CAIRO: Parliament on Monday refused the statement presented by MP Ziad El-Eleimy in response to demands that he apologizes to head of the military council and a popular preacher. Eleimy told parliament that he insisted on his political stance in regards to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). "I wish we could cooperate to end the prosecution of those responsible for killing the martyrs as fast as I've been held accountable [for my statements against SCAF]," El-Eliemy said. The People's Assembly referred El-Eleimy to a special committee on Sunday, accusing him of using offensive language to refer to the head SCAF Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi. El-Eleimy said that he didn't mind apologizing about any wrongdoing, if some of his colleagues or the Egyptian people requested that. He also said that he met with Sheikh Mohamed Hassan to clarify his criticism of the latter's donation initiative, indicating that the Salafi Sheikh was not offended. After the majority of the PA refused El-Eleimy's statement and requested an outright apology, he was referred to a special committee once again. In a speech he made in Port Said on Friday, El-Eleimy accused SCAF of responsibility for football violence that left 71 dead, referring to Tantawi using an analogy broadly seen as offensive. He used an Egyptian idiom which critiques the systematic tendency to scapegoat lower-ranking officials, while leaving the real perpetrators unpunished, namely SCAF. "[The people] let the donkey go but grabbed on to the saddle," Eleimy had said, quoting a widely-used Egyptian idiom. In a TV interview on Saturday, El-Eleimy said he used the idiom because it was common among Egyptians and easy to understand, while stressing that he wasn't indicating that the head of SCAF was a “donkey.”
