Islamists Caught With Their Pants Down

For all their so-called piousness conservative Islamist politicians are just as likely to stray from the moral path as say their conservative Christian counterparts. We've had our share of Christian political conservatives who have been caught with their pants down, so to speak, but so have Muslims.

There's the Egyptian cleric and MP for the uber conservative Salafi Al Nour Party, Ali Wanis, who was caught with his 19-year old girlfriend in a car "engaged in an indecent act." Now that might seem harmless to a Westerner, but in Islam it's forbidden to have sexual relations prior to marriage. And from the same political party, there's Anwar al-Balkimi (or Balkimy) aka the "nose job MP" who lied about getting a nose job because it's not allowed in Islam. He also apparently secretly married a famous belly dancer, Sama al-Masri, while still married to another woman. Again, polygamy is allowed in Islam, the problem is he didn't tell Sama, and no-one knew they were married, probably because she's definitely not conservative. When Sama discovered the truth about al-Balkimi she filed for divorce, which was how the rest of Egypt found out.

Now the latest Islamist scandal comes out of Tunisia.

Tunisia’s Foreign Minister Rafik Abdessalem, from the ruling Islamist Ennahda party, has found himself at the center of an embarrassing scandal following accusations of public money embezzlement and involvement in an extramarital affair.

According to documents published by Tunisian journalist and blogger, Olfa Riahi, the Islamist minister spent several nights at the Sheraton hotel in Tunis with a woman and paid for his stay from the government’s coffers.

Riahi she obtained the receipt and the billing information bearing names of the minister and his alleged mistress. In an interview with alchourouk.com, Riahi said it took her two and half months to verify the authenticity of the documents and trace the bill payments.

“I have the bank account of the foreign ministry and I am certain the documents are authentic,” calling on the authorities to open a probe into the “scandal.”

The minister appeared in the state television dismissing the allegations as part of a plot against his Islamist government. He said he expects similar accusations to be leveled against other ministers.

But he admitted staying at the Sheraton hotel “because he does not own a house in the capital and because the hotel was near his office.” He also admitted that the woman mentioned in Riahi’s documents was true, but said she was a “relative” who came to see him at the hotel.

Naturally they've all denied any wrongdoing, blaming the accusations on plots to bring down the Islamists. Wanis claimed he was just wiping his sick girlfriend's face, and al-Balkimi claimed he didn't even know Sama.

If you are going to claim moral superiority, make sure you live up to it, otherwise you're just a hypocrite, like these men.

Egyptian Islamist MP Caught In "Indecent Act" In Car With Girlfriend

Ali Wanis- 2nd from left with his Salafi buddies

It looks like those wacky Salafi Islamists who preach piety and modesty aren't above getting a little nookie on the side. Not something they should be doing if they're not married. Boys will be boys, Islamist or not.

Egyptian Ali Wanis, a cleric and MP for the uber conservative Salafi Al Nour Party, was allegedly found in a compromising situation in a car with his 19-year-old college girlfriend "Nesrine" on a Cairo-Alexandria highway. Apparently they were “engaged in an indecent act,” which means they were probably going at it in the back seat of his car. Naturally, he has denied it. Not that she was with him (since both were arrested), but that nothing untoward happened.  He claims she was just sick, and he was wiping her face, and that the police have it in for him after a recent run-in with a police officer. According to Wanis, it's also part of a scheme to discredit him and the Islamist political movement. Right. Sounds a little like the "nose job MP" Anwar al-Balkimi who lied about having plastic surgery, and blamed it on a liberal plot to smear Salafis.

Prosecutors would like to bring him in for questioning, but MPs have some sort of immunity. A source told Egyptian paper al-Youm al-Sabea:

“The normal legal procedure in this case is to send the prosecutor’s order to the People’s Assembly [Egypt’s lower house of parliament] on Saturday, so as to lift up the parliamentary immunity from the MP. Immunity must be lifted first and the parliament should give the permission for questioning the MP.”

The story goes:

According to the police officer, who was patrolling the highway on Thursday night, the MP’s car was parked in a no-parking area on the highway near the Egyptian city of Toukh. On approaching the car, the police officer found Wanis and Nesrine so both were arrested and taken to the police station, where a police report was filed.

And, of course, there have been the anti-police, pro-Wanis demonstrations of support.

Such hypocrisy.