Islamist Victory Worries Secular Egyptians

Many secular Egyptians are worried about the election victory of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Mursi.

One of them is Shahira Amin, the former deputy head and senior anchor at Egyptian state-owned Nile TV. She resigned from the position last year to protest the channel’s coverage of Egypt’s January 25th Revolution.

Amin didn’t vote for Mursi, and despite her worries she’s offering him cautious support, for now.

“Morsi has tried to allay our concerns. He said that he will end his affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood. And he’s promised to be a president for all Egyptians — Muslims and Christians,” Amin says. “But we’ve seen members of the brotherhood renege on their promises.”

She’s especially worried by positions taken by many of Egypt’s Islamist parliamentarians in the past year and a half.

“They want laws giving women the rights to divorce scrapped. They want to bring down the marriage age of girls to 12. They want to bring back the harmful practice of female genital mutilation. So of course all that worries me,” Amin says.

“But I really want give him the benefit of the doubt,” she adds. “The more we marginalize the Islamists, the more we radicalize them.”