CAIRO // Police were reported to have arrested more than 150 people on charges they were not fasting during the day - even though eating, drinking or smoking publicly during Ramadan is not a punishable offence under Egyptian law.
Egypt's interior ministry has not confirmed the reports published in several local newspapers in the past few days, but the reported arrests have been roundly condemned by both Christians and Muslims.
At least 155 people were arrested in Aswan, in upper Egypt. On Tuesday, Mamdouh Ramzi, a Coptic lawyer, submitted an appeal to the interior ministry demanding an investigation into reports that police officers in Aswan, Hurghada - a tourist resort on the Red Sea - and Dakahliya province have been chasing and arresting people suspected of not abiding by Ramadan fasting.
He urged the ministry "to send those police officers to a fair trial before Egypt becomes another Taliban".
An estimated 10 per cent of Egypt's 80 million population is Christian, the majority of them Orthodox Copts.
Many Muslims have also raised concern over the report.
"These people don't know that there are non-Muslims in Egypt? They have the right to eat and drink wherever they want without being afraid of being arrested and questioned," said Islam Hamed, 35, an accountant with an oil company.
"Why force people to fast? Fasting is a special relationship between the individual and his God," said Malika Hassan, 20, a psychology student.
Rights groups accused the authorities of pandering to Islamists.
"This is competing with other Islamic groups in society and reveals that extremism has reached some policemen," said Gamal Eid, a lawyer and director of the Arab Network for Human Rights.
"Citizens have the right to observe Ramadan or not, even taking into accounts the feelings of others.
"It's up to each individual. There is no penal code for these things, and no one has the right to enforce it on others or punish them for not doing so."
Novelist Sahar el Mougy, in a column in the independent Masry al Youm newspaper, said the authorities had no mandate over moral issues. "There is no legal basis for this bizarre behaviour, and no logic can justify these practices that are scaring Egyptians," she wrote.
"Those arrests pose questions: have the Egyptian police finished arresting criminals and now are dedicated to the inquisition of good morals, similar to the inquisition in Europe in the Dark Ages?"
Another columnist said the arrests smacked of religious policing. "There is no specialised police force in Egypt to implement hodoud [Islamic legal punishments] like other countries," Mohammed Hamdi wrote in the state-owned daily Rose el-Youssef on Monday. "The big problem is that those policemen are violating the law by such arrests instead of enforcing it, which could eventually lead to the collapse of the rule of law."
Clerics at Al Azhar, Sunni Islam's highest seat of learning, and with the religious affairs ministry, supported the campaign of detaining and punishing those who eat, drink and smoke in public during fasting hours and demanded the government issue a law to this effect.
They condemned criticism by secular writers and human rights groups.
"People are free not to fast, but privately; doing so in public is not a matter of personal freedom, but it reveals contempt for those who are fasting, for Ramadan and for the fasting as an obligatory religious duty," said Sheikh Abdel Moati Bayoumi, a member of the Islamic Research Centre, the highest legal branch of Al Azhar.
"We believe in the freedom of worship and rituals and that no one should be forced to practise them. However, going public by not fasting is a sin, therefore, they should be punished," said Sheikh Salem Abdel Gelil, the deputy of the ministry.
"There should be a law to criminalise breaking the fast publicly in Ramadan in Egypt."
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
From Zero
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
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Based: Tunisia
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Investment raised: $4 million
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Al Ain 3 (Ahmed 02’, El Shahat 17’, Al Ahbabi 60’)
THE BIO: Martin Van Almsick
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Favourite hobby: Football
Breakfast routine: a tall glass of camel milk
Tree of Hell
Starring: Raed Zeno, Hadi Awada, Dr Mohammad Abdalla
Director: Raed Zeno
Rating: 4/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: BorrowMe (BorrowMe.com)
Date started: August 2021
Founder: Nour Sabri
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: E-commerce / Marketplace
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Funding stage: Seed investment
Initial investment: $200,000
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