Coalition of Groups Opposed to Islamists Is Fracturing

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By Abigail Hauslohner - WP

Published on Tuesday, 22 January 2013 07:53

Egypt’s disparate opposition groups remain so divided that analysts and activists say they risk losing the last major decision-making body in the country to Islamists when the country votes in upcoming parliamentary elections.

Hostility to the country’s new Islamist-backed constitution drew thousands of protesters into the streets last month and degraded the Muslim Brotherhood’s credibility nationwide, a trend that the opposition claimed was reflected in a smaller majority in a national referendum on the document, compared to previous votes that the Islamists had rallied around. The crisis bolstered opposition optimism that they had been left with a prime opportunity to upset a string of Islamist electoral victories over the past year, politicians and analysts said.

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Brotherhood Struggles to Translate Power Into Policy in Egypt

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By David D. Kirkpatrick and Mayy El- Sheikh - NYT

Published on Monday, 21 January 2013 09:17

When President Mohamed Morsi and his allies in the Muslim Brotherhood pushed through a new constitution last month, liberals feared it would enable them to put an Islamist stamp on the Egyptian state, in part by purging nearly half the judges on the Supreme Constitutional Court.

But those warnings are turning out to be premature, at the very least, as the court itself made clear last week at its opening session last week, its first meeting under the new charter.

The president of the court sneered with disdain at a lawyer for the Muslim Brotherhood trying to address the reconfigured bench, stripped of 7 of its 18 members. “As if you left a court to be spoken of like this!” Judge Maher el-Beheiry snapped. He had already declared that the court, perceived as an enemy of the Islamists, “can never forget” the Brotherhood’s protests against it during the constitutional debate.

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Preliminary Medical Report on Qena Child Proves Innocence of Coptic Defendant

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By MCN

Published on Sunday, 20 January 2013 10:50

A fact-finding mission related to Qena’s Justice and Development Organization for Human Rights revealed that the preliminary medical report emphasized the Muslim minor female of el-Marashda has no injuries in her hymen and uterus, and her body is intact. A member of the Salafist Party of el-Nour, Dr. Amena Ahmed abdel-Sadek, issued the report.

Violent actions erupted against Copts in Qena’s village of el-Marashda on Friday due to rumors circulating that a Copt more than sixty years of age sexually harassed a five-year old Muslim girl. In retaliation, a number of Muslim residents burnt the houses and shops of Copts, while others attacked the village church.

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Christian Stores Burned in Southern Egypt after Muslim Girl Allegedly Sexually Assaulted

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By Associated Press

Published on Saturday, 19 January 2013 17:54

Police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of Muslim protesters trying to storm a Coptic Christian church in southern Egypt Friday, after a word spread that a Christian man sexually assaulted a 6-year-old girl.

Witnesses in Marashda village in the province of Qena said several shops and cars owned by Coptic Christians were torched overnight after Muslim villagers accused a merchant in his sixties of molesting the young girl.

Read more: Christian Stores Burned in Southern Egypt after Muslim Girl Allegedly Sexually Assaulted