I am not a fan of preacher Amr Khaled, yet he does not bother me. I consider him a young enlightened person with a religious vision in line with this age, and consistent with the logic of renewing the religious discourse in a changing world that looks at Islam as if it were just a bunch of extremists. Amr Khaled's activity is no secret to anyone. He does nothing behind the back of state security. He works publicly, delivers his sermons on TV and says nothing that could clash with the regime or the community. None of his words can threaten internal peace or spark strife inside the nation. Then, why is he being exiled abroad? Is this still an era of exiles? Can anyone, regardless of their role, send a citizen away from their home and family? I am not saying state security took Amr Khaled and put him on the first plane for London. State security is indeed smarter than that and can force someone to leave without actually asking them to. Whatever the case, this is a crime against this citizen and the country. Can London actually stand Amr Khaled while his country can not? This is not logical. This is strange and surprising and reveals that state security now feels stifled by everything, acts very recklessly and measures people based on standards which are so old-fashioned that all security services, even in backward countries, have put them aside. Yet in this country, unfortunately, security services actually rely on these extinct views.
Last Wednesday, Al-Masry Al-Youm printed that state security forced prominent preacher Amr Khaled to leave Egypt and banned him from shooting his programs inside the country. This followed disagreements and skirmishes which started a few months ago against the backdrop of his antipoverty project Insan [Human beings]. State security banned him from shooting the program Al-Mugaddidun [Innovators] and the crisis recently reached its peak when he was forbidden to present the second part of his program Qisas al-Qur'an [Koranic Stories] on some Egyptian TV satellite channels. According to the news, Khaled left for London on Tuesday morning and he is expected to stay there for two or three years at most. He is due to return a few days after settling down in London to collect his wife and children. After that, he will be allowed back to Egypt to see his parents at distant periods of times and just for a few days. Is Egyptian state security annoyed by his antipoverty project simply because it is similar to the 1,000 village project adopted by the National Democratic Party (NDP), which is always the first cause of the Egyptian society's misery? Does Egyptian state security believe that Amr Khaled's initiative can defeat a project sponsored by Gamal Mubarak? Many hopes are reposed in this project and it is thought it could pave the way for the presidency, as if this road could only be paved through the poor's bodies. Those who are poor, are they victims of both projects? By the way, it is Egypt's state security itself which has made Amr Khaled so famous by banning it in the past. The funny thing – so funny that it actually hurts - is that, according to Al-Masry Al-Youm, the dispute is getting worse, as Amr Khaled intended to show the story of Moses in his program Qisas al-Anbià [Stories of the Prophets]. This story, which recalls Moses challenging the Pharaoh, was posted on Khaled's website and many of the comments linked the story with the Egyptian reality. Yet, does state security think Amr Khaled is the author of Moses' story? Amr Khaled was telling Koranic stories. So, does this mean those stories have been banned by State Security? Can people be prevented from reading the Koran and looking into the reality of the stories?
