Religious tension and industrial action plus the freedom of expression preoccupy the pundits, write Gamal Nkrumah and Mohamed El-Sayed Confessional tension reared its ugly head in many a newspaper. It is not entirely clear if such publicity helps ease the anxieties or serves to exacerbate the already tense Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt today. The headline of the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Yom 's on Tuesday focussed on the maverick sociologist and head of the Cairo-based Ibn Khaldun Centre for Development Studies Saadeddin Ibrahim's widely-publicised meeting in the Swiss city of Zurich with Adli Abadir, the self-proclaimed leader of the Coptic Christian immigrant communities abroad. The two men launched a scathing attack on the Muslim Brotherhood, with Abadir urging the government to throw the entire leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood in jail. "They deserve to languish in prison," Abadir was quoted as saying. Ibrahim and Abadir concurred that the Brotherhood represents a grave danger to inter-faith cooperation and solidarity. However, Abadir disagreed with Ibrahim that the strength of the Muslim Brotherhood is overestimated. Whatever the case, the controversial meeting no doubt aroused the indignation of the Brothers. The government, for its part, stressed the importance of not succumbing to the temptation to internationalise the question of Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt. The government line is that it is a domestic concern and that outside interference is unacceptable. The self- styled liberal daily Nahdet Misr quoted President Hosni Mubarak as saying, "Egypt rejects foreign pressure as interference in its domestic affairs". Mubarak, speaking at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in the Mediterranean seaside metropolis of Alexandria, Egypt's second most populous city, stressed that Egypt was making rapid progress in economic deregulation and liberalisation. The Egyptian economy is growing at an impressive rate and at the same time special efforts are being made to upgrade the living standards of the low- income population. Prospects for the country look good, Mubarak noted. Be that as it may, the main issue that preoccupied the press this week was the tug-of-war between the government and journalists over the freedom of expression and in particular press freedom. The weekly opposition Al-Arabi ran a headline announcing that 15 independent and partisan newspapers would not come out on 7 October in protest against the sentencing of five editors-in-chief. "Free newspapers will not come out on Sunday, and calls are made for boycotting official newspapers", ran one of the headlines on the front page. "The [final] word will now come from public opinion", ran another headline. Other papers picked up the theme. In much the same vein, Wael El-Ibrashi, writing in the weekly independent daily Sawt Al-Umma about the accusations levelled at the editors-in-chief who were sentenced to one year in prison for slandering the president, did not mince his words. "We will never accept any American or foreign capitalising on our case for a goal that has nothing to do with freedom or democracy," El-Ibrashi said. "We will never accept using our case for the agendas of foreign [governments]," he added. Osama El-Ghazali Harb, writing in the daily independent Al-Masry Al-Yom about the dilemma of the Egyptian press and the court rulings against the editors-in-chief, was no less forceful in his admonishment of the government. "Don't [these statements of the courts] raise serious and sorrowful questions about the independence of the Egyptian judiciary, which has always been a source of pride and assurance for us? Don't all these developments mean that the crisis is of a regime, not a crisis of the press," Harb warned. He insisted that the real crisis is that of authoritarianism and the slow pace of radical political reform. Another issue preoccupying the press is the labour struggles in Mahala Al-Kubra, one of the main centres of the textile industry in the country. This is the first time in two decades that industrial strikes have become such a contentious national issue. Writing in the weekly issue of the independent Al-Dostour about the recent strikes in Mahala, Kamal Khalil was sympathetic to the workers' cause. Khalil explained that the manner in which the government handled the strike was proof that it finds it difficult to relinquish its oppressive ways. He was severely critical of the government's clampdown against the striking workers and their clear siding with the employers and bias against the workers. "The police state has not changed. It is a dictatorship that is anti-masses in general and anti-workers in particular. But the rising crescendo of workers' strikes throughout the past nine months that have mushroomed in every sector has prevented the government from quashing them." Khalil rejected claims that such strikes are staged for little financial gains and with no ideological or political perspective. "When a strike achieves success, even if limited, this will encourage [workers] in other sectors to band together and call for their demands... and when this movement [of strikes] gains strength, it will naturally and spontaneously move from the economic to the political sphere," Khalil wrote. Sawt Al-Umma also published a report about the workers' strikes in Mahala. "Leaders of the strike say they are not incited by any political force, and the proof is that most of the strikers are members of the National Democratic Party." Famed writer Anis Mansour wrote in his daily column in the semi-official daily Al-Ahram about the ambiguity surrounding the scheduled conference to be held in America about the Middle East peace process. "Up until now nobody knows whether the upcoming meeting is a meeting or a conference or lecture or session... nobody knows," Mansour said. "This meeting... is a failure for it does not have any of the elements of success. The US [administration] and Israel are wasting time. And the Arabs are exposing their failures, stupidity and inability to discover their strength," Mansour concluded. The gossip reporter from Sawt Al-Umma, writing about the annual Iftar hosted by Pope Shenouda III and in which he invited the country's top officials, speculated about the implications of the Coptic Pope's especially close relationship with Gamal Mubarak. "A [big] photograph of Pope Shenouda [shaking hands with Gamal Mubarak] was hung on the wall in the hall in which the Iftar was held. Some have interpreted this as a sign that Pope Shenouda supports the bequeathing of power in Egypt to the heir apparent, the president's son." Worst, it could be seen as a signal for Copts to endorse Gamal Mubarak as the future president of Egypt.
