Muslim Brotherhood to help change constitution

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The Egyptian military has granted legitimacy to the once-banned Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood by appointing Sobhi Saleh, a former lawmaker from the Brotherhood, to an eight-member panel of experts it has created to amend the country's constitution, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

The panel also includes a Christian supreme court judge and other judges and legal experts, and was set up by the military to come up with suggested changes to end the monopoly of power that ousted President Hosni Mubarak once held.

The Armed Forces Supreme Council, which is running the Egyptian government until elections are held in September, has specified six articles which it wants amended or changed, along with "changes to any connected articles that the committee deems necessary."

The articles in question are seen as those which have imposed restrictions on elections. Once formed, a new parliament and government will decide what further amendments need to be modified or rewritten.

"After the transition to a democratic life and freedoms, parties and political forces can get together and work on a complete constitution," Saleh said.

At the same time, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood intends to create a political party which it had been forbidden to do under Mubarak. At present, the Egyptian constitution also bans the formation of any political parties based on religion.

Essam El-Errian, a member of the guidance council of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, also said the group will demand a religious underpinning to changes.

"We embrace democracy not as a foreign concept that must be reconciled with tradition," he said, "but as a set of principles and objectives that are inherently compatible with and reinforce Islamic tenets."

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