Cairo - At least 10 members of parliament from Egypt`s
banned Muslim Brotherhood will attend US President Barack Obama`s
landmark speech to the Muslim world in Cairo, it was confirmed by the
group Tuesday.
As well as various lawmakers, activists, charity workers and non-
governmental organisations at the address, invitations have been sent
to the group for the keynote speech.
The Muslim Brotherhood are officially banned in Egypt, but have 88
seats in the parliament, where they sit as independents.
The invitations for Thursday`s speech came not from the US
embassy, but from the sheikh of al-Azhar university, one of Egypt's
most prestigious centres of Islamic learning.
The university is jointly hosting the landmark Obama speech.
'The invitation came from Egyptian institutions, not the US
administration,' said Mohammed al-Katatni, head of the Muslim
Brotherhood`s parliamentary bloc. 'I expect to hear reassurances to
the Muslim and Arab world, and I expect that he will push the
democratic agenda.'
'The president's speech is intended to do damage control for the
image of US foreign policy following the war in Iraq and Afghanistan,
and years of blind US support for Israel,' al-Katatni added.
'I think the US government is trying to send a message to the
Egyptian government that it will deal with us on the same level as it
deals with them, that it considers us as important,' said Egyptian
blogger Wael Abbas, who has won awards from international human
rights organisations for videos depicting police abuse he has posted
on his website, Misrdigital.com.
US-based Egyptian pro-democracy and human rights activists had
criticized Obama for choosing to address Muslims from Egypt, saying
that it would confer legitimacy on Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak,
who has ruled the country under emergency law since 1981.
'I have a problem with this whole notion of a speech to the Muslim
world,' Abbas added. 'We're not martians. We have the same problems
as people in Latin America or Eastern Europe living under
dictatorships.'
'I'm going, but I don't expect too much,' Behay al-Din Hassan,
director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, told dpa.
'It has become very clear that the question of human rights and
democracy in Arab countries will not be touched, except in general
statements.'
US Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough on Friday told
reporters that Egypt was a 'country with a burgeoning younger
population that the president looked very much forward to engaging
directly in this speech and in the meetings.'
Many in Cairo will be comparing Obama's speech to the last major
address from a senior US official in the Egyptian capital - the
famous occasion four years ago where then secretary of state
Condoleezza Rice appeared to confess past US errors.
'For 60 years, the United States pursued stability at the expense
of democracy in the Middle East - and we achieved neither,' Rice told
Egyptians gathered at the American University in Cairo in 2005.
'Now, we are taking a different course. We are supporting the
democratic aspirations of all people,' Rice said.
'Rice's speech was helpful,' Hassan said. 'But the former
administration's strategy wasn't consistent. It was mixed with
invasion of Iraq, giving (former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon
a green light to do whatever he wanted, and sending prisoners on CIA
flights to same countries that are asked to respect human rights. It
was very confused and inconsistent strategy.'
'Rice said everything we wanted to hear from the United States,'
agreed Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for
Personal Rights. 'She offered an apology for supporting dictatorships
in the region, including Mubarak's, and a promise to end this
support.'
'But what followed was more violations of human rights by the
United States, domestically and abroad, and the continuation of
support for regional autocrats for the sake of security and
stability,' Bahgat said.
'Deeds are far more important than words. Leading by example and
admitting past US mistakes is really what we expect from this
administration.'
'We know this is a public-relations event for the Americans and
the Egyptians,' Bahgat said. 'But the most important thing Obama can
do with this speech is to do no harm.'
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