Who has the right, inside the Egyptian security services, to force an Egyptian citizen to leave his country, prevent him from doing anything in the fields of media or services, and also specify when he will return and why? If there is anyone with this right, may he come forward and explain to us about Amr Khaled's forced exile to London, as published by Al-Masry Al-Youm yesterday.
This is not the first time Amr Khaled has been forced to leave Egypt for several years. During those years, he traveled between Beirut and London, yet his exile did not prevent him from showing up in the media. Indeed, his physical absence has given him some dramatic dimensions, and has boosted his presence and influence. A US magazine has even chosen him as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Security services have been cautiously dealing with Amr Khaled since he started preaching Islam, as he is considered a member of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). He joined this group when he was a university student, but he then left it and has declared more than once that he is not a member anymore. He left the MB spontaneously. The group, for its part, has repeatedly tried to take advantage of him or get him to join it one more time, yet he has always refused and has indeed been eager to show that he does not belong to it. It is no secret that Khaled is skeptical about the MB for several reasons. In response he has changed activities and has tried to be a social reformer, using the young people who rallied around him. "Life Makers" has been a success and he led a wonderful campaign against drug addiction. So, why are security services afraid of him?
Does anyone really believe that he has been exiled because of his antipoverty project? Has he been exiled because his project contradicts with the project to develop 1,000 poor villages, which is sponsored by the National Democratic Party (NDP) Policies Secretary Gamal Mubarak? Is there any wrong in trying to fight poverty altogether? Would Amr Khaled cast any shadow on Gamal Mubarak or the NDP? Mr. Khaled cannot run for the presidency according to the Egyptian Constitution, so why all this fear? I do not believe the story that he has been exiled because of the Koran Stories program or because he dealt with about Moses' challenge to the Pharaoh as a sign of Egypt's reality. Otherwise, security services would change the Koran or even ban it. We dream of democratic development and today we are welcoming US President Obama. Yet, it is not normal or appropriate to exile such as a famous and influential person like Amr Khaled so that security services can kill their headache and relieve their strained nerves. Will he calm down and comply forever with such decisions? No one can take it for granted and we hope he will not become a political refugee and reveal a bad aspect of Egypt. That time is over; Egypt is full of opponents at home, so let's stop turning Egypt-lovers into enemies. I am surprised because Amr Khaled accepts to leave the country only when he receives dreadful threats. I am confident that we will not hear any official or security justification for what happened. At most, we may read a statement of a security source speaking on condition of anonymity.
