Ahmed stands in solidarity with Ali against al-Qaeda

'Ray of hope'

This article was published on the website of Al-Ahram newspaper on Sunday, October 28, 2007

Selecting those who deserve it

Adel Rahim Ali, an Egyptian journalist, researcher, and a long-time member of the Syndicate of Journalists, devoted his efforts to studying fundamentalist movements and religious political groups, starting from the Muslim Brotherhood to the Jihad Organization with its many branches and splits to al-Qaeda.

Ali studied these groups and their history, explaining and analysing their ideas and plans.

Most of Ali's studies question the documents issued by these groups and the events attributed to them, their literature, their published heritage, and the fatwas of their sheikhs.

That is why his studies have been widely respected, and have become an important source of identification for these groups.

Among Ali's interesting studies is this of a document that angered the Muslim Brotherhood about the group's position on literature and art, in which he exposed the group's positions on music, singing, sculpture, and photography. 

Because Ali was a semi-permanent guest on a number of Arab satellite channels that made these groups part of their concern, some of these groups, led by the Brotherhood and al-Qaeda, considered him a sworn opponent and a target for their publications and campaigns on many internet websites before one of the branches of al-Qaeda issued a few days ago a fatwa to strike the neck of what it described as 'one of the most important enemies of Islam'.

It also called him a member of the investigation in the prisons of the Pharaoh of Egypt and a spy whose attacks on the Muslim Mujahedeen intensified.

Despite this, the man is innocent of all this, and in the end he is just a scientific researcher who publishes books and studies that analyse the opinions and positions of these groups and check their history.

It was natural for Ali to resort to the Syndicate of Journalists, as a member of the Syndicate for more than 17 years, seeking its help to support him in this ordeal, even if through a short protest pause on the stairs of the Syndicate, like others, in defence of his right to expression and freedom of opinion.

Considering what Ali is exposed to, which amounts to the most horrific and criminal forms of assassination attempts, the union unfortunately did nothing for a colleague who was threatened by al-Qaeda.

The ladders of the union are only specialized in a kind of vigil, which will not include objecting to the crimes of violent and terrorist groups and their stances on freedom of opinion.

I think this incident alone is sufficient reason for journalists to demand that the use of the stairs of the union as an expression of a protest position is something that is at the heart of the competence of the union decided by its majority, and not just an individual or a minority to preserve the same standards.