Month: August 2006

Arab human rights round up

If you are not on the list already, I strongly recommend you join the e-newsletter put together by my friend Gamal 3eid’s HRinfo. It’s a very useful resource for journalists and rights activists, providing a weekly updated round up of human rights news in the Arab World.

Just follow the hyperlink to the NEWSLETTER, and sign up for free by entering your name, email address and country.

Keep up the good work ya Gamal…

Israel’s new Gulag

Ynet reported Israel is building a new prison, where detained members of the Lebanese resistance group Hizbollah are to be held. You can find the report here.
Nazareth-based British journalist Jonathan Cook had written three years ago a good story on an Israeli secret prison, Facility 1391, where Lebanese and Arab prisoners were reportedly incarcerated and tortured. Newsweek also ran a feature on that facility.
Israel’s interrogation tactics were largely copied by the US forces in Iraq.

Solidarity demos

Kefaya has called for a demonstration in support of the Lebanese resistance tomorrow Friday, 11 August, in Zagazig, capital of Sharqiya governorate. The demonstration will take place following the Friday prayers at Al-Nahda Mosque, in front of the Zagazig Security Directorate.

Kefaya is also organizing a children’s march on the same day in Damanhour, capital of the Beheira governorate, to express solidarity with the Lebanese children. The march will start from the Al-Hassan And Al-Hussein Mosque, following the Friday prayers.

On Saturday, 12 August, the Hilaly Association for Defense of Civil Liberities has called for a demo in solidarity with Lebanon and Palestine, 12 noon, in front of the Lawyers’ Syndicate in Ramses Street. The Hilaly Association–headed by veteran leftist lawyers Ahmad Seif and Mohssen Shasha–was formed during Marxist lawyer Ahmad Nabil el-Hilaly‘s last July memorial. It includes rights lawyers from the left, Nasserists and Islamists.

Activism Calendar

Li-Beirut: Cairo activists needed for solidarity campaign

Passing on an appeal for Cairo-based activists wishing to join a solidarity campaign for Lebanon:

A group of energetic activists in Cairo have started campaigning in solidarity with Lebanon. They’re doing many activities and more are to come (see below). This effort is significant and plans to go on for months, way after TV viewers become normalized about the daily death of victims of yet another Arab country. Now that hopes are diminishing by the second that the aggression against Lebanon won’t end anytime soon. They need volunteers to help them organize the many creative ideas they’re coming up with. Those of you who would like to contribute, please email Mohammed Yousri at moyousri – AT – gmail.com

Li-Beirut is a solidarity campaign initiated by a team of independent artists and activists based in Cairo in support of the victims of the brutal aggression against Lebanon.

Li-Beirut is comprised of a series of cultural and artistic events and an interactive online platform aimed at encouraging worldwide solidarity, support and donations for the victims of the Israeli war on Lebanon.

Li-Beirut cultural and artistic series will include music concerts, film screenings, poetry readings, book signings, exhibitions and a number of satellite events organized by partner groups.

Li-Beirut.com is hosted under the umbrella of a regional Arabic portal, Filbalad.com, and is an on-going initiative to raise awareness and mobilize support for Lebanon.

Incidentally, their name, Li-Beirut, comes from a famous song by the Lebanese diva Fairouz. It has been playing a lot in Egypt lately, including at the premium number set up by MobiNil and Vodafone Egypt (1410) to raise funds for Lebanese relief efforts. I’m making the song available here for anyone who wants to listen to it.

Scissors in Egypt

It’s not exactly the topic of the day, but privatization (‘As’assa, as many Egyptians refer to it, mixing Arabic for scissors ‘As and privatization Khas’khassa), will continue to be an issue in Egypt, as this summer we can rather see the limits the government still faces in the program.This week the Ministry of Investment stated that it would not sell shares in important companies such as Egyptian Iron and Steel or Egypt Aluminium Company. Ten days before, the government stepped up its efforts to open Egypt’s National Railways to private investment. But the sharp debate in parliament casts light on the increasing resistance it is meeting in its privatization program, in particular in transportation, probably the sector of the Egyptian economy that needs modernization and investment like no other.

In my contribution to the annual review “Egypt in the year 2005� published by the French research centre in Cairo CEDEJ (which by the way contains excellent contributions, amongst others, on the Coptic question, the brotherhood and the fate of the Egyptian health reform) on the Egyptian privatization program during 2005, I argued that the government met surprisingly few criticism in public for its revival of the privatization program.

While hopefully the basic conclusions of my contribution (see below) are still valid, … Continue reading Scissors in Egypt

Poll: 30% of Americans don’t know which year was 9/11

America has much, much bigger problems than international terrorism if this poll is valid:

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Some 30 percent of Americans cannot say in what year the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington took place, according to a poll published in the Washington Post newspaper.

While the country is preparing to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the attacks that claimed nearly 3,000 lives and shocked the world, 95 percent of Americans questioned in the poll were able to remember the month and the day of the attacks, according to Wednesday’s edition of the newspaper.

Via Billmon.

Once Moroccan, always Moroccan

A group of Moroccan lawyers have filed a lawsuit against Israeli Minister of Defense Amir Peretz, who was born on Morocco, accusing him of war crimes and arguing Moroccan courts have jurisdiction over him since one is always considered Moroccan if one was born there. Not that Morocco’s courts should really be taken seriously, but it could potentially prevent him from visiting the country, although one assumes the palace would extend protection in that case. Israelis of Moroccan origin who hold high-level posts in the Israeli army or administration frequently visit Morocco to carry out pilgrimages to Jewish saints’ tombs in places like Ouezzane in the Rif.

While I don’t think Peretz has much to be concerned about, I do wonder about how other efforts to bring Israeli war criminals to justice in other countries (notably Belgium or the United States) now that major human rights organizations have leveled charges of war crimes against Israel.

Appeal for donations to Lebanon

Passing on an appeal for donations of food, medicine and other goods for Egyptians and residents of Egypt who want to help the Lebanese people:

Dear all,
 
The Lebanese Embassy in Cairo and the Lebanese Egyptian Friendship Society are joining efforts to collect and send medical supplies and food. In kind donation only. (Please see list below)
Continue reading Appeal for donations to Lebanon