634 Angry Arab, Are You Listening?
From Al-Dustur. I don’t know any other way of getting this to Angry Arab, who loves potatoes and Palestinians, than to post it.
Oh yeah, and while I was away, Egypt renewed the Emergency Law, despite repeated promises not to do so. And Lebanon finally got a president.
633 HRW on Ahmed Maher
Human Rights Watch has called for the investigation and prosecution of those who beat Facebook activist Ahmed Maher in detention late last week (English and Arabic):
(Cairo, May 10, 2008) Egyptian authorities should immediately investigate and prosecute those security officials responsible for beating Ahmed Maher Ibrahim, Human Rights Watch said today. Maher, a 27-year-old civil engineer, used the social-networking site Facebook to support calls for a general strike on May 4, 2008, President Hosni Mubaraks 80th birthday.
Maher told Human Rights Watch that officers from the Interior Ministrys State Security Investigations (SSI) department apprehended him on a street in the suburb of New Cairo on May 7, blindfolded him and took him to a police station where they stripped him naked, and beat him intermittently for 12 hours before releasing him without charge.This is the work of thugs, pure and simple, said Joe Stork, Middle East deputy director at Human Rights Watch. The government must show that those responsible for upholding the law are also subject to the law.
631 Darfur Rebels Attack Khartoum
Between a natural catastrophe of unimaginable proportions in Burma, Hizballah’s politics by other means, and Obama’s victory in the U.S. Democratic primaries, I almost didn’t notice that the JEM attacked a suburb of Khartoum today. This is huge news on its own right. But I was also interested to see this detail at the bottom of the Reuters story:
There were signs that Egypt was showing ready to offer support for Khartoum on Saturday. One witness said he saw three Egyptian fighter planes and one Egyptian army cargo plane landing at the airport. The witness said he could see the Egyptian flag on the side of the planes. [Full Story…]
630 The Global War on Drugs, Cairo, 1952
The menace of the world drug trade, Al-Musawwar, Cairo, August 16, 1952. Apologies for the bad scan.
629 May 4 Facebook Activist ‘Beaten in Custody’
I’ve just heard from a friend that Ahmed Maher, a 27-year-old engineer quoted in the Western press as a May 4 Facebook activist, is alleging that he was beaten in State Security custody. Details are still sketchy, but apparently State Security called him in for a “friendly” coffee earlier this week. When he didn’t go, my friend tells me, State Security took him from his home in the middle of the night, beat him, and released him with the warning that they were “just pulling his ear” this time, and that next time would be worse. He is reportedly in hospital now.
These are serious allegations, and I sincerely hope I have received bad information. I’ll post more as it comes in.
Update: I have a fuller report with all the grizzly details now, but I’m waiting to hear from Ahmed how much he wants to make public before publishing. He does want to speak out about what happened to him, but it’s not clear how far he wants to take this or what details he’d like to keep private. In the meantime, a correction: 1) Ahmed was detained yesterday afternoon, not in the middle of the night. He was released from State Security custody shortly before dawn this morning.
628 A Permanent Emergency
When the People’s Assembly resumes sessions on Sunday it will discuss not only new legislations dealing with traffic, economic courts and the rights of children but could well be asked to further extend the emergency laws which expire on 31 May, or else approve new anti-terror legislation.
On 30 April, 2006, the People’s Assembly approved the extension of the emergency law for two more years by an overwhelming majority. Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif vowed at the time that the extension would be the last and that during the 2008 parliamentary session the emergency law would finally be abrogated in favour of new anti-terror legislation. Nazif recalled that in his 2005 presidential election manifesto President Hosni Mubarak had promised a Western-style anti-terror law. “The government is keen that President Mubarak’s promise be fulfilled in 2008,” Nazif told MPs.
In the summer of 2006 Nazif formed a committee to draft the anti-terror law headed by Moufid Shehab, minister of state for legal and parliamentary affairs.
“This government will not present the People’s Assembly with a law that contains surprises,” Shehab said. “Copies of the final draft law will be available to all political forces at least one month ahead of its discussion in the People’s Assembly.”
Two years later, and a month before the end of the current 2007/2008 parliamentary session, and no copies are available. Nor are officials particularly keen to talk about what was once a flagship piece of legislation. Full article…
Will the government again fail to deliver on President Mubarak’s 2005 promise to replace the Emergency Law with a counterterrorism law? Or will it ram the law through Parliament in short order, with the amended text of article 179 providing a thin veneer of constitutionality?
The average Egyptian is 24 years old. The Emergency Law, first passed in 1958, has been in place almost continuously since 1967 (it was briefly allowed to lapse in 1980, then reinstated after Sadat’s assassination 18 months later). So the average Egyptian has lived his entire life under the provisions of the Emergency Law. Unless the draft counterterrorism law leaked to the press in February looks very different when it’s submitted to Parliament for a rubber stamp, generations more risk living under those same provisions.
627 Police Brutality in the United States
Cairo circa 2006? No, this is Philadelphia in 2008:
626 Parliament Approves Fuel, Cigarette Price Hikes
Surely the timing is a coincidence.
Still feeling good about that 30-percent raise for bureaucrats and workers at uncompetitive factories? How about when you consider that the government still hopes to get rid of a lot of those bureaucrats and to sell a lot of those factories anyway?
CAIRO, May 5 (Reuters) – Egypt’s parliament approved steep increases in fuel and cigarette prices and vehicle licence fees on Monday to cover the costs of public-sector pay hikes that President Hosni Mubarak proposed last week.
Economists said some measures, such as the increase in fuel prices, would add to high inflation and offset some of the effects of the wage increase.
“The government is giving with the right hand and taking back with the left hand,” said Hani al-Husseini, a tax expert and a senior member of the leftist Tagammu opposition party.
A booklet distributed by a parliamentary committee dominated by the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) said the price of 90 octane gasoline would rise 35 percent to 1.75 Egyptian pounds ($0.33) a litre.
The lower house of parliament approved the measures, proposed earlier in the same day by the ruling party, by a vote of 297 in favour and 76 against, said parliament speaker Fathi Sorour, who had called for an urgent decision on the proposal.
Mubarak, facing growing public dissent over price rises, last week offered public sector employees a 30 percent increase in basic salaries, provided necessary revenue could be found so that the increase did not add to the budget deficit.
Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif told a news conference the price rises would go into effect starting at 1900 GMT, and would generate 12 billion pounds for the budget to pay for expected wage increases and help handle higher global energy costs.
He said public transport fares would not rise.
More…
625 The ‘Strike’
Headlines from Egyptian newspapers, May 4, 2008, President Hosni Mubarak’s 80th birthday. Left: Al-Karama, the newspaper of the Nasserist Al-Karama (Dignity) Party. The headline reads, “Stay at home.” Right: Al-Ahram, the government’s flagship daily. The headline reads, “The day Egypt was born anew.” I wish I had a scanner.
About 30 protesters gathered on the steps of the Lawyers’ Syndicate in Cairo, 4 May 2008, to mark President Mubarak’s 80th birthday. Calls for a general strike fizzled.
Early impressions: Just got back from two radio interviews. It looked like an ordinary Sunday on the streets between my house and the studio. People are going to work; the traffic is about what you’d expect for a Sunday morning. The taxi driver on the way back from the studio said that downtown was crowded, that there were more officers and soldiers around than usual, but that otherwise it looks like a normal day.
Mahalla, where there was talk of a silent march, is apparently an armed camp today. A photojournalist trying to get into the city reports police have blocked the roads into the city and are preventing cars with Cairo plates from entering.
I’m going to check out the situation downtown now, paying special attention to the mosques. The main difference between this “strike” and its April 6 predecessor is that the Muslim Brotherhood joined this one (though, so far, it doesn’t seem to have made much difference). A Facebook group called “On the 4th of May, Pray for Egypt,” is calling for people to assemble at specific mosques in several cities to, well, pray for Egypt. I’m not sure if the Facebook group is a Muslim Brotherhood initiative, but it sure sounds like one. People quietly praying won’t draw a security crackdown, but if the Brothers start with the call-and-response chants, things could get hairy.
A quick look at the Egyptian blogosphere shows it’s full of heart-felt birthday wishes for President Mubarak and banners proclaiming support for the strike.
I’ll update this post a bit later today, but so far no reports of arrests, or, indeed, anything beyond a reinforced police presence in downtown…
Update, 16:30 Local Time: Completely normal day downtown, perhaps even a bit more crowded than usual for a Sunday. About 30 protesters gathered on the steps of the Lawyers’ Syndicate to chant. There were almost as many photographers as protesters. The police presence was relatively light, and the cops on hand didn’t seem particularly bothered. I’ve posted a few photos on Flickr.
Once again, Mahalla was more interesting. The town was sealed off to Cairo traffic, and two foreign journalists (no names or nationalities available) were escorted out of town.
I suppose there are a few hours left to the day, and all hell might yet break loose. But I’m not holding my breath. The foreign press corps spent the day fanning out around the city, staying in touch by mobile, everyone asking each other if anything at all was going on where they were. By 3 p.m., they were calling it.
And for the moment, I’m happily eating crow after my dire predictions of nasty, zero-tolerance policing.
I think it’s safe to say this was an embarrassing failure for the opposition. Not a bad media stunt, I suppose, even if the stories written today all wind up leading with the headline “Strike Fizzles.”
Oh, and going forward, let’s not overestimate the power of Facebook and Twitter, or of “click-here” activism in general, however interesting a yarn that may be. It’s not often I agree with a member of the NDP’s Committee for Making People Cultured (???? ???????). But Magdi Al-Daqaq, the new editor of Al-Hilal, had reason to gloat when, speaking on BBC Arabic today, he called what happened today “a nonexistent, virtual, electronic strike.” Funny thing was, Al-Karama unwittingly mirrored his comments in their earnest article on “The Democratic Nation of Facebook” today.
Not quite as funny (in that way that makes you cry) as Al-Ahram‘s front-page praise-poem to Mubarak today, though. A Yemeni friend wrote in to say he liked the headline. So I’m posting rest of the article after the break…
More…
624 Editors’ Appeal Trial Continues
The appeals court in Giza hearing the case of four opposition newspaper editors yesterday adjourned until June 7 to consider documents and pleadings submitted in the case. The editors’ lawyers asked to call witnesses, including Al-Ahram columnist Salama Ahmed Salama, to testify that the articles criticizing President Hosni Mubarak and other senior ruling-party officials’ stance on Hizballah and the war in Lebanon did not damage public order in Egypt.
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