DSE: Protest against sexual harassment turns into demonstration of police power

Protest against sexual harassment turns into demonstration of police power

By Liam Stack
First Published: November 16, 2006

Demonstrators, bystanders assaulted and harassed on streets of downtown

CAIRO: Political activists from opposition group The Street is Ours called for a demonstration in front of downtown’s Metro Cinema on Tuesday afternoon to demand government accountability for the alleged instances of sexual and physical harassment that took place in front of the movie theater during Eid Al-Fitr.

On the heels of a similar protest a week earlier, organizers expected hundreds to turn out to the afternoon rally. Instead, hundreds of uniformed and plainclothes security officers aggressively suppressed their efforts, while over a dozen troop transports and armored vehicles lined side streets in downtown.

“This is our Egypt,” said organizer Magda Adly, director of the Nadim Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture. “When we tried to approach Talaat Harb Street the police surrounded us and threatened us, they told us ‘if you don’t leave we will arrest you, we will do what we have to with you people.’”

Activists, journalists and unwitting passersby were harassed and physically assaulted on Talaat Harb’s busy sidewalks during the afternoon rush hour. According to the Associated Press, eight activists and journalists were arrested but most were released after several hours in custody.

Two members of The Street is Ours, Nadia Mabrouk and Walid Salah, were detained overnight in Kasr El-Nil police station and have yet to be charged.

“They beat me up when I was taking pictures,” said Reuters photographer Abdel Nasser Nouri. Police assaulted him, smashing his cameras as he photographed Mabrouk and Salah being pulled into a police van. “They put me in a car and told me, ‘Don’t take any more pictures, and don’t come here again.’ Then they drove me away.”

He was released several blocks from Talaat Harb Street.

Several other activists and journalists were pursued through downtown by plainclothes officers, who pushed them into the Excelsior Café, next door to the cinema. Would-be demonstrators and journalists were physically assaulted on the sidewalk in front of the café, as plainclothes and uniformed security men fell upon them in groups of ten or more.

To the shock and confusion of café patrons, the restaurant was then surrounded by more than 40 plainclothes men working for state security. The men slammed closed the windows of the restaurant and blocked the exits. People who had been enjoying a quiet lunch quickly became part of a tense hour-long standoff. Trapped inside the café, they were made witnesses to the arrests and assaults taking place on the sidewalk outside.

“This is terrible!” said one female diner, who did not want to be named. She and her husband watched as plainclothes policemen violently shook a young veiled protestor. The girl was pull into a waiting van by her clothing, tripping and falling against its metal stairs. Policemen struck her several times as she lay on the stairs, and was then dragged farther into the transport.

“Look at what they are doing to the women,” said the female diner, “It’s awful, a man should never be violent to a woman like that!”

“Any women who came down Talaat Harb Street were prevented from walking there by the police and their thugs,” said Adly. “After we finally left the café, I saw two women going to work in their office in Talaat Harb Square, but plainclothes policemen prevented them from even walking down the street.”

The Street is Ours organized the rally to demand government accountability for the alleged attacks during Eid Al-Fitr, and to draw a parallel to similar attacks during an anti-government rally on May 25, 2005.

According to the group, the rally was meant to be the beginning of “a campaign defending our presence, our right to public space, our right to a life free of violence and sexual harassment.”

“Back in 2005, the police used criminals they released from the police stations to harass women activists and journalists. So the police have experience using these criminal and anti-social elements,” said Adly, as she sat barricaded inside the Excelsior.

“In front of Metro, the police watched people behaving like criminals and they did not interfere to help anyone. When women came to the police and asked for help they said, ‘Many people are doing this, what do you expect us to do?’”

“The police are responsible for what happened in front of Metro,” she said, “just like they were responsible for what happened on May 25.”

DSE: Plainclothes, uniformed police suppress demonstration downtown

Plainclothes, uniformed police suppress demonstration downtown

By Liam Stack and Maram Mazen
First Published: November 14, 2006


Activists had gathered to call for fight against sexual harassment

CAIRO: Activists from “The Street is Ours”, an opposition group, were barred from holding a demonstration protesting alleged incidents of sexual attacks three weeks ago.

Dozens of cars and armored vehicles and hundreds of state security members filled the blocks surrounding the Metro Cinema, the site of the alleged attacks during the Eid al-Fitr.

