LOS ANGELES TIMES: Scattered violent incidents of 'moral vigilantism' break out in Egypt, which is trying to come to terms with Islam's place in public and private life.
CAIRO — An engineering student is killed for walking with his fiancee by men reportedly linked to a group called the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Women are harassed for not wearing veils, owners of liquor stores say they're being threatened, and fundamentalists are calling for sex segregation on buses and in workplaces.
Egypt's recent election of an Islamist president has rekindled a long-suppressed display of public piousness that has aroused both "moral vigilantism" and personal acts of faith, such as demands that police officers and flight attendants be allowed to grow beards. Scattered incidents of violence and intimidation do not appear to have been organized, but they represent a disturbing trend in Egypt's transition to democracy.
Emerging from decades of secular rule, the country is unsteadily calibrating how deeply Islam should infuse public and private life. President Mohamed Morsi, a religious conservative, has called for tolerance, but many Islamic fundamentalists see a historic moment to impose sharia, or Islamic law, on a country left off balance by political unrest and economic turmoil. » | Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times | Sunday, July 29, 2012
