September 2006 – Page 2

State Security threatens blogger

Blogger Mohamed Gamal, who posts under the name Mr. GEMYHOoOD, has been receiving threats from State Security recently.
During the last Kefaya sit-in, Gamal told me he received phone threats from State Security officers, who asked him to take down a posting, where he drew a caricature of Hosni Mubarak urinating on the map of Egypt.
Gamal refused to take it down, and continues to receive the daily phone threats. Yesterday, Gamal was on his way to the Kefaya conference at the Lawyers’ Syndicate, when he was stopped by a security agent who checked his ID, and few minutes later Gamal received another phone threat from security, that he broadcasted to his friends via the mobile phone speaker.

Mr.GEMYHOoO demonstrating against Mubarak

You can read Gamal’s account of the threats, in Arabic, here.
Ma3lesh ya Mr. GEMYHOoOD… You have all my solidarity…

A brave new world

White House press release about Bush’s speech to the UN, which apparently highlighted the bright and positive and fluffy and oh-so-pretty developments in the Middle East. Argues that minute changes in the Gulf’s absolute monarchies are great, that a sham election in Algeria is just super-duper, manages to place blame for “the suffering of the Lebanese people” entirely on “state within a state” Hizbullah rather than Israel, which did the actual bombing of civilian targets, mentions the sin of Iran pursuing nuclear weapons without talking about regional allies who have them (Pakistan, Israel, India). I could go on. A lot of this stuff is standard fare of US Middle East diplomacy, but coming from the guy who is driving the region into complete chaos it smells worse than usual. Perhaps the worst is that the last third is devoted to peace in the holy land, something this president has put less efforts in achieving than any of his predecessors for the last three decades at least.

[Thanks Simon]

Intellectuals and dictatorships: the case of Antoine Sfeir

In the long history of public intellectuals using their pulpits to defend the indefensible (more often than not, for direct personal gain rather than any error in judgement), Arab intellectuals of the second half of the twentieth century will occupy a special place. Arab dictators — as well as their foreign supporters — have spent a considerable amount of money in buying favorable views from opinion-makers, columnists, activist-intellectuals and others over the years. Saddam Hussein was perhaps most notorious for doing this, but he is joined with more discreet dictators such as Morocco’s kings, Algeria’s generals, Libya’s Muammar Qadhafi and countless others. And then you have the Saudi media machine, a huge formation indeed that goes through the heart of what passes as quality journalism in the Arab world (and one that is influential even inside non-Gulf countries: just ask Al Ahram’s Ibrahim Nafie how well he gets on with this or that Emir.) A more interesting sideshow is the growing Saudi-Qatari media battle, with Al Jazeera walking an unpredictable line between total subservience to the Emir of Qatar, a fair amount of editorial independence by any Western corporate standard, and at least two wide intellectuals schools of thoughts among its key staff (Arab nationalism and Islamism, in various forms.)

This an enormously complicated subject, but one thing that has always enraged me is those intellectuals and journalists that defend Tunisia’s Ben Ali, a police state that takes the worst aspect of police culture (corruption, violence, mediocrity) as the motus operandi of the state. In his interesting Middle East-centered blog on the Monde Diplomatique website, Alain Gresh rips a new one in Antoine Sfeir, a France-based Lebanese author who passes as respectable in most of the region and contributes for some prestigious magazines. For me, no longer:

Le régime tunisien dispose, depuis de longues années, de nombreux thuriféraires en France. Le premier est sans aucun doute le président de la République Jacques Chirac – ainsi déclarait-il au cours de sa visite officielle en Tunisie, début décembre 2003 que « le premier des droits de l’homme c’est manger, être soigné, recevoir une éducation et avoir un habitat, ajoutant que de ce point de vue, il faut bien reconnaître que la Tunisie est très en avance sur beaucoup de pays » (Lire la réaction de la Ligue des droits de l’homme à ces propos). Jacques Chirac n’a pas le monopole de cette complaisance et des responsables politiques, de gauche comme de droite, n’hésitent pas à chanter les louanges du régime de Zine Abidin Ben Ali.

