Middle East Press On Muslim Brotherhood, Freedom Of Speech And Trump's Deep State Theory: New Age Islam's Selection, 23 November 2020
By New Age Islam Edit
Desk
23 November
2020
• Why The Muslim Brotherhood Does Not Represent
Islam
By Heba Yosry
• Freedom Of Speech Does Not Mean Freedom To
Hurt
By Jonathan Gornall
• UAE Leaving OPEC? A Storm In An Oil Barrel
By Frank Kane
• The Time Has Come For A Reckoning On US
Immigrant Abuse
By Azadeh Shahshahani And Sarah Paoletti
• Trump's Deep State Theory Will No Longer Find
Takers
By A Sreenivasa Reddy
-----
Why The Muslim Brotherhood Does Not Represent
Islam
By Heba Yosry
19 November
2020
As an
Egyptian Muslim woman who lived under the Muslim Brotherhood, I have seen the
damage done by the organization first-hand. Saudi Arabia’s Council of Senior
Scholars recently issued a statement announcing that the Muslim Brotherhood is
a terrorist organization, an announcement that Egyptians welcomed.
Saudi
Arabia’s declaration confirmed that the Brotherhood does not represent Islam
and that its actions are not motivated by Islam. It is this leadership that
will help our region become free from religious extremism and terrorism.
While Saudi
Arabia officially designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization
in 2014, as did the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom’s Council of Senior
Scholars has now also branded the group as terrorists, saying they run
“contrary to the guidance of our graceful religion, while taking religion as a
mask to disguise its purposes in order to practice the opposite such as
sedition, wreaking havoc, committing violence and terrorism.”
This
statement comes at a time when European countries are still floundering, trying
to find a proper strategy to uproot homegrown extremism.
Some voices
will grow louder calling for the Brotherhood’s right to exist, for their
members’ right to retain their ideology. Those voices, who believe that they
are upholding the values of equality and human dignity, are wrong.
The Muslim
Brotherhood’s ascent to power in Egypt shows the organization’s danger. The
Brotherhood came to power in June 2012, but was removed by July 2013, following
widespread protests against its rule.
During
their reign, the Brotherhood tried to suppress Egyptian women. We shouldn’t be
distracted by the botched economic strategies that they employed, their failure
to provide reliable utilities or the embarrassment they caused Egypt in
mishandling our foreign relations, or even the general victimhood narrative and
underground mentality that they couldn’t transcend, even though they held the
highest office in the country.
Beyond all
these aspects of the Brotherhood’s time in power, their women’s rights record
is abysmal.
When the
Brotherhood ruled Egypt, women’s rights regressed in two main areas:
legislative and sociocultural. The Brotherhood sought to decriminalize Female
Genital Mutilation (FGM), a practice that is outlawed in Egypt and various
Muslim countries. They argued that the matter should be decided within the
family unit. In one case, in Al Minya, an Egyptian village, the Brotherhood
circulated flyers offering subsidized female circumcision procedures as part of
their 2012 election campaign. The Brotherhood, however, denied they did this.
The
Brotherhood proposed legislation to lower the age of legal marriage from 18 to
13, but some clerics in the movement proposed that girls should be able to be
married at 9.
Under the
Brotherhood, women and girls are viewed as the private property of the family,
rather than their own agents, and the state shouldn’t interfere because her
father knows best.
On the
social front, the Muslim Brotherhood emphasized that women in the public sphere
was inappropriate, saying they “naturally belong in the home.”
Accordingly,
under the auspices of the Brotherhood a systematic and systemic campaign of
sexual harassment, and sometimes rape, was launched against female activists
who dared to show up in Cairo’s Tahrir square and defy their rule.
Female
activists weren’t the only targets of systemic sexual violence. In 2013, sexual
violence was prevalent throughout Egypt. A 2013 poll by Reuters showed that
Egypt was the worst country for women in the Middle East due to the spike in
sexual harassment, increase of FGM and overall decay of women’s rights.
The Muslim
Brotherhood has abused Islam for too long with their slogan “Islam is the
solution!” The statement made by the Council of Senior Scholars further
dissociates and distances Islam from their “solutions.” This statement is a
triumph for enlightenment, progress, equality and most importantly a triumph
for Islam.
