The greatest freedom of all is the freedom to be forced to participate in freedom.

And if you don’t understand what that means, there’s an entire flotilla of B-52 bombers ready to explain in more detail.

The National:

Egypt’s electoral commission on Wednesday said it would refer to prosecutors about 54 million people who did not vote this month in elections for the upper house of Parliament.

Only about 14 per cent of Egypt’s almost 63 million eligible voters took part in the election, the commission said.

It said that almost 1.4 million ballots, or 15.4 per cent of all votes, were invalid.

The decision to prosecute reflects the government’s disappointment at the low turnout.

The 300-seat chamber, known formally as the Council of Senators, will have a purely consultative mandate, vetting draft legislation sent by the president or the legislature.

The summer’s punishing heat and the fear of coronavirus infection contributed to the low turnout.

Voter apathy is also believed to have had an effect, with the outcome of the vote – a chamber packed with government supporters – seeming to be a foregone conclusion.

One hundred of the chamber’s 300 seats were won by a “closed,” pro-government list that ran unopposed.

Another 100 will shortly be appointed by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, while the other third were won by independent candidates who are not critical of the government.

Parliament’s upper chamber was struck out by Egypt’s 2014 constitution, but amendments adopted in a nationwide referendum last year included its reintroduction.

Under a rarely implemented law, voters who stay away from the polls without a valid reason face a fine.

Those fines could give the treasury up to 2.75 billion Egyptian pounds (Dh636.6 million/$173.3m).

It would be virtually impossible to prosecute 54 million people, let alone collect the fines, but the government, seems determined to make a statement.

“The Egyptian state has provided sufficient resources and made the necessary preparations for voters to exercise their political right,” the commission said.

“The National Electoral Commission has taken all the preventive measures to protect all stakeholders in the election process, as well as voters, from the coronavirus.

“It has warned time and again that voters must cast their ballots, but some failed to fulfil their national role and duty to participate.

…

“It was a competitive election held according to the highest standards of international transparency and integrity,” said the commission’s chairman, Lasheen Ibrahim.

He praised Egyptians for taking part in the vote despite the heat and the pandemic, which has killed more than 5,000 in the country and infected nearly 100,000 since it began in February.

“And despite of this, the glorious people of Egypt were emphatically able to pull through these conditions and show the world that they are able to face these difficulties regardless of the cost,” Mr Ibrahim said.

Some of you might be too young to recall, but Egypt did have real elections at one point, in 2012.

Like any real elections in an Arab country, it was won by people who don’t like Jews, more specifically the Muslim Brotherhood.

That wasn’t real democracy, because in real democracies, people who don’t like Jews don’t win elections, regardless of how many votes they get.

So the army did a coup after a year or so, a perfectly democratic coup, then democratically declared the election-winning Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, and they’ve been de facto running the country ever since without anyone having a problem with the apparent undemocraticness of it.

Islam is a progressive, LGBT-friendly religion. Homophobes aren’t true Moslems.

You know that feeling, when you want to wage anal jihad, but your cleric told you you can’t because it’s haram?

No? Anyone?

M-me neither. Heh.

Breitbart:

An Egyptian cleric formerly known as the “preacher of the revolution” during the revolt against President Hosni Mubarak warned Egyptian television viewers this week that Muslim Brotherhood sheiks have issued a fatwa permitting “anal jihad” for terrorists far from their wives, which is exactly what it sounds like.

In televised remarks on Egypt’s Al-Tahrir TV on June 26 and translated into English by the Middle East Media Research Institute, cleric Mazhar Shahin told his viewers that members of the Muslim Brotherhood were engaging in homosexual anal sex acts as a way to “wage jihad in the name of Allah.”It was a “new kind of jihad,” he explained, where “they practice homosexuality with one another, thinking, wrongly, that this constitutes jihad for the sake of Allah.” The acts are sanctioned if the jihadists are far from their wives. He does not explain how engaging in homosexual sex in private furthers the cause of establishing an Islamic caliphate – the goal of most mujahidin – but compares it with “sexual jihad,” an act he describes as when “somebody takes a woman and has sex with her because he is waging jihad.”

