Tag: Human rights

New tale of rendition

The New York Times published today a touching story on the rendition of an Algerian suspect from Tanzania to Afghanistan. The man was held for 16 months in the US-run gulag, before he was freed and flown back to Algiers without being tried or charged.

Algerian Tells of Dark Odyssey in U.S. Hands
By CRAIG S. SMITH and SOUAD MEKHENNET
ALGIERS — Two years ago, a motley collection of prisoners spent night after night repeating their telephone numbers to one another from within the dark and dirty cells where they were being held in Afghanistan. Anyone who got out, they said they agreed, would use the numbers to contact the families of the others to let them know that they were still alive. Continue reading New tale of rendition

UN urges Israel halt violations

The UN Human Rights Council has passed a resolution demanding a halt to Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip. The Council also decided on dispatching a fact finding mission to Gaza.
Thursday witnessed more bloodshed by Israeli occupation troops, that left 23 Palestinians dead. One Israeli soldier was kiled by a sniper shot. Meanwhile the Palestinian government declared martial law in Gaza, and called up on the Palestinian security forces to join the resistance factions in fighting the Israeli invasion.

98 MB detainees to be released

The Muslim Brotherhood’s official English website reported that State Security prosecutor ordered the release of 98 Muslim Brothers detainees. The detainees, however refused to pay the LE200 bail “set by the Prosecution to be paid by each detainees before being released, (MB lawyer 3abdel Mon3eim) Abdel Maqsoud deplored this attitude on the part of the prosecution enjoining the detainees to pay a bail while they should be compensated for the period they spent in detention without charges.”
The Arabist was the first news outlet to publish the full list of MB detainees last Sunday, after obtaining it from the IkhwanWeb editors, Mr. El-Sa3id Ramadan and Mr. Khaled Salam. We are kindly asking them to update us with the names of those released.
We hope all the rest of the MB detainees would be free soon, together with our friends Sharqawi and Sha3er.

Back to “serving the people”

I don’t know when, but it was likely sometime during the 1990s Dirty War that the Egyptian Interior Ministry decided to change its motto, usually printed on dusty signs that top police stations’ entrances, from “The Police is in Service of the People,� to “The People and the Police are in Service of the Nation.�
Whenever I came across those signs while driving or walking by a police station, or during a demo where I’m getting my share of beatings on the hands of the CSF, I always wondered what “nation� exactly was the Interior Ministry’s motto referring to, that we, the people, together with our brave police officers should protect? Mubarak’s posters were usually present somewhere near the signs, and that always gave me a quick answer to my naïve question.
Well, it seems an Egyptian lawyer by the name Nabih el-Wahsh has been a bit upset with the Interior’s motto too, so he filed a lawsuit against it, demanding the return to the old motto. I had no clue about the case, till I came across this Wafd report. The lawyer has won the case (don’t know when?), and scored another triumph yesterday with the Higher Administrative Court rejecting the Interior’s appeal, and ordering the ministry to lift off the new motto from police stations and security directorates in all provinces, as it was deemed “unconstitutional.�
Thus, now our Interior Ministry is to return to be “in service of the people.” So fellow Egyptians, cheer up… you will be served… yes, served awi awi..

For Western Union, “Every Mohammed is a terrorist now?”

Arabist reader and dear friend SP sent me this report on Western Union…

Western Union profiles Muslim names
AP Jul. 2, 2006
Money transfer agencies like Western Union have delayed or blocked thousands of cash deliveries on suspicion of terrorist connections simply because senders or recipients have names like Mohammed or Ahmed, company officials said.
In one example, an Indian driver here said Western Union prevented him from sending US$120 to a friend at home this month because the recipient’s name was Mohammed. Continue reading For Western Union, “Every Mohammed is a terrorist now?”

3alaa asks for your help to free his friends

3alaa Seif, the leftist blogger who has recently come out of prison, is appealing to you to help release his friends Mohamed Sharqawi and Kareem el-Sha3er.
Please check out the appeal on Human Rights First website.
3alaa, and other leftists, have been also campaigning for the release of Muslim Brothers detainees.
Mr. El-Sa3id Ramadan, one of the editors of Ikhwan Web, sent me a list of the MB detainees who were mostly picked up during pro-democracy demos. The number of detainees had exceeded 900 since last March, but it has gone down to less than 600 detainees at the moment, according to Ramadan, as there has been some recent releases.
The list is in Arabic, and there are missing names (for some reason the file was corrupt), which Ramadan has promised to send in soon. We’ll be updating the list as we receive more names.
(If you are a Muslim Brother activist, and know more names, please contact the website administrator, and we’ll add the names you know.)

UPDATE: The full list of detainees could be found here.

Gitmo military trials rejected by Supreme Court

The US supreme court directed a blow to Bush’s “war on terror,� ruling today against the administration’s plans to prosecute Gitmo detainees in military courts. Already, the US president is in terrible unease about the island’s gulag, which has been denounced by virtually all rights groups across the globe as well as well as America’s own allies. He expressed in Vienna this month his desire to close it down during a summit with EU states. Continue reading Gitmo military trials rejected by Supreme Court