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Slideshow Download our Wider Image iPad app Images of October Follow Reuters Facebook Twitter RSS YouTube Read Obama has little time to savor election triumph | 10:03am EST Colorado, Washington first states to legalize recreational pot 4:43am EST Election over but final Florida results still not in 6:19am EST Wall Street drops after U.S. election, Draghi gloom on economy | 10:27am EST Dollar falls after Obama victory, losses seen limited 6:37am EST Discussed 194 Jobless rate seen rising, offering Obama no relief 170 Fuel scarce, East Coast struggles to recover 83 Ryan says Obama compromises Judeo-Christian values Sponsored Links In Egypt streets, Islamists throw weight around Tweet Share this Email Print Related News Egyptian teacher sentenced for cutting girls' unveiled hair Tue, Nov 6 2012 In Islamist-led Egypt, Coptic Christians name new pope Sun, Nov 4 2012 Israeli official sees "shocking" dictatorship in Egypt Fri, Nov 2 2012 Islamists protest in Cairo, call for Islamic law Fri, Nov 2 2012 UPDATE 3-Centamin to appeal against Egyptian goldmine ruling Wed, Oct 31 2012 Analysis & Opinion New Coptic Orthodox pope says Egypt’s constitution must be inclusive German Catholics wary about major Luther festivities planned for 2017 Related Topics World » Egypt » Middle East Turmoil » 1 of 3. Egyptians chant against the Muslim Brotherhood and demand for the constitution to be dissolved in Cairo in this October 19, 2012 file photo. Credit: Reuters/Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Files By Yasmine Saleh CAIRO | Wed Nov 7, 2012 9:15am EST CAIRO (Reuters) - Mohamed Talaat didn't like the fact Christian music was being played at a party to promote interfaith harmony in the Egyptian town of Minya south of Cairo, so together with a group of like-minded Islamist hardliners, he showed up to put a stop to it. It was simply un-Islamic to broadcast Christian songs, Talaat explained. "Egypt is Islamic and so we all have to accept Islamic rules to halt any strife," he said by telephone. Four months since Egypt elected veteran Muslim Brotherhood politician Mohamed Mursi as president, human rights activists say hardliners are trying to impose Islamist ways on society. Although reliable data on social trends is hard to find in Egypt, many people believe that cases of religious intimidation have increased. "There is no doubt that the rate of strange and violent practices by strict Islamists has increased tremendously since the election of Mursi," said Gamal Eid, founder of The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, a human rights group. "We have in a few months seen many more of such incidents than we have seen in years before Mursi," he said. Seemingly sporadic incidents are turning into what rights activists describe as an emerging pattern of abuses in the street by radicals, defying both the authority of the state and Mursi's own promises to protect personal freedoms. From the fatal stabbing of a young man who was out with his fiancée to the case of a conservative teacher who cut schoolgirls' hair because it was uncovered, the examples are stacking up. Such actions have grabbed local headlines and fuelled the worst-case-scenario fears of moderates worried by the rise of Islamists who were tightly reined in by Hosni Mubarak but have emerged as a major force since he was swept from power. In Cairo, it seems little has changed. The capital is still a place where teenagers hold hands in public, Egyptian-brewed beer is sold and pleasure boats cruise the Nile blasting out the kind of pop music frowned upon by the hardliners. And importantly for a tourism industry that employs one in eight Egyptians, it is business as usual at Red Sea beach resorts that are a major draw for Western tourists. Yet, say activists, the hardliners are flexing their muscles more than before, particularly in some of the more far flung corners of a country of 83 million. CHRISTIANS FEAR VIOLENCE Egypt's Christian minority, the Middle East's largest, has lived with increasing fear of sectarian violence, which worsened in Mubarak's final weeks and the early days of the interim military rule that followed his ouster in February 2011. Weeks before Mubarak was ousted, 23 Coptic Christians were killed in the bombing of a church on New Year's Day 2011. Five months later, with generals still in charge of the country, several churches in Cairo were torched and Christian houses and businesses destroyed. Fifteen people died and hundreds were wounded in the May 2011 religious unrest. The period since Mursi took power has so far been spared violence on last year's scale, but there have been flare-ups, such as in August when about 16 people were injured in attacks on a church in a village near Cairo. Christians say overall the atmosphere has become increasingly menacing as the presence of hostile Salafi Muslim hardliners in public life has grown more pronounced. "Extremists' actions