The Skeptic الشكاك

61 Baheyya on Judges

Don’t miss Baheyya’s recent posts providing excellent background on the stirrings in the Egyptian judiciary. This is a huge issue, and one that hasn’t gotten enough attention.

59 Tunisia: Ben Ali Pardons 1,657 Political Prisoners

Excellent news from Tunisia. President Ben Ali has pardoned 1,657 political prisoners, mostly members of the banned Islamist Nahdha (Renaissance) Party. The pardon extended to the “Youths of Zarzis.”

I met with the Youths of Zarzis’ families in September and November 2005. I’ve posted their photos here.

Now for Mohamed Abou…

Gr?ce pr?sidentielle en Tunisie: lib?ration de dizaines d’islamistes

Des dizaines d’islamistes et sept jeunes internautes purgeant de lourdes peines pour “constitution de bande ayant pour objet la pr?paration d’attentats” ont ?t? lib?r?s dans le cadre d’une gr?ce pr?sidentielle, a-t-on appris samedi ? Tunis de sources concordantes.

En vertu de cette gr?ce accord?e par le pr?sident Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, 1.298 d?tenus ont ?t? ?largis et 359 autres ont b?n?fici? de la libert? conditionnelle, avait annonc? plus t?t l’agence officielle TAP.

Plus de soixante-dix islamistes, membres du parti Ennahda (Renaissance, interdit), ont ?t? lib?r?s, a-t-on appris aupr?s de certains de leurs avocats et de source judiciaire.

Parmi eux figurent plusieurs dirigeants du parti, dont le journaliste Hamadi Jebali qui dirigeait le journal d’Ennahad, Al Fajr (L’Aurore).

Ces islamistes avaient ?t? condamn?s dans les ann?es 90 ? de lourdes peines de prison. Ils ?taient principalement accus?s d’appartenance ? Ennahda et de tentative de prise de pouvoir par la violence.

Jusqu’? ce jour, quelque 400 islamistes, que les autorit?s ne consid?rent pas comme des d?tenus politiques, ?taient prisonniers en Tunisie, et plusieurs ONG de d?fense des droits de l’homme demandaient leur lib?ration, en particulier celle de M. Jebali.

Un groupe de sept jeunes internautes, connu sous le nom du “groupe de Zarzis” (ville du sud tunisien), a ?galement b?n?fici? de cette gr?ce, a-t-on appris de source judiciaire.

Ils avaient ?t? condamn?s en avril 2004 ? dix-neuf ans et trois mois de prison, une peine ramen?e en appel, en d?cembre 2004, ? treize ans, pour “constitution de bande ayant pour objet la pr?paration d’attentats, tentative de vol et d?tention de produits explosifs”.

Les autorit?s avaient accus? certains d’entre eux de s’?tre rendus ? l’?tranger et d’avoir “sollicit? le soutien logistique du r?seau terroriste Al-Qa?da”.

La gr?ce pr?sidentielle comprend ?galement une r?duction de peine pour certains d?tenus, dont le nombre n’a pas ?t? pr?cis?.

Les gr?ces pr?sidentielles, accord?es lors de f?tes religieuses ou de la f?te nationale, b?n?ficient habituellement aux seuls prisonniers de droit commun, mais le pr?sident Ben Ali avait d?j? accord? l’amnistie en 2004 et 2005 ? des dizaines d’islamistes.

Source

[tags]Tunisia, Tunisie, Nahdha, Human Rights, Zarzis[/tags]

57 Is Iraq already at war with itself?

Oh. No.

This is just about the worst possible thing that could happen in Iraq right now. This should be an outrage to any Muslim or to anyone who believes in the value of the world’s historical heritage. It’s probably no coincidence that this latest rash of bombings against Shia targets comes immediately after the Feb. 16 report that an Iraqi Interior Ministry “death squad” has been targetting Iraqi Sunnis.

This is a very dangerous moment. You’re an Iraqi government minister. What do you do to prevent the situation from deteriorating further? I put this question by email to a trusted friend in Baghdad, who wisely declined to comment:

Yes things get worse by the minute here. And you’ll have read about the retaliatory attacks on Sunni mosques after Samarra. This afternoon people are leaving work early to go home as things erupt. Pretty much a downward spiral—who knows how it can be stopped or when. Been saying all along that civil war had already started. Don’t know—too depressing to think about. Just preparing now for another round of Saddam trial sessions early next week, and keeping heads down in the meantime. Nightlife in Cairo sounds very enticing right now.

