Essential partners

AN ANNUAL event commemorating World Inner Wheel Day was held on Sunday in Cairo. The event's main speaker, Mrs Suzanne Mubarak, said that Egypt's dream of building a modern society could only come true via the effective participation of citizens who are more aware of their responsibilities, more creative, and more able to take initiatives on their own.

"Civil society has become an essential partner in development," Mrs Mubarak said. "There are strategic challenges that fall on the government's shoulders, but there are also important responsibilities to be carried by civil society in a number of vital areas."

Mrs Mubarak said the fields where help is most needed are population control, illiteracy and girls' education, the creation of employment opportunities, advancing the status of women, providing care for children and mothers, as well as children with special needs, and environmental protection.

The Inner Wheel Clubs are women's groups affiliated to the International Rotary Clubs. From modest beginnings, Inner Wheel has grown into one of the largest women's organisations in the world. The first club was formed by Rotarian wives in Manchester on 10 January 1924, with the anniversary of this milestone being celebrated each year.

Demanding equality

FAMILIES of 63 Egyptian victims who died on GulfAir flight 737 in 2001 have filed lawsuits against both the airline and the manufacturer. The lawsuits demand that Egyptian families receive compensations equal to that received by the families of crash victims from other nationalities.

After two years of waiting for GulfAir to settle their compensation amounts, families of the victims were shocked to discover that the airline had categorised payments according to victims' nationalities. The company specified three categories: LE35 million for each US and Gulf citizen; LE1 million for other nationalities; and a mere LE120,000 for Egyptians.

"We have been deceived by the company," said a relative of an engineer who died in the crash.

Following the accident, the Egyptian cabinet ordered its accident and disasters committee to follow up on the matter of compensation settlements with the airline. However, it was this very same committee that apparently convinced the Egyptians to accept the insurance amounts as compensation, and not wait for the settlement.

A similar lawsuit has been filed by families of 18 victims of the 1999 EgyptAir 990 crash.

Image appeal

ON SATURDAY, the Future Centre for Studies and Research launched an initiative calling upon Arab governments to help bring back the glorious image of Islam.

Jailan Halawi reports that the initiative, which was announced during a conference held at the press syndicate, urges Arab rulers to acknowledge Islam as the distinctive "characteristic" of Arab civilisation. A statement read by the centre's executive manager, Mamdouh El-Sheikh criticised what he called the "Arab nation's negative stance" regarding Islam, personified by the media's production of material ridiculing Islam, and holding it responsible for the nation's backwardness.

The statement further called upon Arab governments to stop dealing with Islamists via "exceptional laws" and "suppressive" policies. Instead, a new approach should be considered by Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Syria when dealing with the Islamist movement.

According to Montasser El-Zayyat, who heads the centre, Arab rulers should allow the movement's exiled leaders the right to work peacefully in their home countries, especially if they are not doing anything that violates the law. "It is about time to ban exceptional and military tribunals," El- Zayyat also said, simultaneously calling on the Islamist movements themselves to adopt peaceful methods when trying to achieve their goals for the betterment of the Arab nation as a whole.

Foiled abortions

A STRANGE case involving two Qatari sisters who married two Indian men unfolded recently. After Nayla Mesned Al-Muhannadi, 28, and her 25-year-old sister Dahabya got pregnant, their two brothers suddenly informed them that the whole family would be vacationing in Egypt. The brothers' real plan, however, was to force them to get abortions once they arrived.

When the sisters discovered this, they requested asylum after landing in Cairo. A couple of days later, they flew to India via Italy.

The women, who had met their husbands on the Internet, had apparently travelled to India without telling their family about the relationships, and their plans to marry in August. When they found out, the family asked the women to come back to Qatar, on the pretense that they had accepted the marriages, all the while planning to send the daughters to Cairo for abortions, according to a statement made by their Indian husbands to the UN refugee agency and human rights groups.

Egyptian authorities decided to deport the two Qatari brothers after interrogations confirmed the abortion plan.