WATANI International 20 September 2009
Ten human rights organisations in Egypt last Tuesday issued a joint communiqué expressing their ‘absolute rejection’ of the declarations made by the Interior Minister’s deputy for media affairs, in which he claimed that the arrest of persons found eating, drinking, or smoking in public during Ramadan had proper legal backing. Ramadan is the holy month for Muslims, during which they are required to fast from dawn to sunset. The communiqué called upon the prosecutor general to issue an immediate statement confirming the illegality of the arrests which, the human rights organisations insisted, represent a flagrant violation of Egypt’s Constitution and laws, and an unacceptable infringement on personal rights.
The communiqué also demanded that the Interior Ministry publish the real figures of the arrests and the places where the police launched raids to arrest individuals who breached the fast in public. Any detainees should be directly released, the communiqué said, and those in charge of the arrest campaigns questioned.
No shame
The Egyptian media had reported the week before that the police had, in several Egyptian governorates, arrested persons who were found eating, drinking, smoking, or buying food, drink or cigarettes during the day in Ramadan. The Cairo independent weekly al-Youm al-Sabie (The Seventh Day), however, published on its website official denials by General Nagy al-Hassei, the Interior Minster’s deputy in Aswan. More denials were published by top security officials in Aswan and Kom-Ombo which lies some 50km north of Aswan—two of the sites in which arrests were said to have taken place. In Kom-Ombo alone some 42 arrests were reported. Other arrests occurred in Talkha in the east Delta and Hurghada by the Red Sea. All in all, the police arrested 155 persons who were later released by the prosecution. Seven individuals caught in Talkha were only released on EGP500 bail.
Yet the Interior Minister’s deputy for media affairs General Hamdi Abdel-Karim said, in a declaration made to the Cairo daily al-Shorouq (Sunrise), that the arrests were legal. He criticised the human rights activists who had expressed concern over the arrests, calling upon them to “have some shame” and asking them to “read the law well before criticising the Interior Ministry”.
Unprecedented
The human rights organisations, for their part, asked the Interior Ministry to cite the legal text which allegedly backs the “unprecedented” arrests. They insisted no such text exists in the Egyptian law, meaning that the arrests were a flagrant and illegitimate interference in individuals’ lives, or that some secret ministerial rule had been issued to allow the violation. This in itself, if it exists, is a grave constitutional and legal violation, the communiqué said.
The “irresponsible” declaration by the Interior Minister deputy, the communiqué said, constitutes tacit support for the security apparatus to violate the personal rights of individuals and their right to privacy. It encourages police officers to stop and arrest persons on the mere presumption that their behaviour “hurts the public sentiment” of pious Muslims. Even if no arrest is conducted, the communiqué said, these illegal raids threaten Egyptian Muslims and non-Muslims who could be stopped in the street and questioned, in violation of their basic rights.
Inviolable
Even more important, the communiqué said, the words used by the Interior Minister deputy, in the context of fasting, directly violated the Egyptian Constitution which stipulates in its Article 41 that “personal freedom is a natural right; it is safeguarded and inviolable”. The Supreme Constitutional Court, moreover, confirmed that “personal freedom is not only secured against physical assault, but also against any violation of individual freedom of choice and decision”.
The communiqué stressed that stopping individuals in the street or arresting them on the pretext of whether or not they are fasting is a violation of equality, religious freedom, and the freedom to conduct religious rituals—which implicitly involves the freedom not to conduct these rituals. The United Nations committee of human rights, the communiqué said, confirmed that individuals should not be forced, or threatened with penalisation or the use of force, into anything which concerns religion or faith. This includes compelling a person to abide by the religion he belongs to, pushing him to adopt another religion, or forcing him to deny his religion or faith.
The communiqué invited anyone who is exposed to the illegitimate practice in question to register a testimony with a human rights organisation.
Taliban-like
Many Egyptians have described the arrests as Taliban-like, or as bahaviour reminiscent of that of religious zealots in some Gulf states.
Several restaurant and coffee-shop owners say they were exposed to police threats—whether tacit or outright—to close during the day in Ramadan.
“We used to remain open all the time in Ramadan,” a coffee-shop owner who asked for his name to be withheld told Watani. “Even though business was slow during the day, a few old people or parents with small children would come in. Now we decided to close down to stay out of trouble.”
Watani toured the pyramids district and found no place to eat or drink accessible. Even if the doors of some coffee-shop or another were open, once you stepped inside you were politely told: “Never mind, please come back after iftar (the sunset meal which breaks the Ramadan fast).”
In Fayoum, 100km southwest Cairo, most coffee shops were closed. One or two allowed persons to go in through a hidden backdoor for a drink.
The only safe way to have something to eat or drink in Suez is to drive 40km south into Ain-Sukhna, a tourist resort, where hotels and eateries cater to tourists. The same applies to Sharm al-Sheikh and all other tourist resorts.
Islamic endorsement
Both al-Azhar, the topmost authority worldwide on Sunni Islam, and the Ministry of Religious Endowments approved penalising the public break of Ramadan fast “in order to avoid sedition”. They called for a law to penalise violators of the fast. The grand Mufti Sheikh Ali Gomaa said that the public breach of the fast is a grave sin and is an act committed against God, the holy month of Ramadan, and all who fast.
For his part, member of the Islamic research centre Abdel-Moeti Bayoumi said that the public violation of Ramadan fast was unacceptable since it represented a provocation to those who fast. Dr Bayoumi does not approve of penalising violators of the fast; he considers that it a move that may backfire. “But Islamic texts condemn those who insist on publicly breaching the fast, or any other commandment,” he says. Dr Bayoumi praised the Copts, who normally refrain from eating or drinking before those who are fasting.