Actually, I hadn’t heard about the revenge attacks against dozens of Sunni mosques. That detail was added to the BBC story I first read later in the day.

Since I’m not as wise or as close to the action as my friend, let me offer my attempt at an answer from the comfort of my Cairo apartment: The rash of condemnations from respectable Iraqi Sunni organizations is a good first step. The bombers must be brought to justice quickly to defuse Shia anger in Iraq and in Iran. This will likely require Sunni cooperation. The Sunni organizations that condemned the bombing should mobilize their constituencies toward that end.

Soldiers should be deployed to protect Sunni and Shia mosques immediately. This is clearly a job for the Iraqi military and police force. It also would not hurt the United States’ image in Iraq and elsewhere in the region to have its own soldiers seen defending Islamic holy sites.

Everyone agrees on the importance of a “unity government.” If that’s going to stick, the Sunnis on the streets with access to guns and bombs must feel the government also represents their interests, or, at minimum, isn’t supporting Saddam-style death squads to drag their cousins out into the desert or into dark alleys to murder them. If I were an Iraqi Sunni right now, some part of me would be worried that the new, Shia-dominated government might be out for revenge. They must be made to feel that it is not.

The investigation the Iraqi government has promised into whether, or how, the 22 men arrested as members of the death squads are linked to the Interior Ministry—beyond being members of the police force, which falls under the authority of the Interior Ministry, that is—can be useful toward that end. The investigation must proceed very quickly. All those responsible for the policy and its execution, regardless of their rank or nationality, should be fired, arrested, and tried. Now.

Here’s a troubling thought: Detlev Mehlis, investigating the Hariri killing, concluded that it could not have taken place without the knowledge of Syrian officials. What if someone were to apply the “Mehlis principle” here? Could police death squads operate in Iraq for more than a year without the knowledge of U.S. officials? Could police death squads with connections within the Interior Ministry itself operate in Iraq for more than a year without U.S. officials’ at least turning a blind eye?

Either way, it looks bad for the Americans. If they didn’t know what the police force was up to, despite the repeated accusations… well, let’s just leave it at “that looks bad.” If they did know—and I can certainly imagine a U.S. official saying, “Hmm, a Sunni terrorist who probably killed six of my boys and a dozen Iraqis dragged out and shot by Iraqi police commandos… Oh well,” if not “Let’s have Iraqi commandos kill Iraqi terrorists; that’s the whole point of training Iraqi security services”— did no one stop to say, “Um, boss, this just might be criminal, and given the explosive situation at the moment, just a bit dangerous?”

That the arrested men were totally open about what they were doing when stopped at an Iraqi army checkpoint suggests the confidence they felt in their institutional support. U.S. Maj. Gen. Joseph Peterson, who is in charge of training the Iraqi police, told reporters, “The amazing thing is… they tell you exactly what they’re going to do.” Is this feigned surprise? Can he really think these guys are just that stupid?

I’m not suggesting that Gen. Peterson or the interior minister knew. The line emerging from the Iraqi government and the U.S. military is that these were Badrist infiltrators, possibly assisted by lower-level Interior Ministry officials. That’s definitely plausible. The movement of militiamen into the police force has been widely reported. And we can safely assume that high-level Iraqi and U.S. officials had heard allegations of police death squads’ killing Sunni Iraqis.

So if these guys were walking around, openly telling soldiers what they were up to, why has it taken so long for any of them to be caught? Has there been a change in policy? Or did they just stumble across the wrong soldiers, guys who took their training seriously, at that particular checkpoint? And is it possible that Iraqi crack police units are roaming Iraq, telling anyone who asks, “We’re about to shoot this man,” without running into U.S. soldiers?

A friend who served with the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan’s short answer was “yes.” He said he couldn’t offer specifics, but he said he could offer perspective into the dynamic over there that might shed some light on how this would be possible. If he has no objection, I may post some of that perspective here. I’ll ask him.

Now, I trust this guy. If it really is likely that this is the first big breakthrough the U.S. military and the highest levels of the Iraqi Interior Ministry have had in trying to address a problem they’ve been genuinely concerned about for a year or more, what are they going to do about it now? Recent events suggest that the answer to that question will shape Iraqi history.

