I stole this animation from Wael’s blog… (Zazou, I know you’ll like this)
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Black Hole: The Fate of Islamists Rendered to Egypt
Tag: egypt
Thousands demonstrate in support of resistance
Thousands of Muslim Brothers activists took part in demos following Fri prayers today in Giza and Shoubra.
Around five thousands supporters of Egypt’s largest Islamist opposition group prayed and demonstrated in front of Istiqama mosque in Giza, according to Photographer Nasser Nouri. The protestors were surrounded by CSF, who banned them from marching to the nearby Israeli embassy, but no arrests were reported.
In el-Khazendar mosque in Shoubra, around a thousand MB supporters, half of them children, demonstrated for an hour after the Friday prayers, according to a photographer present in the scene. The mosque was surrounded by CSF, who made sure the demo did not turn into a march. Ten children were detained by security, according to Ikhwan Web.
Around five thousands supporters of Egypt’s largest Islamist opposition group prayed and demonstrated in front of Istiqama mosque in Giza, according to Photographer Nasser Nouri. The protestors were surrounded by CSF, who banned them from marching to the nearby Israeli embassy, but no arrests were reported.
In el-Khazendar mosque in Shoubra, around a thousand MB supporters, half of them children, demonstrated for an hour after the Friday prayers, according to a photographer present in the scene. The mosque was surrounded by CSF, who made sure the demo did not turn into a march. Ten children were detained by security, according to Ikhwan Web.
(You can find a slideshow of the two demos here.)
Here’s a good dpa roundup by Jano Charbel of the protests in (the above-mentioned) Giza, and another two in Al-Azhar Mosque and Mansoura province. Jano puts the number of Giza demonstrators at less than what Nasser Nouri said, however. Continue reading Thousands demonstrate in support of resistance
Detaining Egypt
Ma’at Center for Legal and Constitutional Studies will organize a conference, Monday 31 July, on “Conditions of Detention in Egypt.”
Several speakers will take part including Dr. Diaa Rashwan of Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, Hussein Ibrahim, the deputy head of the Muslim Brothers’ parliamentary block, in addition to some detainees’ family members and a number of recently released detainees.
The conference will start at 1pm, in Hor Mohebb Hotel, in Haram Street in Giza.
Several speakers will take part including Dr. Diaa Rashwan of Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, Hussein Ibrahim, the deputy head of the Muslim Brothers’ parliamentary block, in addition to some detainees’ family members and a number of recently released detainees.
The conference will start at 1pm, in Hor Mohebb Hotel, in Haram Street in Giza.
وداعاً رمسيس
So finally Ramses is gonna escape the polution, dust, fumes, and garbage hills of downtown Cairo, to assume his new position in front of the new Egyptian Museum, currently under construction.
As happy as I am we are saving this valuable piece of our country’s history, but I know I and many Cairenes will miss it. May Ramses find some peace now in his new home by the Giza Pyramids…
Here is a slideshow of the mock transferring process that took place last night. The Antiquities’ authorities moved a replica of the statue, to see if the experiment was going to work.. and it did..
UPDATE: The actual tranfer of the original Ramses statue will take place on October 6, according to Al-Masr Al-Youm
If you are interested in more background information on the new Egyptian Museum, check out this story I wrote for the LA Times last year.
The 30 Piasters hunt
In response to the government recent decree to raise gas prices by 30%, an Egyptian blogger designed a multimedia game for Egyptian citizens who want to hunt those 30 Piasters back.
Follow the hyperlink and then click on Start to “play with Mubarak in the gas station”
‘Shut up, you barefaced liar’
Here’s an article from Haaretz on the Arab journalists’ experiences in interviewing “the Israeli.� The interviewed journalists talk of mixed feelings between the need to be “professional� and letting out one’s own feelings about the subject he/she is covering. There is also the constant pressure from the viewers who expect from (and usually won’t accept anything but) the Arab journalist to “embarrass� and be critical of Israeli interviewees.
‘Shut up, you barefaced liar’
By Zvi Bar’el“The war against Lebanon caught us completely unprepared,” an editor on Jordan’s television station told Haaretz. “All of us were focused on what was happening in Palestine or Iraq. I know that the majority of Arab stations, except for news channels like Al Jazeera and Al-Arabiya didn’t even have permanent correspondents in Lebanon after the completion of the Syrian withdrawal, and after the elections in May-June 2005.
“Lebanon wasn’t an object of interest. And then all of a sudden – war. How are we supposed to relate to it? How are we supposed to define Hezbollah? What is the official line we are supposed to take on the kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers? What vocabulary should we be using? Everything needed to be rethought. Even the system to which we answer didn’t quite know how to deal with it.” Yet now, even after a week and a half of warfare, no one on the Jordanian station seems too troubled by the fighting. The same is the case on the Libyan and Moroccan networks, and most especially so on the Iraqi network. After all, Iraq has a large daily dose of death, with numbers several times higher than those in Lebanon.
This war has also rekindled the question of what format the reporter’s interviews should take, and primarily how to relate to Israeli interviewees.
Egypt won’t go to war – doh!
Read Fustat on Mubarak’s statement (he needed to make a statement???) that he will not go to war with Israel over Lebanon:
The odds for Egypt going to war this time, is as high as Egypt getting a vice president , anytime soon.
A lightning history of the Suez Canal, part I
Yesterday, 26 July, was the fiftieth anniversary of the 1956 Suez war, when Israel, Britain and France conspired to invade Egypt and bring down the Gamal Abdel Nasser regime.
It reminded me that a couple of years ago I wrote a short history of the Suez Canal for a publication on Egypt. I’m reproducing it here in two parts — one is below and the other will be online tomorrow. I can’t claim any original scholarship, it’s all cribbed from popular history books in English and French (so blame them for any mistakes.)
Continue reading A lightning history of the Suez Canal, part I
1000 demonstrate in support of resistance
Due to some time constraints I won’t be able to post a detailed report on today’s pro-resistance demo, that started at 6pm and ended roughly around 8pm. However, I uploaded some photos of the protest and assaults by police-deployed thugs that I hope you’ll check on my flickr account.
I’m totally disgusted by the chocking police presence, and the increasing dependence of our security forces on plainclothes thugs to “keep law and order” during demos.
At least one journalist and several demonstrators were also assaulted, but I don’t know their names. Those I could recognize included dpa journalist Jano Charbel, Ahmad Droubi, who were hit in the face and the head by baton-wielding thugs, as well as Malek.
I’m totally disgusted by the chocking police presence, and the increasing dependence of our security forces on plainclothes thugs to “keep law and order” during demos.
At least one journalist and several demonstrators were also assaulted, but I don’t know their names. Those I could recognize included dpa journalist Jano Charbel, Ahmad Droubi, who were hit in the face and the head by baton-wielding thugs, as well as Malek.
UPDATE: I’ve just spoken with Aida Seif al-Dawla, the chairman of the Egyptian Association Against Torture. She said she was brutally assaulted by plainclothes thugs as the demo was coming to an end. She received several punches in the stomach, sides, and chest.
UPDATE: Here are more protest pix from Mohamed el-Taher’s blog.
Kifaya report on corruption
Yes, it came out a while back, but I thought I’d put up a PDF version with all the font problems resolved for people who had trouble reading the MS Word version. I have merely skimmed it so can’t really comment on it, except to say: Kifaya people, presentation counts. A little clearer formatting and a table of contents on a 200+ page report would help encourage more people to read it.
Click on the thumbnail below to download.
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