Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Rejects UN Women Charter

Egypt Brotherhood

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s largest Islamist movement, criticised a United Nations report that aimed to end violence against women and girls, saying it violates principles of Islamic law.

The Brotherhood, the movement from which Egypt’s President Mohammad Mursi hails, sent a 10-point critique of a document being drafted at a meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York. The text is due to be formally adopted when the session ends tomorrow. Russia, Iran and the Holy See have also expressed objections.

“The Muslim Brotherhood calls on leaders of Islamic countries, their foreign ministers and representatives in the United Nations to reject and condemn this document,” the group said in a statement. It urged the UN “to rise up to the high morals and principles of family relations prescribed by Islam.”

The growing power of the Brotherhood since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in 2011 has raised concerns Egypt may adopt religiously motivated laws that would curtail freedoms, especially for women and Christians. Persistent protests against Mursi and the Brotherhood have frequently erupted into violence, eroding political stability and hopes of reviving an economy suffering from the flight of tourists and investors.

While the Brotherhood’s response to the UN document “doesn’t represent a shift in policy” from the Mubarak era, “it will still hurt Egypt’s image,” said Karim Al Assir, an analyst at the Signet Institute, a research centre in Cairo.

“It backs up fears that the Muslim Brotherhood is more conservative and more Islamist, which is also associated with more conservative values on women’s rights,” Al Assir said.

The primary theme of the commission’s 57th session was the “elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls.”

The Brotherhood described the theme of the conference as “deceptive,” saying it violated Islamic principles. The UN document seeks to destroy the institution of family, which Egypt’s constitution confirmed as the basis of society, the group said.

Among the 10 points the Brotherhood said it opposed were resolutions to ensure women’s rights to complain of marital rape; promote equal inheritance rights and equal rights between men and women within the family; and allow Muslim women to marry non-Muslims. It also criticised recommendations to abolish the need for male permission for travel, work or use contraception, according to the statement.

The Brotherhood also criticised what it said were UN recommendations to give a woman the right to choose the gender of her partner, raise the marriage age and legalise abortion.

Russia, Iran, and the Holy See, seat of the newly elected Pope Francis, also opposed the document, according to a senior UN diplomat, who asked not to be identified as the discussions have not been finalised.

For Iran and the Holy See, like Egypt, the objections are on religious grounds, while in the case of Russia, which has low birth rates, it may be an attempt by President Vladimir Putin to gain traction with the conservative Russian Orthodox Church, a second UN official, present at the discussions, said on condition of anonymity.

Ten Arab civil society organisations from Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan published a statement on Saturday expressing concern over their countries’ role in the UN negotiations. “Our governments are increasingly using arguments based on religion, culture, tradition or nationality to justify violence,” the statement said. [GN]

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