What the hell did I just read?

Huh.

I’m not sure how to react to this.

Lol, I guess?

We’ve already explained that the default sexual orientation of these Arabs is “bisexual.” They all have high sex drives and can’t control themselves. If women aren’t handy for raping, they’ll just turn on each other. [Editor’s Note: A more accurate term may be “pansexual,” as they will also have sex with children or animals if they feel the need. –AA]

I guess this was becoming a crisis in the “Muslim brotherhood,” and they had to make an exception for it or else they would have had to execute too many of their soldier.

I dunno.

But it sure is funny.

It’s for the glory of Allah or whatever.

It’s only terrorism if you get caught.

No, wait.

RT:

A senior Amnesty International official has been found to have private links with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and revolutionary Islamists accused of plotting a coup in an Arab state.

Amnesty’s director of faith and human rights, Yasmin Hussein, stayed overnight at the residence of a Muslim Brotherhood advisor during an official visit to Egypt in direct contravention of Amnesty guidelines.

Her husband was also named as an alleged Islamist in documents relating to a 2013 sedition trial in the United Arab Emirates.

Hussein, who was until recently the charity’s director of international advocacy and among its leading voices at the UN, denies being an Islamist and has said she is “vehemently opposed” to raising money for “any organization that supports terrorism.”

An investigation published by The Times claimed that Hussein, 51, held a private meeting with a Muslim Brotherhood government official during an Amnesty mission to Egypt in 2012.

After the private meeting with Adly al-Qazzaz, a ministerial education adviser, Hussein had dinner with his family and stayed overnight in their home.

Amnesty International was not informed of the visit, despite instructing its staff to declare any links that may generate a real or perceived conflict of interest with its independence and impartiality.

An Amnesty employee told The Times that the charity had strict rules on overseas trips, adding: “For an Amnesty delegate to accept an invitation to stay at the residence of a government official is a serious breach of protocol.”

The Muslim Brotherhood is considered a terrorist organization in Bahrain, Russia, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

In what countries is Amnesty considered a terrorist organization? Because it should probably be all of them.

It’s almost like the Jews who run these organizations like creating chaos in Arab countries.

Egypt’s disgraced former President Hosni Mubarak will be released from jail soon, after prosecutors cleared him in a corruption case, his lawyer said on Monday, dropping a new bombshell on a nation in turmoil.

The most populous Arab country is already enduring the bloodiest internal conflict in its modern history as the army, which deposed President Mohamed Mursi on July 3 after huge protests against him, cracks down on his Muslim Brotherhood.

Mubarak, 85, was arrested after a popular uprising overthrew him on February 11, 2011 as unrest spread across the Arab world.

In scenes that mesmerized Arabs, the ex-strongman appeared in a court-room cage during his trial on charges that ranged from corruption to complicity in the murder of protesters.

More than a year on, the only legal grounds for Mubarak’s continued detention rest on another corruption case which his lawyer, Fareed el-Deeb, said would be settled swiftly.

“All we have left is a simple administrative procedure that should take no more than 48 hours. He should be freed by the end of the week,” Deeb told Reuters.

Without confirming that Mubarak would be freed, a judicial source said the former leader would spend another two weeks behind bars before judicial authorities made a final decision in the outstanding case against him.

Mubarak, along with his interior minister, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison last year for failing to stop the killing of protesters in the revolt that swept him from power.

He still faces a retrial in that case after appeals from the prosecution and defense, but this would not necessarily require him to stay in jail. Mubarak did not appear at a hearing in the case on Saturday. He was also absent from Monday’s proceedings.

He is being held at Tora prison on the southern outskirts of Cairo, the same facility where senior Brotherhood members have been detained in a clampdown that followed Mursi’s ouster.

Mubarak’s eventual release could stir more political tension in Egypt, where at least 850 people, including 70 policemen and soldiers, have been killed since the army-backed government forcibly dispersed Brotherhood sit-ins in Cairo on Wednesday.

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