Issue No.590
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13 - 19 June 2002 Issue No.590 Home news |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
Flogging a dead horse
One of Al-Azhar's committees recently gave the green light to a draft law banning the sale of alcoholic beverages. Mona El-Nahhas looks into the implications
In April, Hussein Ibrahim, a member of parliament belonging to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group, submitted a draft law to the People's Assembly banning alcoholic drinks. The draft was sent to the Proposals Committee, which is in charge of receiving suggestions from MPs. Although Egyptian law does not criminalise drinking or trading in alcohol, Ibrahim's 22-article draft considers these acts as crimes to be penalised by flogging.
Top religious figures had to be consulted since the proposal was supposedly based on religious grounds. So Parliament Speaker Fathi Sorour referred the draft to Grand Mufti of the Republic Ahmed El-Tayeb who, in turn, sent it to Al-Azhar's Islamic Research Academy. Last week, the Academy's Jurisprudence Research Committee approved the draft as being in line with the principles of Islamic shari'a, and called on the People's Assembly to endorse it quickly.
Toursim officials fumed. Most declined to comment. Some angrily denounced the draft as 'disastrous'. "What are they talking about? Such a law would mean nothing less than the closure of the entire tourism sector and lead to four million workers being unemployed," said Mahmoud Salem, secretary-general of the Egyptian Hotel Association. "If they want this, fine! Let's go home and shut down all the hotels in Egypt. They would soon be deserted anyway. Tourists would never come here again."
Salem fears that the 17 Islamist members of the People's Assembly will succeed in pushing the draft through.
This is not the first time a ban on alcohol has been put before the assembly. While discussing the government's policy statement last March, Mahfouz Helmi, another Muslim Brotherhood MP, called on the government to ban alcoholic drinks and to stop licensing shops selling alcohol. Muslim Brotherhood MPs applauded Helmi, but other legislators deliberately cut the debate short.
"I hope the draft will be endorsed very soon," Hussein Ibrahim told Al-Ahram Weekly. The draft, the Islamist deputy said, was not his brainchild. It was prepared by a distinguished group of legal experts and men of religion in the late 1970s -- a period when religious fundamentalism was on the rise. But due to political circumstances at the time, it was shelved and remained in the People's Assembly archives. In the draft's explanatory note, Ibrahim pointed out that Speaker Sorour was one of the group who prepared the draft.
The draft remains with the Proposals Committee. If approved, it will be referred to the Religious Affairs Committee. If given the green light, it will be debated in parliament. Ibrahim rejected the argument that such a law would devastate tourism. The suggestion, he said, was unfounded. The topic lacked thorough study. He said: "Tourists do not come to Egypt to drink. The draft's opponents should find another pretext for not applying the shari'a.
Ibrahim's draft legislation proposes a maximum penalty of 40 lashes for drinking; 30 for trading in alcohol plus a fine not exceeding LE5,000; and 20 for offering and/or advertising alcohol plus a fine of LE2,000. Floggings, the draft further proposes, should only be handed down to people of 15 years of age and older.
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