are worrying all Egyptians and not only Christians," said Karim Goher, a Christian and one of the organizers of the halted interfaith celebration in Minya. INTIMIDATION Since a group of youths killed a young man while he was out with his fiancée in the port city of Suez in July, there have been a steady stream of reports in a similar vein. This week, a Suez grocer filed a legal complaint against a group of Salafis, or ultra-orthodox Muslims, who had threatened to enact religious justice against his son by cutting out his tongue. The Salafis accused the boy of insulting religion, according to Gharib Mahmoud, the grocer. Self-appointed "committees for the propagation of virtue and elimination of vice" have surfaced elsewhere. The name evokes the religious police of Saudi Arabia, whose strict brand of Wahhabi Islam has inspired Salafis in Egypt in recent decades. In Kafr el-Sheikh, a town in the Nile Delta north of Cairo, one such committee handed out flyers in late October warning it would "use force against violators of its instructions". Similar acts of intimidation have been reported by Christians in the middle-class Cairo district of Shubra. "We warn you Christian people to give up your filthy trade in filthy statues and paintings," read a letter warning Victor Younan, an 83-year old Christian shopkeeper, to stop selling images of Jesus. Eight other Christians told Reuters they had received similar notes. During his presidential campaign, Mursi reassured Egypt's Christians, estimated to represent about a tenth of the population, they would be protected. Yet many remain uneasy. The same can be said for many moderate Muslims in a country where piety runs deep but a history of violent Islamist radicalism in the 1980s and 1990s has made many suspicious of hardliners willing to take the law into their own hands. The radicals present a headache for the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist parties that have entered mainstream politics since Mubarak was toppled, such as the Nour Party, a salafist group which has distanced itself from what it describes as individual acts of vigilantism. Mahmoud Ghozlan, the spokesman for the Brotherhood, said of the vice committees: "They don't represent the Brotherhood or most of Egypt's moderates, but only a group of minority, hardline individuals." "We hope such incidents vanish soon." But the Brotherhood has been criticized for failing to adequately spell out a moderate interpretation of Islam, leaving space for hardliners to propagate their ideas on the rights of women and Christians, for example. "They say they will not discriminate, but don't say what that means in terms of actions," said Nabil Abdel Fattah, an Egyptian political analyst and expert on Islamist groups. The authorities appear to be applying the law where possible: the three youths behind the Suez stabbing were handed 15-year sentences in September. The Christians who received the threatening letters in Shubra reported the incident to the police, though they say there have been no arrests. The teacher who cut the hair of her unveiled pupils was given a suspended six-month jail sentence by a Luxor court this week. The police did not get involved in Minya, where the organizers cancelled the interfaith celebration to avoid trouble. Planned for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, the October 28 event had been named "Light in Times of Darkness" and marked an effort to ease friction in the shifting political landscape. Musicians at the event were playing both Christian and Islamic music, before Islamists ordered them to stop, said Alaa Kabawy, a Muslim who was one of several thousand attendees. "Similar events used to happen during Mubarak's time and nothing like this happened before. It was so shameful to see that happen," he said. (Additional reporting by Yousri Mohamed in Ismailia; Editing by Tom Perry and Peter Graff) World Egypt Middle East Turmoil Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/ Comments (1) JamVee wrote: Edition: U.S. Arabic Argentina Brazil Canada China France Germany India Italy Japan Latin America Mexico Russia Spain United Kingdom Back to top Reuters.com Business Markets World Politics Technology Opinion Money Pictures Videos Site Index Legal Bankruptcy Law California Legal New York Legal Securities Law Support & Contact Support Corrections Connect with Reuters Twitter Facebook LinkedIn RSS Podcast Newsletters Mobile About Privacy Policy Terms of Use AdChoices Copyright Our Flagship financial information platform incorporating Reuters Insider An ultra-low latency infrastructure for electronic trading and data distribution A connected approach to governance, risk and compliance Our next generation legal research platform Our global tax workstation Thomsonreuters.com About Thomson Reuters Investor Relations Careers Contact Us Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. 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