On the
opposite end of the spectrum, Saudi Arabia was recognized as the top reformer
regarding women’s rights by the World Bank in 2019, and they have made steady
progress over the last decade regarding women’s rights. Denouncing the
Brotherhood as a terrorist organization entails a rejection of their entire
world view, including their perception of women, and this statement from Saudi
Arabia is perhaps a step toward emancipating women from the patriarchal views
that are enshrined in religious dictums.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2020/11/19/Why-the-Muslim-Brotherhood-does-not-represent-Islam
-----
Freedom Of Speech Does Not Mean Freedom To Hurt
By Jonathan Gornall
November
21, 2020
Freedom of
speech is a right that comes with responsibilities. Those who would exercise it
should also consider the virtues of simple common decency and respect for
others.
Fifteen
years on, the consequences of the decision by a Danish newspaper to print
blashemous caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) continue to
reverberate around the world. Recently, diplomats from France and other
countries were the targets of an explosive device that was detonated during
Armistice Day commemorations at the non-Muslim cemetery in Jeddah, Saudi
Arabia. Fortunately, nobody died, although there were some injuries. A security
guard stabbed outside the French consulate in Jeddah in October also escaped
with his life. Three people attacked on the same day in a church in Nice,
France, were not so lucky, however. They were killed in a knife attack carried
out by a 21-year-old Tunisian.
Their
deaths are added to the toll of hundreds of lives lost since September 2005,
when the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten decided the best way to open a debate
about the integration of Muslims in society was to shock and insult Muslims
everywhere. With breath-taking disingenuity, the newspaper later said the
cartoons “were not intended to be offensive … but they have indisputably
offended many Muslims, for which we apologise.”
That was
the cue for the French satirical weekly, Charlie Hebdo, to reprint the
cartoons, an act condemned by French President Jacques Chirac as an “overt
provocation.”
In
September 2012, 50 people died in protests around the world following the
release of a trailer for an anti-Islamic film called Innocence of Muslims.
Charlie Hebdo responded by publishing yet more cartoons of the Prophet. French
Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius remarked that the magazine was in danger of
undermining the principle of freedom of expression. “Strong emotions have been
awakened in many Muslim countries,” he added. “Is it really sensible or
intelligent to pour oil on the fire?”
No one in
their right mind could do other than condemn the attack on the offices of
Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, in which 12 staff members were killed, or the
series of coordinated attacks that followed in Paris that November, in which
130 people died, or the brutal murder last month of French schoolteacher Samuel
Paty, who was beheaded by an 18-year-old Muslim refugee for showing the
controversial cartoons in a lesson about freedom of speech.
On the
other hand, how is one to justify the persistent provocation offered by those
who insist on reusing the cartoons even though they know how much they offend
Muslims? What is the value to any individual or society of abusing the “right”
to free speech solely in order to deliberately goad and offend others?
One does
not have to be a Muslim to understand how deeply Muslims feel about such
representations of the holy prophet, or how seeing those representations
recycled again and again serves as a constant reminder that Muslims and their
faith are regarded as “other” in supposedly tolerant Western societies. So why
would anybody – especially a teacher with a duty to create an atmosphere of
inclusivity – consider it acceptable to continue to parade the cartoons that
have already distressed so many and cost so many lives?
The
justification offered by apologists from editors to presidents is that those
who peddle the drawings are fearless champions of free speech, standing up to
those seeking to silence their voices. Printing the cartoons – so goes the
argument – strikes a vital blow in a battle between ideologies. But this is
just dangerous nonsense that plays into the agendas of those who wish to win
votes by peddling the “them and us” fiction of a great struggle for control
between Islam and the secular nations of the West.
Those who
respond to the cartoons with violence are not representatives of Islam, but
disturbed, dispossessed individuals. The vast majority of Muslims simply shrug
in sorrow at the evidence that they and their beliefs are disrespected. But in
the West, the act of printing the cartoons and offending millions of Muslims
around the world is framed as a courageous defense of the right of freedom of
speech – the right to say whatever you like about anything or anyone, if you so
choose.
This is
dishonest. For one thing, in countries such as France and Denmark, free speech
requires no such defense. It is perfectly safe – it cannot be “challenged” by
outside forces, imaginary or otherwise.
And
besides, there is no such thing as true freedom of speech, even in the most
progressive of societies. Say the wrong thing about the wrong person,
organisation or religion, and you might find yourself being punched on the
nose, sued for libel or charged with hate speech. Depending on your target,
that is. Offend the followers of Islam and one is a champion of free speech,
celebrated and honoured.
In
September, Charlie Hebdo republished the cartoons yet again, to mark the start
of the trial of 14 suspects accused of complicity in the 2015 attack on the
magazine and the murder of four hostages in a kosher grocery store in Paris.
The editor-in-chief said doing so “seemed essential to us. All the reasons that
could be opposed to us relate only to political or journalistic cowardice.”
But is it
cowardly to refrain from offending the deeply held beliefs of fellow citizens,
any more than it is an act of courage to mock them?