[tags]Iraq[/tags]

56 Bird Flu Strikes Egypt

OK, I know this isn’t funny. And I am worried: worried for the people with pigeon houses on their roofs, worried for the people with chickens in the stairs, worried for the chicken farmers and the chicken slaughterers and their neighbors, worried enough for myself that I’ve stopped eating chicken. This is one of those crowded countries, like China, where people live right on top of their birds. And I do feel for the guy who sadly told me he was slaughtering all his pigeons and not eating them. But I can’t help but laugh as I look at this (helpful) image, courtesy of the Egyptian State Information Service.

Beware the fiendish fowl…

[tags]Egypt, bird flu[/tags]

55 Is Google Censoring in the United States?

So asks Travoli, who normally posts witty reviews of gadgets large and small. Google Video features short clips of improvised explosive devices exploding (those outside the United States can see them here and here). Travoli reports that friends in Canada and the South America were able to watch the videos, though he wasn’t. Friends of mine in Ramallah, England, Canada, and the United States were able to confirm that, yes, the videos are available everywhere in the world but in the United States. Others are now testing from Poland and Central Asia.

In fact, an audience reared on action movies will find the clips a bit boring, unless they consider that similar explosions go off in the real-life markets of Baghdad almost daily. So why censor these clips in the United States but nowhere else? To protect Americans from the discomfort of seeing what their boys and Iraqi civilians are up against in Iraq? Heaven forbid anyone should make Americans feel uncomfortable.

UPDATE: Turns out the answer is “No.” After more feverish testing, drawing in people from as remote and exotic places as Kyrgyzstan, one bright friend had the idea to try posting a video to Google Video. Turns out you can choose to have your material not appear in whatever country you choose. False alarm.

[tags]censorship, google[/tags]

54 Iraq ‘Death Squad Caught in Act’

This is a big breakthrough. For years, a friend in Baghdad has been collecting information from morgues about Sunnis turning up dead, their bodies showing signs of torture, in back alleys. She said everyone suspected death squads. She’d been trying to identify the bodies, as an end in itself and to look into the possibility that these were either former Baathists or current insurgents. But she said many of the bodies went unidentified, that people go missing in Baghdad all the time and it’s hard for families to find out what happened. Until now, there was no hard and fast way of fixing the blame on anyone.

So what happens if it turns out the perpetrators of these crimes are linked, even indirectly, to the parties now in government? Or to (gulp) Iran?

[tags]Iraq[/tags]

53 The Cartoons Controversy in Cairo

Family and friends abroad have been asking me how the cartoons are playing in Egypt. And more people died yesterday and today in cartoon-related clashes in Pakistan.

So, briefly (since it annoys me that this is still an issue), people are angry about the cartoons here. People are talking about them. But until last week, everyone was far more interested in the Egyptian national team’s victory in the African Cup. People were more angry about the Safaga ferry disaster than about the cartoons, and the first news of that disaster, which came just before Egypt started play in the quarter-finals in the African Cup, didn’t stop people from pouring out into the streets to celebrate the victory all night long.

But now that the tournament is over, will people turn their attention to what they missed when they were glued to the game? The clownish popstar Shaaban Abd al-Rahim has released a song about the cartoons, which in some way elevates this current controversy to the level of the Palestinian Intifada, September 11th, and the war in Iraq—subjects of his previous hits. In the new video, we see a more somber Shaaban. He’s lost the outrageous yellow jumpsuit. He’s now wearing all black and sporting some prayer beads wrapped around his wrist (who knew Shaaban was a religious man?). I caught a bit of the video in a cafe late one night, so I couldn’t get all the words. But the snatches I got went something like this: “You’ve been doing this for a long time, and we’re tired of it: desecrating the Quran, insulting Islam, are you crazy? […] If you had read anything about the Prophet [PBH] you would know that even before he was chosen for the revelation, he was known as an honest, modest, and upright man.” And so on. With the exception of Shaaban’s pro-Mubarak dud Kilmat Haq, written as a response to the protests this past spring and summer, Shaaban has a knack for capturing, exploiting (and shaping), popular sentiment.

I’ve met people who have seemed really upset about the cartoons. Everyone agrees that violent protests objecting to the depiction of Islam as a violent religion only undermine The Cause. I’ve pointed out that the Danish government has nothing to do with the newspaper, that this isn’t Al-Ahram.