Policemen kept several activists and journalists from approaching the cinema. Security forces pursued over a dozen demonstrators and journalists through downtown, barricading them inside the nearby Excelsior Café in a tense hour-long standoff.

Several activists and journalists were physically harassed, and two, Nadia Mabrouk and Walid Salah, were arrested.

“They beat me up when I was taking pictures,” said Reuters photographer Abdel Nasser Nouri. “They put me in a car and told me ‘don’t take any more pictures, and don’t come here again.’ Then they drove me away.”
He was released him several blocks away from the cinema.

Organizer Magda Adly, Director of the Nadim Center for the Rehabilitation of Victoms of Torture, sat barricaded inside the Excelsior Café.

“When we tried to approach Talaat Harb street the police surrounded us and threatened us, they told us ‘if you don’t leave we will arrest you, we will do what we have to with you people’,” she told The Daily Star Egypt.

“The United States is responsible for all of this!” exclaimed Rabaa Fahmy, a staff lawyer for the Nadim Center who was also inside the Excelsior café.

“They cause these problems because they support our government. All of their propaganda about democracy is false because they make alliances with dictatorial regimes like ours.”

“I am really scared to leave right now,” said a female AUC student, after café patrons watched policemen arrest a young veiled woman, shaking her violently by her veil. The young woman did not want to be named.

“Plainclothes policemen were following us from the beginning of the street,” said another female AUC student activist who did not want to be named.

“They told us leave for our own good, there is going to be trouble.”

The demonstration was to call further attention to what activists called the failure of the security forces to protect the rights of Egyptian civilians and keep the streets safe.

The View from Cairo: the More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

The View from Cairo: The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same

By Liam Stack
First Published: November 8, 2006

By the time polls on the East Coast of the United States closed, it was 3 o’clock in the morning in Cairo. Waking up early the next day to watch the results on TV, I could not tell if I was excited by what I saw or if I was having an out of body experience.

Although a few important races have yet to be decided, the broad trend is clearly visible.

The midterm elections have delivered a slim but significant victory for the Democratic party. It has taken control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 1994, and is a Virginia recount away from a possible victory in the Senate as well. They have also won the majority of the country’s governorships, taking over from Republicans in traditionally liberal states like New York and Massachusetts, but also winning races in more conservative places like Arkansas, Ohio and Colorado.

Taking the stage at the Democrat’s victory party, Nancy Pelosi, the fashionable San Francisco grandmother who led the Democrats in the House minority and is set to become the country’s first female House Majority leader, declared “Mr. President, we need a new direction in Iraq.”

But it is far from clear that the Democrats will be able to provide the country, or the world, with any such thing. There is little consensus within the Democratic Party, or American society as a whole, about what the United States should do in Iraq. Overall, the American political landscape depressingly few fresh ideas about the super power’s role in the world, and in the Middle East in particular. The rhetorical promotion of democracy in the Arab world, some version of the “War on Terror,” and unflinching support for Israel and Zionism are all mainstream, bipartisan issues in the United States.

While the Democrats host victory parties in Washington D.C., and the talking-heads of the media fill the air waves with talk of a political sea change, it is unlikely that anything will change on the ground. That is especially true in the Middle East.

I am American, and when I go home people often as me what it is like to live in the Arab world. Is it safe? Do they hate us?

Usually I respond with anecdotes. Once in a taxi, the driver began to tell me, in quick and heated ‘ameyya, his opinions of the United States. I confessed to him that I did not understand what he was saying. He looked at me hard for a moment, thinking, then rummaged through a pile of change in his dashboard ash tray and pulled out a rare five piaster coin. He held one of its faces up to me.

“Bush,” he said. He then turned to the other side of the coin. “Mubarak.”

Another man I once knew put it to me in clearer English. “Americans are good people, but I hate the government. It’s just like here.”

Sitting in my Zamalek apartment and watching the election results on CNN International, I thought of these men. It is striking how far removed the political intrigues of Congress are from the real world in which all of us — Egyptian and foreigner, in Zamalek or Shubra — live.

Very little will change now that the Democrats, famous for fractious infighting, have a a slim lead in one house of Congress. It is unlikely that they will push the United States in a truly new direction, or finally make change for the cab drivers of Cairo.

