violence , and that the Muslims can live with the non Muslims in a peaceful coexistence.

The Quraanic movement has been founded in the 1980s, is a non- political organization, calling for using logic and persuasion to convince people with their ideas rather than resorting to the violence.

This group depends entirely on Quraanic teachings in interpretation of Islam rather than the Hadith or Al-Sunneh (the profit’s says). They believe that the Hadiths were subjected to falsification by some crook theologians for many reasons, particularly the hadiths were not recorded until more than 200 years after the death of the profit. That is why the Quraanists do not trust some hadiths which many of them are irrational and contradict the normal reasoning.

Unfortunately, this group has been subjected to repression by both the Islamist extremists and the government in Egypt. The first attack against them was in 1987, when many members of the Quraanists were detained and tortured. The second time was in 2000, when the founding member, Dr. Ahmed Subhi Mansour, received death threat from the extremists, and was obliged to flee the country with his family to the USA where they live now.

The most recent attack on the group started few weeks ago when the Egyptian police launched another campaign against the Quraanists and detained several members of them, accusing them of being posing threat to the national security, a ridiculous accusation which no one can believe it. I wonder, what sort of a state it is that can not tolerate a few intellectuals aiming to educate people with the Islamic spirit of tolerance by using peaceful means like internet?

While The Egyptian government are detaining these peaceful people, it tries to convince the world, and in particular the USA, that it is a democratic government respecting human rights and freedom of speech. But in reality, the Egyptian government is doing exactly the opposite to what it says.

No doubt that the government policy in giving freedom to the extremist Islamists, and persecuting the liberals, democrats, and the Quraanists is harming the Egyptian people, benefiting the extremists, and bringing disaster upon the Egyptian people.

That is why we, as liberal intellectuals, requesting all the human rights activists and pro freedom and liberal writers and the pressure groups in the world, to demand the Egyptian government for the immediate release of the detained Quraanists and all other prisoners of conscience.