C’est le cas aussi de certains « intellectuels », comme le prouve un des derniers ouvrages d’Antoine Sfeir, intitulé Tunisie, terre des paradoxes, qui vient de paraître aux éditions de l’Archipel. Le degré de flagornerie à l’égard du chef de l’Etat tunisien y est assez exceptionnel. Ben Ali est ainsi décrit comme réunissant « en sa personne toutes ces compétences. D’une part, elles lui permettent de se montrer plus efficaces, et les résultats obtenus plaident en sa faveur ; d’autre part, la réunion de ces compétences en un seul homme évite de les voir entrer en conflit. » (p. 213)

Le régime est-il policier ? Citant un rapport du département d’Etat, l’auteur affirme que la Tunisie compterait entre 450 et 1000 prisonniers, dont très peu ont été condamnés pour des actes de violence. « On peut le déplorer, certes », précise-t-il. « Mais que penser du Patriot Act ? Faudrait-il accepter que les Etats-Unis se protègent contre l’islamisme et non la Tunisie, où le danger est pourtant bien plus réel et pressant : tentatives de coup d’Etat, assassinats, attentats – dont celui de la synagogue de Djerba – et volonté affichée de renverser le régime pour y instaurer, par la force et la terreur, un Etat dépourvu de toute liberte ? » Etrange raisonnement, puisque l’auteur lui-même affirme que les prisonniers ne sont pas inculpés pour des actes de violence… D’autre part, qui approuve le Patriot Act ? (lire p. 13)

« Autre accusation, poursuit Sfeir : le régime tunisien est un régime policier. Actuellement, il ne l’est pas plus que les Etats-Unis, la Grande-Bretagne, ou même la France » Il suffit de lire n’importe quel rapport d’Amnesty International, de Human Rights Watch, ou de savoir que, depuis l’arrivée de Ben Ali au pouvoir le nombre de policiers a quadruplé, pour mesurer le sérieux de cette affirmation.

I’ll just translate that last line so you get the flavor:

“Another accusation,” continues Sfeir, “is that the Tunisian regime is police state. In fact, it is no more a police state than the United States, Great Britain, or even France.” It is enough to read any Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch report to know that since Ben Ali’s rise to power the number of police officers has quadrupled, and measure the seriousness of [Sfeir’s] commentary.

It is incredible how many defenders of the Tunisian regime — which has bought off many Arab and European newspapers of note (the Americans just don’t care) — there still are in French policy and intellectual circles. I can hardly go to a French diplomatic function without getting into an argument about Tunisia — which like Morocco’s kings and Lebanon’s late Rafiq Hariri have a long history of bankrolling the presidential campaigns of Jacques Chirac. Antoine Sfeir now joins the ranks of the defenders of some of the world’s most odious dictatorships. I hope his payoff was worth it.

The NDP conference

It’s hard to drum up the enthusiasm to blog about the National Democratic Party’s annual conference, which started today. It’s not exactly like anything earth-shattering is likely to happen, and the interest in Egypt’s ruling party’s attempts to reform itself (which started a few years ago) has dwindled amidst the clear reversal of the dynamic of reform that was launched last year and the depressing failure of reformist movement to achieve much concretely — not to mention the secular opposition’s electoral failure, the recent judges’ crisis (which they lost some time this summer, by the way), and the general crackdown on Muslim Brothers, bloggers and activists. Some would add to that the abandonment of Egypt’s democrats by the Bush White House, which had previously egged them on, in favor of a “US-Egypt Strategic Dialogue” and the generally deteriorating regional situation (these are worth arguing about another time._

It’s interesting that last year the NDP did not make a big fuss about its conference (despite it being an electoral year), leaving the limelight to the presidency to make its bid for re-election. Even the slogan of the 2005 conference, “Crossing to the future,” was taken from the presidential campaign. What a difference that was to 2003 (“Citizenship rights”) or 2004 (“Priorities of reform”) — party conferences that were much-touted as a sign that Egypt was changing and proposed interesting ideas about civic rights (in 2003, largely unimplemented) and major economic policy shifts (in 2004, complete overhaul of tax law, major changes in customs and duties, introduction of various economic laws). Of course these conferences were also largely about the rise of a “Gamal Gang” inside the NDP and the decline of old party bosses such as Kamal al-Shazli in favor technocrats, businessmen, and a new generation of supposedly much more sophisticated party bosses.

