Month: January 2007

Interior Ministry’s “videogate” takes a new turn

Egypt’s torture scandal is getting increasing international coverage thanks to the fact that a) it was caught on video and b) it was blogged: FT, Le Monde, Le Figaro, and others are covering the scandal, which has taken a turn for the worse yesterday with al-Jazeera reporter Howeida Taha arrested as she was leaving the country with tapes for a documentary on torture. The tapes included some reconstruction of torture scenes — a standard tool in documentary film-making — but of course security is accusing her of fabricating lies about Egypt’s sensitive, gentle police officers. So alarmed are some bloggers who covered the scandal from the beginning — such as our own Hossam el-Hamalawy, who has his thoughts on these developments here — that late last night I received an email from Wael Abbas, the one-man photo and video news agency of the Egyptian blogosphere, with the subject line “I might get arrested tomorrow!” We’ve been warned.

In the meantime, we note the predictable petty vindictiveness of the regime in the way it has decided to reward the whistle-blower and victim of this affair, Emad al-Kebir, by sentencing him to three months of prison for “resisting the authorities” — yes, the same authorities that beat and raped him in custody. HRW has the details.

I sure am glad I live in a “moderate” Arab country, Ms. Rice.

Zbig vs. Shrub

Zbigniew Brzezinski angriest column yet? Looks like the realists might take their gloves off now that W. has made a fool out of their don, James Baker III.

“Its language was less Islamophobic than has been customary with President Bush’s rhetoric since Sept. 11”
“the president still could not resist the temptation to engage in a demagogic oversimplification”
“The commitment of 21,500 more troops is a political gimmick of limited tactical significance and of no strategic benefit.”
“The speech did not explore even the possibility of developing a framework for an eventual political solution.”
“the administration’s diplomatic style of relying on sloganeering as a substitute for strategizing.”
“America is acting like a colonial power in Iraq.”

The patricians strike back…

Update: While on the subject of patricians who suddenly become anti-imperialists, here’s what Edward Luttwak has to say:

It was the hugely ambitious project of the Bush administration to transform the entire Middle East by remaking Iraq into an irresistible model of prosperous democracy. Having failed in that worthy purpose, another, more prosaic result has inadvertently been achieved: divide and rule, the classic formula for imperial power on the cheap.

The rest after the jump.

Continue reading Zbig vs. Shrub

Cowboys and Indians, Iraq style

Very good WSJ story on Iraqi children who play sectarian war games:

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A year ago, a young gunman walked into Ali Hussein’s living room and drew a weapon. The intruder’s head was wrapped in a scarf, leaving a narrow slit for his eyes. His clothes were all black, the favorite attire of a powerful Shiite Muslim militia. He introduced himself as a commander, shouted the incantation “God is greater” and warned Sunni Muslims not to fight back. With that, he raised his plastic pistol.

The gunman’s name is Hassoni, and he was only 4 years old at the time. The scene unfolded in his father’s house in Baghdad’s Sadr City slum, a sprawling Shiite Muslim district stretching toward the eastern edge of the Iraqi capital. “I was happy to see him this way because it means he has courage,” Mr. Hussein, 26, said of his son. Since then, Hassoni’s favorite game has grown more elaborate, migrating from the living room onto the neighboring streets, drawing in other children and increasingly emulating the violent world of the adults.

The rest after the jump.
Continue reading Cowboys and Indians, Iraq style

CIA, Saudis covertly plot support of Siniora

Rather obvious, of course:

The Central Intelligence Agency has been authorised to take covert action against Hizbollah as part of a secret plan by President George W. Bush to help the Lebanese government prevent the spread of Iranian influence. Senators and congressmen have been briefed on the classified “non-lethal presidential finding” that allows the CIA to provide financial and logistical support to the prime minister, Fouad Siniora.

The finding was signed by Mr Bush before Christmas after discussions between his aides and Saudi Arabian officials. Details of its existence, known only to a small circle of White House officials, intelligence officials and members of Congress, have been passed to The Daily Telegraph.

. . .

A former US government official said: “Siniora’s under siege there and we are always looking for ways to help allies. As Richard Armitage [a former deputy US secretary of state] said, Hizbollah is the A-team of terrorism and certainly Iran and Syria have not let up in their support of the group.”

Prince Bandar bin-Sultan, the former Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington, is understood to have been closely involved in the decision to prop up Mr Siniora’s administration and the Israeli government, which views Iran as its chief enemy, has also been supportive.

“There’s a feeling both in Jerusalem and in Riyadh that the anti-Sunni tilt in the region has gone too far,” said an intelligence source. “By removing Saddam, we’ve shifted things in favour of the Shia and this is a counter-balancing exercise.

