Sandmonkey and the Salafis Go to Court

السبت ٢٧ - أبريل - ٢٠٢٤ ٠٥:٣٩ مساءً

اضيف الخبر في يوم الخميس ٠٢ - فبراير - ٢٠١٢ ١٢:٠٠ صباحاً.

http://www.acus.org/egyptsource/sandmonkey-and-salafis-go-court-one-egyptian-activist-challenges-ultraconservative-islam

Sandmonkey andthe Salafis Go to Court: One Egyptian Activist Challenges UltraconservativeIslamists with the Law

KurtWerthmuller | January 30, 2012

Egyptian bloggerand political activist Mahmoud Salem, more commonly known by his online personaSandmonkey, filed a civil lawsuit onThursday, January 26th against the well-known and influentialSalafi preacher Yasser al-Bourhami for the latter’s incitement ofviolence against Coptic Christians. While the details of this suit arestill emerging, they deserve serious domestic and global attention: if methodicallypursued, the case could form an important challenge to Egypt’sstill-persistent culture of legal impunity for violence and discriminationagainst members of the country’s significant Christian minority. Itcould also deal a painful blow to the prestige of Salafi Islamists, whosepolitical rise has been accelerating unimpeded since Egypt ’s revolution. Thesuccess and long-term ramifications of this lawsuit rest, however, in thespecificity of Salem ’scharges and their appeal to civil rather than theological protection.

Salafisare ultraconservative Islamists, strongly influenced by puritanicalWahhabism, who took many Egyptians and foreign observers by surprise when theirNour Party and others gained a full fourth of the seats in parliament in thenation’s fairest elections in generations. Their small but growingpresence has been apparent to anyone traveling in Egypt over the last decade, especially in the poorer districts of Alexandria , Cairo , and areas of Upper Egypt . They have traditionally remained alooffrom politics out of practical and dogmatic reasons (Mubarak-erarestrictions and their rejection of democracy, respectively), but Egypt’spost-revolutionary period has brought a change of heart– if only atemporary one, as most Salafis see it -- in order to establish a foothold inEgyptian politics onthe way to dominating the country.

Moreimportantly for the issue at hand, Salafi preachers and followers have beennotorious in recent years for their intolerance of non-Muslims, non-observantMuslims, or even Muslims such as Sufis who adhere to different practices orpoints of view. For example, a number of Salafi preachers made headlinesin January when they declared that good, pious Muslims should distancethemselves from Christians, for example, by refraining from legitimizing theirbeliefs by attending their Christmas gatherings or even by extending themholiday greetings. Furthermore, many of the attacks on Coptic Christianindividuals and property over the last year have been directly incited bySalafi imams and carried out by their local congregations (i.e., in anti-Copticviolence in Imbaba, Sol, and al-Marinab). The ruling authorities, once Mubarak’s regime and now thecountry’s ruling military junta, consistently and brazenly refrain fromholding the perpetrators accountable for their violent actions.

Sandmonkey’slawsuit is significant because it holds the potential to draw long-overdueattention and accountability to the dangerous rhetoric and actions of thecountry’s emboldened Salafi zealots, and to the genuine threat they poseto Egypt 'sCoptic minority. It is also important because Mahmoud Salem iswell-positioned to make this happen: he was one of the bravest and most vocalcritics of the Mubarak regime at a time when his fellow bloggers were beingtossed into prison, and since the revolution, he put his words into action withan electoral bid for parliament, albeit an unsuccessful one. His effortdeserves support.

However, Salem must overcome twolegal hurdles. First, his suit must not invoke Egypt ’s ambiguous legalprecedent regarding general “disrespect of ‘heavenly’religions’” by charging al-Bourhami with merely utteringdistasteful or offensive things about non-Muslims. To do so would be tolegitimize a tactic that is broadly used as a blasphemy law to suppressalternative, more moderate Muslim viewpoints and to restrict the freedom ofbelief that many Egyptians desperately need, such as those who convert fromIslam, or the country’s strugglingcommunity of Baha’is, marginalized by their exclusion from thecommunity of “heavenly religions.” The protection ofminorities from violence, in other words, must be prosecuted in a way that willnot be used against them in other contexts. Salem will therefore need to make his casethat the defendant’s words directly resulted in violent or discriminatorydeeds; hateful language in itself cannot be the crux of the complaint.

Thesecond matter of caution that it will not be enough to treat al-Bourhami simplyas a symbol, although heis a prominent choice to embody general Salafi intolerance and the dangerit represents to Egyptian society. For example, herecently insisted that Christians and Jews remain explicitly labeled with theterm “infidels,” (in contrast, a current al-Azhar initiative onbasic freedoms calls for disuse of the term because of its pejorative anddivisive connotation), and he has explained the Salafi Nour Party’sreluctant inclusion of several woman on electoral lists as a necessary “corruption." Rather, Salem ’slegal team will have to show that al-Bourhami’s rhetoric directly inciteda follower or group of followers to carry out a specific act or acts ofviolence against Copts.

MahmoudSalem has an opportunity in this lawsuit against Yasser al-Bourhami to bothpush back against the tide of religious intolerance that Egyptian Salafis andtheir leaders represent, and to chip away at the illegitimate precedent oflegal impunity that they have enjoyed for so long. The internationalcommunity should do all that it can to draw attention to Salem ’s lawsuit, proceedings, andeventual resolution. It should also encourage him and other like-mindedactivists to challenge Salafis within a rule of law framework of directevidence and clear appeals to civil freedom and protection rather than toreligious sensibilities.

KurtJ. Werthmuller is a research fellow at the Hudson Institute's Center forReligious Freedom. He is the author of Coptic Identity and AyyubidPolitics in Egypt, 1218-1250, and he holds a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern history fromthe University of California , Santa Barbara (2007), an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University (2002), and a B.A. inhistory from Messiah College (1995).

Photocredit: Mazika2day.com

اجمالي القراءات 1323