USA TODAY: The newly politically empowered Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic organization that supports religious law and opposes Western influence, has supported a crackdown on those who disagree with them, including the very activists who helped bring about the free elections that the Brotherhood dominated.
“We thought they would support the other parties emerging from the womb of the revolution, but they didn’t,” says Zarea, director of the Human Rights Center for the Assistance of Prisoners, sitting in his small office adorned with a tapestry depicting a medieval Moorish castle.
A year after the revolution, many Egyptians — already suffering under the weight of a wretched economy — see an undemocratic society where the military and Islamic ideologues are hoarding power while changing nothing. Though some are pleased that a form of law shaped by the Quran is coming to Egypt, others wonder whether they have swapped one corrupt and suppressing dictatorship for another… (more)