“So what can the Danish government do?” I asked one cuddly Islamist, probably a Brother.

“Close the newspaper.”

“But they can’t. That would be illegal. In the West, there are laws that prevent governments from closing newspapers.”

Moment of silence while the Brother digests this. It apparently had never occured to him. Finally, “Then they should at least apologize. They’ve never apologized.”

I agree that they should have released a stronger statement earlier, but then again, how can they apologize for something they didn’t do? At this point, the conversation dies. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve won the argument or because my cuddly Islamist friend is too polite to press the point.

There have been other, similar conversations. Each time, I’m struck by two things: One, that many seem completely unable to imagine an independent press; two, that when it comes down to it, many support some form of censorship.

[tags]Cartoons, Islam, Egypt[/tags]

52 U.S. and Israelis Are Said to Talk of Hamas Ouster

Or that’s what the New York Times is reporting today. So this is what Bush means when he talks about “spreading democracy in the Middle East.”

February 14, 2006
U.S. and Israelis Are Said to Talk of Hamas Ouster
By STEVEN ERLANGER

JERUSALEM, Feb. 13 ? The United States and Israel are discussing ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again, according to Israeli officials and Western diplomats.

The intention is to starve the Palestinian Authority of money and international connections to the point where, some months from now, its president, Mahmoud Abbas, is compelled to call a new election. The hope is that Palestinians will be so unhappy with life under Hamas that they will return to office a reformed and chastened Fatah movement.

The officials also argue that a close look at the election results shows that Hamas won a smaller mandate than previously understood.

The officials and diplomats, who said this approach was being discussed at the highest levels of the State Department and the Israeli government, spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.

They say Hamas will be given a choice: recognize Israel’s right to exist, forswear violence and accept previous Palestinian-Israeli agreements ? as called for by the United Nations and the West ? or face isolation and collapse.

Opinion polls show that Hamas’s promise to better the lives of the Palestinian people was the main reason it won. But the United States and Israel say Palestinian life will only get harder if Hamas does not meet those three demands. They say Hamas plans to build up its militias and increase violence and must be starved out of power.

The officials drafting the plan know that Hamas leaders have repeatedly rejected demands to change and do not expect Hamas to meet them. “The point is to put this choice on Hamas’s shoulders,” a senior Western diplomat said. “If they make the wrong choice, all the options lead in a bad direction.”

The strategy has many risks, especially given that Hamas will try to secure needed support from the larger Islamic world, including its allies Syria and Iran, as well as from private donors.

It will blame Israel and the United States for its troubles, appeal to the world not to punish the Palestinian people for their free democratic choice, point to the real hardship that a lack of cash will produce and may very well resort to an open military confrontation with Israel, in a sense beginning a third intifada.

The officials said the destabilization plan centers largely on money. The Palestinian Authority has a monthly cash deficit of some $60 million to $70 million after it receives between $50 million and $55 million a month from Israel in taxes and customs duties collected by Israeli officials at the borders but owed to the Palestinians.

Israel says it will cut off those payments once Hamas takes power, and put the money in escrow. On top of that, some of the aid that the Palestinians currently receive will be stopped or reduced by the United States and European Union governments, which will be constrained by law or politics from providing money to an authority run by Hamas. The group is listed by Washington and the European Union as a terrorist organization.

Israel has other levers on the Palestinian Authority: controlling entrance and exit from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for people and goods, the number of workers who are allowed into Israel every day, and even the currency used in the Palestinian territories, which is the Israeli shekel.

Israeli military officials have discussed cutting Gaza off completely from the West Bank and making the Israeli-Gaza border an international one. They also say they will not allow Hamas members of the Palestinian parliament, some of whom are wanted by Israeli security forces, to travel freely between Gaza and the West Bank.

On Sunday, Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced after a cabinet meeting that Israel would consider Hamas to be in power on the day the new parliament is sworn in: this Saturday.

So beginning next month, the Palestinian Authority will face a cash deficit of at least $110 million a month, or more than $1 billion a year, which it needs to pay full salaries to its 140,000 employees, who are the breadwinners for at least one-third of the Palestinian population.

The employment figure includes some 58,000 members of the security forces, most of which are affiliated with the defeated Fatah movement.

If a Hamas government is unable to pay workers, import goods, transfer money and receive significant amounts of outside aid, Mr. Abbas, the president, would have the authority to dissolve parliament and call new elections, the officials say, even though that power is not explicit in the Palestinian basic law.

