Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court rejects dissolution of Salafist Nour Party

El-Sayed Gamal El-Din , Saturday 18 Feb 2017

Egypt's constitution prohibit the formation of political parties on the basis of race or religion

Nour
Younes Makhioun, Head of Nour Party (Photo: Ahram Arabic Gate)

Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court rejected Saturday a lawsuit that called for the dissolution of the ultra-conservative Salafist El-Nour Party.

Lawyers Rizq Al-Molla and Ahmed El-Shandedy filed the lawsuit complaining that El-Nour Party was created on a religious basis, something proscribed by the 2014 Constitution.

El-Nour Party, spawned after the 2011 uprising as the political arm of the Salafist Call, is the only potent Islamist party that survived as a legal entity following deadly confrontations between Islamists and authorities after the 2013 ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi.

El-Nour Party supported the toppling of Islamist leader Morsi, who hailed from the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood. 

The party garnered only 12 seats in parliamentary elections that took place over two phases in 2015.

 

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