Freedom of
speech is a right that comes with responsibilities. Those who would exercise it
should also consider the virtues of simple common decency and respect for
others. A society that tolerates contempt for and the abuse of the fundamental
beliefs of any of its citizens is not only disrespectful of their basic rights,
but also demonstrates that it does not regard all of its members as equal.
-----
Jonathan Gornall is a British journalist,
formerly with The Times, who has lived and worked in the Middle East and is now
based in the UK.
https://www.khaleejtimes.com/editorials-columns/freedom-of-speech-does-not-mean-freedom-to-hurt
-----
UAE Leaving OPEC? A Storm In An Oil Barrel
By Frank Kane
November
23, 2020
The oil
world was abuzz at the end of last week on speculation that the UAE might be on
the verge of pulling out of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC).
It was an
entertaining sideshow to the heavyweight meetings of the OPEC+ ministerial
committee that monitors output and compliance earlier in the week, but ultimately
seems likely to amount to little more than a storm in an oil barrel.
Reports
that Abu Dhabi was considering withdrawal from OPEC, of which it was a founding
member, were based on unattributed briefings from anonymous officials, but were
reported by reputable media organizations, so you have to assume there was
something substantial behind the lurid headlines of disputes, escalations and
tensions.
According
to the reports, withdrawal from OPEC was one of a series of scenarios being
considered by the UAE as the organization pondered whether to press ahead with
supply increases in January, as it committed to do in the historic April cuts
agreement credited with getting the global oil market out of the biggest hole
in its history.
The theory
was that the UAE was becoming tired of having its supply constrained by the
OPEC deal. As one of the lowest-cost producers in OPEC, it had a better chance
of maximizing its revenue and satisfying strategic national interests outside
the deal.
No time
frame was mentioned, and — it should be stressed — withdrawal was only one
possibility under consideration, and certainly not a done deal.
There was
circumstantial evidence to back up the theory. Over the summer, the UAE had
missed complying with its OPEC+ limits, saying it had to increase production
largely to meet domestic demand, and mildly ticked off the OPEC+ hierarchy for
doing so.
In
response, the UAE reaffirmed its commitments to the OPEC+ deal, and pledged to
compensate for the overproduction. UAE Minister of Energy Suhail Al-Mazrouei
appeared in Riyadh alongside Saudi counterpart Prince Abdul Aziz Bin Salman,
who is also co-chairman of the ministerial committee, in a demonstration of
OPEC+ unity.
After the
stories of a UAE withdrawal appeared, Al-Mazrouei again pledged UAE allegiance
to OPEC, emphasizing its role as a “reliable and long-standing member” which
had always been “open and transparent” in its deal with OPEC — therefore
unlikely to be organizing a backdoor exit.
Some energy
experts labeled the reports as exaggerated, even untrue, but that is to ignore
the plain fact that somebody in a senior position within the UAE energy
infrastructure was talking to journalists about the possibility of a UAE
withdrawal, even at a very hypothetical level.
Other oil
analysts thought that it was “unthinkable” that the UAE would leave OPEC,
pointing out that to do so would cause great harm to the organization and, by
extension, the global energy markets upon which the UAE depends, along with all
other members of OPEC+.
These
calmer voices also produced what they regarded as irrefutable proof that the
UAE would remain committed to OPEC: The oil markets themselves apparently did
not believe talk of a UAE withdrawal, judging by the sharp jump in crude prices
in the days after the speculation surfaced.
Brent crude
was trading back above $45 a barrel at the end of last week, despite the
stories about OPEC’s demise and the bigger-than-expected supply from Libya. The
traders do not appear to believe there is anything as cataclysmic as an OPEC
breakup in the offing.
It is true
that OPEC+ faces a critical few weeks. Whether or not to increase supply from
January is a crucial decision that will determine the health or otherwise of
oil markets as they move into recovery mode in 2021 on the back of COVID-19
vaccines and a resulting economic rebound.
But it
seems very unlikely that the energy policymakers of Saudi Arabia and Russia,
the two leading forces within the OPEC+ alliance, will also have to deal with
any imminent threat to the organization’s unity from the UAE.
-----
Frank Kane is an award-winning business
journalist based in Dubai.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1766951
------
The Time Has Come For A Reckoning On US
Immigrant Abuse
By Azadeh Shahshahani
And Sarah Paoletti
22 Nov 2020
In
mid-September, several organisations including Project South filed a complaint
with the inspector-general of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS OIG)
about medical abuse immigrants were facing at the Irwin County Detention Center
in the US state of Georgia. It provided shocking details of medical malpractice
including a high number of invasive gynaecological procedures with dubious
consent procedures, in some cases leading to sterilisation. The complaint was
based in part on revelations by Dawn Wooten, a whistleblower nurse employed at
the centre.
