Atlantic Council

If liberal values are going to spread in Egyptian society, politics is not the answer. Women are. “The normal woman has a job, goes to market, and raises her family, but she is not part of a political party,” said Youssef Habib, editor-in-chief of the newly launched women’s magazine Lu’lu’a, or Pearl.

 Egypt's Islamist-led government has asked independent legal experts to propose amendments to the new constitution, the state news agency MENA said on Tuesday, signaling that it may be heeding concerns of the liberal and leftist opposition.

Egypt’s liberal opposition think Washington has got it all wrong. The narrative increasingly voiced by the liberals is that Washington has adopted the Muslim Brotherhood and will patiently work with President Mohamed Morsi’s government while the country falls to ruin. As former parliamentarian and National Salvation Front (NSF) member Amr Hamzawy put it last month, The American administration has made a “strategic bet on the Muslim Brotherhood.”

 The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) denounced violence that took place in Khusus in Qalyubiya Governorate and outside the Coptic cathedral in Abbasiya, and demanded in a statement that the state "reveals the plans [aiming to create strife between different Egyptian sects], punish those behind them and stop this threat." They also asserted that deadly clashes in the cit

Inside St. Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral, Bishop Raphael, charged with performing the funeral prayers for the martyrs of El Khusus, was having difficulties finding a moment of silence for his prayers to be heard.

On the afternoon of 24 March I found myself in a taxi headed to the Egyptian Media Production City (EMPC) alongside a Salafi cab driver whilst pretending to be a member of Hazemoon, supporters of former presidential candidate and the self-proclaimed Lion of Islam, Hazem Salah Abu Ismail.

Catch up on the latest out of Egypt every week, with analysis, news updates, photos, videos, and more.

Egypt’s social, political, and economic fabric appears this spring as fragile as it has ever been, between violent clashes near the Muslim Brotherhood’s Muqattam headquarters two weeks ago, repressive legal campaigns against Bassem Youssef and Ali Qandil, and a disturbing trend of radical Islamist vigilantism. Given this mess, it’s easy to overlook the messy aftermath of al-Azhar University’s recent poisoning scare, in which contaminated cafeteria food sickened some 583 students.

A fire has severely damaged the prosecution offices at the South Cairo Criminal Court in Bab El-Khalq. The fire, which broke out early on Thursday morning, destroyed everything inside and caused the ceiling to collapse, al-Ahram Arabic news website reports. 

The Shura Council approved the Sukuk Law on March 19, 2013, sending it on its way to final approval by the presidency. As the first legislation to follow the FJP’s strong rhetoric on the subject of Islamic finance, the law seems to carry a dual-mandate: an addition to Egypt’s dwindling economic crisis-management tools that doubles as a cornerstone of a longer-term economic Islamization project.

The arrival of an IMF team this week in Cairo has naturally set off a wave of speculation about the likelihood of an IMF program.  Minister of Planning Ashraf Al-Araby said today that agreement would be reached in a couple of weeks, which would presumably mean the program would be finalized at the IMF Spring Meetings in Washington during April 19-21, which the Egyptian economic team will be attending.

The Supreme Council of Al-Azhar on Wednesday dismissed the head of Al-Azhar University Osama al-Abd over the mass food poisoning of 561 students after eating meals at the university. 

Ambushes, kidnappings, torture and murder have come to characterize Egypt’s security sector’s engagement with the Egyptian public in both pre- and post-revolution Egypt. This has left many asking: How did the interior ministry survive its pre-Mubarak incarnation given that one of the revolution’s key demands was police reform?

State body the General Authority for Investment (GAFI) has warned television channel CBC it will revoke its licence if prominent satirist Bassem Youssef’s weekly show ‘al-Bernameg’ does not comply with the standards of the media free zone, where the channel is based.