Egypt looks forward to modifying the Constitution

In what is being seen as a nod to the liberals and leftists, the Egyptian government has named a group of law experts to come up with modifications to the Constitution, the Middle East News Agency (MENA) has reported.

Prime Minister Hesham Kandeel has targeted between 10 and 15 Articles in the Constitution to be reviewed. The current document was ratified by the Constituent Assembly and accepted by voters but rejected by the opposition. MENA did not identify either the legal experts or the particular articles to be looked at, or even when the committee of experts will issue a report.

It did, however, report Mr Kandeel as saying, “The suggested modifications will not be obligatory to the upcoming parliament which is expected to be elected this year; they will be presented to President Morsi to take a decision.”

Commenting on this, the spokesman of the Salvation Front, Hussein Abdul-Ghani, said that this step is intended to attract the opposition.

Members of the Salvation Front withdrew from the Constituent Assembly, protesting about what they claimed was “the Islamic influence” of the Constitution. They called for modifications that guarantee more freedom for religious minorities and women.

Senior Salvation Front member Mohamed ElBaradei headed a campaign calling for modifications to the Constitution and raised three demands: the formation of a neutral and credible government; assigning an independent Public Prosecutor; and the formation of a committee to draft a new law for parliamentary elections. Mr Elbaradei is facing calls from the Muslim Brotherhood for his prosecution for “helping the US government to launch the war on Iraq in 2003”; he was the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency at the time.

In other news, Coptic Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria has issued severe criticism of the Egyptian authorities. He accused them of “carelessness” and of not doing enough to protect the Coptic Cathedral where clashes between Muslims and Christians took place on Sunday. The Pope told local media that President Morsi had called him and pledged that he would protect the cathedral, “but that is not what happened on the ground”.

The clashes, he said, “crossed red lines”. The mere expression of good words is not enough, he insisted. “We need decisiveness and hard work.” Morsi had apparently said that an attack on the Cathedral was an attack on himself after a Christian funeral procession was attacked and four Christians were killed.