CAIRO: Islamic scholar Youssef al-Badry has filed a lawsuit against the military ruling council for appointing businessman Naguib Sawiris to join the Consultative Committee formed by the military council to act as an advisory board for social, political and economic issues. Badry is known for filing many lawsuits and going after intellectuals and thinkers in Egypt, such as in the case of renowned poet Ahmed Abdel Moaty Hegazy, who Badry sued for publishing a poem that he thought was “insulting” to religion in the poetry magazine he headed. Badry won the case, forcing the poet to almost go bankrupt after paying the court 20,000 Egyptian pounds as a fine. The poet had to sell much of his furniture to meet the fine, in a case that highlighted the problem of intellectual censorship in the country. Badry's reasons for wanting to eliminate Sawiris from the board is that Sawiris was involved in a number of public controversies, most recently his posting to a mock picture of a Micky Mouse in an Islamic dress and beard and Mini Mouse in a niqab, the dress that covers the woman's entire body and face. The telecom mogul was critizied widely and accused of deliberately insulting Islam by sharing the picture. For his part, Sawiris said he apologized tens of times for what he called a “stupid” joke that was sent to him as a mockery of what would happen if Islamists take over the country. His apology didn't please everyone and thousands of customers of Mobinil, Egypt's leading mobile operator, dropped out of the service and subscribed with other companies Vodafone and Etisalat. Badry said that Sawiris has “many situations that saddened Egyptians after he mocked the beard, the headscarf and niqab.” He also accused Sawiris of insulting Islam on a TV show with host Lamis al-Hadidi. Badry asked the council to assign another “Christian” instead of Sawiris. Badry recently put two female journalists working with al-Fagr newspaper in jail for a month for a 2009 article they wrote about him. Badry appealed the not guilty sentence and won. The two female journalists and the Editor-in-chief was also fined collectively a total of 10,000 pounds. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/QXQXA Tags: Christian, Council, featured, Naguib Sawiris, SCAF Section: Egypt, Latest News
