CAIRO: Egypt, a majority Muslim country, “should not allow beach tourism,” said Secretary General of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) Saad Katani. “Egyptian beaches should not be for naked people who wear bikinis. We must protect the Egyptian youth from seduction,” said Katatni. He added that drinking wine should not be allowed in streets, citing EgyptAir as an example. The airline prohibited drinking wine on its planes and its revenues were not negatively affected, he claims. “We need to issue an Islamic Fatwa from the Islamic Research complex, not from Dar el-Iftaa, to solve the problem of the tourism sector,” Katani said during a conference with the Tourism Support Coalition. "We do not have a specific religion or Brotherhood Islam, and the FJP was not created to prevent wine or bikinis.” He continued that there is a media exaggeration about the Muslim Brotherhood. “That the Party's aims to cancel tourism is a baseless fear, and any party's ideology … should not be confined by wine or bikinis,” he said. Katatni highlighted that churches, mosques and archeological sites cannot be touched by anyone and there is nobody who can issue a fatwa to ruin temples. “The beaches for naked people cannot agree with Egyptian Legislation – neither Christian nor Islamic because Egypt is not like Afghanistan.” The Party also discussed religious, foreign, cultural and entertainment tourism. Katani added that the party is aware of a legislative system for tourism; this system will be of concern in the upcoming parliamentary session. “The Sector of Tourism Guides faces certain problems that should be reconsidered but there is no party that can resolve these problems without the help of sector employees,” Katani said.
