Tag: Egypt

New State Department travel alert is bad news for Egypt – WaPo Re-Blog

New State Department travel alert is bad news for Egypt
By Max Fisher, Published: February 6, 2013 at 4:05 pm

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Last month, thugs twice attacked the Semiramis Intercontinental Hotel in Cairo. (REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh)

Wednesday brought another troubling development for the Egyptian economy, which relies heavily on tourism and has suffered mightily since protests broke out in January 2011:

The U.S. State Department has issued a scary-sounding travel alert that it says applies through May. The alert cites ongoing violence, political unrest that could trigger yet more clashes and the proximity of demonstrations to the U.S. embassy compound in Cairo, which protesters attacked head-on in September.

Though such travel alerts are common, it’s a reminder that the State Department is not exactly encouraging Americans to visit Egypt in droves, not that they have been since 2011 anyway.

The relevant information from the travel alert is below. I visited Egypt in August 2011 and found the hotels and museums all but empty. August is always slow in Egypt – it’s hot, and that year it was the holy month of Ramadan – but everyone I spoke to emphasized that it had been a painful year for the all-important tourism industry.

Since then, things have only worsened, with hotel occupancy rates hitting all-time lows. In late January, a band of thugs attacked the popular Semiramis Intercontinental hotel two nights in a row.

Continue reading “New State Department travel alert is bad news for Egypt – WaPo Re-Blog” →

Pain and Victory for the Church in Egypt – Open Doors Re-Blog

Pain and Victory for the Church in Egypt – Open Doors

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“The powerful presence of the Holy Spirit could not be mistaken. At one end of the building several people saw white pigeons flying over! Could this be a special sign of affirmation of His presence? While stories of healing from sicknesses were shared around, it was undeniable, the Holy Spirit was there.” – an Egyptian Church Leader

The nightly news often shows crowds of angry, desperate Egyptians protesting in the streets of Cairo.

Lacking the most essential needs of life – jobs, shelter, security – Egyptians are lining up for bread for their table, gasoline for their cars, and more. Many experience water and electricity cuts. Police forces appear to focus most of their efforts on guarding people and  places related to the Muslim Brotherhood, while doing very little to secure or protect citizens.

“We hear frequent reports about car hijacking, armed robberies, kidnapping for ransom, buildings set on fire, protestors blocking rail lines and major highways,” says an Egyptian church leader. “I stand back in pain and wonder; is this really my country, Egypt!?!”

What makes the situation even gloomier are the attacks on churches and Christians. Recently, in Khusus Village, while mourners carried the remains of their dead, the procession was attacked by a mob. Police arrived too late. The attacks resulted in not only 7 deaths and dozens of injuries, but also added to the escalating tension rising throughout Egypt.

“Where do we take our pains,” adds the leader. “Is God still in control? Is there a reason why He allows these attacks to come on His children? We may not have an answer, yet, what is clearly evident is that He is preparing His children in Egypt to a big victory and a grand harvest.”

In a historical meeting held on Feburary 18, church leaders from various denominations, came together and launched “The Council of Egyptian Churches.” Sponsored by Pope Tawadros II, the 118th Pope of Alexandria and Patrarch of the See of St. Mark, is someone who sees this as a turning point in church unity.

Then, forty days later, on March 29, an evangelical church hosted a prayer meeting at a large conference facility in the desert, located 160 miles north of Cairo. Approximately 7,000 Christians, from various denominations including the Orthodox and Catholic churches, showed up for the three-day event. Continue reading “Pain and Victory for the Church in Egypt – Open Doors Re-Blog” →

Photo Essay: The Muslim Brotherhood Has Turned Cairo Into A Dystopia – Re-Blog

Peanut Gallery: Once again Photo Essayist Robert Johnson has lifted the veil of Cairo and exposed the shattered dreams of the “Arab Spring”… now a long winter under the Muslim Brotherhood. Will they ever recover? Not likely in any foreseeable future.

Please follow the link below to Johnson’s essay posted at Business Insider. The photos tell all….
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The Muslim Brotherhood Has Turned Cairo Into A Dystopia [PHOTOS]

by Robert Johnson, businessinsider.com / May 23rd 2013 12:55 PM

Robert Johnson/Business Insider
Robert Johnson/Business Insider

When Egyptians took to the streets to overthrow an oppressive government in 2011, the world was on their side. But in the two years that followed, as Arab Spring turned to Arab Winter, and Egyptians fell under the rule of the oppressive new government of Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, the world has looked away.

This is what Egyptians told us when we visited Cairo at the end of March 2013.

