The Skeptic الشكاك

1048 ‘Cops and Bloggers’

Journalist and blogger Scarr chases a detained blogger and a journalist from a police station to State Security headquarters, records the telling details that don’t usually make it into articles, and leaves “with renewed respect for the junior lawyers who put in the leg work running from police station to police station after detainees, trying to prevent them disappearing into the system.”

The lawyer said that the ma2moor “just wanted to get rid of” as many of the people in the police station as possible, because the cage was getting crowded. Ahmed later told us that many of the detainees had been brought in from a local slum area where there had been a fight. What looked like the relatives of these people were sat opposite the police station. Women and children, one of whom was asleep across his mother’s lap. They were camped out under the huge, imposing tower of the Islamic Bank.

Ahmed also said that he had been held with men who had been in the police station “for five days without charge” and that they were beaten on a daily basis and generally kept in deplorable conditions. He said that one of these men lifted up his shirt to show him cigarette burns on his torso, inflicted by the police.

Ahmed was particularly moved by the plight of a female detainee was being held inside the police station with her 2 year-old daughter. The child was hungry, and Ahmed gave a policeman 20 LE to go and get her some food.
[Full Post…]

Whenever I’ve seen the Egyptian criminal system at work, it’s been because of some high-profile case. Every time, I’ve felt the same respect for the lawyers who chase people around police stations and the same unease at passing by the crowds of people who do disappear, all those who never get web banners, press releases, lawyers or trials. So thanks, Scarr, for writing about them too.

1044 Echoes of Mahalla… in Tunisia

Completely slammed with work and suffering from crippling IT problems, but wanted to flag 10 quick items:

1. I highly recommend Doshka ya Doshka, an excellent blog from Gaza by “a startled Anglo-Arab woman.” I have just subscribed to the RSS feed.

2. The case against editors and journalists from Al-Wafd and Al-Masry al-Youm for reporting on Egyptian real-estate developer Talaat Mostafa’s murder trial despite a gag order has been referred to trial. According to Al-Masry al-Youm, prosecutors have taken no action on another case, against editors and journalists from the government-owned Al-Ahram, Al-Akhbar, and Gomhuriya newspapers, for reporting on the trial.

3. Al-Masry al-Youm and Al-Wafd are also under fire from Amr Bargisi, who, in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, called them “Jew haters.” The following day, Al-Masry al-Youm ran a summary of his story.

4. Patrick Swayze is, alas, not dead yet.

5. The Muslim Brotherhood has promised to endorse Gamal Mubarak, the son, if President Hosni Mubarak, the father, resigns. Surely a bit tongue in cheek, but over the years I have heard from many people that they would forget their complaints about the president if he were to resign.

6. Speaking of the Brothers, another 28 were arrested in Marsa Matrouh and Alexandria last Saturday. The Press Syndicate’s Freedoms Committee is sponsoring a conference on behalf of Mohammed Adil and Mohammed Khairy, two Gaza solidarity activists with Brotherhood ties detained in a separate roundup last month. Both maintain blogs.

7. Echoes of Mahalla: Amnesty International is calling on the Tunisian government to investigate allegations that security forces tortured labor activists after demonstrations spread through Tunisia’s southeastern Gafsa region last summer:

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PUBLIC STATEMENT
3 December 2008
Tunisia: Urgent investigation needed into alleged human rights violations in the Gafsa region

Amnesty International today called on the Tunisian government to order an independent investigation into allegations of torture and other abuses by security forces when quelling protests earlier this year in the Gafsa region on the eve of the trial of a local trade union leader and 37 others accused of fomenting the unrest. Adnan Hajji, Secretary General of local office of the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT) in Redeyef, and his co-accused are due to go on trial on 4 December 2008 on charges including “forming a criminal group with the aim of destroying public and private property”. They could face up to more than ten years of imprisonment if convicted. At least six of 38 accused are to be tried in their absence.

In a letter to Tunisia’s Minister of Justice and Human Rights Béchir Tekkari, Amnesty International called for the authorities to disclose the outcome of an official investigation which they said had been set up after police opened fire on demonstrators on 6 June 2008, killing one man and injuring others, sparking allegations that police had used excessive force. The letter also detailed cases in which people suspected of organizing or participating in protests are reported to have been detained and tortured by police who forced them to sign incriminating statements that could be used against them at trial and falsified their arrest dates in official records.