According
to media reports, at least 57 women have come forward with complaints of forced
and harmful gynaecological procedures endured at the hands of the doctor
contracted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to provide medical care
and some have faced retaliation by the authorities for speaking up. The medical
abuse at the detention centre has once again brought to light the need for the
international community to investigate the practices of the DHS and its agency,
ICE.
Several
weeks after the complaint was filed, on October 23, House Representatives
Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Ayanna Pressley sent a
letter to the United Nations, calling for a thorough, impartial and transparent
investigation by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
(OHCHR) into the numerous, persistent and grave violations committed with
impunity by DHS against immigrants detained in its custody.
Shortly
after, several civil society organisations, including Project South, submitted
a communication to the OHCHR Special Procedures Office with the relevant
mandates, also requesting an investigation. The document also calls on the UN
to urge the US government to take all necessary measures to end the abuse, and to
provide full redress and reparations to those who have suffered in ICE custody
at the Irwin County Detention Center, and immigrant detention centres across
the country.
The
different mandate holders will make decisions about what follow-up is
necessary. They may issue a statement of concern urging an end to abusive
practices within immigrant detention, protection and redress for those women
who have come forward; request an invitation from the US to conduct a site
visit to allow for an independent investigation and consultations with affected
parties, other stakeholders, and US government representatives; and can
ultimately issue a formal communication of their findings and recommendations,
including urging an end to immigrant detention except in extremely limited
circumstances and only as a matter of last resort, consistent with
international law.
A statement
or communication from the UN Human Rights mechanisms can then form the basis of
advocacy within the US, especially with the incoming Biden administration and
within the international community, including countries whose nationals have
been directly harmed.
These
formal requests submitted to the UN are a recognition of the failure of all
three branches of the US government to bring an end to a history of abuse
within immigrant detention. This is not just a failure of the Trump
administration, but of successive administrations which have continued to
pursue immigration policies that violate basic human rights and dignity and
enrich private prison corporations.
Violations
carried out by ICE officials have persisted and so has abuse in private
detention centres. ICE has continued and expanded contracts with such
institutions. including LaSalle Corrections, which operates the Irwin County
Detention Center. Last year, ICE’s own inspector general issued a report
detailing various violations by detention centres, including the inadequate
provision of food and medical services.
Human
rights organisations have also found evidence of various forms of abuse,
including deprivations of the right to freedom of religion; medical neglect
with fatal consequences; unsanitary and inhumane conditions of detention;
forcible separation of children from their parents; deaths of immigrants at the
hands of US Customs and Border Patrol; and retaliation against whistleblowers
and others seeking redress for abuses in detention.
For years,
immigrants at the centre and human rights advocates have been calling for
recognition of their right to dignity and to be treated humanely, but with little
success.
Having
witnessed for a long time the refusal of the US authorities to hold themselves
accountable for these grave abuses, we, as legal experts, have worked together
in pursuit of accountability through international institutions.
In May 2018,
Project South and the Penn Law Transnational Legal Clinic sent a letter to the
OHCHR, which detailed numerous violations suffered by immigrants detained at
both Irwin and Stewart, including the rampant use of solitary confinement as a
form of punishment and control; forced labour and exploitation of immigrants’
labour; alarmingly inadequate, neglectful and negligent medical care, as well
as the provision of unsanitary food and water; a disregard for immigrants’
cultural and religious beliefs and race-based discrimination; denial of due
process; and interference in the right to family life.
In October
2018, 11 separate independent human rights monitoring bodies operating under
the auspices of the OHCHR sent a formal communication to the US government
expressing grave concern over reported rights abuses committed against
individuals held in immigration detention at the Irwin County Detention Center
and the Stewart Detention Center, also in Georgia and run by the for-profit
corporation, CoreCivic.
In the two
years since we sent this letter, we have repeatedly called upon the US
government to end these abuses, yet instead, they have persisted. Between
October 2018 and now, 30 immigrants are reported to have died in immigrant
custody, four of whom were detained at Stewart.
The time
has come for DHS and ICE to have their reckoning. The international community
must respond by leading an independent, thorough and transparent investigation
that ultimately results in accountability and redress for the untold number of immigrants
and their family members who have suffered at the hands of ICE and the
contractors profiting from their detention and abuse.
-----
Azadeh Shahshahani is Legal and Advocacy
Director with Project South and a past President of the National Lawyers Guild.
Sarah Paoletti is a Practice Professor of Law
and the founding Director of the Transnational Legal Clinic at the University
of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/11/22/the-time-has-come-for-a-reckoning-on-us-immigrant-abuse/
-----
Trump's Deep State Theory Will No Longer Find
Takers
By A Sreenivasa Reddy
November
21, 2020
Is it right
to raise the phantom of deep state whenever you find yourself on a weak wicket?
Deep state
as a concept has become a popular jargon to describe a variety of situations.
The present usage appears to vary greatly from the original one used in Turkey
some decades ago.
What is
deep state? It refers to a set of well-entrenched people and interests who
ultimately call the shots in a system irrespective of who appears to be ruling.
They are the invisible people who wield the actual power. Any policy or action
that may threaten their authority or interests will be sabotaged through covert
and sometimes overt actions.
Why has it
become popular in the Trump era? The unconventional Republican President saw
himself as an insurgent leader. He viewed the American political system as an
enemy against which he needs to wage a war. When the realtor-cum-reality show
star was campaigning for his first term, he declared he would drain the swamp
in Washington.
Trump saw
the intelligence and administrative establishment as a hurdle to his grand
designs. He saw them as a sort of deep state elite who will spare no effort to
stymie his plans to shake up the system. His public spats with intelligence
community and national security establishment during his four years of rule are
well known. He saw some well-entrenched interests working against his bid to
repair ties with Russia. The whole Robert Mueller investigation into his
campaign’s Russia links was viewed as part of the grand plan of the deep state.
Trump saw
himself as a successful leader as he weathered many a storm created by the
privileged establishment, including the long-winding and rancorous impeachment
proceedings. He survived the four long years without appearing to give into the
demands of his opponents. He kept a connect with his base and worked up their baser
emotions in the run-up to the elections. But his opponents and their supporters
proved to be too big in number and too smart this time to let him run away with
an outright win.
His core
group of supporters remain charged up until this day even after their leader’s
defeat is conclusively established. They are waiting for a word from their
leader. As many commentators rightly said, Trumpism will survive as a political
ideology even after his defeat. Already there are reports his supporters are
egging on him to have another shot at presidency in 2024. That may well turn
out to be true. During the next four years of Joe Biden’s presidency, Trump
will present himself as a leader of resistance to keep his support base intact
and ready for the next battle.
So it pays
to be a leader resisting the machinations of deep state actors. But who is
Trump fighting for? He said America first is the corner stone of his
philosophy. Who are the identifiable group whom he is trying to cultivate? It
is certain the objective of his politics has always been to cultivate a
constituency of White conservative rural voters.
But is it
right to raise the phantom of deep state whenever you find yourself on a weak
wicket? The American system is based on a system of checks and balances. They
are designed to curb the arbitrary exercise of authority and ensure
transparency in decision making. You have to play by the rules. You cannot make
the system a scapegoat when it limits your authority and makes you accountable.
But Trump would have none of it.
In Turkey,
the term deep state was originally used to describe a close-knit group of
military officials, businessmen and civil servants who were out to jealously
safeguard the secular character of the country forged by its founder Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk. But now the term deep state is being used to describe any clique
that is keen to maintain its hegemony over a system through any means — both
legitimate and illegitimate.
In the UAE,
in office settings, there are loose networks who appear to maintain some
dominance. It could be Indians or Pakistanis or Malayalis who forge close ties
among themselves and maintain control over their organisations. Such groups may
scuttle the plans of any new leader who threatens their hegemony. We have a
sort of deep state present in most of these situations.
In my home
states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in India, there has been an allegation
that power stays with a select group of caste elites. Reddy, Kamma, Kapu,
Velema and Raju castes play a determining role in decision-making no matter
which party is in power. The same set of caste elites have been ruling the
states continuously and will thwart the plans of any insurgent leader who might
be keen to upset these long-established power equations. These elites can be
described as a sort of deep state who will do whatever it takes to stop any
revolutionary transformation.
So deep
state has varied hues and is used rather loosely to describe the
well-entrenched status quoist elites. But Trump’s complaints against the system
often appear to be self-serving. He is cultivating a radical fringe
constituency consumed by hostility to coloured people. Former president Barack
Obama rightly said it is a cynical game played by the incumbent president to
help himself politically. But there might come a situation when Trump may find
it difficult to get off the tiger he is riding without being eaten by it.
https://www.khaleejtimes.com/editorials-columns/trumps-deep-state-theory-will-no-longer-find-takers
------
URl: https://newageislam.com/middle-east-press/middle-east-press-muslim-brotherhood,/d/123543
New
Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism