The Skeptic الشكاك

589 Defections

A few quick items from the press:

• One hundred and eight more members of Egypt’s ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) have resigned ahead of the local council elections.
• Members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood are splitting off from their organization to form a splinter group, Al-Masry al-Youm reports. The group, led by Ali Abd al-Hafiz and comprised mostly of university professors, will be called Tayar Badil, or the “alternative trend.” Abd al-Hafiz wrote a book by the same name criticizing the Brotherhood’s internal administration.
• The government has released 500 detainees accused of belonging to Islamist groups. Perhaps they are making room for the 800+ Brotherhood detainees.
• Mustafa al-Fiqi, head of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, affirms that he’s loyal to President Mubarak and his family after he was banned from writing in the state’s flagship daily, Al-Ahram. Al-Masry al-Youm reports that Fiqi has recently accused Israel of harboring ambitions to take back Sinai, and has criticized the U.S. government for “talking about Ayman Nur like he’s [Nelson] Mandela instead of a signature-forger.” More colorful pronouncements from the prominent parliamentarian here.
• A Cairo court today acquitted Ibrahim Eissa, editor of the feisty opposition daily Al-Dustur, of charges publishing rumors about Mubarak’s health, days after he was sentenced to six months in prison on separate charges of spurring a capital flight from Egypt by reporting rumors that President Mubarak’s health was ailing last August. The charges dismissed today were brought by NDP-affiliated lawyer  Hatem Mohammed. The charges that led to Eissa’s conviction a few days ago were initially brought by State Security.

  Eissa is due back in court on Saturday, April 5, when he and three other editors, Abd al-Halim Qandil (Al-Karama), Adil Hammuda (Al-Fagr), and Wahel al-Ibrashi (Sawt al-Umma), will appeal a one-year prison sentence on charges of “publishing false news likely to disturb public order.”

Lastly, your affirmation for the day comes from Farid al-Din Attar’s Tadhkiratu al-Awliya (Memorial of the Saints): “Glory be to that God who slays our children, and takes away our wealth, and whom withal we love.”

[tags]Egypt, NDP, Muslim Brotherhood, Ibrahim Eissa, Islam[/tags]

588 US Admits Fatal Suez Shooting

From Agenzia Giornalistica Italia:

(AGI) – Cairo, 26 March – After having first denied the shootout two days ago in the Suez Canal, in which an Egyptian civilian lost his life, now the United States has at least in part gone back on its word, acknowledging that the man was hit by warning shots fired from the Global Patriot, a mercantile ship leased by the US Navy. The admission has come from the American embassy in Cairo. According to the initial version, the salvos had not injured anyone. The victim was a trader who, along with others, had attended to flank the cargo ship as it was entering the Red Sea in the Canal to offer their goods to crew members. However, the attempted approach raised a sense of alarm, with those on board fearing a similar terrorist attack to the one in October 2000 involving the destroyer Cole in the Yemeni port Aden, and an armed response ensued, injuring two others on the raft. “The Global Patriot fired warning shots at the small sea craft that was approaching as it was getting ready to transit the Suez canal,” said the official statement from the US diplomatic representative. “It seems that an Egyptian on board was killed by one of the shots.”

Um, now would be the time to offer abject and repeated apologies and lots of money to the victims’ families…

UPDATE: Here, via email, is a statement from the U.S. Navy. Sounds like they’re talking about compensation:

Update: Motor Vessel Global Patriot
From Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/5th Fleet Public Affairs

MANAMA, Bahrain — The U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet has expressed regret for the death of an Egyptian citizen who died Monday night, an apparent result from warning shots fired at a small boat approaching a ship chartered by the U.S. Navy.

“We express our deepest sympathies to the family,” said Vice Admiral Kevin J. Cosgriff, commander, U.S. 5th Fleet. “We accept responsibility for actions that apparently resulted in this accidental death. This situation is tragic, and we will help take care of the victim’s family.”

The U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet Command is continuing to work cooperatively with Egyptian authorities, including the Suez Canal Authorities through the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, to fully investigate this incident.

“We will work through the investigation very thoroughly, coordinating with authorities and the Embassy, to get a full and transparent account of what happened,” Cosgriff stated.

An embarked U.S. security team on board the Navy’s MSC ship Global Patriot fired warning shots at a small boat approaching the ship as it was preparing to transit the Suez Canal Monday night at approximately 8:00 p.m. Two other boats had also approached the chartered ship but turned away following warnings from Global Patriot.