BACKGROUND
The phosphate-rich Gafsa region, in south-east Tunisia, was wracked by a wave of popular protests in the first half of this year. They began in the town of Redeyef after the region’s major employer, the Gafsa Phosphate Company, announced the results of a recruitment competition. These were denounced as fraudulent by those who were unsuccessful and others, including the UGTT, and the protests, which developed into a more general protest about high unemployment and rising living costs, then spread to other towns as the authorities deployed large numbers of police and other security forces into the region. Hundreds of protestors were arrested and more than 140 have been charged with offences, some of whom have been convicted and sentenced to jail terms.

For the continuing repercussions of labor unrest in Mahalla, see 3arabawy.

8. Jordan is threatening to jail smokers.

9. Peter Lagerquist has an excellent article in MERIP about the riots in Acre last October. Who can resist an article with such headings as “hummus and demography?”

10. Where (not very) particular people congregate: An online map of bars in downtown Cairo, including such helpful information as how much a Stella costs and whether shisha is also available.

1041 A ‘Pattern of Reckless Policing’

From Amnesty, via email (Arabic after the break):

Egypt: Amnesty International voices concern over pattern of reckless policing

Against the backdrop of recent killings during police operations, Amnesty International deplores the increasing use of excessive force by police and security forces in Egypt when carrying out search operations, seeking to disperse protestors or patrolling the Egyptian borders, which have often led to deaths. The organization fears that this pattern of killings and excessive use of force will continue unless those responsible are brought to justice and clear instruction and adequate training is given to police and security forces.

The call by Amnesty International is made after two recent incidents demonstrated the reckless policing by Egyptian security forces. On 23 November, security forces killed a migrant as he attempted to cross the Egyptian border into Israel, bringing to the number of those killed at the border with Israel in 2008 to at least 26. On the same day, in Aswan, a police officer from the anti-drug squad shot and killed Abdel Wahad Abdel Razeq at his home when the officer and two colleagues tried to search the house during a drug trafficking inquiry. Police officers came to the house of Abdel Wahab Abdel Razeq searching for a drug dealer suspected of being at his home. Reportedly unarmed, Abdel Wahab Abdel Razeq asked the police officers to show him the search warrant. The officers failed to produce the warrant, broke into the house and reportedly shot the owner of the house in the chest. On 24 November, the Aswan prosecution charged the three officers with “murder” for the death of Abdel Wahab Abdel Razeq and “house breaking”, which they denied. The prosecution also ordered the detention of the police officer who allegedly killed Abdel Wahab Abdel Razeq for four days pending further investigations. The other two police officers were released on bail.

After the shooting, the police officers took Abdel Wahab Abdel Razeq to Aswan hospital but he died on his way. Angry protesters from his family and neighbours later gathered to call for those responsible for his death to be brought to justice. Protesters chanted slogans against the Minister of Interior and threw stones at the riot police and at hospital, smashing windows. Riot police fired rubber bullets and tear gas and used sticks in order to disperse hundreds of protestors. Yehya Abdel Megid Maghrabi, an elderly man in his sixties who lived nearby and who suffered from respiratory problems, died at his home as a result of inhaling tear gas, according to a medical report by a private doctor. No investigation into his death is known to have been ordered. Many protestors were injured and about 50 were arrested and detained at Shallal central security forces camp near Aswan, where they were reportedly beaten. On 24 November, 27 of them were presented before the Aswan prosecution and charged with “gathering”, “rioting” and “damaging public property”. Five of them face the charge of “attempted murder” of a riot police officer. The others were released without charge.
More…

1033 Riots, Detentions, Harassment, and Hashish

Busy with work, but wanted to flag a few items from the past few days:

* Two thousand people rioted in Aswan after police mistakenly killed a bird-seller in the southern Egyptian city.

* Egyptian activists yesterday staged protests to call for the release of 16 people detained in the southern city of Samalout in mid-October. Police used tear gas and batons to disperse an angry crowd that gathered when police killed a pregnant woman on October 8 as they searched her house.

* The protesters also called for the release of two activists, Mohammed Adil and Mohammed Khairy, suspected of trying to deliver humanitarian supplies to Gaza. State Security officers raided Mohammed Adil’s home in the early hours of November 21. State Security officers have detained Mohammed Khairy twice since October, and prosecutors have twice ordered his release, yet the latest reports I’ve seen indicate he is still in custody. Both are sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood, and both maintain blogs. Noha Atef is doing a great job covering this for Global Voices.

* An Iranian reader wrote in to chastise me for writing about Hossein Derakhshan’s possible detention while ignoring two less ambiguous detentions. I am much ashamed.

* Egyptian police announced last Wednesday that they had arrested 550 boys in Cairo on suspicion of sexually harassing schoolgirls. The police reportedly focused their raids on Internet cafes near schools.