Why don’t they just redraw the maps while they’re at it?

Hamas: Israel just fine and dandy

Remember next time you hear the lie that Hamas is committed to Israel’s total destruction:

DAMASCUS (Reuters) – Hamas acknowledges the existence of Israel as a reality but formal recognition will only be considered when a Palestinian state has been created, the movement’s exiled leader Khaled Meshaal said on Wednesday.

Softening a previous refusal to accept the Jewish state’s existence, Meshaal said Israel was a “matter of fact” and a reality that will persist.

“There will remain a state called Israel,” Meshaal said in an interview in the Syrian capital, in what appeared to be clearest statement yet by the Islamist group on its attitude toward the state it previously said had no right to exist.

“The problem is not that there is an entity called Israel,” said Meshaal, who survived an Israeli assassination attempt in 1997. “The problem is that the Palestinian state is non-existent.”

This should not be that much of a surprise since Hamas has been saying very similar stuff since it was elected, if not before — see this post at the Skeptic and the excellent paper he links to. Nice to see this coming from Khaled Meshaal, though.

Feudal family sues over embarrassing memoirs

I’ve been hearing about this story in the last few days:

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (HRinfo) is highly concerned by the defamation claim filed by a feudal family against an academic, Dr. Sherin Abu El Naga, a political activist, Shahenda Mekled, and the owner of the Dar Merit Publishing House, Mohamed Hashem. HRinfo is also worried about the attempt to confiscate a historical document issued in the form of a book.

Some of the employees of the feudal Aziz Al-Fiki family filed a defamation claim against the two writers and the publisher and demanded confiscation of the book titled “From the Papers of Shahenda Mekled” published by Dar Merit. Dr. Sherin Abu El Naga, the author of the book, recounted some of the feudal practices in Kamshich village, Menoufia Governorate, in the 1950s and 1960s. She documented the murder of Shahenda Mekled’s husband and political activist Salah Hussein in 1966. The book is considered an important historical document about this era. However, the Aziz Al-Fiki family’s members regarded the book as both defamatory and insulting because it discussed some of their violations against poor peasants at that time. Consequently, the Al-Fiki family filed a claim and called for the imprisonment of the two writers and the publisher in addition to confiscation of the book.

Egypt’s patrician regression continues… It is telling that the al-Fiki family is doing this, much like its scion Mustafa al-Fiki, a foreign policy busybody close to the president, shamelessly stole his seat in the 2005 parliamentary elections. And that Merit publishing, one of the best new things on the cultural scene in the past decade, is getting attacked.

Correction: I am told this is a different al-Fiqi family than that of the not-so-honorable MP from Damanhour.

Egyptian feminist blogs

Joseph Mayton writes about them in the Middle East Times:

Leading the charge is a young Egyptian female – preferring to remain anonymous due to the nature of the campaign – who has started an Arab-language feminist blog called Atralnada (morning dew). In a country where Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise, and the status of women a subject of much debate, this young activist has made her struggle public, and her blog is empowering Egyptian women to speak out in turn.

“I wanted to post about my personal experiences of being harassed,” she says simply, adding that the events of the last Eid celebration had sparked something inside her, compelling her to begin expressing herself in such a fashion.

Particularly galling to her has been the apparent callousness by Egyptian men regarding the assaults. “I am asking women to speak up and tell their stories since most of the men have denied anything [of this nature ever] happens in this country,” she points out.

“[Males] write disgusting comments on blogs telling us that we are using the forum to become famous – even though [posters have to be] anonymous – and … to attract men,” she says incredulously.

Despite the odds, the forum’s popularity is catching on, having become the mouthpiece of a fledgling feminist movement, which, unlike the majority of other movements in Egypt, can lay claim to a truly grassroots base.

Does anyone have a link to the blog? Nevermind.

Rally to free Kareem

Kareemdc.Gif

Hands Across the Middle East Support Alliance and the DC Coalition for Blog Freedom are organizing a rally in support on imprisoned Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Soliman on Thursday Jan. 11 2007 at noon. Kudos to them!

As many readers know Kareeem was arrested in November specifically because of his blogging and is one of several Egyptian bloggers arrested in 2006. So if you’re in the DC area, lend your support.

Jumblatt and Nasrallah trade serious accusations

I missed this at the time, but this Le Monde article says that Hizbullah (via al-Manar) has accused close Walid Jumblatt collaborator Marwan Hamade of helping the US Ambassador in Lebanon to locate Hassan Nasrallah during the Summer 2006 war — so the info could be passed on to Israel. Walid Jumblatt has replied by, for the first time, directly accusing Hizbullah of having a hand “one way or the other, in some of the assassinations, if not all the assassinations.”