So what can this week’s conference (“Second wind for change” — who comes up with these slogans?) really be about? Gamal’s role in the party and in Egypt’s future seems assured now, his internal enemies seem to have lost, the party no longer needs to prove its democratic credentials to the world now that the democratization fad has passed. Well, I will argue that this conference is the most “domestic” one the NDP has held so far, even if it has again invited a selection of the top Egypt experts in the US and Europe to attend and observe the chrysalis of Jeffersonian democracy on the shores of the Nile. The agenda has to a large extent been set by the Egyptian media, the sole survivor (for how long?) of 2005’s remarkable political opening. The main issues the NDP will be addressing are answers to the critiques put forward by the media, most notably:

What is the party doing to implement President Mubarak’s electoral promises on political reform?
What is the party doing to implement President Mubarak’s electoral promises on job creation and the improvement of average Egyptians’ lives?
What is the party going to do about the string of transportation disasters that have hit the country?
What vision does the party have for Egypt’s role in the region and the world?

What’s been announced so far is that 2800 party members will attend and that there are 28 policy papers that will be discussed. Safwat al-Sherif, the SecGen of the party and the last major “old guard” figure still in a leadership position, has stated that there will not be personnel changes at the top like in past conferences. (But then again, he is the leading candidate to lose his job.) Masri al-Youm has announced that 58 NDP MPs have sent a memo of protest to President Mubarak to voice their concern that the party is being hijacked by businessmen and stating that the party is being run by three people around Gamal who are using the same strong-arm tactics as the old guard (my guess: steel magnate and MP Ahmed Ezz, Secretary for Information Ali Eddin Hilal, and Secretary for Youth Moufid Chehab, but I’m not really in the loop.)

Question one, on political reform, will probably be the big showcase of the conference. Amendments to articles 76 and 77 of the constitution are being discussed and could be presented to parliament by the end of the year. Everyone is already expecting the wording of the amendments to be disappointing, as were last year’s amendments to article 76, but I have not seen any details yet. Whatever the changes, the important thing is that they will be tailored to suit Gamal Mubarak’s eventual accession to the presidency and that they will not include the greatest constitutional reform that could happen to Egypt, the introduction of term limits. It seems there will be some other minor measures, such as moving to end the position of the “Socialist Prosecutor,” a Nasser-era holdover, and some changes in the Supreme Judicial Council. There are a few other measures, but these can be discussed in due time if they are mentioned.

The real bombshell is that, according to the press and NDP statements, the ruling party will move to end judicial supervisions of elections. Leave it to the NDP to take as the main lesson of its dismal performance (for official candidates) in last November’s elections, of the prevalence of open vote buying and random violence, and of the interference of police and security in favor of its candidates that it should reduce the only positive thing about the election — that the judges did an excellent job and reported fraud where it occurred. On the laughable pretext that electoral supervision takes judges away from their caseload and slows down the judicial system (which is extremely slow anyway), they are ready to remove the only semi-independent supervision of the election that carries moral and legal authority (electoral observers and party monitors don’t really). That will be worth analyzing in full should it happen, but there can be no clearer sign of Egypt’s growing authoritarianism at this point in time — or that the judges really lost in a more fundamental way than most people are willing to admit.

I’ll skip the economic and job-creation initiatives because it’s the kind of thing that most people would like to see the NDP succeed in doing. Job creation is extremely important and I’m curious how they;ll ever reach the massive figures of new jobs that Mubarak promised in his campaign, even if the economic is generally doing better. It might be interesting to see whether Ahmed Nazif will push his pet program to replace or end subsidies, an important and controversial program. Otherwise here I think we can mainly expect to see Minister of Investment Mahmoud Mohieddin huff and puff away about how many companies he sold this year — but probably not answer serious allegations that these were sold below price and that someone along the lines pocketed a commission.

Question three, regarding the recent transportation scandals, should be a major issue unless the party leadership tries to shut it out. Since the Minister of Transport recently got a hefty chunk of change from the sale of the third mobile license to Etisalat specifically for this purpose, one might expect/hope that a concrete program to modernize the sector and improve safety standards will be adopted. It would certainly be good PR for the party.