Very respectfully,
LT Nate Christensen
DEPUTY PAO – NAVCENT/5th Fleet/CMF

[tags]United States, Egypt, Suez[/tags]

587 Opposition Calls for General Strike

A coalition of opposition groups—including the suspended Labor Party, Kifaya, the banned Muslim Brotherhood, the unlicensed Karama (Dignity) Party, the unlicensed Centrist Party, the workers of Mahalla, the Lawyers’ Syndicate, the Movement of University Professors, and others—is calling for a general strike on April 6, two days before the local council elections. The coalition is protesting a long list of grievances, including corruption, political detentions, poor education and health-care, a lack of jobs, and so forth. The full email I received yesterday is below the break.

More…

586 Ibrahim Eissa Sentenced to Six Months in Prison

A misdemeanors court in Cairo today found that Ibrahim Eissa, editor of the daily Al-Dustur, had damaged the national economy by printing stories repeating rumors about President Hosni Mubarak’s health last August. The court sentenced Eissa to six months in prison, but freed him on bail, pending appeal.

Article 102(bis) of the Penal Code allows for the detention of “whoever deliberately diffuses news, information, or false or tendentious rumors, or propagates exciting publicity, if this is liable to disturb public security, spread horror among the people, or cause harm or damage to the public interest.”

Update: That’s true, but Eissa’s lawyer, Essam Abu Eissa, says the judge threw out the charges under article 102(bis) and upheld the charges under article 171 (incitement to commit a felony) and article 188 (very similar to 102).

Eissa’s feisty, sarcastic style has repeatedly landed him in trouble with the authorities for more than a decade. Several other cases against him for his writings are still in the courts.

583 NDP High Jinks

Stage-managing an election is hard work, and even the best-oiled political and patronage machine is bound to cough and sputter a bit when more than ten thousand sinecures are up for grabs in local councils around the country.

Fortunately, the opposition is illegal or irrelevant. This simplifies things some, allowing would-be candidates and their supporters to be arrested by the hundreds in dawn raids or simply excluded from the ballot on security grounds. (The MB says more than 800 members are in jail now, including 148 would-be candidates.) Activist judges complicate things in the cases of, well, 2,664 candidates improperly disqualified from running, but you can tie up their rulings in delay tactics until after the election. And while the illegal opposition is resourceful, they’re also illegal, which makes them Security’s problem. It’s the parvenus, the venal local bigwigs, and the endless squabbles over money that’ll really kill you.

Last week, four members of parliament from Egypt’s ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) resigned to protest the party’s decision not to list their supporters as candidates in the April local council elections.

The four, all from industrial towns in the Nile Delta, are Abd al-Maqsud al-Said (representing Mit Ghamr in the Shura Council), Hussein Awad (People’s Assembly), Walaa al-Husseini (Mansoura, People’s Assembly), and Magdi al-Bisati (Damietta, People’s Assembly).

The next day, Safwat al-Sharif, secretary general of the NDP, held emergency meetings with the four, and managed to get Abd al-Maqsud to take back his resignation. This must have been quite a task: one of the NDP candidates from Abd al-Maqsud’s native Mit Ghamr who did make it on the ticket, Mohammed Ali Hussein Yussef, had been, as of last week, in prison since February 24 on charges of forging his nomination papers. Perhaps Abd al-Maqsud was convinced by the argument that if the Brothers can say they will field candidates from prison, there’s no reason why the NDP shouldn’t as well.

The four MPs were the tip of the iceberg: according to some press accounts, thousands of rank-and-file members have also resigned from the party in recent weeks. The acrimony has become violent. On February 17, supporters of al-Bisati’s favored candidate and his rival drew knives and threw furniture at each other at a party convention in Damietta.

When Al-Bisati’s favored candidate didn’t get on the ticket, he told al-Misry al-Youm that he had resigned because the party’s secretary in Damietta was “running the party like a private business.”

This is taking all this talk about transparency and accountability a little too far. One doesn’t talk about candidates’ bribing their way to office in public. Criminal libel laws take care of that. The outbid apparatchick may be frustrated, but that doesn’t mean he may shoot off his mouth to the press.

Elsewhere, there were mundane organizational problems. In the Cairo district of Al-Salam and the Delta town of Belqas, for example, it briefly appeared that miscalculations had led to Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated candidates winning uncontested seats. New NDP candidates were hastily approved, after the deadline. It wasn’t immediately clear on what legal grounds.