Experts fear fraud in upcoming union election

Experts fear fraud in upcoming union election

By Liam Stack
First Published: November 3, 2006

Sunday’s vote seen as opposition challenge to NDP

CAIRO: On Sunday Egyptian workers begin the first round of voting in elections for the national basic union, electing new representatives to a number of worker organizations meant to represent their concerns to the state. But opposition figures and independent analysts warn that the voting process used in the elections is overly complicated and highly susceptible to manipulation and vote-rigging.

Government critics argue that this is the whole point. Many see this week’s polls as either a way for the government to reaffirm its dominance of the labor movement, or as a potential challenge to the power of the ruling National Democratic Party of Hosni Mubarak.

“The NDP wants to control the union because when Gamal Mubarak runs for president they want the president of the Itihad to say that he supports Gamal Mubarak on behalf of all the workers of Egypt,” speculates Ali Badry, a member of activist group Workers for Change. The Itihad is the secretariat of the General Federation of Egyptian Trade Unions and the most powerful arm of the labor bureaucracy.
Badry is employed at a bakery company in Cairo and wants to run in the basic union elections on Sunday, but he has been denied certification by the Itihad.

He is by no means alone in his certification problems. According to Mustafa Nayed Ali, a WFC member and certified candidate, more than 630 workers have been denied permission to run in the election. The political affiliations of each denied candidate are unclear, but according to a statement released by the Muslim Brotherhood, 520 of their members have been barred from running, and many have been arrested and detained by security forces.

“This procedure is being manipulated so that a lot of workers who want to nominate themselves are prohibited from doing so,” says Ali, who is employed at the Iron and Steel Company in Helwan.
Currently, candidates in the basic union elections must first obtain written certification from their workplace confirming their employment, and then use this certification to apply for a second certificate from the Itihad. If a candidate is approved to run and is elected, they can then participate in the election for the governing body of the General Union, the organization charged with oversight of the basic union. If they win that election, they are then eligible to run for a seat in the 21-member Itihad, which oversees all Egyptian unions.
Critics say that union members have too little say in the syndicate system because workers at large are only able to run for election for the lowest of the three organizations. Furthermore, they say that the Itihad makes candidates obtain the second round of certification so that it can screen them and disqualify those not seen as sufficiently loyal to the party.

“The syndicate system has been dominated by the authoritarian state established by the 1952 regime,” says Nabil Adel Fattah, the deputy director of Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. “The syndicates have been one form of control within the system.”

For this reason, many fear that the government may engage in the kind of fraud that marked the 2005 parliamentary elections, in which the Brotherhood unexpectedly won a large number of seats in the lower house of parliament. Workers for Change, Kefaya and other opposition groups are demanding full judicial oversight of the upcoming elections.

“We need the judges to make sure that the government doesn’t play any tricks,” says Tamer Waguih, an activist and analyst with the Center for Socialist Studies.

Such oversight, says Waguih, is legal according to Article 41 of Law 35, passed in 1976.

“No one can say that judges cannot monitor the elections because this is endorsed by law, even the Itihad accepts this. The issue is, what do you mean?” he says. “There is a disagreement about the interpretation of the law. Workers interpret the law to say that there should be a judge in every factory to monitor the elections. The Itihad interprets that same clause to say that there should only be a judge in every governorate in the country, but not a judge in front of every ballot box.”

“It is an issue of effectiveness,” he says. “Will the oversight be deep, wide and effective? Or shallow, formal and ineffective?”

According to Waguih, the last national union elections, held in 2001, were marked by many of the same problems. The results of those elections were challenged in court several times by candidates who had been disqualified or removed from voting lists by the Itihad, and in all cases the high court ruled that the disqualifications were illegal.

In May 2006, the high court ruled that due to widespread irregularities the 2001 elections were invalid, making the current Itihad illegitimate. The same body is now poised to monitor this weekend’s elections.

“But the state never abided by the court’s judgment,” he says. Experts and activists agree that the face of the opposition is one thing that has changed since the 2001 elections. “This exclusion of opposition candidates and the Muslim Brotherhood is the result of the last parliamentary elections,” says Abdel Fattah. “That 20 percent of the members of parliament are in the Brotherhood makes the government very worried. The extent of the Brotherhood’s reach within the workers’ movement is one of the real red lines of Egyptian politics.”

