Region | Egypt
Islamist opposition to attend Obama's speech
Egypt's secular and Islamist opposition leaders will attend a speech US President Barack Obama will make today to the Muslim world from Cairo, sources said on Wednesday.
- By Ramadan Al Sherbini, Correspondent
- Published: 23:36 June 3, 2009
Cairo: Egypt's secular and Islamist opposition leaders will attend a speech US President Barack Obama will make today to the Muslim world from Cairo, sources said on Wednesday.
They include Ayman Nour, a 44-year-old opposition leader who was released from prison last February on health grounds after spending almost four years in jail on forgery charges. His supporters said the charges were politically motivated.
Nour trailed a far second in Egypt's 2005 first competitive presidential election, which President Hosni Mubarak swept.
Ten members of parliament sympathising with the banned Muslim Brotherhood were also invited to attend the address Obama will make at Cairo University, according to sources inside the group.
The Muslim Brotherhood, whose members are listed as independents in parliament, is Egypt's strongest opposition force. Banned since 1954, the group has recently been the target of constant crackdown from the Egyptian authorities.
Mahmoud Abaza, the chairman of Al Wafd, which is Egypt's oldest liberal party, is among more than 1,000 Egyptian and foreign personalities invited too.
The invitations were jointly made by the president of Cairo University, Hossam Kamel, and Grand Shaikh of Al Azhar, Egypt's top Muslim cleric, Sayyed Tantawi, added the sources.
Mubarak, 81, is unlikely to attend the speech. Earlier in the day, he will meet Obama at a presidential palace in eastern Cairo. Obama will fly into Egypt from Saudi Arabia.
Both countries are Washington's main allies in the region. Obama is also scheduled to tour the Sultan Hassan Mosque in Cairo and the famed Giza Pyramids.
Details
Obama will be the first serving US president to speak at Cairo University, once a beacon of secularism and academic freedom that has lost some of its hard-won independence in the 100 years since its founding in 1908.
Students of all political colours organise anti-government and anti-American protests on campus. In theory "it is still a secular institution," Professor Mohammad Abu Al Ghar, who founded the March 9 Movement for academic freedom, said.
"But the reality is the administration is tied to the regime with all deans picked by the government while the majority of the student body is Islamist," Al Ghar said.
Abu Al Ghar recalls with great pride the words of Egyptian leader Sa'ad Zaghlul at the university's inauguration who said "knowledge knows no religion" in response to a speech by founder Ahmad Zaki highlighting "the glory of Islam".
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