This drives me nuts. If there is an appropriate security response to sexual harassment, it is ensuring that women and girls feel comfortable reporting incidents and ensuring that police follow up on the reports. Rounding up boys by the hundreds for using the Internet is not the answer. Educating them from an early age to treat women with respect is.

* By the hash-o-meter, Barack Obama may be the most popular foreign leader in Egypt since Saddam Hussein. Wael Abbas reports that dealers are selling Obama-brand hashish in the Mediterranean town of Marsa Matrouh. 3arabawy recalls that “in 2003, a quite popular brand of hash that appeared in Cairo was named ‘Saddam’ coz it was ‘stronger than chemical weapons.’ “

1008 Police, Sex and Crime

From Amr Ezzat:

[Read on…]

1003 Police Get Three Years for Manslaughter

AFP via 3arabawy:

Cairo – A court in the southern Egyptian city of Sohag sentenced two policemen to three years in jail on Saturday for dragging a man to his death behind a car, the state news agency MENA reported.

The officers were charged with manslaughter as they were not accused of killing the man deliberately.

The victim, fruit-seller Emad Tayi, had clung to the police vehicle in protest at the arrest of a relative, who was being driven away to a station for questioning.

Tayi, 48, was dragged some 500m, resulting in his death, MENA reported.

The two officers, Mahmud Sadawi and Anwar Mohammed Omran, were released on bail pending appeal.

It’s not the callousness of the policemen, who were able to continue driving for a half a kilometer while a man held on to the back of their car, that grieves me. It’s the love and loyalty that Emad Tayi showed by hanging on to the car until he died. The next time I meet someone from Sohag and say “ahsan nas” (the best people), I will think of Emad, and I will really mean it.

999 ‘Our People Don’t Like Food, They Like Beans’

Excerpts from Alexandra Sandel’s staggering interview with Osama Saraya, editor of the government’s flagship daily Al-Ahram:

I can say one morning: ‘If you find white people walking in the street, they are spies for Israel and are Americans…’ and the people will go after them capture them, throw them in prison and kill them. […]

The political system is a hundred times more civilized than the street. The street is much more radical than the political system. So don’t believe the words of those idiots… they are idiots… those who say that we are interacting with the West this way, the pressure, that we’re afraid [of the West]… Why should I be afraid of the West? The West doesn’t feed me. I have food here. If I close off Egypt, there’s a lot of food. We don’t have a food problem… Our people don’t like food, they like beans. […]

Don’t believe those who sit in cafés and forums and work with the West. Don’t believe that they know Egypt. They don’t know anything. Hosni Mubarak knows Egypt better than them. He has the army, he has a very strong army, he has a security apparatus that manages the whole of Egypt, he has the ministry of education and health and all of this is his… So why would he be afraid of the West? The West is afraid of Hosni Mubarak. I’m serious, I’m being frank. The West is afraid of Hosni Mubarak. Why? Because Hosni Mubarak is useful to the West.

More startling revelations, including that Ibrahim Eissa is now with the Muslim Brotherhood, can be found in the full interview.

With friends like that, the government does not need enemies.

979 Suzanne Mubarak: Accounts of Sexual Harassment ‘Exaggerated’

AFP via The Arabist:

CAIRO (AFP) – Egyptian first lady Suzanne Mubarak has played down allegations of rampant sexual harassment in her country, accusing the media, and implicitly Islamist militants, of exaggerating the reports.

“Egyptian men always respect Egyptian women,” the pro-government Al-Ahram newspaper on Friday quoted the wife of President Hosni Mubarak as saying in remarks aired on Thursday by Al-Arabiya television.

The Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights (ECWR) released a survey earlier this year showing that 83 percent of Egyptian women and 98 percent of foreign women in Egypt are sexually harassed.

“This gives the impression that the streets in Egypt are not safe. That is not true… The media have exaggerated,” Mubarak said.

“Maybe one, two or even 10 incidents occurred. Egypt is home to 80 million people. We can’t talk of a phenomenon. Maybe a few scatterbrained youths are behind this crime.

“And maybe some people wanted to make it seem as though the streets of Egypt are not safe so girls and women stay at home. This could be their agenda,” she said in a reference to Islamist militants.

Make that 11 incidents, Madame. Yesterday I heard a little rich brat tell my wife to “take it in ze ass” as we walked to a restaurant.

In fairness, perhaps the official count of incidences of sexual harassment in Egypt should stand only at 10.5 after that young idiot’s comment. When I put my arm around said brat and asked him if he himself would like to take it in the ass, he declined and said he’d been talking not to my wife, but to his friend. So perhaps Mama Mubarak is right. Perhaps the real problem is not sexual harassment, but rampant homosexuality.

Or perhaps the first lady was misquoted. Perhaps she said that the average Egyptian woman suffers “one, two or maybe 10” instances of sexual harassment a month. This actually sounds like a more realistic estimate.

I’ve spent too long looking for that original Al-Arabia interview online… or at least the Al-Ahram article citing it. Haven’t found either. Al-Ahram‘s front page story from yesterday (after the break) features the first lady’s more predictable comments from Abu Dhabi.

Google searches turn up only the AFP article and its derivatives. Similar searches on YouTube return nothing of interest. Maybe it was in Al-Massa’i? Does anyone out there have a copy?

More…

966 Bedouin Affairs

• First, on a very serious note, an Egyptian security official has said that Bedouin shot and wounded an Egyptian policeman in Sinai today. The news follows days of unrest sparked by the alleged killing of a Bedou man by police. It’s hard to imagine the security forces will leave it at that, though they can still opt for a negotiated resolution as the quickest means of restoring calm. Establishing stability will take longer.
• On a much lighter note (and there’s no way to make this transition without its being jarring and tasteless), from The Times of London via Kafr al-Hanadwa, a Bedou sheikh is sure Obama is his cousin. You must see the video attached to this article:
  

  He has a host of relatives in exotic locations from Hawaii to Kenya, and during his run for the American presidency he discovered that he had an aunt living in Boston.

  Now Barack Obama is being claimed by not one but as many as 8,000 Beduin tribesmen in northern Israel.

  Although the spokesman for the lost tribe of Obama has yet to reveal the documentary evidence that he says he possesses to support his claim, people are flocking from across the region to pay their respects to the “Bedu Obama”, whose social standing has gone through the roof.

  “We knew about it years ago but we were afraid to talk about it because we didn’t want to influence the election,” Abdul Rahman Sheikh Abdullah, a 53-year-old local council member, told The Times in the small Beduin village of Bir al-Maksour in the Israeli region of Galilee. “We wrote a letter to him explaining the family connection.”

  Mr Obama’s team have not responded to the letter so far but that has not dampened Sheikh Abdullah’s festivities.

  He has been handing out sweets and huge dishes of baklava traditional honey-sweetened pastries to all and sundry, and plans to hold a large party next week at which he will slaughter a dozen goats to feed the village.

  It was his 95-year-old mother who first spotted the connection, he says. Seeing the charismatic senator on television, she noted a striking resemblance to one of the African migrant workers who used to be employed by rich sheikhs in the fertile north of British Mandate Palestine in the 1930s.

  The Africans would sometimes marry local Beduin girls and start families, though, like many migrant workers, would just as frequently return home after several years. [Continues…]

• Also via Kafr al-Hanadwa, and only tangentially related to Bedouin affairs, a photograph from Al-Watan that crams all of my stereotypes about Saudi Arabia into one image. (And I know this is stretching it the Bedouin connection: Egyptians like to scoff at Saudis as Bedouin, but no one would suggest the people of Jeddah were Bedouin.) You must see this large to fully appreciate it. Unfortunately, Al-Watan doesn’t credit its photographers. If you’re reading, sir, I would like to talk to you. You deserve a prize.

956 Some Good News

• The Egyptian consul in Saudi Arabia is taking action on behalf of two doctors sentenced to jail terms and lashings for enabling a princess’ morphine addiction. News of the sentence caused a scandal in the Egyptian press. The consul says he hopes for a royal pardon. Too late for the Egyptian the Saudis executed for sorcery a year ago this time, but better late than never.
• Gamal Mubarak has proposed giving all Egyptians over the age of 21, whether they live at home or abroad, shares in Egypt’s public companies. Al-Masry al-Youm reports:
  

  The project aims to raise the financial efficiency of companies, preserve workers’ rights, distribute a package of free shares among citizens and create new entities, such as the Future Generations Fund and the apparatus for managing state-owned assets.

  Alternatively, shareholders could sell immediately. This truly is “new thought.” Perhaps America could learn from Egypt and distribute GM shares among the populace. I’ll leave the question of whether the analogy holds or whether this idea would work in Egypt to the economists. I have my doubts on both scores.

• As a side note, I’m glad to see more politic people have stepped in to express what I was too winded to say after that swift kick to the bidan. Scott MacLeod spells it out at his blog for Time. And the good Prof. Lynch says not to worry, Emanuel won’t influence policy, though the reaction to his appointment should have been anticipated and managed better.

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