Anonymiss Express

A court orders the Egyptian government to ban all websites that published the the controversial anti-Islam film for a period of one month, including the popular video sharing portal, YouTube

Egypt’s administrative court on Saturday ordered the ban of YouTube in the country for a month for not removing the controversial anti-Islam film, The Innocence of Islam.

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[…] The campaign of Gen. Ahmad Shafiq, the secular candidate in Egypt’s presidential election, announced Tuesday that its tally gave its candidate 51% of the vote in the election held this past weekend. Official results won’t be reported until Thursday, and an annoyed High Electoral Commission reprimanded the candidates for announcing results prematurely. Muhammad Mursi, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, had earlier claimed victory, saying he has 52% of the votes versus 48% for Shafiq. Mursi’s millions of followers had already staged celebrations of his victory, and if it is in fact withdrawn in favor of Shafiq, there will be a lot of hard feelings and possibly even violence. […]

Shafiq’s claim is the most dangerous among a large number of perilous maneuvers taken by Egyptian political actors since last Thursday.

It was risky for the Egyptian judiciary to declare the parliament elected last fall to be null and void, and to order its dissolution (an executive decision not in fact a prerogative of the court). It thereby stole the votes of millions of Egyptians and delivered a slap in the face to the Muslim Brotherhood, which dominated the parliament and now have been deprived of the fruits of their victory at the polls.

Sending the parliament home is dangerous because if the Muslim Brotherhood concludes that the old Mubarak elite in the courts and the military is determined never to let them win in civil politics even if they play by the rules, then they may decide to play a different game which they can win, the game of violent theocracy.

We have seen this movie before, and it is entitled Algeria. (In 1991 there, the fundamentalist Islamic Salvation front won the parliamentary elections. The generals sent them home and dissolved parliament. That step threw Algeria into 15 years of vicious civil war, in which perhaps 150,000 people died)

I had thought that some of the sting could be taken out of the dissolution of parliament if Mursi, the fundamentalist, won the presidency. Then he could give the Brotherhood some cabinet posts, e.g.

But if the government now abruptly declares that Shafiq has won, despite the certitude of the Brotherhood that it came out ahead and knows the local poll numbers to prove it, then there is likely to be a blow-up. The Brotherhood will consider that it has had two elections stolen from it.

The openly fraudulent parliamentary election of fall, 2010, in Egypt was one of the causes of the revolution that began on Jan. 25, 2011.

I thought to myself, the 22-member SCAF cannot be so stupid as to take this sort of risk. Surely they know that the country is mobilized and could easily erupt. But as you see the SCAF on television nad hear about their actions, you find it hard to escape the conclusion that yes, they aren’t being very bright, and appear unaware of how perilous their path is.

They are seeing what they can get away with.