Women and Coptic Christians in Egypt can say goodbye to anything remotely resembling equality of rights with Muslim men.
“Presidential adviser: Egyptians have desire to implement Sharia,” from Al-Masry Al-Youm, September 4 (thanks to Twostellas):
Bassam al-Zarqa, one of the advisors to President Mohamed Morsy, said the Egyptian people have “an overwhelming desire to implement Islamic Sharia, and not only its principles.”
Zarqa, who is the secretary of the Salafi Nour Party in Alexandria and a member of the constitution-writing assembly, told London-based Asharq Al-Awsat that while the majority of Egyptians want Islamic Sharia implemented, Article 2 of the Constitution states that only the principles of Sharia represent the main source of legislation. He said that the word “principles” may have several interpretations, including one from the Constitutional Court saying principles need conclusive evidence, which could lead to a disregard of some authentic prophetic traditions, jurisprudential rulings and even a part of the Quran.
Zarqa added that he rejected “loose descriptions.”
Since the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak, the popularity of Islamists has been rising and they won a majority in Parliament, which was later dissolved. In August, protests were staged to express rejection of the political hegemony of Islamists, and particularly the Muslim Brotherhood and its political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party. Egypt’s newly elected president, Mohamed Morsy, also belonged to the Brotherhood….