Tolerance Islamic style

Egyptian tycoon faces ‘tweet’ trial

By Heba Saleh in Cairo

Naguib Sawiris, the Egyptian telecoms tycoon, faces trial and a possible jail sentence over a Twitter message featuring Mickey and Minnie Mouse, the Disney characters.

In a move that has alarmed liberals, a prosecutor in Cairo on Monday ordered the referral of the Christian business leader to court on accusations of contempt of Islam after a complaint against him lodged in the summer by a group of Islamist lawyers.

ON THIS STORY

• Death penalty sought for Mubarak
• Egypt police raid civil rights groups
• Islamists get two-thirds of Egypt votes

ON THIS TOPIC

• Egyptians vote in third round of elections
• Tribal loyalties sway votes in south Egypt
• Analysis Egypt’s religious revival
• Mubarak’s corruption trial postponed

IN MIDDLE EASTERN POLITICS & SOCIETY

• Iran to extend nuclear enrichment
• Mubarak accused of shoot-to-kill policy
• Arab League defends Syria mission
• Chief Arab monitor alarms Syrian opposition

Mr Sawiris had retweeted last year a cartoon of Mickey Mouse sporting a beard and Minnie Mouse wearing a face veil, prompting outrage among conservative Muslims who saw it as an insult to their religion.

Mr Sawiris is the founder of Orascom Telecom, an international group that last year merged its assets in Asia, Canada and Europe with Russia’s Vimplecom to form one of the world’s largest telecoms groups.

A critic of Islamist political parties, whose statements often make waves, Mr Sawiris apologised several times for the tweet, denying he had intended to slight Islam or Muslims. He said the drawing had been on the web since 2008 and Egyptian cartoonists had dealt with similar themes, but he had been singled out for being a Christian.

Thousands of subscribers to MobiNil, the mobile phone operator he founded with France Telecom, switched to other companies over the summer in reaction to the cartoon.

Human rights activists, however, see the decision to try Mr Sawiris as a bad sign. “These types of cases had stopped for many years,” said Gasser Abdel Razek, associate director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a rights group. “It is worrying to see them resurfacing again. The Islamists now have a big presence in political life and they don’t need to use the courts to settle their ideological and political battles”

But Mamdouh Ismail, one of the lawyers who filed the complaint and a leader of an ultraconservative Salafi party, told Reuters news agency that the referral of Mr Sawiris to trial was proof that the law applied to all. “It’s a decision showing that there is justice in Egypt,” he said.

Mr Sawiris founded Free Egyptians, a liberal party, after the revolt last yearthat ousted Hosni Mubarak from the presidency. The party and its allies in the secular Egyptian Bloc have trailed Islamist parties in the parliamentary election, which is still under way.

Final results are expected next week, but it is already clear that Freedom and Justice, the party of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Nour, an ultra conservative Salafi party have together polled about two-thirds of the votes.

Egyptian Christians, estimated at 10 per cent of the population, are alarmed by the rise of Islamist groups and fear that it would deepen sectarian strains in the country. Salafis, who were marginalised and often repressed under Mr Mubarak, have been increasingly vocal in recent months and some of their views have disconcerted many Egyptians from both religious communities. Some Salafi spokesmen have called for Christians to pay a special tax and their religious leaders have banned followers from congratulating Christians on religious occasions such as Christmas.