None of this points to a fundamental disintegration of the NDP. In any undertaking of this size, there are bound to be some slip-ups. But it does lead one to wonder if the expense, hassle, and arrest campaign are really worth it. It would surely be simpler to appoint the local councils.

More:
109 New Resignations from NDP in Giza and al-Sharqiyya over Local Council Elections (Al-Misry al-Youm, March 24, Arabic)

585 U.S. Denies Fatally Shooting Egyptian in Suez

Today must have been a rougher day than usual for American diplomats in Cairo:

American Ship Fires Shots in Suez: U.S. officials have disputed a report that ran on Egypt’s official Middle East News Agency that said that one Egyptian was killed and two others were injured when Global Patriot, a roll-on, roll-off carrier chartered to bring military equipment from Dubai, opened fire on a small boat approaching it to sell goods. The U.S. account is that sailors fired warning shots and flares but that no one was hit.

But Abbas al-Amrikani, head of the Suez union of seamen, told the BBC, “I saw the body—the bullet entered his heart and went out the other side.” An anonymous medic in Suez identified the deceased as Mohammed Moqtar Afifi, and confirmed he was killed by a single shot. If the initial report is correct, this has the potential to get nasty. [AFP] [BBC]

Russia and Egypt Sign Nuclear Power Deal: Presidents Hosni Mubarak and Vladimir Putin today signed an agreement paving the way for Russia’s state nuclear technology company to bid on Egypt’s first nuclear reactor. The reactor we will be built at a cost of $1.5 billion on the Mediterranean coast. In remarks carried by Al-Misry al-Youm yesterday, Egyptian Minister of Energy Hassan Younis kept speculation over who would get the contracts alive. Fifteen companies from Argentina, Australia, Egypt, various European countries, and the United States had expressed interest in bidding for contracts to build Egypt’s first nuclear power plant, he said, adding that the draft law regulating the new sector according to international standards would be ready by the end of March.

Former Atomic Energy Authority Chairman Dr. Ezzat Abdel Aziz told the newspaper that whatever country won the bid for the first reactor would likely build the other three.

Correction: This post initially identified the ship as a U.S. Navy vessel. It is a private ship frequently chartered by the military.

584 Verdict in Brotherhood Military Trial Postponed Again

As expected, the military tribunal trying 40 leading members of the Muslim Brotherhood has delayed its verdict until April 15, after the April 8 local council elections. Deputy Supreme Guide Mohammad Habib described the decision as political:

Court officials confirmed a verdict was delayed for the men, including the group’s third-in-command Khairat el-Shatir, on trial over charges of belonging to a banned group and having anti-government literature.

“It (the government) doesn’t want to fight multiple battles at the same time, and feels that the rulings would have a negative effect on its image on the societal level,” Habib said.

He said that was true “especially as the whole world, whether in terms of public opinion or civil society, rejects in principle transferring civilians to military courts”. [Reuters]

Thirty-six of the men (four are being tried in absentia) have been in prison for more than a year. An ordinary criminal court acquitted 17 of them of the same charges in January 2007. Police re-arrested them moments after they were freed, and President Mubarak subsequently ordered their cases transfered to a military court.

The Brotherhood says more than 800 of its members are currently in jail, including 148 would-be candidates in the local council elections.

581 Shabola Hearts Obama

Nightclub singer, clown, barometer of popular Egyptian opinion, opinion-maker, propagandist, preacher, snappy dresser, man of tremendous gravity and noted hater of Israel Shaaban Abd al-Rahim was quoted in Al-Hayat a little over a week ago as saying that he likes Barack Obama: “He’s a good man, not a lousy man like Bush.” Aw shucks, Shabola.

The topic came up because he was talking about his new song, a parting shot to President “Troublemaker” Bush (“Damn you, Bush! It was a dark day when you were born,” etc.). Al-Hayat promised that the song would be on the video channels this week. I’m looking forward to it. In the same interview, Shabola also revealed that the Ministry of Health has contracted him to spread awareness about Bird Flu, and that he’s working with televangelist Amr Khaled on a campaign against drug addiction among Egyptian youth. I think he still sings Wednesday nights at a nightclub on al-Haram. Busy man.

This via Gemyhood, now on a New Generation fellowship at Slate, who fed it to a Slate-affiliated blog and sent it to Sandmonkey (where I saw it first). Sandmonkey has some thoughts on what Shabola’s comment on Obama could mean for Obama’s candidacy. My own suspicion is “not much.”

