Saturday,  November 10, 2012 • Vol. 13--No. 115 • 49 of 52 •  Other Editions

(Continued from page 48)

• Women's rights have sprung to the forefront of the debate in Egypt as members of an Islamist-dominated assembly wrestle over the writing of a new constitution for the country. The power of Islamists, who dominated parliament elections last winter and who seized the presidency with the election this year of the Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi, has worried secular and liberal Egyptians who fear they will restrict rights of women and minorities.
• The women of the Brotherhood say the fundamentalist group is doing more than any other political movement in Egypt to promote women in a political scene where men have always held a near total monopoly. Confident and articulate, the women say they are pushing for a greater voice within the Brotherhood itself and its political party, the Freedom and Justice Party, where the leadership is entirely male.
• The number of women in prominent positions in Egyptian politics remains tiny, as it was under the ousted secular president, Hosni Mubarak. But in the new Egypt, if a woman does hold a high post, she's most likely a member of an Islamist group. Morsi has appointed three women -- two of them Islamists -- to his 21-member team of advisers and aides. Of the six women on the 100-member assembly writing the constitution, three are Brotherhood members.
• Their vision is a world apart from that of liberal women's rights activists, who fear that Islamist women in power will only carry out the Brotherhood agenda of implementing its conservative interpretation of Islamic law.
• ___

inmates killed, 42 people wounded in Sri Lanka prison shootout with security forces

• COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) -- A shootout between rioting prisoners and security forces at a prison in Sri Lanka's capital killed at least 27 inmates, while police said Saturday that they arrested five prisoners who had managed to escape and were searching for others.
• Another 42 people were wounded in the clashes Friday between inmates and army and police commandos that broke out after the rioting prisoners broke into the armory and briefly took control of at least part of the Welikada prison in Colombo. The situation at the prison had returned to normal by Saturday morning.
• "The prison is now totally under our control," said Sri Lanka's Commissioner General of Prisons P.W. Kodippili.
• Dr. Anil Jasinghe, director of the Colombo National Hospital, said the bodies of 16 inmates were at his hospital.

(Continued on page 50)

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