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Egypt's Pro-Islamic Labor Denies Rift, Calls for End of Ban
CAIRO, Aug 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Egypt's banned pro-Islamic Labor Party president Ibrahim Shoukri has denied reports that he allegedly suspended 11 of the party's Islamic members.
A report to that effect signed by party leader Talaat Muslim and carried Saturday by news agencies, is simply "not correct", Shoukri told al-Quds Press.
Questioning a party member is one thing and suspending him is another, Shoukry said, emphasizing the whole issue has been badly distorted with the aim of creating a fictional rift in Egypt's most authentic pro-Islamic party.
"There is no shroud of doubt as to our purely Islamic orientation and program," Shoukry said, denying allegations of a crackdown on the party's Islamic members. "We were among the first to call for application of Shari'a [Islamic law] in the Egyptian parliament. Our history speaks for itself and is known to all."
Shoukry did not rule out changes in the party or its mouthpiece, ash-Shaab, but he emphasized the changes "will not concern our Islamic orientation, but issues that subject us to [penal] punishment when published in our paper."
Dozens of ash-Shaab journalists have been subjected to investigation, trial and imprisonment for critical reports using such words as: thief, briber, traitor, Israeli agent, quack, liar, etc. to describe political and business tycoons - illegal terms of defamation that usually lost ash-Shaab suits filed against it, despite the true facts about corruption revealed in the paper's reports.
According to al-Quds Press, Labor's anti-Islamic members misinformed Shoukry of the party's executive committee's decision Friday to appoint Mahfouz Azzam president in Shoukry's stead and appoint a new editor-in-chief for the party's mouthpiece.
The executive committee met late Friday in Shoukry's absence to discuss his decision to appoint Hamed Zeidan editor-in-chief of ash-Shaab in place of the party's current secretary general, Magdy Ahmed Hussein.
The committee meeting witnessed a heated debate about fears that Shoukry's decision might have come in response to the government's reported pressure on the party to crack down on Islamic elements as a preliminary step to end a ban on its activities.
Shoukry told al-Quds Press that all the executive committee's pronouncements were mere recommendations, not decisions, taken in his absence in the Egyptian North Coast resort of Marsa Matrouh, where Shoukry is taking time off with his ill wife. He is expected back in Cairo Tuesday or Wednesday.
Shoukry called on Egyptian President Hosni Moubarak "not to deny Labor Party taking part in the political activity in this particular phase" of the Middle East crisis.
A number of party leaders - notably Magdy Ahmed Hussein - have been writing articles in other political parties' papers, demanding a reactivation of Labor Party in this critical phase of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and calling upon the government to help unite the internal front in face of continued Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people.
The government banned the Labor Party and ash-Shaab - then the strongest opposition newspaper - after the paper called for revolt against the publication by the Ministry of Culture of a novel that offended Islam and slandered God. The paper's call elicited large student demonstrations in which dozens of students were injured.
With additional reporting by Mohammad Gamal Arafa
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