The Guardian reports: Radical Iranian students have angered Egypt by offering a $1.5m (£1m) reward for the execution of its president, Hosni Mubarak, after accusing him of failing to oppose Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
The bounty has been put up by the Students’ Justice-Seeking movement, which last week staged a sit-in at Tehran’s Mehrabad airport demanding to be sent to Gaza as pro-Palestinian volunteers.
The group has labelled Mubarak an “international terrorist” and accuses him of collaborating with Israel by failing to open the Egypt-Gaza frontier at Rafah for humanitarian purposes. It also alleges that the Egyptian government has allowed Israeli planes to use the country’s airspace to carry out raids.
Organisers distributed posters showing Mubarak with a fake bullet-hole in his forehead and scissor marks through his neck. The posters carry a proclamation in English offering a “$1,500,000 award for executing Mubarak” and an Arabic message from the Qur’an declaring: “Accursed, they will be seized wherever found and slain with a slaughter.”
Iran’s foreign ministry has dismissed the offer as not reflecting government policy after Egyptian officials called for its organisers to be prosecuted.
The students responded by increasing the reward from the original $1m sum. Money will be raised, they say, from the distribution of a documentary celebrating the 1981 assassination of Mubarak’s predecessor, Anwar Sadat, who was killed by Islamists outraged by his signing the Camp David peace accords with Israel. Some students have also volunteered to sell their kidneys.
The issue threatens to further complicate attempts at restoring Iran-Egypt relations. Tehran severed diplomatic ties after Egypt sheltered the shah when he was toppled in the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Recent efforts to renew links have foundered partly on Egypt’s insistence that Iran rename a street in Tehran honouring Sadat’s assassin, Khaled Islambouli.
Brave Students .
Though in no way I sympathize with Mubarak, and I think there is plenty of reason to despise him, this is the kind of action that gives arguments for those who say that Iran is a “supporter of terrorism” and that “shias are all terrorists”. I don’t think it is a good idea, and I don’t think it is of any help.
My oh my, the bravery and enlightment of Islam. Yet another proof.
When a great man tries to make a change Islam wishes to execute him.
Very “brave”.
@Pilar: that “great man” is a corrupt and immoral scumbag who carries the primary responsibility for the 1300+ deaths is Gaza. For all practical purposes he is the local branch manager of the Israeli Shit Bet.
Now, I am personally a pacifist and I would not personally advocate violence as a means to achieve some political goal. So killing anyone, including a SOB like Mubarak, is not my cup of tea. But I would notice that most people out there have no problems with the idea of executing a tyrant who oppresses his own people. Heck, the Israelis have several secret groups tasked with conducting executions, both inside Israel, in occupied Palestine and even worldwide.
What does Islam have to do with any of that?!
I am not a Muslim at all (I am an Orthodox Christian), and I have my differences with Islam, in particular the Wahabi/Deobandi/Salafi schools, but I totally fail to see the logic in your argument.
Mubarak – great man. “Islam” (what kind?) wants to execute (this) great (man(/men. What kind of nonense is this?
Can you make a logical coherent statement about all this or was that your best shot?
The problem with Mubarak is that he will leave his country even worse off than when he took power when he passes power to his son Gamel, so that goes for change…
Pilar is hardly literate so what can you do.