A Referendum on Sharia

Egyptians went to the polls yesterday to vote in the first round of a referendum on the new sharia-intensive constitution proposed by President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. The ten provinces which were polled yesterday include Cairo and other major urban areas, where secular “liberal” sentiment is the strongest. As of this writing, the sharia-advocates are claiming a victory, although opposition leaders say there was widespread fraud and vote-rigging.

Alain Wagner, chairman of the French chapter of the International Civil Liberties Alliance (ICLA), was interviewed yesterday on France 24 about yesterday’s round of voting. Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for subtitling and uploading this video:

Transcript:

00:00		Alain Wagner's reaction (analysis). Good evening.
00:02		Good evening.
00:03		You are Chairman of the International Civil Liberties Alliance.
00:07		Your are known for your strong anti-American opinions (WTF?!! why does she say that?? I raise an eyebrow with surprise)
00:10		and very involved against sharia.
00:13		Yes.
00:15		And you participated in this afternoon's rally on the Place du Trocadero in Paris to say no to the Egyptian Constitution.
00:22		You came as a citizen activist, right?
00:27		No, I was there on behalf of my organization which is focused on sharia enforcement issues,
00:35		and therefore of the resulting destruction of democracy and human rights.
00:39		What sharia enforcement are you talking about? Because sharia was already in the former Egyptian Constitution.
00:50		Here we have a strengthening of sharia, because the Muslim Brotherhood organization is anything but democratic,
00:56		and what we are now seeing in Egypt is a highjacking of a democratic process.
01:01		How do you define the strengthening of sharia, can you give us some details?
01:06		Very simply. You just have to look at Mr Morsi's own declarations. The Muslim Brotherhood's goal is to install sharia law.
01:12		It's their openly declared goal, it's part of their doctrine and of their motto, it's their objective.
01:17		It's a matter of interpretation… so say the Egyptian opposition.
01:19		No, no, not at all. The Muslim Brotherhood organization's one and only goal is to enforce sharia law and the Caliphate.
01:31		Hence the current participation in a democratic process is a complete farce.
01:37		So you denounce it, but do you think that Egyptian population will be able to say no this referendum?
01:52		Today was the first election day with a strong participation. How do you see the Egyptian future?
01:57		I'm not very optimistic. It's very probable that we'll see an increase of violence in the riots.
02:02		Because Egyptian liberals perfectly understand what's happening
02:06		and on the opposite side, Muslim Brothers know very well how to manipulate the population,
02:11		and are deceiving people about their real objectives.
02:16		Thank you, Alain Wagner, for this analysis.