Egyptian MPs deny existence of sex-after-death law

Outrage: Having sex with your dead wife\'s corpse Members of Egypt\'s parliament have responded to the uproar caused by reports about a new law that would allow a husband to have sex with his dead wife within six hours after her death by denying the existence of any such draft.  
“This is indecent and nonsense. The whole issue is unacceptable. It is even unacceptable to give any statement to media about this issue,” Islamist MP Mamdouh Ismail told the Al Arabiya news network.
The news about passing the so-called \"Farewell Intercourse\" law by the country’s Islamist-dominated parliament was first reported by Egyptian state-run al-Ahram newspaper and Egyptian ON TV on Tuesday. It was picked up and analysed by Arab and international media later.
The People’s Assembly secretary-general, Samy Mahran, denied to Al Arabiya the existence of the draft law. “I have never heard of anything in this regard,” he said.
Egyptian MP Hisham Ahmed Hanafi told the London-based Asharq al-Awsat on Saturday that “such reports are completely false and aim mainly to deform the image of the Egyptian parliament.”
Egyptian Islamist MP Ashraf Agour of the Construction and Development Party also denied the reports and said that “the issue has never been discussed in the parliament,” according to Asharq al-Awsat.
However, MP Amin Eskandar of al-Karama Party said that “the general atmosphere in the Egyptian parliament is vulnerable to such kinds of rumours.” He did confirm the presence of a draft law for early marriage that would permit girls to get married at the age of 14 instead of 18.
“These kinds of controversial laws are very dangerous and create a state of fear inside the community,” he said.
The National Council for Women (NCW) had earlier appealed to the parliament not to approve the controversial laws of minimum age of marriage and \"Farewell Intercourse\".
The appeal came in a message sent by NCW chief, Mervat al-Talawi, to the Egyptian parliament\'s Speaker, Saad al-Katatni, addressing the woes of Egyptian women.
The message was referring to the two specific laws of legalising the marriage of girls starting from the age of 14 and permitting a husband to have sex with his dead wife within the six hours following her death.
Talawi’s message reportedly included an appeal to parliament to avoid the controversial legislations that rid women of their rights of getting education and employment, under alleged religious interpretations.
A Moroccan cleric, Zamzami Abdul Bari, was the first to address the sex-after-death issue in May 2011.  
He argued that marriage remains valid even after death adding that a woman also too had the same right to engage in sex with her dead husband.
Meanwhile, the British Daily Mail quoted a source at the Egyptian Embassy in London as saying that Bari’s claims were \"completely false\" and \"forbidden in Islam\".
The source was quoted as saying that the proposal, if it even existed, had not reached parliament -- although he admitted the spreading of news of such a draft could be the work of an extremist politician.
Analysts have said the news was a hoax planted by supporters of Hosni Mubarak to defame Egyptian Islamists.
Many members of the newly-elected parliament, have been accused of launching attacks against women’s rights in the country, especially after the popular uprising that toppled president Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.
They apparently wish to cancel many laws that promote women’s rights, arguing that they were “aiming to destroy families” and were passed only to please the former first lady of the fallen regime, Suzanne Mubarak, who devoted much of her attention to equal rights for women.