 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 13 - 19 April 2000 Issue No. 477 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 13 - 19 April 2000 Issue No. 477
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Books Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters An 'alien' attack?
By Sherine BahaaAn attack last week on a 20-year-old Kuwaiti female student who was not wearing a head cover drew attention to extremist activism within the ranks of the country's Islamist movement.
The girl, who has not been named, said that three men in a car approached her and asked why she was not wearing a head cover, in line with Islamic tradition. "I said 'it is none of your business.' They got out and beat me up," the girl was as quoted by Kuwait newspaper as saying. The assailants, two masked and one bearded, whipped the girl with an electric cord, fractured her arm and cut off her hair before fleeing.
Although similar attacks, also attributed to suspected Islamist extremists, have taken place several times in the past few years, the extent of the violence in this most recent one is cited as the reason for the uproar it caused in Kuwaiti society.
Kuwaiti women have more rights than those in most neighbouring countries. While its legal code is based on Shari'a, covering one's hair is not considered obligatory. Shops are filled with the latest European-designed clothing ranging from tight jeans to mini-skirts and sleeveless tops, which females can wear freely in the streets and on university campuses.
The savagery of the attack raised fears among Kuwaitis about the possibility that the kind of violence prevalent in Algeria might be emerging in their own country. Shamlan Al-Issa, a Kuwaiti political science professor, described this incident as "a warning that groups [promoting] political Islam have started to use violence and extremism to impose their views on the state and society."
The Kuwaiti Interior Ministry accused the Takfir wal hijra group of being behind the latest assault. This group gained notoriety in Egypt during the 1970s. Its members believe that Muslim society is infidel (takfir), and call on believers to return to the roots of their religion by severing their links with society and migrating (hijra) into closed communities of believers.
Groups espousing similar ideologies are alleged to be behind a spate of attacks on video shops and newspapers and some incidents in which expatriate workers have been kidnapped, taken to the desert and beaten up for having allegedly committed immoral acts.
For his part, Kuwaiti Crown Prince Sheikh Saad Al-Sabah met with the editors-in-chief of Kuwaiti newspapers this week and asked them to condemn the incident. Sheikh Saad said the attack was "alien to Kuwaiti society and detrimental to its security and stability."
Kuwaiti security forces have arrested 12 people on suspicion of having been involved in the attack on the 20-year-old girl. The Interior Ministry said that the attack "will be punished severely in line with the law.
Islamist groups have gained tremendous popularity in Kuwait since the 1991 Gulf War which evicted Iraqi occupation forces. But most of them support a peaceful transformation of society and are active in the oil-rich gulf state's outspoken parliament, where they control around one-third of the 50 seats.
A large number of those groups condemned both the incident and the ensuing media campaign criticising the Islamic movement inside Kuwait.
According to Sami Muneis, a liberal member of parliament, "What happened is a crime that resulted from the propaganda campaigns conducted by Islamic groups who accuse the rest of the society of blasphemy."
