Photo Credit: Reuters/Stringer
Egypt’s Appeals Court in Alexandria reduced an earlier ruling jailing fourteen Islamist women for 11 years for protesting to one-year suspended terms, setting the stage for their immediate release according to Reuters. In the same case, seven girls under 18 years-old, convicted of obstructing traffic and damaging property, saw their sentences reduced to three-months probation.
Kristen Chick, of the Christian Science Monitor cautions against seeing the release of the 21 women and girls as a positive sign. Instead, she warns, “it is unlikely that all pro-Morsi protesters can expect similar outcomes,” because their arrests and convictions “garnered sympathy even outside Islamist circles, both because of the harsh sentences and because those convicted were young women.”
Author Alaa al-Aswany of the famous book, “The Yabcoubian Building” criticizes the current treatment of women as a result of Wahhabism’s influence on Egyptians and a reversal from Egyptian women’s rights in the early twentieth century. Al-Aswany argues, “Women’s rights are a bellwether of the current conflict in Egypt. The revolutionaries are fighting for equality, whereas the reactionary forces of both the Brotherhood and the Mubarak regime are trying to strip women of their political and social rights.” But al-Aswany believes, “The conflict will eventually be resolved in favor of women because the revolution represents a future that no one can prevent.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Egyptian police demonstrated demanding higher wages, with permission outside a Police club, before moving the demonstration in front of the Interior Ministry and violating the new protest law. Reuters noted the “ironic turn of events” after the police violated the same law they have been arresting activists for in recent weeks.
In The Hill, former Congressmen and POMED board member Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), challenges a new proposed amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would cede “waiver authority to the executive” in the event of any future military coup. Kolbe notes, the amendment is in response to the administrations request for flexibility to resume aid to Egypt, but instead only “threatens to erode congressional power to influence U.S. foreign policy and to uphold American values and principles.”
The Washington Post, meanwhile, denounces the administration arguing, “Ignoring Egypt’s reversion to autocracy is not an acceptable U.S. policy,” suggesting that instead the U.S. should “suspend aid and cooperation with the regime until it frees political prisoners and adopts a genuine democratic path.”