That leaves us with question four, in my opinion the most interesting. It is the first time in the history of the NDP that national security issues are brought up. These are usually the sovereign province of the presidency, and most MPs and party apparatchiks are utterly disinterested in foreign policy issues, on which they can never have any influence (although I see today that the parliamentary committee on religious issues, composed of NDP and Muslim Brotherhood MPs, has called for cutting diplomatic relations with the Vatican over PopeGate. Did they ever do that with Israel, I wonder.) In a recent pre-conference speech, Gamal Mubarak made for the first
time a reference to “Egypt’s national security” and the need to discuss Egypt’s (dwindling) role in the region. Newspaper reports outlined seven main points:

Egypt’s role in the Middle East peace process
The restructuring of tools for a common Arab foreign policy, such as the Arab League
Egypt’s relationship with the United States, notably with a view to influence US policy in the region
Promoting Iraq national unity and the country’s Arab character
Working towards a WMD-free zone in the Middle East
Confronting the rise of Iran as a regional power by reviewing Cairo’s policy towards Tehran and encouraging it to act as a force for stability in the region
Promoting Sudan’s national unity and territorial integrity

I think this whole dimension is entirely a reaction to the fiasco that was the Lebanon war for the Mubarak regime, and the growing frustration at Egypt’s collusion in US and Israeli plans for the region. The above plan basically outlines more of the same, with the difference that Egypt, once a regional power, is satisfied with defending its “near-abroad” in Sudan from regime change. And if there was ever a regime deserving of regime change, it’s Sudan’s (and no risk of creating a civil war there, there already is one!) and minor regional aims (hedging its bets on Iran, institution-building at the regional level, preventing the disintegration of Iraq). The rest of it is cods-wallop and essentially amounts to having a foreign policy that is subservient to the US. There’s an argument to be made that this is the best Egypt can hope for, and there is certainly a need for its proponents to make a compelling case for it. But they are going to have a tough time fighting the nationalist-populist line Kifaya, Karama and most other political currents are taking. And perhaps that is the whole point: keep’em talking about regional injustice, say that unfortunately there’s nothing you can do about it, and at least they won’t be talking about domestic issues.

One more thing: maybe, just maybe, the NDP will decide to pay its electricity bill.

… and welcome to Canada

A man got beaten into a false confession. The internal security agency lied to the government and to the public to cover up their brutality and incompetence. The government lied to the public to cover up their culpability. When the man complained, government officials told lies to the press in an attempt to discredit him.

Sure sounds familiar, but the country could come as a surprise: Canada.

Maher Arar was picked up by US officials acting on intelligence ineptly gathered by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (yep, the guys in the little red uniforms) while transiting the US on a Canadian passport and exported to Damascus for interrogation where (surprise!) he was tortured. After he returned to Canada and complained, as yet unnamed â€œgovernment officialsâ€� started a campaign to smear him in the national press.

Here, however, the parallels to countries closer to the home come to an end. See, we know all this because an independent commission was set up under a judgeâ€”a judge who was going to get his full salary whether or not he came up with the real facts of the matterâ€”and that commission was able to impel the testimony of a range of key players and make most of its findings known.

Itâ€™s unpleasant to be reminded that internal security operatives are a breed that transcends cultural and national identity, but hereâ€™s the silver lining: a willful, independent judiciary can be an effective counterweight. Something to remember next time thereâ€™s a demo outside the Judges’ Club.

Welcome to Egypt

Remember the survey at the beginning of the summer that suggested tourists are unhappy with the way theyâ€™re treated in Egypt? If memory serves, it blamed overcharging service industry types for many visitors making Egypt a once-in-a-lifetime experience. After a weekend trip across the Sinai, though, I think there may be another culprit, and I think the little fellow behind his clipboard might know who it is.

Snapped lounging at a highway check-stop making gestures all-too-familiar to women around Cairo, he didnâ€™t want his picture to be taken and wasnâ€™t about to offer his thoughts on the macro-economic implications of the country being overrun by half-trained goons, but I think his input is clear enough.

