Tag: egypt

Actors and Artists demonstrate for Lebanon today

The Actor’s Guild and the Artists’ Syndicate have called for a sit-in at the UN office in Cairo, today Monday, to protest the Qana massacre.
The actors and artists will assemble in front of the Guild, located in el-Bahr el-A3zam Street in Giza, at noon, and will move in buses and cars to Garden City, where the UN office is located.

Several actors and artists have joined the ranks of dissent since the launching of Kefaya, in addition to others who’ve known to come into the art scene from activism background. The most outspoken actor/activist has been Khaled el-Sawy, the star from the box office hit The Yaacoubian Building. He together with the novel author, Alaa el-Aswani, had helped launch Artists For Change last year, as one of Kefaya’s offshoots.

Pro-resistance protest in Talaat Harb

I uploaded pix of today’s protests here.
Will be posting a report soon…

UPDATE: Here’s the report….
I arrived in Talaat Harb Sq. few minutes after 7pm, and there were only 20 leftist activists standing in the square, with Palestinian and Lebanese flags, and no security presence.
Earlier in the day, there had been confusion about the protest’s location.
There was a demo and a prayer organized at the Press Syndicate, that had been agreed up on by different political groups, but with the news trickling early morning on the Qana massacre, others felt there had to be some street action, and I learned from activist sources there was something to happen in Talaat Harb Sq.
I wasn’t optimistic on my way to the demo. This space activists had in the “street,� in 2005 and up till March 2006, has been constantly under attack, and it’s just an “achievement� nowadays in itself to get few dozens to show up somewhere outside the “liberated zone� called Press Syndicate stairs.

Continue reading Pro-resistance protest in Talaat Harb

Parliamentarians demonstrate against Israel

More than a 100 (independent and opposition) Members of Parliament marched in the streets today to protest the Israeli military operations in Lebanon, and demanded the expulsion of the Israeli and US ambassadors to Egypt. The MPs left the parliament shortly after noon, chanting “We are all with the resistance,” and marched towards the US embassy before they were stopped by security forces in Simon Bolivar Square.

According to someone present in the scene, none of the MPs belonged to Mubarak’s National Democratic Party. When the independent and opposition MPs took the streets, they were joined by another 200 activists and ordinary citizens. (Correction: Nora reports two NDP MPs took part)
When barred, the MPs decided to head towards the Arab League, and met with Amr Moussa, the League’s secretary general, to demand stronger action by the Arab states, and the expulsion of the Israeli and US ambassadors.

You can find pix of the demo here.

الجو جميل

Shatta Theatre Troop would like to invite you to:
“El Gaw Gameel�
“الجو جميل”
Based on
Louis Calaferte’s “Un Riche, Trois Pauvres�
Directed by Nada Sabet
An absurd play, composed of split second disjointed scenes that bring out the circus in the streets and the street in the circus. The performance is the result of improvisation based on the original text that leads to an ever-changing picture on stage where the street and circus are always evolving into each other until they gradually merge into one. “There are as many realities as you care to imagine� (Lawrence Durell).
Monday 7th August, 2006, 9pm
 El-Hanager Theatre, Opera House
As part of the independent theatre troops festival

State Security arrests 4 Kefaya activists in Port Said

Four Kefaya activists have been detained by State Security Police in the northern city of Port Said last night, Kefaya’s website reported. The four were picked up after they took part in a march to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the nationalization of the Suez Canal.

The detainees are: Youth for Change coordinator Mohamed Hegazi, Fathi Farid, and two other activsts whose names were not available.

UPDATE: The four activists spent the night in a police station, and were referred to a prosecutor on the following day, Kefaya’s website reports. Prosecutor Khaled el-Shami interrogated them on charges of “disturbing public order,” and then ordered their release.

Who ghostwrites for Hosni?

Time magazine runs written answers sent by Hosni Mubarak to their questions. Nothing fascinating, but look at the language: if Hosni actually wrote or dictated those answer, then George Bush was born and raised in Menoufiya. Makes you wonder who wrote them, using American vernacular (“from day one,” “to say the least,” “a bit too little, too late,” etc.) Maybe Gamal? There’s plenty of other American-educated kids working at the presidency (as well as a few older advisors), but Gamal seems like a logical choice. He has to get his foreign affairs training at other events than impromptu visits to the White House, after all.

Misr Digital on resistance week

Wael Abbass of MisrDigital has posted a fantastic virtual coverage of solidarity demos in Cairo accross last week. As always, Wael takes good pix and videos of the protests, clashes, portraits of security officials present when abuses happen. The most interesting video this time was one taken of a CSF conscript mumbling “Amen” as pro-resistance demonstrators were praying for Israel’s and America’s defeat.

Wael also said his blog has been recently coming under attacks from Israeli hackers, so he sent them the following post card…