“Since 1922 Egyptian regimes have depended on control of a unified workers’ movement, and the new trend now is for the Brotherhood and opposition parties to build independent syndicates,” he continued. “This is the first time that Egyptian workers have presented these kinds of professional and political demands.”

“The Muslim Brotherhood is trying to extend its power within the system after its great successes in the 1980s in the professional syndicates, like the lawyers, engineers and medical syndicates. They have extended through the nerves of the middle class, and now they want to extend through other channels, through the worker syndicates and elections in the sports and social clubs.”

Waguih agrees, “The most important thing about this election is that the Muslim Brothers have decided to participate. Of course there have been Brotherhood union representatives and officials before, but this time the Brotherhood has decided to participate in a very big way.”

According to statements released by the Brotherhood, its members play prominent roles in roughly 1,700 of the more than 2,000 local unions that are governed by the basic union. The organization, which is officially banned, has decided to field candidates for 15 percent of the seats in the higher bureaucracies, but will participate in half of the races for the basic union. It also proudly notes that for the first time, it has nominated eight female candidates.

The Brotherhood complains that many of their candidates have been threatened or intimidated by security forces and that 520 of them have been denied permission to run, including almost 100 in Cairo alone.

“When the Muslim Brotherhood began to widely announce its participation, the Itihad was alarmed,” says Waguih. “The security forces were also alarmed because it looks like the Muslim Brotherhood is taking another step towards control of the institutions of society.”

Speaking to the Associated Press last week, Brotherhood member Mohamed Bishr tried to allay official concern over the possibility of Brotherhood involvement in the syndicate.

"There are unreasonable worries and fear,” he said, “They should know that our representation would be a very small thing compared to the seats the government is going to possess."

Workers Demand Changes to Election System, Fear Fraud

Workers Demand Changes to Election System, Fear Fraud


By Maram Mazen and Liam Stack
First Published: October 30, 2006

Workers Protest Election Laws, Demand Changes

CAIRO- Members of Workers for Change (WFC), an affiliate of the Egyptian Movement for Change (Kefaya), demanded judicial oversight in a demonstration at the High Court downtown yesterday.

Students and workers from local factories rallied at the buildings main entrance holding banners that said “No to fraudulent union elections, yes to judicial oversight”.

Inside the Court, WFC candidates for the upcoming elections to the Basic Union delivered a complaint to the Attorney General, Abdel Naguib Mahmoud, against Aisha Abdel Hady, the Minister of the Workforce.
They accuse her of abuses of power and demand changes to the way that representatives to the Basic Union are elected.

“This procedure is being manipulated so that a lot of workers who want to nominate themselves are prohibited from doing so,” Says Mustafa Nayed Ali, a candidate who is employed at the Iron & Steel Company in Helwan.

“In this round of elections more than 630 workers were barred from getting the necessary certificate.”
WFC is demanding full judicial oversight of the upcoming elections to the Basic Union, which begin on Nov. 5.
Such oversight, they say, is legal according to Article 41 of Law 35, passed in 1976. They also complain that workers on temporary contracts are being allowed to run in the elections, in violation of election guidelines, and that the process by which candidates are certified is too cumbersome and open to abuse and manipulation.

Currently, candidates in the Basic Union elections must first obtain written certification from their workplace, and then use this certification to apply for a second certificate from the General Union of Egyptian Labor, or El Itihad. WFC claims that El Itihad is controlled by the National Democratic Party led by President Mubarak.
Ali Badry, an employee at a Cairo bakery company, wants to run in the Basic Union elections but says he has been denied certification. “They want to control the Union because when Gamal Mubarak runs for president the NDP wants the president of the Itihad to say that he supports Gamal Mubarak on behalf of all the workers of Egypt”

Meanwhile, Mubarak on promised a constitutional amendment which would remove some restrictions on parties wishing to field candidates in presidential elections when he addressed a meeting of NDP members of parliament.

"A total change of the constitution is difficult but an amendment to certain articles is possible," he said.
"I thought about amending article 76 before you did, in order to strengthen parties," he said without elaborating on what the changes would be.

The article which was approved by referendum in May 2005, dictates that a legal party must control five percent of parliament to field a candidate in presidential elections. Independent candidates must be endorsed by 250 members of Egypt's representative bodies.

The constitutional amendment is expected to be discussed during the next parliamentary session, which is due to start on Nov. 8.

