Cairo - Court Rules Egyptians Married to Israelis to Lose Citizenship

[Black Stone]

Cairo - Court Rules Egyptians Married to Israelis to Lose Citizenship

 

[ARCHON]

Cairo - An Egyptian appeals court on Saturday upheld a ruling that orders the country’s Interior Ministry to strip the citizenship from Egyptians married to Israeli women.
The case underlines the deep animosity many Egyptians still hold toward Israelis, despite a peace treaty signed between the two countries 31 years ago.
The Supreme Administrative Court’s decision also scores a point for Egyptian hard-liners who have long resisted any improvement in ties with Israel since the signing of the 1979 peace treaty.
In upholding last year’s lower court ruling, the appeals court said Saturday that the Interior Ministry should present each marriage case to the Cabinet on an individual basis. The Cabinet will then rule on whether to strip the Egyptian of his citizenship.
The court also said officials should take into consideration whether a man married an Israeli Arab or a Jew when making its decision to revoke citizenship.
Saturday’s decision, which cannot be appealed, comes more than year after a lower court ruled that the Interior Ministry, which deals with citizenship documents, must implement the 1976 article of the citizenship law. That bill revokes citizenship of Egyptians who married Israelis who have served in the army or embrace Zionism as an ideology. The Interior Ministry appealed that ruling.
The lawyer who brought the original suit to court, Nabih el-Wahsh, celebrated Saturday’s ruling, saying it “is aimed at protecting Egyptian youth and Egypt’s national security.”
The government has not released figures of Egyptians married to Israeli women, but some estimates put the number around 30,000.
Israeli officials said they had no comment on Saturday’s ruling.
In 2005, former Grand Mufti Nasr Farid Wasel issued a religious edict, or fatwa, saying Muslim Egyptians may not marry Israeli nationals, “whether Arab, Muslim, or Christian.” The possibility of a Jewish spouse was not mentioned.
Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, the late Grand Sheik of Cairo’s Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam’s premier institution and oldest university, has said that while marriage between an Egyptian man and an Israeli woman is not religiously forbidden, the government has the right to strip the man of his citizenship for marrying a woman from “an enemy state.”

 

[SOCOM]

then why they help Isreal with Gaza blockade?

 

[Aslan]

then why they help Isreal with Gaza blockade?

Like they had any control over the policies of their country. It Mubarak all the way.

 

[ARCHON]

3,500 Palestinians cross Egypt's border to reach Gaza

2010-06-05 17:20:00
Last Updated: 2010-06-05 17:23:17
Rafah (Egypt): Around 3,500 Palestinians crossed Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip since Egypt opened it last Tuesday after Israel's attack on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, a security source said on Saturday.

Students who finished their studies in Egypt and abroad crossed back into Gaza, along with ill Palestinians who needed to go to Egypt for medical help.

Around 250 trucks loaded with medical and humanitarian aid crossed into the Strip since Tuesday, the source added.

President Hosny Mubarak ordered opening the border crossing, without specifying how long it would remain open, shortly after Israel's attack on an aid flotilla bound for Gaza on Monday, in which by official accounts nine activists were killed.

In the past, Egypt had occasionally opened the border for three or four days to allow people and aid to pass back and forth.

Israel and Egypt closed the Gaza Strip's borders after Hamas took control of the territory's security forces in 2007. According to the international charity Oxfam, the volume of humanitarian supplies entering the Gaza Strip is now at 32 percent of the average before the blockade.

Egypt was criticised for keeping the border closed during Israel's three-week offensive on the strip last year, which left more than 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead.

 

[Marxist]

Cairo court rules on Egyptians married to Israeli women

A court in Cairo has upheld a ruling urging the government to consider stripping Egyptian men who are married to Israeli women of their citizenship.

The ruling requires officials to send all such cases to the cabinet, to be decided on an individual basis.

The interior ministry had appealed againt the original ruling, made by a lower court last year.

The new decision is seen as a sign of negative feeling towards Israel in Egypt, despite a 1979 peace treaty.

Anti-Israeli sentiment is high in the country in the aftermath of Israeli raids on Gaza aid ships - but the long-scheduled court decision was not connected.

It calls on the cabinet to determine whether to remove the nationality of the men concerned, as well as that of their children.

The court said the government should consider whether the Israeli woman was an Arab or a Jew.

It is estimated that about 30,000 Egyptians are married to Israeli women.

'Disloyal'

The lawyer who brought the case, Nabih el-Wahsh, said it was aimed at protecting Egyptian youth and Egypt's national security.

He says that offspring of marriages between Egyptian men and Israeli women should not be allowed to perform military service.

There should not be a new generation "disloyal to Egypt and the Arab world", he said.

The appeal was sent by the government after a verdict last year stated the 1976 article of citizenship law should be implemented.

That law requires the stripping of citizenship of those who married Israelis who have served in the army or embraced Zionism.

Negad al-Borai, an Egyptian lawyer and a human rights activist, said he was "surprised" by the verdict and that the government was sending out mixed messages about Israel.

"The president congratulates Israel's president in national holidays yet it punishes the people for having relationships with Israel," he told Reuters news agency.

"Egyptian law says citizenship can only be revoked if the citizen is proven to be spying on his country, and this verdict considers marrying an Israeli an act of spying".

BBC News - Cairo court rules on Egyptians married to Israeli women

 

[Black Stone]

Do you guys think this is a positive move by the Egyptians?.

 

[Marxist]

Do you guys think this is a positive move by the Egyptians?.

not at all..may be to get good media attention and Islamic support,like Turkey got.