- Arts
- December 3, 2009
- 3 minutes read
Egypt minister warns of the Brotherhood’s influence on public
CAIRO: Egypt’s Minister of State for Family and Population Moshita Khatab said at a press conference on Sunday that the problem Egypt faces is not about failing to unify public opinion on a specific issue, “as some issues need to be supported by public opinion,” but instead said that the country’s most powerful opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood is co-opting society in “negative” directions. She pointed out that there are some non-official political movements – referring to the Muslim Brotherhood – that have a “powerful and significant impact on public opinion.”
The minister added at the press conference held on the sidelines of the conference “20 years on the Convention of the Rights of the Child and Islamic Shariah,” which was held in participation with the Organization of Islamic Countries to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Convention of the Rights of the Child and the establishment of the National Council for Motherhood and Childhood, on Sunday.
The conference dealt with the rights of children from an Islamic perspective and not the rights of the Muslim child only, as the conference focused on the most difficult issues, namely, the reservations made by some states party to the convention of the Rights of the Child, with a focus on the “mini models, which withdrew its reservations, such as Pakistan.”
Khatab pointed out that Egypt was one of the countries which called for the initial summit for the rights of children in 1990 and Islamic countries agreed on the importance of children’s rights by ratifying the Convention, with the exception of Somalia.
The minister argued that in Egypt, much of the problems facing the country, in terms of health issues for women and children, is a direct result of the Brotherhood creating a society that views “everything through the conservative Islamic prism.”
The Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Countries, Ihsan Ouglo, added that the issues of women and children is one of the new topics on the organization’s agenda, affirming that the fundamentals of Islam are not incompatible with contemporary values and ideals as can be coordinated afar from extremism.