The Skeptic الشكاك

351 Thanks for the Fish

Well, I knew this would happen eventually. My employers have discovered this blog. They haven’t asked me to discontinue it, but company policy requires that HQ vet anything employees write in their own names. Fair enough.

If I’m going to deal with that vetting process, though, it had better be for something more useful than a blog post. I might actually have to get some work done.

I might post a photograph every now and again. And I’ve added an aggregator in the right column that picks up RSS feeds from my favorite blogs and news sites so this space will be updated. But I won’t be writing much here until the next time I’m strictly freelance.

350 Hamas in Its Own Words

From the bulging “Missed Opportunities in Israel/Palestine” file, and in celebration of the “fragile ceasefire” in Gaza, this article by Khaled Hroub from the Journal of Palestinian Studies:

Since Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006, its political positions as presented in the Western media hark back to its 1988 charter, with almost no reference to its considerable evolution under the impact of political developments. The present article analyzes (with long verbatim extracts) three recent key Hamas documents: its fall 2005 electoral platform, its draft program for a coalition government, and its cabinet platform as presented on 27 March 2006. Analysis of the documents reveals not only a strong programmatic and, indeed, state building emphasis, but also considerable nuance in its positions with regard to resistance and a two-state solution. The article pays particular attention to the sectarian content of the documents, finding a progressive de-emphasis on religion in the three.
[full text]

It’s a poignant read when you consider that since Hroub did his research, an international policy of trying to starve Hamas out of power and (possibly…caveats apply) arming enemy militias against it has pretty nearly engulfed Gaza in civil war. If Hroub’s conclusions are correct, the world missed an opportunity to clear the way for Hamas to go mainstream after last year’s elections and thereby to avoid much bloodshed and suffering. I’d encourage readers to look at the full text. It’s spinach worth eating, if only because it quotes at length three important documents that either have not been translated into English or have not been widely diffused in English.

[tags]Israel, Palestine, Hamas[/tags]

346 Mohammed Khairat ash-Shater, 180 Brotherhood Students Arrested

Police have arrested Mohammed Kairat ash-Shater and 180 students from Al-Azhar University following Sunday’s creepy demonstration. The wires have the story.

[Update: Names, details, and condemnations in HRW’s press release.]
[tags]Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood[/tags]

345 Taba Trial

HRW is calling for a retrial for the men convicted of the Taba bombings (English and Arabic).
[tags]Egypt[/tags]

344 Man Identified as Rape Video Victim to Sue Paper

I was afraid this might happen. According to a small item buried in today’s Al-Ahram, the man identified by Al-Fagr‘s journalist as the victim in the police rape video has denied any such thing happened and is suing the paper. Perhaps he was pressured into this. In any case, his denials and his lawsuit are certainly going to make it harder to press for an investigation and prosecutions.

[update: Hossam rightly notes in the comments to this post that I should update this post to include the news that the day after the al-Ahram story ran, the victim changed his mind again and decided to press charges.]

[tags]Egypt[/tags]

343 The Iraqi Study Group Report

I’ve been following the reaction to the Iraqi Study Group report (full .pdf) over the past few days. It’s been hard to escape. My favorite responses so far have been from the Iraqi press:

International conferences cannot decide the fate of the political process in Iraq. Rather, Iraqis, who have made immense sacrifices for the political process, can alone determine the fate of their country and draw up its policies.
—Ali Khlayf, Al-Adalah (Shia), Baghdad

and again:

A change cannot happen in isolation from the Iraqi national will. The Americans are incapable of making a change outside the framework of Iraqi national interest which is defined by the Iraqis rather than any other party.
—Ad-Dustur, Baghdad

More reactions from the Middle Eastern press translated here.

[tags]Iraq[/tags]

342 Senior Muslim Brotherhood Members Released

I just received word that a prosecutor has ordered `Issam al-Din Muhammad Husain al-`Irian (alt. sp. Al-Arian), the head of the Muslim Brotherhood?s Political Committee, and Muhammad Mursi (alt. sp. Morsi), the head of the Parliamentary Committee, to be released. They will be confined to their homes, but lawyers may appeal this last provision. They were both detained May 18 and charged (Case Number 533/2006) with “belonging to an illegal organization.”

