Dr. Akmal Ramadan, professor of international law at Minya University and possible presidential hopeful, criticized Egypt's official religious organizations and Al-Azhar for its disappearance recently. He said Al-Azhar's lack of presence leads to dogmatism which in turn fuels the creation of strict Salafi groups. At a conference titled “Women are permanent partners in freedom and the Arab renaissance” held by the Egyptian Family Development Organization yesterday in a Cairo hotel, Ramadan said, “Women suffer the most from dogmatism.” “Some parties refuse to allow women to hold ruling positions, citing untrue Islamic reasons,” he added. He said women need to activate the roles of wise religious organizations. The religious organizations mustn't let amateurs speak in the name of religion in order to avoid disaster. Ramadan said all people now turn to politics and all want to participate in policy making, but only small number of them can really understand policy. He added, “Our people want to achieve many goals but they don't know how to implement them. We wanted to overthrow the former regime, and we did, but we want to achieve other demands like raising wages and fair rule.” He also criticized the women's quota in parliament, which was added last year. “The quota system is a comical process,” he said. “It did not add anything to women; in contrast, it was controlled by a number of women whose names were predefined by the former regime.” He asked Egypt's ruling military council to take procedures such as delaying parliamentary elections and forming a new constitution. Ramadan said Egypt should be a civil state with religious authority. He said Islam promotes the civil state. He asked all politicians to be calm and asked all delegations to unify with all political parties on defined, clear objectives. “We are all part of the former regime. We must go on to a new regime with new thought,” he added. Ramadan warned of the liberals in Egyptian society. He said the potential for disaster doesn't lie with Egypt's Muslims but with liberals. He said liberals do not recognize how dangerous their speech is, while Muslims constrict religion only in the form which they think it must be changed. Dr. Suheir Montasir, professor of civil law at Zagazig University, also spoke at the conference. She said, “Family laws issued during Suzanne Mubarak's era harmed women.” Montasir said Law 1 of 2000, “Khula,” was against woman although it looks to be the opposite. “Khula” law states that women have the right to divorce if they cannot continue life with their husband. The husband would not make any mistake or abuse his wife. The wife should only return the dowry. Montasir said that Personal Status Law is considered a tragedy in all ways. It gives the father only three hours visitation with his child after divorce. Meanwhile, in developed countries the father can have visitation rights for nearly two days. Montasir added that these laws harm both the father and the child. The father's right to see his child is the child's right in order to be raised in an appropriate environment. But these laws turn this right into a weapon for the wife to extort the husband. Montasir asked for a legislative revolution in order to correct the former regime's family destruction.