The potential for an economic crisis is real. The Palestinian stock market has already fallen about 20 percent since the election on Jan. 25, and the Authority has exhausted its borrowing capacity with local banks.

Hamas gets up to $100,000 a month in cash from abroad, Israel and Western officials say. “But it’s hard to move millions of dollars in suitcases,” a Western official said.

The United States and the European Union in particular want any failure of Hamas in leadership to be judged as Hamas’s failure, not one caused by Israel and the West.

The officials say much now depends on Mr. Abbas, the Fatah-affiliated president who called for the January elections, has four more years in office and is insistent that Hamas has a democratic right to govern.

But Mr. Abbas has also threatened to quit if he does not have a government that can carry out his fundamental policies ? which include, he has said, negotiations with Israel toward a final peace treaty based on a permanent two-state solution. The United States and the European Union have strongly urged him to stay on the job and shoulder his responsibilities, the officials say.

Western diplomats say they expect Mr. Abbas to repeat those positions in his speech on Saturday when the new parliament is sworn in, laying the groundwork for a future confrontation with Hamas.

In preparation for a Hamas-led government, Mr. Abbas is also said to be insisting on reinforcing his position as commander in chief of all Palestinian forces, even though the prime minister and the interior minister also have control over them through a security council that the prime minister chairs.

On Monday the departing parliament made an effort to boost Mr. Abbas’s powers by passing legislation giving him the authority to appoint a new constitutional court that can veto legislation deemed in violation of the Palestinians’ basic law.

Mr. Abbas would appoint the nine judges to the new court without seeking parliamentary approval. Hamas immediately objected. “The parliament has no mandate and no authority to issue any new legislation,” said a Hamas spokesman, Said Siyam, adding that Hamas would try to overturn the decisions once the new legislature convened on Saturday.

Hamas will control at least 74 seats of the 132-member parliament, and it is likely to have the support of six more members on key votes. But more than 10 percent of the new legislators are already in Israeli jails: 10 from Hamas, 3 from Fatah and one from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The United States and Fatah believe that the Hamas victory was far less sweeping than the seat total makes it appear, said Khalil Shikaki, a pollster and the director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.

In an interview in Ramallah, Mr. Shikaki said that if Fatah had forced members to withdraw their independent candidacies in constituencies where they split the votes with official Fatah candidates, it might have won the election. Half of the 132 seats were decided by a vote for a party list, and the other half by a separate vote for a local candidate.

Hamas won 44 percent of the popular vote but 56 percent of the seats, while Fatah won 42 percent of the popular vote but only 34 percent of the seats. The reason? “Fatah ran a lousy campaign,” Mr. Shikaki said, and Mr. Abbas “did not force enough Fatah independents to pull out.”

If only 76 “independent” Fatah candidates had not run, Mr. Shikaki said, Fatah would have won 33 seats and Hamas 33. In the districts, Hamas won an average of only 39 percent of the vote while winning 68 percent of the seats, Mr. Shikaki said.

“Fatah now is obsessed with undoing this election as soon as possible,” he said. “Israel and Washington want to do it over too. The Palestinian Authority could collapse in six months.”

New Hamas legislators were unimpressed. Farhat Asaad, a Hamas spokesman, and Nasser Abdaljawad, who won a seat in Salfit where two Fatah candidates split the vote, gave the United States “a year or two” to come around to the idea of dealing openly with Hamas.

Mr. Asaad, a former Israeli prisoner, said: “We hope it isn’t U.S. policy. Because those who try to isolate us will be isolated in the region.”

Hamas will move on two parallel fronts, he said: the first, to reform Palestinian political life, and the second, “to break the isolation of our government.” If Hamas succeeds on both fronts, he said, “we will achieve a great thing for our people, a normal life with security and a state of law, where no one can abuse power.”

Hamas will find the money it needs from the Muslim world, said Mr. Abdaljawad, who spent 12 years in jail and got a Ph.D. while there. Hamas will save money by ending corruption and providing efficiency. Hamas will break the Palestinian dependency on Israel, he said.

Mr. Asaad laughed and added: “First, I thank the United States that they have given us this weapon of democracy. But there is no way to retreat now. It’s not possible for the U.S. and the world to turn its back on an elected democracy.”

