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Please act NOW !!!
Dear Friends and Colleagues:
On the 6 March 2001 a weekly newspaper published an interview I had given
a few days before I left for a long lecture tour in Germany, France and
the United States. In this interview I reiterated the views I have
defended in all my writings during the last forty years and pronounced
publicly in many parts of the world including the Arab region. In these
views I link questions of sex and gender to politics, economics and
culture at the local and international levels and strike at the roots
of all forms of exploitation and oppression whether class, patriarchal,
racial national, or religious. Those who are in power have always tried to
silence my voice. These attempts to silence me have increased steadily in
the past years which have witnessed the predominance of capitalist
neo-liberal forces and their allies including religious
fundamentalism.
In the interview which I gave I repeated my opposition to the veiling of
women which implies that women are only bodies, to polygamy, to inequality
in inheritance rights and insisted that all of these were in contradiction
with the true spirit of Islam and the correct interpretation of the
Qoranic text. I also mentioned that some of the practices of Islam had
been inherited historically from the pre-Islamic era and that this
was a natural phenomena in all religions and gave as an example that
of the pilgrimage. The newspaper like many other newspapers
appearing all over the world depends heavily on sensationalism for its
sales. My views were manipulated, quoted out of context and blown up with
provocative headlines.
The powers that be which have always been unhappy with my views
seized the occasion of a deteriorating cultural atmosphere coupled with a
rebound of fundamentalist tendencies in Egypt. The Mufti of Egypt issued a
declaration to the same newspaper accusing me of having strayed out
of the bounds of Islam. A few days after a lawyer raised a case
against me for separation between me and my husband on the grounds of
apostasy.
The case is appearing before a personal law court (Shariat Court) on
the 18 June 2001. But since all cases must be raised by the General
Prosecutor himself according to the amendments made to the law of Hizba,
the same lawyer sent a request to the General Prosecutor asking him to
have me tried on the same grounds. If the General Prosecutor agrees I can
be tried and sentenced to a period of imprisonment for attacking religion
or separated from my husband by Hizba on grounds of apostasy. We are
waitng to see what will happen.
What you are all doing is wonderful and we are very thankful to you.
Expand it more and more until it becomes an irresistible wav. You will be
defending the human rights and dignity of many men and women in our
region and all over the world.
Send your protests to
- Farouk Seif Al Nasr, the Minister
of Justice, Lazoughly Square, Cairo, Egypt;
- to Maher Abdel Wahab, the General
Prosecutor, The High Court, July 26 Street, Cairo, Egypt
(Fax 202 575 7165);
- to Hosni Mobarak President of the Arab
Republic of Egypt; and to
- the First Lady Suzanne Mobarak
with copies of everything to the Egyptian
Embassy.
Nawal el Saadawi |