Iâ€™m guessing that there are quite a few people in government here who are familiar enough with Europeâ€”if only Switzerlandâ€”to understand that being openly harassed, be it by well-armed soldiers on street corners or by beltagui with guns stuffed into their jeans in the middle of the desert, isnâ€™t something that is going to encourage tourists to make a return visit.

Pity that taxi drivers and waiters are so much easier to blame.

A pardon for Nour?

I forgot to post this last week, but readers may be interested in reading a letter by Ayman Nour’s family to mark the one-year anniversary of the 2005 presidential elections, in which he came a distant second from Hosni Mubarak and most probably caused him to be sentenced to jail on 25 December of the same year. In the letter, fully reproduced below, President Mubarak is appealed to grant Nour a pardon. Previously Nour had refused to petition Mubarak for an appeal, and I am still not sure whether the administrative legwork to file for a pardon has been done or whether this a more informal, moral appeal.

It’s worth noting that US President Bush recently called for Nour’s release, as have opposition MPs in Egypt.
Continue reading A pardon for Nour?

A nuclear Arab world?

While the stand-off between the US and Iran gets the most attention, I think it is equally important to look at the regional dynamic that has been kicked off by Tehranâ€™s nuclear ambitions.

At a Bahrain sponsored GCC security conference that took place September 10 â€“ 11, the Gulf countries discussed what to do about the Iranian nuclear program, by which they feel increasingly threatened, both militarily and environmentally. (Iranâ€™s Busheer reactor is just some 200km away, across the Persian Gulf.)

During the conference, GCCâ€™s general secretary Abdulrahman bin Mohammed Al Attiyah urged the Arab world to consider starting its own peaceful nuclear program.

Algeria (as well as Turkey) is already working on large-scale nuclear programs. Analysts say that others, notably Egypt and Saudi Arabia, could quickly follow suit, once Iranâ€™s nuclear program is up and running, as they want to avoid Tehran being the uncontested regional super power next to Israel.

Hereâ€™s an excerpt from an article in which I gave an overview on regional dynamics and different Arab interests regarding Iranâ€™s nuclear program:

The Gulf States do not want to end up in the crossfire between Israel and Iran. Shortly before Christmas, they surprised the world by suggesting the creation of a nuclear-free zone expressly for the Gulf. This would include Iraq and Iran, but not Israel. Amr Moussa, General Secretary of the Arab League, protested angrily behind the scenes.

“That would weaken the Arab position versus Israel and would imply that some of the Arab states are worried only about Iranâ€™s atomic weapons,” Salama explained. Thus, each country in the Arab world seems to be watching out for its own interests first.

EU inches towards Hamas

EUâ€™s Foreign Ministers continued to reluctantly inch towards accepting Hamas in a Palestinian government of national union during their meeting yesterday.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union foreign ministers agreed on Friday to back a Palestinian national unity government being formed by President Mahmoud Abbas with the Hamas Islamist movement, despite U.S. misgivings.

“We agreed that we have to support the new Palestinian government. It’s a very important turning point for the situation,” Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema told Reuters.

While some countries such as France, Finland or Slovakia appear to be ready to accept Hamas in government, others such as the UK, Germany or the Netherlands hesitate, also considering that the Bush administration has not changed its position.

Washington said on Thursday it saw no grounds so far to lift the embargo on contacts and aid.

But many European governments are anxious to end the stand-off, which has contributed to aggravated poverty and lawlessness in the Palestinian territories.

I think itâ€™s a mere question of time when the EU will come to terms with the new reality in Palestinian politics, and in the end the EUâ€™s desire to play a more active role in the region independent from Washington could be the last push to normalize relations with Hamas.

Holiday snap

People who read this blog will know I am no great fan of Saudis and their morbid culture, or lack thereof.(Yes, not all of them, I know, allow me some artistic license here…)

Do you really need more explanation that their recent attempt to ban women from entering the great mosque at Mecca (cutting with all Islamic precedent) or this man who lingers in a jail because he once joked about Muhammad’s penis?

It’s not only that they are intolerant bigots, but also that they are incredibly stupid. This picture had me rolling on the floor in laughter for a good 10 minutes: