Tag: egypt

Legendary 1970s student leader passes away

I received an SMS, saying Ahmad 3abdallah Rozza, the legendary 1970s student leader, has passed away.
Rozza was a political science student at Cairo University, in the beginning of the 1970s, when the leftist-led student movement was witnessing a revival, after being suppressed under President Nasser for two decades.

Students, then, spearheaded mass demos in 1971-73, calling for war against against Israeli occupation forces in the Sinai peninsula, and campaigning for social and political justice for Egyptian citizens. Continue reading Legendary 1970s student leader passes away

A letter from a former Islamist detainee

I received today from my friend Alia Mossallam an English translation of a letter sent to Magdi Mahanna–the prominent columnist at Al-Masri Al-Youm, my favorite daily liberal tabloid–from a former Islamist detainee who spent 13 years in prison without trial. It sheds some light on the 1990s Egyptian “war on terror,” which the regime brags (or at least used to brag before the Sinai bombings) it was a “successful model for fighting terror.” Please read the letter….. Continue reading A letter from a former Islamist detainee

Four detainees released; 21 others given 15 more days

I honestly don’t understand how this country works anymore. After extending their detention Sunday for 15 more days, the State Security Prosecutor U-turned this afternoon, ordering the release of two leftist women activists, Nada al-Qassass and Rasha 3azab.

The two women journalists were arrested on May 7, together with Asmaa Ali of the Revolutionary Socialists, whose release the prosecutor ordered yesterday. The two women are still in Qanater Women’s Prison, and are expected to go free tomorrow. (Mabrouk ya banat!!)

The State Security Prosecutor also ordered today the release of Ashraf Ibrahim and Hamdi Abul Ma3ati Qenawi, while extending the detention of 21 other activists—including Kamal Khalil, Ibrahim el-Sahari and Wael Khalil, who’ve been in prison since April 26-27—for another 15 more days.More...

Ashraf Ibrahim was one of the hunger-strikers who were forcefully moved last week to solitary confinement in Mazra3et Tora prison. The hunger strike lasted for five days, with more than a dozen detainees taking part. Ashraf and four other detainees were transferred by a Special Operations police force, attached to Tora, against their will. The detainees’ lawyers say the remaining four, after Ashraf’s release, were returned to their original cells in Mahkoum Tora.

3alaa Seif al-Islam, a prominent leftist blogger whose detention was renewed yesterday for another 15 days, sent a letter from prison today. My friend Alia Mossallam kindly translated it into English: Continue reading Four detainees released; 21 others given 15 more days

Supersize it

“I’m loving it!” Who remember that MacDonald’s campaign? Seems, according to an Egypt Today piece, that the good people down at the Ministry of Tourism do.
They’ve come up with their own version, a campaign that is going to change the way Egyptians deal with tourists.

It seems that someone at the ministry noticed that a lot of tourists leave Egypt with a bad taste in their mouths, perhaps even the impression that they have been ripped-off during their visit. (I wonder whose cousin got the contract to do the heavy lifting on this insightful piece of analysis?)

Apparently the solution is to “educate� the “less educated, the less socially conscious� types who overcharge tourists and don’t treat them as nicely as perhaps they feel they deserve.

Not to confuse these simple folk, they have designed a nice simple little ad for them, the story explains.

“… they kept the concept simple. The first series of print and television ads take the one-pound note — with its picture of Abu Simbel — and asks the Egyptian if he’s ever really looked at it. The camera zooms in on the monument, which slowly vanishes, leaving the paper almost entirely blank. “Hopefully, visually portraying the one-pound note with and without tourism drives the message home the pound would just not be the same,� Mustafa says.�

Later stages apparently will teach personal grooming.

Egypt Today is anodyne by necessity. They can’t afford to say anything that might annoy a potential advertiser or ministry contact, so I guess we can excuse the passive reproduction of this patronizing muddle-speak. The implication that Egyptians need MacDonald’s-style service training has got to rub some people the wrong way, however.

How can you tell an educated, socially conscious person? He’s the one who smiles at the foreigner, the one who speaks a little English. Maybe he’ll have on a hair net as well.

The best part is at the end, however. This is where the “communications consultant� from the ministry gets all sweaty about the Orwellian angle. “The investment in a national effort like this should stem from everyone’s sense of corporate social responsibility,� she is quoted as saying, and then as being “hopeful� for legislative changes: “Sometimes you have to change laws and regulations to get people not to do things…�

So, while one section of the regime has guys in polyester shirts beating demonstrators and shoving rolled up cardboard up their butts, another is going to pass a law that bans frowning at foreigners.

At the end of the day, it’s just not enough any more to lay there and take it, you gotta smile nicely for the tourists as well.

Solidarity demo in London

Around 30 protestors assembled yesterday in front of the BBC World Service building in London, to express their solidarity with their Cairo colleagues, Dina Samak and Dina Gameel, who were assaulted by security agents and plainclothes thugs, on 25 May, 2006. The demo was called for by the British National Union of Journalists, to which the two Egyptian journalists belong. You can find a full report on Ahmad Zahran’s blog.

The British Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union (BECTU) has also sent a letter to the Egyptian Prosecutor-General, Maher 3abdel Wahed, condemning the assaults on journalists and protestors, and demanding the detainees’ release.. Continue reading Solidarity demo in London

Engineering dissent

I can’t claim I know much about what’s happening in the Engineers’ Syndicate, but it seems like the Egyptian engineers are trying to get their act together, and liberate their syndicate from government control. The syndicate, together with other professional syndicates—especially the Doctors’, Pharmacists’—had largely fallen under the Muslim Brothers’ control in the beginning of the 1990s. The government targeted the syndicates with new legislations, that brought them under its control, during the general crackdown on Islamism starting from 1992. Activities at the syndicate came to a complete halt for a decade.

But, it seems the overall political stir in the country is finally making its way to our engineers. Last year my inbox received several statements signed by Mohandessoun Ded el-Herassa, which translates awkwardly into “Engineers Against Custodianship,” in reference to the government-imposed group of custodians who run the syndicate. And if I’m not mistaken, there was a demonstration organized at some point in front of the syndicate this year, but my memory betrays me so as to when exactly.

It’s worth noting several prominent leaders in the anti-Mubarak movement come from the ranks of the engineers, like Kamal Khalil. But leftist engineers, seemingly, have tended to be active politically in circles other than their own syndicate. I don’t necessarily know why, but may be because of the strong dominance of the Islamists that had left a tiny room for secular activism? (If any of you dear Arabist readers are following the engineers’ beat, you are more than welcome to share info with us.)

Since last February, my inbox has been receiving statements signed by the “Democratic Engineers.� Now a petition is being circulated calling for the end of government control on the syndicate. I thought of sharing their (Arabic) website with you. The site includes their manifesto, statements, updates on activism issues, and the petition.

The Egyptian ADSL black market

If you have ever looked up to the sky while walking around in a Cairo mid- or lower income neighborhood, you must have seen a net of white cables above you, coming out of a window on one side of the street, stretching to balconies and windows on the other side, some fifteen meters above street level: A business-minded resident subscribes to a 1 Mb connection, and then informally rents out connectivity to his neighbors. 

I recently spoke to an executive of a leading ISP in Egypt, and he estimated that no less then 40% of all ADSL lines in Egypt are shared between apartments, which technically is illegal. Sometimes the number of sub-subscribers can reach up to 50 people.

 

The problem for ISPs is that people call and complain about services who are not their customers. They thus would like to legalize this black market by being allowed to offer multi-party contracts (which would also bring legal protection to the actual subscribers who are now held accountable for whatever their neighbors are doing on the web). But the government appears to be hesitating.

I find it interesting to see how creative Egyptians are in distribution when the offer doesn’t suit market conditions for whatever reason (while the government two years ago brought prices down, the market would now be big enough for prices to further decline, but the government keeps them up in order to protect smaller ISP from being driven out of the market).

A similar thing happens in the mobile market, where operators in vain kept trying to introduce packages where you buy both a mobile and a line at the same time. But distributors would in most cases tear them apart and sell both separately anyways to better tune their offers to the market.

The next round is coming up, as one of the operators is about to import handsets and SIM cards that via a code system can only be used together.

 

State Security cracks down on the Brothers

So as to look evenhanded, fair, and balanced (an important pillar of the “New Thought�), security services cracked down on the Muslim Brothers today, after leftist dissidents had their share of state’s wrath during the last couple of weeks.

The Brothers announced on their website, “Egyptian state security police arrested nine prominent members… during a routine meeting at the Center for Research and Development in Cairo. The Center, which is headed by Dr. Mohamed Morsy, a prominent MB leader and currently in jail as well, is properly licensed by Egyptian authorities and has been in business for several years.â€�

Nadia Abou El-Magd of AP also wrote a good wire report about it:

Egyptian authorities Sunday arrested nine leading members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, bringing to more than 650 the number of the group jailed since police began rounding them up three months ago. Continue reading State Security cracks down on the Brothers

Three activists released; another three get 15 more days of detention

The State Security prosecutor has ordered the release of three pro-democracy detainees, and renewed the detention of three others.

Activists Asmaa Ali, Ahmad Abdel Gawad and Ahmad Abdel Ghaffar, are to be released, ruled the prosecutor in Heliopolis this afternoon. Meanwhile Alaa Seif al-Islam, Nada al-Qassas, and Rasha 3azab, were given another 15 more days in prison.

The six pro-democracy detainees initially refused to leave the prisoners’ trucks, charging the State Security prosecutor of complicity with State Security police, and requested to be investigated by a magistrate. The detainees later reversed their position, up on the request of their lawyers, who attended the interrogations with them.

In another development, Mohamed el-Sharqawi’s lawyers and seven rights organizations have issued a new statement, with more details on the Youth for Change activist’s recent interrogation, the release of the two detainees, and the crackdown on the hunger-strikers in Mazra3et Tora prison. Sharqawi, himself, also sent another letter from Tora, explaining what happened on Saturday at the prosecutor’s office.