And as much as I would love to hear Shabola’s tribute to Obama (“Oh, Oh, Oh, Obama” sung to the tune of “Bin, Bin, Bin, Bin Laden?”), I doubt Shabola would speak as fondly of Obama if he’d heard his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That is, if he’d seen Obama trying to find out how far down his throat he could get AIPAC’s talking-points without choking on Iran (then urging folks to come together to fight lobbyists and special interest groups).

But all this misses the most interesting part of the Hayat interview: Some day very soon Shabola, made of light and floating over giant, glowering chickens also made of light, will make his triumphant return to millions of Egyptian living rooms.

577 ???? ?????

I was saddened to hear that legendary Cuban bassist Cachao, credited with inventing mambo, died yesterday at the age of 89. He has been described as “the most important bassist in 20th-Century popular music.” Here he is playing London last year.

575 From the Department of Forgotten Small Wars

Rebels attacked a military patrol in Mali, near the Algerian border, on Saturday morning. Europeans might care because renewed fighting might endanger the release of two Austrian tourists taken hostage last month in Tunisia and spirited across the border into Mali. Americans might care because the group calls itself Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb. Seif al-Islam al-Qadhafi, possible heir to Libya’s Brother Leader, is mediating between Austria and Al-Qaeda.

Le Monde:

Reprise des affrontements dans le nord du Mali, où se trouvent deux otages autrichiens d’Al-Qaida
LEMONDE.FR avec AFP | 22.03.08 | 18h09

es affrontements entre l’armée et les rebelles touareg ont repris, samedi 22 mars dans l’extrême nord du Mali, alors que les violences ont déjà fait huit morts – dont cinq civils – depuis la capture, jeudi, de 33 militaires par des rebelles. Cette brusque dégradation de la situation sécuritaire intervient juste avant l’expiration, dimanche soir, d’un ultimatum pour la libération des deux otages autrichiens enlevés le 22 février en Tunisie par la branche d’Al-Qaida au Maghreb et qui se trouveraient, avec leurs ravisseurs, dans le nord du Mali.

Samedi matin, les rebelles ont attaqué à la mitrailleuse une patrouille de l’armée, à 30 km au nord de la localité d’Abeïbara, non loin de la frontière avec l’Algérie. Aucune source n’était en mesure d’indiquer le nombre de tués ou de blessés.

LE FILS DE MOUAMMAR KADHAFI IMPLIQUÉ DANS LES NÉGOCIATIONS

Ces violences pourraient perturber les négociations pour la libération des Autrichiens Wolfgang Ebner, 51 ans, et Andrea Kloiber, 44 ans, enlevés alors qu’ils circulaient dans le sud de la Tunisie. Ils auraient été conduits par leur ravisseurs dans le nord malien.

Le fils du dirigeant libyen Mouammar Kadhafi, Seif Al-Islam, est en contact avec les ravisseurs et se dit optimiste sur leur prochaine libération, a affirmé samedi le dirigeant autrichien d’extrême droite Jörg Haider, qui maintient des contacts étroits avec le responsable libyen. Selon plusieurs sources, l’ultimatum de dimanche soir pourrait être une nouvelle fois repoussé.

Credit: the headline is inspired by the discovery, in a friend’s bathroom, of Index on Censorship‘s 2006 issue on “small wars you may have forgotten.” I wouldn’t mention it, but assassinated Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya’s 2002 brief to Index on Censorship on “the corrosive evil of [the] forgotten war” in Chechnya, which I believe appeared in that issue, makes it well worth the digression. Here’s a taste:

The city was sealed off after a series of strange events. Controls were so tight you couldn’t even move between different districts within the city, let alone make your way out of Grozny on foot.

On that day, 17 September, a helicopter carrying a commission headed by Major-General Anatoly Pozdnyakov from the general staff in Moscow was shot down directly over the city. He was engaged in work quite unprecedented for a soldier in Chechnya.

Only an hour before the helicopter was shot down, he told me the task of his commission was to gather data on crimes committed by the military, analyse their findings, put them in some order and submit the information for the president’s consideration. Nothing of the kind had been done before.

Their helicopter was shot down almost exactly over the city centre. All the members of the commission perished and, since they were already on their way to Khankala airbase to take a plane back to Moscow, so did all the material they had collected. That part of the story was published by Novaya Gazeta.

Before the 19 September issue was sent to the printers, our chief editor Dmitry Muratov was summoned to the ministry of defence (or so I understand) and asked to explain how on earth such allegations could be made. He gave them an answer, after which the pressure really began. There should be no publication, he was told. [More…]

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