Month: June 2006

Chain of hatred

I previously posted on the blog a letter from a former Islamist detainee, narrating the torture he went through in prison, during our 1990s Dirty War. I was going through my inbox today, and came across a good article from last September by my friend Sara Khorshid, who writes for Islam Online, and other media outlets.
Sara’s report demonstrates clearly, how the regime’s abuses are breeding the next generation of terrorists. Continue reading Chain of hatred

Lebanon’s Al Akhbar newspaper

I saw in one of Angry Arab’s recent posts from Lebanon that he was given a tour — by Joseph Samaha no less — of the new Al Akhbar offices there. He said he was pleased by what he saw. Al Akhbar is a new project headed by Samaha — former editor of As Safir and generally considered one of the best, or at least most-read, editorialists in Lebanon — that is getting talked about in Arab journalistic circles even here as far as Morocco.

Continue reading Lebanon’s Al Akhbar newspaper

Brothers and Comrades

Back to blogging freely, 3alaa posted something interesting yesterday on his blog, recalling his “release� experience in el-3omraniya police station, and more importantly, he sent strong message of solidarity to the Muslim Brothers’ detainees.
3alaa, the staunch secularist, bumped into the MB youth who were picked up during a summer beach trip in Marsa Matrouh. 3alaa speaks about how the misery of detention unites everyone, and how the brothers and the comrades became friends.
3alaa’s impression of the Brothers youth was that ‘they where from this new breed of islamists that reads blogs, watches al jazeera, sings sha3by songs, talks about intense love stories and chants “down Mubarak”. and being young most of them did not have any experience with prison before.‘
Interesting, coz it’s that same caliber of youth who are pushing the Islamist group towards moderation, and coordination with other secular forces. And it was them who pushed the MB’s leadership to join in the street protests after Kefaya presented both a daring model for breaking political taboos and, at the same time, a pressure on the group to take a stronger stand towards the regime, lest losing the base cadres who are eager for more confrontationalist stand vis a vis the government’s continuous crackdowns.
More raproachment is expected, and needed, between Islamists and leftists, in such a critical stage.

High school student fails exam for criticizing Bush

Remember when George Bush highlighted reforming education in the region, as a way of fighting “terror,� giving young Arabs a chance for a bright future and bla bla bla bla bla? Well, it seems to be working.
A high school student in a Nile Delta province failed her Arabic language exam two weeks ago for criticizing the US in a composition piece! Yes, I’m not joking wallahi.
Al-Wafd initially ran the story on Thursday, then the Qatari Al-Raya, and other media outlets picked it up. Alaa Farag Megahed, a student at the Sherbeen Modern Girls School, was taking her Arabic exam, when she was asked to write an essay on the “economic problems facing Egypt.�
It seems the girl wrote an essay, critical of Bush, and discussed the support given to corrupt dictators without much concern for their people’s needs.
As soon as her teacher at the “Control Room� (where exam papers are graded) read her essay, he went directly to his boss, who took her paper to the ministry of education branch in Dakahliya. The undersecretary for education, together with other ministry officials, sent for the girl, from her home, and brought her to the ministry for interrogation.
Her father was not allowed into the room, according to press reports, where Alaa was interrogated by three ministry and governorate officials, who accused her of belonging to a “secret organization.� Alaa could not understand half of the questions they asked. She was clueless, in tears. The ministry officials decided in the end to fail her in the exam, and ban her from taking the second term final exams!!!
The world is sure a safer place now, without terrorists like Alaa in our schools… Alhamdolillah!

Google Egypt

So it’s official, Google has arrived in Egypt. I guess that explains why whenever I type www.google.com, I get automatically diverted to www.google.com.eg with the default search language switched to Arabic.
Anyhow, you are still given the option of clicking on a link that will take you to google.com proper. I tried google-ing anti-Mubarak websites on the Egyptian google, and they still came out in the search results with no filter. So I guess we didn’t get the same bad deal the poor Chinese got.

Activists prepare for labor elections battle

Kefaya, Socialists, Workers for Change and labor union activists will meet Monday, 26 June, 7pm at the Center for Socialist Studies, to discuss strategy and tactics for the coming national labor unions elections, scheduled 20 August. The meeting will be open for the press. The center is located at 7 Morad St., in Giza. The center’s director, Kamal Khalil, and other recently released detainees will be attending the discussion.
Continue reading Activists prepare for labor elections battle

Zawahiri hails Zarqawi in new video

Al-Jazeera broadcasted Friday night a new video by Dr. Ayman el-Zawahiri, the deputy head of Al-Qa3da, where he acknowledged Zarqawi’s death, and hailed him as a “martyr.” The Doha-based Satellite channel had aired a video by Zawahiri, only a day before, where he denounced the “massacre” by US troops against Afghan civilians last month, suggesting that the tape was filmed sometime after the traffic accident that involved US army troops that killed Afghans, sparking riots and more deaths on May 29.

The (Anti-)Palestinian Authority

Professor Joseph Massad wrote an interesting opinion piece in Al-Ahram Weekly, on the social groups–produced by the 1990s Oslo “peace processâ€�–that have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo in Palestine, and work hard to undermine the current democratically elected Hamas government. He draws parallels between Hamas’ current position with that of Chile’s Salvador Allende in 1973. Continue reading The (Anti-)Palestinian Authority