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Leaked videos show Egypt's army enlisting religion to aid crackdown
By David Kirkpatrick
The Egyptian military has enlisted Islamic scholars to convince soldiers and police that they have a religious duty to obey orders to use deadly force against supporters of ousted president Mohamed Mursi.
The effort is a signal the generals are worried about insubordination after security forces killed hundreds of Egyptians protesting against the July 3 coup.
Egyptian troops on the streets of Cairo. Islamic scholars have been advising soldiers they have a religious duty to use deadly force against Muslim Brotherhood supporters.Credit: AP
The first fragmentary account of the scholars' speeches appeared on Wednesday on a website aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood. Its appearance suggested that some of the soldiers and police who heard the speeches sympathised with the Brotherhood enough to leak the information.
Professional-quality segments of the speeches began appearing on the internet over the weekend.
''When somebody comes who tries to divide you, then kill them - whoever they are,'' Ali Gomaa, the former grand mufti of Egypt, is seen telling soldiers in one video.
In another video against the same backdrop, Salem Abdel Galil, a former senior scholar in the ministry that oversees mosques, appears to say opponents of the military takeover are ''aggressors who have to repent to God'' and that ''to use weapons when needed'' against such foes was the duty of the armed forces.
''The heart is at ease about this,'' he said.
In a Facebook posting on Sunday night, Dr Abdel Galil said his comments were made in response to questions about ''terrorists who attack the military'', not Mursi supporters, but that the video released to the public was edited to distort his meaning.
Amr Khaled, a televangelist popular with young Muslims, specifically addressed the question of insubordination in a military video.
Dr Khaled is seen advising the soldiers that ''the day you wore that uniform and these boots, and you made that salute, and you stood up in your line - you're not doing a job for a commander, you're working for God''.
It was unclear when the military filmed the speeches or distributed them to the troops.
''Now we are going into fatwa wars,'' said Emad Shahin, a political scientist at the American University in Cairo, referring to rulings by Islamic scholars.
The new government was ''using all the weapons at their hands, including religious fatwas, to dehumanise their opponents and justify killing them'', he said.
Mohamed Omara, a scholar associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, said allegations of religious faith or infidelity had no place in the crisis, which was a political disagreement.
New York Times