Campaign to revise Islamist thought relaunched in Egypt's prisons

Oct 17, 2007, 13:48 GMT

Cairo - A campaign of so-called 'Islamic revisionism' has been relaunched in some of Egypt's prisons, with former Jihadists lecturing detained militants on 'the illegitimacy of the use of violence,' reports said Wednesday

Former religious extremists Karam Zuhdi and Nageh Ibrahim have started touring detention facilities in Fayyum, 103 kilometres south- west of Cairo, as part of the campaign.

They are targeting mainly prisoners charged with violence in North Sinai and imprisoned members of the extreme Takfir wal-Hijra (Excommunication and Exodus) movement.

The Takfir is an Islamic group that emerged in Egypt in the early 1960s and has been accused of fomenting violence especially in the Sinai peninsula.

The so-called revisionist programme focuses on the 'denunciation of violence, the importance of unity of Islamic groups based on righteousness, and the dangers of creating sedition among members of the same umma (nation),' the al-Masri al-Yom independent newspaper reported.

The local newspaper claimed that inmates imprisoned for violent crimes committed in North Sinai had responded 'passionately' to the campaign.

Egypt's interior ministry has been urging for changes to be made to the Islamic ideology of jihad (literally 'struggle' but often taken to mean 'holy war') that had been adopted and promoted by such groups.

Publication of some revisionist books and memoirs written by Jihadists in prison, were even paid for by the ministry, according to Montassir al-Zayat, a leading lawyer who represents Islamists.

Zuhdi, al-Jamaa al-Islamiya's (The Islamic Group) leader, was himself imprisoned for collaborating with the Islamic Jihad in the 1981 assassination of former Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat.

Sadat was hated by Islamists for signing a peace treaty with Israel and for endorsing a liberalized economy with an 'open door' policy.

Many Islamists such as Zuhdi, sheikhs and former militant leaders who have renounced arms and embraced moderation, had been serving long sentences, but had been given their freedom after renouncing their previous ideas of establishing Islamist societies by violent means.

Many experts, including Islamists, have argued that torture was behind many of the so-called prison revisions of the extremists in the al-Jamaa al-Islamiya and Egyptian Jihad groups.

Other critics of the revisionist programme said that some militants would re-embrace their radical beliefs as soon as they left prison.