Month: February 2007

WaPo op-ed on Kareem

The ‘crime’ of blogging in Egypt:

Egyptian authorities have made a mistake in prosecuting Soliman. It is Egypt that will be hurt if he is convicted and sent to prison. That’s why sincere friends of Egypt call on the government to drop the charges against him. It is the right thing to do, and it is the best thing for Egypt’s standing in the modern world.

Unfortunately, Kareem is unlikely to get off without being sentenced. He will be lucky to get less than 2-3 years. We’ll see tomorrow — I hope I’m wrong.

Policeman strikes against guarding Israeli embassy

I don’t have a link for this (Update: Here is the story on the MB website), but thought it was worth posting — it’s telling of the anger at the regime for its support of Israel these days:

An Egyptian policeman has been referred to a military court because he refused to guard the Israeli embassy in Cairo .

Major general Adel Al Helali, a senior aid of the Interior Minister and Giza security manager, ordered policeman Mohamed Khalaf Hassan Ibrahim who is serving in the force guarding the Israeli embassy in Anas Bin Malek st. in Giza to appear before a military prosecution to investigate with him over the incident of a sit-in and hunger strike that he staged in protest at transferring him from Bab Sharq police station, Alexandria, to Giza security department, in the force entrusted with guarding the building of the Israeli embassy .

The policeman filed several complaints to the presidency, calling for returning him back to his work in Alexandria because he refuses to guard the headquarters of the Israeli embassy in Cairo due to the crimes Israel is committing in the Middle East , in addition being unable to afford the expenses of traveling and living away from his family .

The military prosecution jailed him for 15 days pending trial, and was sent to Um Al-Misriyeen hospital to receive treatment and artificial feeding after he insisted on maintaining the hunger strike till his demands are met .

The regime is rather trigger happy on military tribunals these days…

The Iran debate

The Project on Defense Alternatives has a long list of links on Iran, from all sides of the debate and all of the issues that have been in the news lately — the nuclear program, intervention in Iraq, regional ambitions as well as the inner political debate in Iran and the US and an assessment of US media coverage.

You’ll find tons of interesting stuff there, such as this short article by Barry Rosen of MIT titled We can live with a nuclear Iran [PDF].

Electoral rigging in Morocco

Bakchich has an article explaining how the ministry of interior is rigging Morocco’s electoral map to favor rural areas, where the moderate Islamist PJD has made little inroads, to contain the success polls have been predicting since last year. In a sense, this is ethnic electioneering, with the mostly Berber / tribal countryside long loyal to local strongmen who end up forming “coalitions of independents” that pledge allegiance to the king. The ultimate example of such a politician in Mahjoubi Aherdan of Oulmes in the Middle Atlas. My grandfather, a Belgian settler near Oulmes who owned a tin mine, had many memories of Aherdan’s politicking during the French protectorate and after independence. People like him are the Moroccan Walid Jumblatts, political weathervanes who ally themselves with the powers that be.

More on this in Le Journal. They note that the latest rumor is that the parliamentary elections will be held in July rather than September.

Dodgy Gaydamak backs Netanyahu

Should I be surprised that so many Israeli political figures seem to be criminals of one kind or another? I suppose not, the country has been at the center of many illicit trades for a while now (human trafficking, conflict diamonds, drugs, weapons), obviously with politicians/officials’ support. And in any case, politicians worldwide seem to be increasingly corrupt. And this particular character (how can someone who holds Israeli, French, Russian and Angolan passports not be dodgy?) seems both unsavory and dangerous:

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Right-wing Israeli-Russian billionaire Arkady Gaydamak has said he planned to create a new political party to focus exclusively on socio-economic issues.

“I intend to create a new party within one month after having examined all the bureaucratic procedures,” Gaydamak told AFP.

“The state of Israel is passing through a major crisis because it is being managed by some inefficient people.”

“As an Israeli citizen I consider this my duty,” he added. “I have certain experience in political, economic and social affairs.”

Gaydamak, a long time ally of right-wing Likud party leader and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said his own polling showed he had broad support from Israel’s large Russian minority and could count on between 25 and 30 percent support in a nationwide vote.

The AFP story doesn’t say that Gaydamak is wanted in France and under investigation in Israel.

World’ first Tamazight Quran

Has been made in Algeria:

ALGIERS (Reuters) – Algeria has translated the Koran into the Berber language, Tamazight, for the first time, to promote Islam among a community that has long campaigned for more language and cultural rights, an official said on Monday.

Religious Affairs Ministry spokesman Abdellah Tamine said the ministry had funded the printing this year of 6,000 copies of a full translation carried out by its experts.

Saudi Arabia financed the printing of 5,000 copies of a partial translation last year, he said. All 11,000 copies were distributed free and the ministry planned to print more.

I’m rather curious about how many Algerian or Moroccan Berbers actually read Tamazight. I must admit (and this is awkward to say as an ethnically Arab Moroccan) that I have always been rather skeptical about the need to push for Tamazight text in cultures that are already at least bilingual. Does anyone know exactly how many Tamazight readers there are? Or is it a political issue being driven by a small intellectual elite?

In any case, this particular project seems quite worthy. It’s a surprise it didn’t happen earlier considering the many top Islamist leaders in the Maghreb who are Berbers.

Hizbullah back to pre-war firepower?

Abu Muqawama has a question about recent Israeli reports that Hizbullah has recovered its pre-war firepower:

doesn’t this report shoot holes in all those claims made by the IDF in the aftermath of the summer’s war about how this wasn’t a Hizbollah victory on account of all the damage Israel did to Hizbollah’s infrastructure? If Hizbollah can build itself back up to pre-war capabilities after just six months, then really, what does that say about what the IDF did and didn’t accomplish in the summer’s war?