: Prior to the crackdown, although officially an unlawful
: organization, the Muslim Brotherhood was openly tolerated by the
: Mubarak government, as it had been at various times under the
: previous governments of President Gamel Abdel Nasser and Mubarak's
: immediate predecessor, President Anwar Sadat. Indeed, the Mubarak
: government appears initially to have seen the Brotherhood as a
: potential foil to the extremist groups, and to have been keen to
: facilitate the Brotherhood's popularity in the hope that this would
: help contain the Islamist insurgency. A similar approach had previously
: been used by other Egyptian leaders who also sought to use the
: Brotherhood as a counterbalance to leftist and other political forces
: in the country. Under Mubarak, however, the effect was markedly
: different from the intended one: in fact, it helped create a context
: for further radicalization of the Muslim Brotherhood. At the same
: time, it opened the way for the Brotherhood to increase its
: influence, and thereby to advance its Islamist agenda, in the
: universities and other institutions and within the professions,
: including among lawyers and the judiciary.
: In 1995, the government launched a major crackdown on the Muslim
: Brotherhood which resulted in hundreds of arrests. Leading members of
: the organization were charged and brought to trial before the Supreme
: Military Court, accused of plotting against the government and
: seeking the establishment of an Islamic state. Over 50 of them were
: convicted, though no specific evidence was produced to substantiate
: the charges against them, and sentenced to prison terms of up to
: five years after a trial which breached international fair trial
: standards. Further arrests occurred during parliamentary
: elections in November and December 1995, and hundreds of people were
: killed or injured in political violence around the elections.
: Uncompromising adherence to Islam has been the central issue in this
: power struggle between the government and the multi-stranded
: Islamist movement. Faced with criticism by Islamic extremists that it
: is not Islamic enough, the government has sought increasingly to
: compete on the Islamists' terms. It has claimed for itself the mantle
: of Islamic purity and orthodoxy, and has taken steps to co-opt
: members of the religious establishment in support of this claim. But,
: in return, the Islamists have exacted a heavy price. They have
: exploited the government's vulnerability to shift the grounds of
: debate towards the Islamist agenda with the result that those who
: advocate long-cherished values such as freedom of speech and respect
: for human rights now stand targeted by both sides, government
: and Islamists alike. Establishment clerics have been allowed by the
: government to ban books and censor films, and to endorse violent
: attacks on secularist writers. By attempting to outflank the
: Islamists, the government has only succeeded in expanding the
: influence of their ideas. Egypt's traditionally pluralist civil
: society is on the retreat.
: Egyptian popular culture, in particular films, television
: programmes and books, has become a religious battlefield. Islamists
: have criticized trends in the arts and literature and have attacked
: authors, labelling secularist intellectuals as atheists and apostates,
: so casting them as social outcasts and putting their careers and, in
: some cases, even their lives at risk.
: The main official religious institution in the campaign against
: secular intellectuals is al-Azhar , the 1,000-year-old, Islamic
: mosque, university and research institute, which holds its own property
: and also receives state funding. Al-Azhar has issued numerous fatwa s
: (edicts or religious rulings) denouncing writers as blasphemous and
: banning their work. Even so, Islamist extremists engaged in violent
: opposition to the government have denounced al-Azhar and the
: religious establishment it represents as a tool of the state. At
: the same time, the government itself has criticized al-Azhar for
: failing to contain the growing threat to its power presented by
: political Islam. The conflict over who truly represents Islam in
: Egypt is set to continue for some time.
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