CAIRO, 16 April 2006 — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has sought to defuse anger over remarks he made about Shiites being more loyal to Iran than their own countries, saying he was referring only to religion. “My remarks about Shiites dealt with their religious loyalties and sympathies, without putting into question the patriotism of Shiites in Iraq or any other country,” Mubarak said in an interview yesterday in the official daily Akhbar Al-Youm.
Ironically, Iraq is considered the cradle of Shiism, not Iran, and is home to its two holiest sites, Najaf and Kerbala. Moreover, the world’s Shiites have traditionally looked to Iraq’s clerics as being pre-eminent. Both Iran and Iraq had condemned the statements made by Mubarak to Al-Arabiya television on April 8 in which he said “Shiites are mostly always loyal to Iran and not the countries where they live.” In the same interview, Mubarak described Iraq as “in the throes of a civil war.”
“Egypt does not linger on small details or on attempts to mask reality. What is important is the protection of the Iraqi people who have suffered a great deal,” he told Akhbar Al-Youm. “Our efforts toward the Iraqi people do not differentiate among Sunnis, Shiites or Kurds... They are all Iraqis and our brothers.”
Meanwhile, five publishers, all members of Egypt’s opposition Muslim Brotherhood, were detained as they prepared to publish material criticizing Egypt’s emergency law, the Islamist movement’s spokesman told AFP yesterday.
“Five publishers, members of the Brotherhood, were taken from their homes at dawn on Friday,” said Issam Al-Aryan. “They were preparing a poster and a book against the emergency law,” he said.
Egypt’s emergency law, put in place in 1981 following the assassination of then-President Anwar Sadat, restricts freedoms and curbs non-governmental political activity in the country.
“Following their arrest, they were led to an unknown place and the security personnel seized their personal belongings (and) amounts of money,” read a statement on the Muslim Brotherhood website. The website also stated that the arrests may be linked to the upcoming elections in the Egyptian Publishers’ Union “where the detainees have a strong presence.”
