ByReem Abdellatif
Residents of Luxor, a key tourist destination in Upper Egypt, are mobilizing against their newly appointed governor who hails from the same ultra-conservative religious group responsible for a terror attack that took the lives of of 62 people in the same city some 16 years ago.
On Sunday Egypt’s president Mohammed Morsi appointed 17 new governors across Egypt, including eight Islamists, seven of whom belong to the president’s Muslim Brotherhood party. But the most controversial appointment was the naming of Adel al-Khayat, as governor of Luxor. Mr. Al-Khayat is a member of the Building and Development party, the political arm of Gamaa Islamiya, the group responsible for a 1997 attack at Luxor’s Hatshepsut Temple, where 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians were gunned down by six members of the movement.
On Wednesday, hundreds of Luxor residents, took to the streets vowing to bar the new governor from entering his office. The Luxor area, which contains the historic temple of Karnak and the pharaonic tombs of the Valley of the Kings, depends heavily on tourism revenues.
“We’ve been protesting for three days now in front of the governorate’s building. We’ve bolted the doors shut and many of us are currently blocking the city’s main road in order to keep the new governor from entering his office,” said Abu Bakr Fadel, a protest organizer, speaking from Luxor by telephone. Mr. Fadel said he wasn’t swayed by Gamaa Islamiya’s 2003 decision to renounce violence.
“We reject this governor completely because of his backward past. They have renounced violence since then, but what happened in 1997 is unforgettable,” Mr. Fadel said.
Egypt’s tourism minister Hisham Zaazou submitted his resignation on Wednesday in protest at Mr. Al-Khayat’s appointment, but Prime Minister Hisham Kandil didn’t accept it, according to state television.
Tourism workers, who say they’re worried about their jobs and the preservation of Egypt’s pharaonic heritage, joined the protests against Mr. Al-Khayat, vowing to remain in the streets until the new governor is removed.
“I can’t trust this man to preserve my heritage when he comes from a group that believes our antiquities are blasphemous,” said Hisham Desouky, the manager of Dream for Air Balloon Travels in Luxor.
“There were 50 tourists signed up to attend tours with our company and when this news came out on Sunday, everyone slowly started to cancel their trips. I am here protesting to preserve my heritage, and of course my job because tourism is our bread-earner,” he added.
Since his appointment, Al-Khayat has appeared in several local media outlets denying his involvement in the 1997 attack and stressing his support for the tourism industry in Egypt, which has been badly hurt by the political turmoil that followed the toppling in February 2011 of former president Hosni Mubarak.
In his 30 years of rule, Mr. Mubarak put many members of Gamaa Islamiya and other Islamists behind bars for alleged terror plots and attempts to overthrow the government. As well as the attack on Hatshepsut Temple, Gamaa Islamiya was reponsible for a series of attacks on government institutions and Egypt’s Christian minority during the Mubarak era.
But Gamaa Islamiya entered the political scene after the 2011 uprising, having renonced violence in 2003. Mr. Morsi has moved to ally his administration with ultra-conservative Islamists who oppose secular and liberal parties.
The appointment of Mr. Morsi’s new governors comes ahead of June 30, when the president’s moderate and secular opponents plan to take to the streets to demand his removal from office. Tension further escalated Tuesday between Islamists and secular protesters when at least 23 people were injured in anti-government protests in five different cities, according to state television. Saad al-Husseiny, the new Muslim Brotherhood governor of Kafr al-Sheikh province accused angry opposition protesters of setting fire to his car late Tuesday.
“The acts of violence and bullying that happened yesterday in a number of provinces exposes the early schemes of powerless opposition who have allied with remnants of Mubarak’s regime in order to drag the country in a spiral of chaos and violence,” the Freedom and Justice Party, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood said in a statement Wednesday.
The opposition to Mr. Morsi has repeatedly accused the president of monopolizing power by instilling his supporters and affiliates in every state institution.
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