“Egypt will not collapse” is the headline of five of today’s papers, reporting statements made by head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) Field Marshall Mohamed Tantawy during the opening of a military forces hospital. At the opening, he stressed the importance of the armed forces providing “a shining example” to citizens in work and production.
This message is perhaps particularly relevant to one citizen, Deputy Prime Minister Yehia al-Gamal, whose recent resignation was rejected by SCAF and who created confusion when he said that elections had been pushed back to December.
Several papers report the military's denial that presidential elections will be delayed until December – rather than take place in September as scheduled – while independent daily Al-Shorouk’s headline declares “official confusion.”
Gamal forms the subject of a scathing column by Wael Qandeel in Al-Shorouk entitled “Yehia al-Gamal…confectioner of the new era” in which he notes that Gamal described Prime Minister Essam Sharaf as a “biscuit, “a piece of sugar” and, most recently, “unnaturally tenderhearted.”
Another former minister is ripped apart in an Al-Gomhurriya column by Gamal Abdel-Rehim. In the state-run paper, Abdel-Rehim chronicles alleged corruption, theft and mismanagement during the tenure of ex-Culture Minister Farouq Hosny but reserves most scorn for the former minister’s encouragement of “atheist” writing and art.
Mohamed ElBaradei’s draft bill of rights is covered in several papers, which all survey speculations on how political parties will react.
Al-Gomhurriya describes Muslim-Christian clashes that erupted on the outskirts of Cairo on Monday as “a battle of the thugs that threatens Shubra al-Kheima with sectarian discord.”
According to the paper, a large number of convicted criminals surrounded a church in the Fath area of Shubra al-Kheima after they heard rumors that a Christian man, who recently killed two Muslims, was hiding there.
In a potential sectarian conflict in-the-making, Al-Ahram reports that the public prosecution has ordered two Christian girls, who have allegedly converted to Islam, be placed in a children’s home rather than returned to their families.
To compound sectarian troubles, the Coalition for the Support of New Muslims has said that it will “not stay silent” if the two alleged Christian converts to Islam are handed over to the church. The coalition had made a name for itself for its unwanted advocacy on behalf of a woman it claimed converted to Islam but was being held against her will by her Christian family (the woman denied this).
Continuing its pre-revolution line of the “infiltrating minority,” Al-Gomhurriya reports that clashes which broke out on Sunday between protesting relatives of killed protesters and the police outside the court in which ex-Interior Minister Habib al-Adly was being tried were caused by 500 people, “mostly from Giza,” who incited protestors to throw stones at police.
According to a survey in Al-Gomhurriya, Amr Moussa, Selim al-Awa and Mohamed ElBaradei are the most popular choices for president although for one respondent, lawyer Yasser al-Sehemy, none of the candidates are qualified enough to be president, apart from Sehemy himself.
“I think I’m the only one who does anything useful,” Sehemy is quoted as saying.
Al-Shorouk reveals that it has obtained a copy of a top secret document from July 2010 that was instrumental in the sudden decision to appoint women judges to the State Council.
According to Al-Shorouk, the report’s main objection to female State Council judges is that women are unable to leave their homes and work in other areas of Egypt on rotation as demanded by the job. Currently, judges are not permitted to examine disputes in their areas of residence.
As a result, women judges – “as wives and mothers” – will try to get out of their duties using all methods possible, and, “naturally,” their male colleagues and superiors will clandestinely attempt to lessen their burdens. In this way “work principles will collapse.”
Furthermore, the niqab (full face veil) poses another challenge to the appointment of female judges, Al-Shorouk cites the report as saying, because plaintiffs must know the identity of the judge hearing their case.
The supposed delicate dispositions of the niqab-wearing women forces the report’s authors to ask: “to what extent she will be able to bear long discussions in closed rooms during discussion of cases with her male colleagues, who might take off some of their clothing and remove their shoes?”
A poll of 310 women from Cairo and Alexandria revealed that 254 oppose the appointment of women to the State Council, Al-Shorouk quotes the report as saying.
Egypt's papers:
Al-Ahram: Daily, state-run, largest distribution in Egypt
Al-Akhbar: Daily, state-run, second to Al-Ahram in institutional size
Al-Gomhurriya: Daily, state-run
Rose al-Youssef: Daily, state-run
Al-Dostour: Daily, privately owned
Al-Shorouk: Daily, privately owned
Al-Wafd: Daily, published by the liberal Wafd Party
Al-Arabi: Weekly, published by the Arab Nasserist party
Youm7: Weekly, privately owned
