The Skeptic الشكاك

705 Egyptian Blogger Detained Under Emergency Law

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information and the Hisham Mubarak Legal Center report that Mohammed Refaat, a student and a blogger, was detained on July 21 on charges of “threatening public security” by using the Internet to call for a strike on July 23. Refaat apparently approached a State Security officer who goes by the assumed name Hisham Tawfiq at State Security headquarters after he found his house had been searched and his computer and books had been seized. He was then detained and charged in case No. 1143 for 2008.

On August 17, the organizations report, a State Security prosecutor ordered him released, but officers brought him back to State Security headquarters.

I took a quick look at Refaat’s blog and could find nothing political.

695 Parliament Destroyed, Paper Banned

Let me never again complain that things happen in Egypt only when I’m out of the country. I was at a meeting two blocks away from Parliament around the time the fire started in the Shura Council yesterday. I noticed nothing as I was leaving (the air is always full of smoke), and learned of the disaster only via SMS when I got home. I watched the fire on TV like millions of other squares.

Word has it that Al-Badil‘s late edition was banned last night for its reporting on the fire [UPDATE: I’m now hearing the paper wasn’t officially banned. The government-owned Al-Ahram printing house simply delayed publication of the edition until it was too late, effectively ensuring that it didn’t come out. FURTHER UPDATE: The edition came out the next day, toned down]. The daily has published the edition online (full paper in a compressed file here). For convenience’s sake, I’m posting their coverage as image files here:

While I was in India for a wedding, it seems two big stories broke in Egypt:

• The state introduced stiff new traffic laws in a Quixotic attempt to curb the chaos and gridlock that paralyzes Cairo. That Al-Ahram Weekly story doesn’t mention the fines for professional drivers who smoke behind the wheel. Nice for nonsmoker passengers, but probably foolish to produce hundreds of thousands of pissed-off, nicotine-deprived taxi drivers.
• The Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchange took a dive when rumors suggested that a prominent Egyptian businessman had fled the country following the arrest of suspects in the brutal murder of Lebanese singer Suzanne Tamim. Stocks rebounded when the businessman and his friends debunked those rumors. A government ban on reporting the story did little to keep the story quiet, but perhaps helped restore confidence in the stock market by suggesting the government would stand by the maligned millionaire. Feisty Al-Dustur ran the story; editor Ibrahim al-Mansur told AFP government agents pulled all copies of that edition as a result. General Prosecutor Abd al-Magid Mahmud reportedly lodged yet another case against Managing Editor Ibrahim Eissa in connection with the affair.

In unrelated news, Global Voices has an excellent update on online censorship in Tunisia, and Ellen Knickmeyer has an article for the Washington Post about those nauseating “Veil Your Lolipop” ads.

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