Going herbal, thanks to a little help from the Pharaohs

Going herbal, thanks to a little help from the Pharaohs

By Liam Stack
First Published: October 27, 2006

Ancient herbal remedies got the science right, say experts

CAIRO: Natural foods and medicines are all the rage in many European and North American cities, but, according to author Lise Manniche, the pharaohs were way ahead of the trend.

The Internet overflows with resources for an all-natural lifestyle, and any visit to your favorite search engine will showcase everything from tofu recipes to environmentally friendly dish soap. In her new book, “An Ancient Egyptian Herbal,” published by the American University in Cairo Press, Manniche shows that for the ancient Egyptians, herbal was not just a trend; it was a way of life. And according to some experts, they unwittingly got the science right.

The author’s research is wide-ranging, and although the book is relatively slim at a mere 180 pages, it provides a broad and in-depth look at the role of herbal products in the highly complex society of ancient Egypt.

Physical beauty was highly valued in the civilization that built the pyramids, and to help preserve it the ancients came up with a line of all-natural products that would make today’s cosmetic companies green with envy. Manniche writes that ancient Egyptians used carob, incense and porridge as a natural deodorant; chewed frankincense to freshen their breath; and even removed unsightly body hair with a fast-drying compress made of “boiled and crushed bones of a bird mixed with fly dung, oil, sycamore juice, gum, and cucumber.”

While fly dung may be the last ingredient that most of today’s savvy cosmetic shoppers want to read on the back of a makeup bottle, you have to give the ancient Egyptians credit for creativity.

The simplicity of the ancient Egyptian diet, the author added, was healthy despite its reliance on a few hearty staples such as bread and onions. “There were, however, many health hazards in ancient Egypt which not even a healthy diet could ward off: pollution caused by man himself, cramped living quarters, multiple use of water in canals and pools, and ignorance of the causes of contamination.”

Surprisingly, little has changed over the millennia.

This is especially true considering the Pharaonic roots of many of today’s popular herbal remedies. According to Dr. Mohamed Hussein, professor of biochemistry at Ain Shams University, the ancient Egyptians did not know it at the time, but there is a sound scientific basis for many of their most trusted remedies.

“Khufu the pharaoh used to order his workers to eat 10 bulbs of garlic a day or they would go to jail.” He says, “Later it was proven that garlic increases vitamin absorption and prevents hypertension and cardiac diseases. It has also been proven that garlic oil has anti-carcinogenic effects. It helps prevent cancer because it contains anti-oxidants which prevent the formation of some molecules that lead to the formation of cancer cells.”

Hussein has spent much of his career studying the benefits of natural remedies. Among his research contributions was a 1988 study on the uses of garlic and onion oils in the treatment of hypertension and heart disease, which are caused by high cholesterol.

“We were very successful,” he says. “Within 30 days the garlic and onion oil treatment worked in 100 percent of the test subjects, which were albino rats. We achieved cholesterol reduction to a healthy, normal level in all of our test subjects.”

According to Hussein, patients are better off taking herbal remedies than pharmaceutical drugs.
“Natural remedies work better in the long term without any serious side effects,” he says. “When you use artificial drugs, they work better in the short term but they can cause serious side effects like cancer or anemia.”

But most Cairenes still shy away from natural remedies, preferring the convenience of the local pharmacy and the quick fix promised by pharmaceuticals.

“If you had a disease, which would you choose?” he asks. “Most people are used to artificial drugs. Only sometimes here in Egypt, do people in the villages use herbal treatments and prefer them over artificial drugs because they have inherited the knowledge from the past.”

“In cities like Cairo it is hard to find herbal remedies. In the countryside people can just grow the ingredients they need, like garlic," he explains. "People in Cairo take the easy way, and just go to the pharmacy across the street. In the countryside people don’t know why these remedies work, they use them because they inherited them. It’s their culture.”

But Hussein is sure that there is room for compromise between artificial drugs and all-natural treatments.
“Some companies are working to use natural remedies in pharmaceutical products, as a kind of compromise,” he says, “Garlic pills, for hypertension, are one example of this. There are other pills that contain all-natural vitamin E for hair, nails and skin.”

Like Cairo itself, the world of medicine is big enough to hold both the urban trend toward ever-faster convenience and a rural attachment to the natural remedies of the ancient Egyptians. The Pharaoh Khufu would no doubt be pleased.