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Wednesday, 14 December 2016

Daesh claims responsibility for cathedral explosion attack in Cairo

Daesh has claimed responsibility for the terror attack on the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Cairo on Sunday, according to media reports. In a message circulated on the internet, Daesh admits to sending a suicide bomber to the cathedral, confirming the results of Egyptian authorities’ initial investigations into the incident, Ahram Gate reported. Father Boulis Halim, the Coptic Orthodox Church’s spokesman, said that the group’s admission of responsibility is “against the Egyptian state as a whole and does not target Copts,” and stressed the need to counter extremist ideologies in tandem with increased security measures, Al Shorouk reports.

Daesh is also reportedly responsible for the killing of 16 Egyptians in North Sinai, some of whom were shot to death, while others were blown up by explosives hung around their necks in the Daeshbags’ interpretation of necklacing, according to reports from Al Arabiya. The Daily Mail has one of the less graphic (but still disturbing) roundups in English.

House declares a “parliamentary revolution” against terror, gives Ismail gov’t 30 days to get on board: Never an institution to miss the opportunity to expound gaseously on the problems of the day, the House of Representatives has decided amendments to the Penal Code and Criminal Procedures Act are what will win a multi-front war against terror. MPs are positioning this as being part of a “parliamentary revolution” on terror. Forget about strategy, tactics and funding: The House of Representatives’ Legislation Committee has given the Ismail government until Monday to come back with proposed amendments to the penal code that would accelerate legal proceedings and allow for military trials in similar cases, according to Al Ahram.

Committee head Bahaa Abu Shoka on the “parliamentary revolution”: “The government will be committed to presenting a new version of the law before the parliament during the [next] 30 days, and if it fails to do so, the parliament has the right to act upon article 101 of the house organisational regulations and present its own version of the law.”

That drooling sound, ladies and gentlemen? It’s the slaver of people who cannot wait to abridge your civil liberties so that they are “seen” to be doing something “constructive.”

Meanwhile, Egypt has criticized Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for not describing the attack as a terrorist act, AMAY reported. “Despite both organizations’ objections to human rights violations, both have shown unacceptable sympathy towards terrorism… and showed no sympathy towards the victims or their families. They also deliberately ignored the government and leaderships’ quick response to the incident,” Foreign Affairs Ministry Spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid said.

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