[tags]Israel, United States, Hamas[/tags]

51 Syrian Cabinet Reshuffle

Syrian expat friends tell me the appointment of Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara as Syria’s new vice-president and the Cabinet reshuffle represent the removal of the last vestiges of Hafez’s clique. (“The triumph of technocrats over Baathist dinosaurs,” one commenter on Josh Landis’ blog rejoiced.) The idea is that Al-Shara has been promoted into irrelevance. It has been a common career trajectory: The ceremonial post of VP, ministerial portfolio stripped, followed by political obscurity. Sort of a golden handshake. One friend sees it as part of what he sees as Bashar’s ultimate aim: to dismantle the Baath Party and replace it with something a bit more like Egypt’s NDP, something free of bothersome rhetoric, something that exists purely to enrich its members and represent the government to the people.

The choice for the new foreign minister, Walid al-Muallim, ambassador to the United States and negotiator in the Syrian-Israeli “peace” talks for most of the 1990s, confirms the view that the reshuffle is about moving out Hafez’s men in favor of Bashar’s. Al-Muallim was commonly seen as Bashar’s man in Lebanon. He would issue a statement, often at odds with Al-Shara’s most recent statement on Lebanon, and then Bashar would say something similar. This, incidentally, would cause all kinds of confusion within the Syrian, Lebanese, and foreign governments as to what Syria’s policy on Lebanon was—or so I hear. But it certainly confirmed many’s impression of Al-Muallim as Bashar’s man.

Under the Emergency Law, the interior minister rules Syria as the president’s deputy. Which makes him more important than the prime minister. So the appointment of Bassam Abd al-Majid, the former commander of the military police, is more significant than the appointment of Mohammad Naji Ottri, who rose to power through the Engineer’s Syndicate and eventually became speaker of the People’s Assembly, as prime minister.

Amr Salem, the new ICT minister, is a former Microsoft guy. One commenter on Josh’s blog credits him for removing restrictions on the ports used for VOIP, FTP uploads, and email communications, but a friend in Damascus writes

Salem has nothing to do with the new policy. He was appointed about a year ago, after Dr. Nebras Fadel resigned his presidency advisor post. Such rumors are normal in Syria […] STE still blocks ftp, SMTP, POP, IMAP, and everything except HTTP and HTTPS. Now Salem is minister, and let’s see if he is going to change the blocking policy of the STE [Syria Telecom’s ISP], which is directly under his management. Personally, I think he is a good man. At least, he should be better that the previous minister, since he is not so corrupt, so far.

In 1999, Salem, the cofounder of the Syrian Computer Society (SCS, a quasi-governmental ISP), wrote:

In order for President [Hafez] al-Asad to feel comfortable promoting a particular technology, it must meet the following criteria:

1. It should benefit the majority of the Syrian people. Technology geared toward the elite is not favored because such people have the resources and means to get what they want without government assistance.
2. It should not disrupt the social structure or adversely affect the middle class, and should be within the means of the masses.
3. It should have a direct impact on Syria?s overall social and economic development.
4. It should not jeopardize Syrian independence or security concerns.

Salem would have to take this line in 1999. But ultimately, I do think he’s a sincere proponent of expanding access to the Internet in Syria, if a realist when it comes to the nature of the Syrian security services and the Interior Ministry. Ultimately, one must assume that where Interior Ministry and ICT Ministry interests diverge, Interior Ministry interests will trump ICT interests.

Other new appointments: Abd-Allah al-Dardari becomes deputy PM for economic affairs. Mohsen Bilal, a surgeon, becomes information minister. Former Syrian U.N. Envoy Faisal Mekdad becomes deputy foreign minister. Zyad Ayoubi, who I’m told has good connections with the Syrian aristocracy and Islami leaders, becomes minister of religious affairs.

Speaking of connections with the Syrian aristocracy, I’m hoping a reader more plugged into the ins and outs of Syrian gossip can write in and help parse out the family and faction backgrounds of the new ministers… This is the kind of stuff you can only get by spending some real time in Damascus. Anyone?

[tags]Syria, Syrian Cabinet[/tags]

50 Remaining Sudanese Detainees Released

A colleague at Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance Cairo tells me, and another colleague at UNHCR Geneva confirms, that all remaining Sudanese detained as a result of the Dec. 30 crackdown on the protest have been released regardless of their status with UNHCR.

[tags]Sudanese refugees, sudan, egypt[/tags]

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