[Update, Saturday evening, Cairo time: They’ve been released.]

[tags]Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood[/tags]

341 Victim in Police Rape Video Identified

I join Hossam in tipping my hat to Al-Fagr journalist Wael Abdel Fattah for his investigative reporting. Details at 3arabawy and Sharqawi’s blog. Not sure about the wisdom of publicly identifying the victim, though. This is a rape case, and from what I’ve read, this man was too scared to press charges. Has he now changed his mind?
[tags]Egypt, Torture[/tags]

340 Parliamentary Bloc on New Muslim Brotherhood Detentions

Speaker of the People’s Assembly Fathi Sorour, who recently went on record as saying that terrorism should not be a justification for violating human rights, on Dec. 5 refused to allow discussion of State Security’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood in Menoufia. This according to an item from the Muslim Brotherhood’s Web site (sorry to be late with this; busy with work and still sorting through last week’s email):

????? ??? ????: ???? ???? ?????? ????? ????? ??? ?????????? ?? ????????
??? ??????? ???? ???? ????- ???? ???? ????? ??????- ??? ???????? 5/12/2006? ??????? ?????? ?????? ???? ?????? ?? ????? ?????? ?????????? ??????? ???????? ????????? ??? ???? ?????????? ?????? ???? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?????? ????????? ???? ?????? ??????? ?? ???? ????? ?? ????????? ???? ?? ???? ????? ??? ???????? ?????? ??? ???????.??? ???? ???? ??????? ???????? ????? ??? ???? ?. ????? ??????? ??????? ??? ?????? ?????? ????? ????.???? ???? ??????? ????????? ?? ????? ?? ??????? ?????? ????? ???????? ???? ???? ????????? ??? ??? ??????? ?? ???? ????? ????????? ????? ???????? ??????? ????????? ?? ????? ????? ?? ????? ??????? ??????? ?? ??? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? ?????? ????? ??? ?????? ??????.

Loose translation:

On Dec. 5, 2006, Speaker of the People’s Assembly Dr. Ahmed Fathi Sorour refused to allow the Muslim Brotherhood’s parliamentary bloc to discuss an urgent statement regarding State Security’s recent crackdown against the organization in Menoufia. A large number of citizens were arrested and are still subject to torture in unknown locations. The Muslim Brotherhood strongly objected to Dr. Sorour’s position and demanded the discussion of this important issue. In an urgent statement addressed to the Minister of Interior, the Muslim Brotherhood representative in Menoufia had said that 40 people from the governorate had been detained and tortured. Their jailors applied electricty to sensitive areas of their bodies and forced them to remain standing, blindfolded, with their hands raised for a full day.

I need more information. If the detainees have been kept in unknown locations, for example, how does anyone know what happened to them in custody? An editor of the Brotherhood’s English-language site recently left a comment on this blog. If you’re still reading, could you please elaborate? [Never mind. Just re-read the English statement, which says the allegations of torture come from released detainees. The English statement lists only 21 names, though. Is there an updated list?]

For more on the Muslim Brotherhood in Parliament, see this article by Samer Shehata and Josh Stacher in the Fall 2006 MERIP.

[tags]Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood[/tags]

339 Egypt’s Dwindling Mummy Population

Via The Onion:

CAIRO?As the sun sets over Cairo, the streets are eerily quiet. Just a few years ago, the hillsides from Luxor to Giza would have been buzzing with the familiar sounds of tomb doors creaking open and bones snapping under the methodical shuffling of a slow, catatonic gait. But the telltale signs of Egypt’s indigenous mummy population have fallen silent recently, and the fearsome creatures that once lurched freely across the Valley of the Kings are disappearing at an alarming rate. If nothing is done, experts say, the Egyptian mummy will soon go the way of the Bavarian lycanthrope or the Transylvanian vampire, and vanish forever. […]

Many of the slow-moving creatures are crushed each year on the superhighways that surround Cairo. Hydroelectric dams along the Nile River destroy countless mummies when rising waters soak through their dusty rags and dissolve their arid, desiccated bodies. [Full story]

LE100 to the first person to dress as a mummy and cross Ramses Square, without the aid of pedestrian bridges, imitating the lumbering gait from the old movies. Photo or video documentation required.

[tags]Egypt[/tags]

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