CAIRO: Bedouin tribes in Sinai have issued a death fatwa on famed television presenter Amr Adib for comments he made about them after recent clashes in Sinai between them and security forces.
The decision was reached at a meeting of the popular campaign for citizen rights in North Sinai last Wednesday, where a council of various tribes issued a fatwa on Adib after the comments he made on his show, North Sinai Tagammu party member Hussein El Qayem told Daily News Egypt.
It was decreed that the blood of anyone who accuses the residents of North Sinai of disloyalty was forfeit. The fatwa however was not included in the statement released after the meeting, but was talked about during the council.
Adib, who hosts the popular Al-Qahira Al-Youm talk show on Orbit satellite network, is alleged to have insinuated that the Bedouins of Sinai were more partial to an “enemy country, meaning Israel, than Egypt.
He is also meant to have accused the Bedouins of wanting to secede from Egypt, and warned them that if they didn’t like their circumstances, they could go live in that “enemy country.
The comments have been met with great consternation among the Bedouins of Sinai according to El Qayem, especially after four Bedouins were killed in separate incidents two weeks ago.
“He accuses us of being disloyal, but no one has fought Israel more than the Bedouins, who were on the frontline of defense against them. However I am against killing, he said.
In a television interview afterwards, Adib explained his comments, stressing that he did not mean all Bedouins in Sinai, but the few who are suspected of smuggling activities across the border.
El Qayem said that the only way for the fatwa to be reversed was for Adib to meet tribal leaders in Sinai and reach an agreement with them, adding that an on-air apology was not enough.
“If the economic and social struggles we are going through are not enough, the last thing we should be accused of is loyalty to Israel, he said.
Rafah journalist and another party member Mustapha Singer told Daily News Egypt that the fatwa was not considered a binding decision as it was not included in the statement of the meeting, but it was rather an expression of people’s anger at the way they are portrayed in the Cairo-centric media.
Singer also reiterated that bloodletting was not something he supported, and indicated that there was a media campaign brewing against the Bedouins.
The popular campaign for citizen rights in North Sinai also met Sunday night to discuss an article penned by Rose Al-Youssef chairman of the board Karam Gabr which also launched a scathing attack on Sinai’s Bedouins.
