Egyptian Chronicles: A Tweet Up with Abu El Fatouh

Today I was invited by Dr. Abdel Moneim Abu El Fotouh campaign to attend a Tweet up with him and of course I went because I could not miss this opportunity to attend a meeting with a potential presidential candidate like Abu El Fatouh not to mention the opportunity to ask him.

I went along with amazing group of tweeps in Egypt and here are a brief for the most important point the famous Islamist and former member of Muslim brotherhood said :

He considers him as a moderate Islamist representing the moderate Islam of Egypt that respects human rights , that respects human value.

The Youth of Muslim brotherhood rebelled against most of the leaders of the brotherhood and joined the revolution. Some old members including him also joined the revolution.

SCAF needs to be pressure to shorten the transitional period so the presidential elections will be held after the first sessions of the parliament “lower and upper house”

We should press directly after the parliamentary elections and being to lobby the Egyptian people like in January 2011 in order to have presidential elections before the constitution. Having the constitution before the presidential elections under the rule of SCAF will make the upcoming president as a secretary. The constitution should not be put with SCAF in power. Some people in SCAF who as patriot as us fear from the Islamists and what they can add in the constitution yet they should not because the people , the true people of Egypt will refuse extremism.

We need an awareness campaign for the parliamentary elections as well as the presidential elections after the parliament. He is against the roadmap of both SCAF and ElBaradei.He is not convinced with the views of Dr. ElBaradei “to have constitution before president”.

This pressure comes from the real power in the street like the days of the revolution and the true days of Tahrir with millions and powerful sit in , not weak protests in Tahrir square with 20,000 protesters comparing them with the protests during the days of Mubarak.

The Zionists as well the U.S administration will refuse any real national patriot regime that puts the interest of the nation above well whether it is an Islamist regime or communist regime.
The parliamentary elections are important , we should launch awareness campaigns.

According to Abu El Fatouh SCAF does not own two important tools in these elections : Judiciary supervision as well as the people. The parties need to have strong competitions though. We have to protect ballot boxes ourselves with popular committees.

He has no direct nor indirect contact with SCAF and he believes that they do not prefer him that much. He believes that their favorite candidate is Amr Moussa.
We can see presidential candidacy alliance and he can give presidential candidacy if he sees a better presidential candidate even if that candidate is communist. With all due respect no presidential candidate is that good so far.
He does not believe in administrative censorship following the administrative authority against creativity , he believes the two authorities which have the right to censor anything are : The Society which can refuse and accept arts and the judiciary authority.

He believes that judiciary will have the right to censor arts based on the law if it is independent adding that in the past censorship was based upon political decision. Abu El Fatouh believes that neither the Al Azhar nor the Church should censor a book or a film , it is up to the society and the judiciary.

He is against the NGOs’ foreign funding in this particular stage , we should have a real state to organize the process of funding in general. He believes mostly in the local funding and even governmental funding to human right organizations that investigate in torture cases because already this not the government money but the people’s money.
Regarding SCAF’s accountability for violations since February 2011 , well he believes in the state of law and judiciary and accountability through legal channels even if it takes years.

He was very careful and realistic in his answer about this question from DNE journalist Farah Saafan. He also answered a question about safe exist of SCAF and as a real politician he spoke about priorities as well as timing nevertheless violations are unforgotten.

He believes in the total independence of Al Azhar.
People should leave those silly crazy extremist channels and stick with real scholars.
He spoke about Hudud which he believes that realistically speaking they will not be implemented so easy for real as even in time of Islamic rule they were not fully applied. He believes why they are used thought for instance as tool of deterrence. He believes that when it comes to Hudud not only a single scholar to determine it but a panel of scholars along with parliamentary and social discussion about them.
He believes in the freedom of the belief whether you are Muslim or Christian or Baha’I or Shiite Muslim.

He believes in minorities rights to be preserved by the law. He was with the Baha’is to have their religion in the National ID or leave it blank or even to omit. I was surprised when he raised the bar and said that some scholar “did not get his name” reached out that apostasy in Islam does not mean converting from religion as much historically it meant treason against the state. He believes you can press a person to believe in something he really does not believe in it otherwise you will have hypocrites in the society. Still this tolerance of other needs time so the society would change.

I believe Dr. Abdel Abu El Fatouh’s real rival is Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei after this short session. He is more to the liberal side than Islamist side , no wonder Hazem Abu Ismail’s supporters do not like him that much.

I hope other candidates hold tweet ups like that except of course Amr Moussa.

This is for now folks, I need to sleep now.