CAIRO: The Muslim Brotherhood and its political party, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), have condemned the resurrection of the National Women's Council (NWC) in recent months, arguing that it has no legitimacy in the current political dynamic facing Egypt. However, the governmental council's chief Mervat Tallawy, has again lashed back against the conservative Islamic group, accusing it of attempting to undermine women's rights, including divorce and custody rights. The Brotherhood has fought back, arguing that the council is a remnant of the Hosni Mubarak era and should be disbanded. “They are trying to take away rights that women attained in compliance with Islamic sharia,” said Mervat Tallawy, head of the National Council for Women, in comments published by Reuters news agency, adding that criticism of the council was an attempt to erode female rights. The Brotherhood said in response on its website that the institution was “a weapon of the former regime to break up and destroy families.” “They do not want a national institution for women,” Tallawy told Reuters in an interview. “They have said that the international (women's) agreements are imperialistic and part of a foreign agenda.” The council was founded by presidential decree in 2000 and was overseen by Suzanne Mubarak until her husband was ousted following a popular uprising in February 2011. In late March, FJP member of Parliament Mohamed al-Omda called for a woman's right to divorce, which is guaranteed under Egypt a legal decree in 2000, to be revoked. According to Omda, the 2000 legislation was the doing of the NCW, which had been headed at the time by former President Hosni Mubarak's wife Suzanne. He said that the law should be revoked because it was part of the former regime and part of the means for the NCW to exist in the first place. The Egyptian Women's Union has called for “complete rejection of this proposal,” saying that the issue of “divorce law was an issue to try to solve the dilemmas facing legal implications of the [country's] flaws and the inability for women to obtain provisions for their benefit.” Before 2000, women in Egypt did not have the right to divorce their spouses on their own terms. Omda said he plans to pursue the matter even further, which has angered many women's rights activists in the country, who say it could be the beginning of the conservatives push to remove women from positions of any power. “It is a bad sign that they want to revoke the divorce law because this law did a lot for women legally and it gave us some empowerment,” 27-year-old legal assistant in Cairo Marwa told Bikyamasr.com. Although the Brotherhood, and their presidential candidate Mohamed Morsi, have promised “equal rights for women,” many in Egypt are uncertain that the Islamic group means to follow through with such promises, and worries are abounding that the group could rollback numerous gains in recent decades. Leading feminist and Egyptian Nawal Saadawi told Bikyamasr.com that this is a dangerous trend that forgets the role women played in the January 2011 uprising that ousted Mubarak and his regime. “Women are always at the forefront of revolutions, and in Egypt it was no different,” she said, adding that “people must understand that half this country are women and they will not remain silent.”
