Tag: egypt

وداعاً أحمد شر�

Communist lawyer Ahmad SharafEddin passed away last night at the age of 57.
Sharaf was a student leader in the 1970s, who went on to become a labor lawyer. He was a devoted soldier in working class battles and a ruthless civil rights campaigner at the Lawyers’ Syndicate.
May he rest in peace…

I’m posting a feature, I wrote for the Cairo Times back in 2002, about Awlad Allam slum in Dokki, where Sharaf grew up.

Continue reading وداعاً أحمد شر�

TI and other corruption indexes

Al Masry Al Youm yesterday carried a nice photo series on its (print only) back page: Someone with a camera at hand observed a police officer stealing fuel out of one of the dark-blue police cars (“boks�). He then infuses it into a private car (probably his).

This rather amusing example ranks at the very bottom of the misuse of public funds (or materials), which is wide-spread in Egypt, as Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index 2006, which was released two days ago, suggests once more. Egypt ranks 70th, with a score of only 3.3 out of 10 (last year it was 3.4).

Highest-ranking country in the Arab world is Qatar with a score of 6.0, the lowest is Iraq with 1.9.

I think corruption is still the best example for why economic reform can’t be sustainable without political reform. Countries with wide-spread corruption attract much less foreign investment, and innovative companies have lesser chances to gain grounds against the established ones. But in Egypt, corruption is too important for the regime to stay in power, so the fight against corruption will always serve only its own interests. So, Egypt just came in 165th on the World Bank’s annual “Ease of doing business� ranking.

Speaking of cars and corruption: The US scholars Ray Fisman and Edward Miguel published a study in which they draw a correlation between the amount of parking fines of foreign diplomats accredited at the UN in New York and the level of corruption in their home countries. In other words: ‘show me where you park, and I tell you how corrupt your home country is’.

Here is the link to the study (pdf-file): Cultures of Corruption: Evidence from Diplomatic Parking Tickets

Results: First Kuwait, second Egypt.

FREE KAREEM!

More details are emerging about Abdel Kareem’s case that make me wanna puke.
According to HR-INFO, Kareem was expelled from Al-Azhar University, the so called most prestigious Sunni institution in the world (bla bla bla), for his “secular ideas.” And if that isn’t bad enough, the university itself reported him to the authorities. The religious academics have turned into police informers, it seems.

Free Kareem!

Abdel Kareem was interrogated not on any incidents or crimes he committed, but according to HR-INFO, the prosecutor’s questions were all like: “Do you pray? Do you fast?”….
Kareem is now in police custody, pending investigation into the following charges:
-Spreading statements and rumours that disturb public security
-Insulting the President of the Republic
-Agitating for overthrowing the regime
-Agitating for hatred against Islam
-Misrepresenting Egypt, and hurting its image.
As you can see, the list of charges are similar to those of the Spanish Inquisitions or witch hunting in Medieval Europe. I expect in the future, the prosecutor will ask us questions like, do you own a black cat? Do you repeat Mubarak’s name before going to sleep?

You can find more details about the case (in Arabic) here.

UPDATE: Here’s HR-INFO’s statement in English.

Regarding death threats to “infidels”

Why aren’t people who issue death threats not more frequently taken to court? From the EOHR:

EOHR is very concerned about the aggressive campaign being waged against Dr. Souad Saleh, a professor of Islamic jurisprudence at the Azhar University, following her publicly stating her opinion on the Niquab (the Islamic full body veil), saying it is not compulsory in Islam. Her statement angered many fundamentalists, some of whom have called for the “shedding of her blood”.

Saleh, a former dean at Azhar University, stated her opinion in late October 2006 on a television programme called “Amma Yatasa’loon” (“What are they asking about?”), aired on the channel Dream TV. Saleh stated that the Niquab is not compulsory for Muslim women, and she supported her point by citing the Prophet and Islamic customs.

Also:

EOHR is deeply worried about the increasing tendency to accuse individuals of being “infidels”, and the accompanying calls to “shed the blood” of such individuals, when they express critical views, whether ideological or political.

Accordingly, EOHR denounces the calls by Member of Parliament Ali Laban for the execution of the prime minister, the endowment minister and the investment minister, on the charges of “attacking Islam openly”, which came as a reaction to their issuing an administrative decision to demolish a mosque and privatize a public company.

RSF: Egypt on internet blacklist

Who says things in Egypt aren’t actually getting worse?

“(Egyptian) President Hosni Mubarak, in power since 1981, has shown a particularly worrying authoritarianism as concerns the Internet,” RSF said in a statement.

Internet use is one of the freedoms monitored by the rights group surveying civil liberties around the world.

RSF said three bloggers were arrested in Egypt in June and detained for two months for saying they were in favour of democratic reform, while others had been harassed.

It also expressed concern at an Egyptian court ruling that said an Internet site could be shut down if it posed a threat to national security.

Aside from confusing bloggers who get arrested for taking part in protests with ones who get arrested for blogging, this part of a wider worrying trends — as seen by the security interference in this month’s student and labor elections, the revanchisme against the Judges’ Club (more on that later), and dimming prospects of meaningful constitutional reform.