Salafist Party Vows to Ban Alcohol, Beach Tourism in Egypt

Unlike Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Nour Party promises blanket-ban on alcohol and beach tourism in event it takes power following polls.

The Salafist Al-Nour Party would enforce a ban on serving alcohol ‎to foreigner nationals and Egyptian citizens alike if it came to ‎power, party spokesman Nader Bakar told tourism-sector ‎workers in Aswan on Monday.‎

Speaking at a public rally in the Upper Egyptian city’s Midan El-‎Mahatta, Bakar clarified that the party would only allow tourists to ‎drink liquor they brought with them from abroad, and only in their ‎hotel rooms.‎

He added that the party did not plan to set any restrictions on ‎tourism related to Egyptian antiquities, such as the Great ‎Pyramids of Giza and ancient Egyptian temples.‎

Bakar went on to say that the Al-Nour Party would establish a chain ‎of hotels that would function in compliance with Islamic Law, ‎while banning beach tourism, which, he said, “induces vice.”‎

On Saturday, Mohamed Morsi, president of the Muslim ‎Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), told Ahram that ‎his party, by contrast, did not plan on banning alcohol in hotels ‎and at tourist resorts or, for that matter, prevent Egyptians from ‎drinking liquor in their homes.‎

The Al-Nour Party won nineteen percent of the vote in the first round of ‎Egypt's first post-Mubarak parliamentary polls late last month, ‎while the FJP secured thirty percent.‎

[Developed in partnership with Ahram Online.]

From Jadaliyya Editors:

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