Many disillusioned Egyptians say things are worse than ever. Thugs often run the streets, crime rates have skyrocketed, and police feel they’re outgunned, faced with the flood of weapons filling Cairo’s streets. Making matters worse, everything from utilities to gasoline is both more expensive and more difficult to acquire than it was before the Muslim Brotherhood.

Click here to see what has become of Cairo >

The mass exodus of Christians from the Muslim world | Fox News

By  Published May 07, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Link to original: The mass exodus of Christians from the Muslim world | Fox News.

May 4, 2013: Pope Tawadros II, the 118th pope of the Coptic Church of Egypt, leads the Easter Mass at St. Mark's Cathedral in Cairo, Egypt. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)
May 4, 2013: Pope Tawadros II, the 118th pope of the Coptic Church of Egypt, leads the Easter Mass at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo, Egypt. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

A mass exodus of Christians is currently underway.  Millions of Christians are being displaced from one end of the Islamic world to the other.

We are reliving the true history of how the Islamic world, much of which prior to the Islamic conquests was almost entirely Christian, came into being.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recently said: “The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it’s increasing year by year.”  In our lifetime alone “Christians might disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt.”

Ongoing reports from the Islamic world certainly support this conclusion:  Iraq was the earliest indicator of the fate awaiting Christians once Islamic forces are liberated from the grip of dictators.

In 2003, Iraq’s Christian population was at least one million. Today fewer than 400,000 remain—the result of an anti-Christian campaign that began with the U.S. occupation of Iraq, when countless Christian churches were bombed and countless Christians killed, including by crucifixion and beheading.

The 2010 Baghdad church attack, which saw nearly 60 Christian worshippers slaughtered, is the tip of a decade-long iceberg.

Now, as the U.S. supports the jihad on Syria’s secular president Assad, the same pattern has come to Syria: entire regions and towns where Christians lived for centuries before Islam came into being have now been emptied, as the opposition targets Christians for kidnapping, plundering, and beheadings, all in compliance with mosque calls telling the populace that it’s a “sacred duty” to drive Christians away. Continue reading “The mass exodus of Christians from the Muslim world | Fox News” →

EGYPT – No ‘Happy Easter’: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Bizarre Religious Intolerance (Re-Blog)

No ‘Happy Easter’: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Bizarre Religious Intolerance

Egyptian President Morsi and his party only get specific on random religious decrees, not policy.

 / MAY 3 2013, 10:30 AM ET

Supporters of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and members of the Muslim Brotherhood chant pro-Morsi slogans while holding up a poster with a crossed out picture of ousted President Hosni Mubarak and Morsi during a rally in Cairo on December 14, 2012. (Amr Dalsh/Reuters)
Supporters of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and members of the Muslim Brotherhood chant pro-Morsi slogans while holding up a poster with a crossed out picture of ousted President Hosni Mubarak and Morsi during a rally in Cairo on December 14, 2012. (Amr Dalsh/Reuters)

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s decision not to attend this coming Sunday’s Coptic Easter mass was entirely predictable. Morsi, after all, declined to attend Pope Tawadros II’s November investiture and, during his previous stint as chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party, Morsi visited a church on Christmas but made a point of emphasizing that he exited before services started. Yet because Morsi’s decision comes on the heels of a Brotherhood fatwa prohibiting Muslims from wishing Christians a “Happy Easter,” Morsi’s coldness towards Christians reflects a central paradox of the Brotherhood’s Islamism: despite its longtime promise to “implement the sharia” upon achieving power, the Brotherhood only offers specific interpretations of Islamic legal principles when it needs to justify its most intolerant impulses.

The fatwa, authored by Brotherhood leader Abdel Rahman al-Barr, is noteworthy for its degree of analytical detail. In it, Barr quotes extensively from the Qur’an to argue that Muslims should only greet Christians on their holidays “so long as this greeting does not come at the expense of our [Islamic] religion.” In other words, Barr writes, Muslims cannot wish Christians a “Happy Easter,” because “our belief as Muslims, which makes ambiguity impossible, is that [Jesus] wasn’t killed or crucified,” though Muslims can greet Christians on Easter with the non-sectarian Arabic salutation ” kulu sana wa-entum tayyibun,” which roughly means “hope you are well this year” and is used for all sorts of occasions, including birthdays. By contrast, he adds, wishing Christians a “Merry Christmas” is permissible, because Muslims view Jesus as a human prophet and thus acknowledge his birth. Continue reading “EGYPT – No ‘Happy Easter’: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Bizarre Religious Intolerance (Re-Blog)” →