Liam Stack: An Archive of Published Work

CSM: Arab TV feels the pinch of new broadcast limits

2008-05-12T13:21:00.004+03:00

Arab TV feels the pinch of new broadcast limits

The Arab League has adopted new restrictions on satellite broadcasters warning them not to insult Arab leaders.

By Liam Stack Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
May 2, 2008

Cairo - Spread across the top of this city's crooked skyline like a field of mushrooms, satellite dishes absorb signals beamed from across the Arab world to send images of pop stars and politicians to the throngs of families living below.

Throughout the Middle East, where governments have long had a powerful grip on the media, satellite broadcasting serves as an important source of information – and entertainment – that has been beyond the traditional reach of the state censors.

But now, according to rights groups and media observers, Arab governments are slowly moving to extend their control of the media to satellite broadcasters, as well.

In February, the Arab League adopted the Satellite Broadcast Charter, a new package of tight guidelines for broadcasters, at the instigation of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which own two of the region's main satellites, Nilesat and Arabsat.

The document urges TV stations to "uphold the supreme interests of the Arab countries" and warns them "not to insult their leaders or national and religious symbols" or "insult social peace and national unity."

Weeks after adopting the charter, Egypt's Nilesat dropped Al Hiwar, a London-based network seen as sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's main opposition group. Following that, Egyptian police confiscated the transmission equipment of the Cairo News Company (CNC), a syndicate that news agencies such as Al Jazeera and the Associated Press rely on to broadcast their footage live from Egypt.

Nader Gohar, CNC director, says the government raided CNC in April because it blames it for images broadcast by Al Jazeera of protestors destroying portraits of President Hosni Mubarak during two days of food riots.

Although Mr. Gohar says that his company did not broadcast the images, and that Al Jazeera correspondents bypassed him and sent their footage directly to their Qatar headquarters from their satellite phones, he says a service provider such as CNC is an easier target than a major network.

"The government doesn't like what Al Jazeera says in their broadcasts, but at the same time it won't shut down their office," he says. "So they bother people like me because I give Jazeera the technical facilities they need to broadcast. It is an indirect way of limiting Al Jazeera's work."

Both the new charter and the seizure of transmission equipment from the CNC are part of the same repressive trend, says Lawrence Pintak, director of the Adham Center for Electronic Journalism at the American University in Cairo.

"It is all a symptom of the same reality, that this government and others in the region refuse to back away from the big brother mentality when it comes to the media," he says.

Egypt's media is freer than most in the Arab world. A number of independent newspapers and television channels have flourished here over the past several years, many of which were at their peak during a brief period of political openness that accompanied the 2005 presidential election.

President Mubarak handily won reelection in 2005, and his main challenger has languished in a prison cell ever since. As 2005 recedes further in to the past, the government has begun to move more aggressively against the press.

At the country's independent newspapers, editors, and journalists have been sentenced to jail for insulting the ruling party and speculating about the health of the country's leader, who turns 80 next month and has ruled Egypt for 27 years. Satellite broadcasters have started to feel the pinch, too.

Hussein Abdel Ghany, Cairo bureau chief for Al Jazeera, is concerned by the changing environment for satellite networks in the region, and in Egypt in particular. Al Jazeera was never consulted about the new guidelines issued in February, he says, but in particular he is "really worried about what is happening with our service provider," the CNC.

He calls the seizure of their equipment "a sneaky, indirect" way to attack freedom of the press.

"We rely on our cooperation with service providers, especially for covering live events," he says. "They are our only way to work here."

"If the government starts to close down service providers, or harass them to stop cooperating with independent media like Al Jazeera, the BBC, or the AP, then this is something that the international community and human rights groups that focus on freedom of speech should be paying attention to," he adds.

The state prosecutor has charged the CNC with violation of the 1960 Transmission Law, which gives the state-run Egyptian Radio and Television Union the sole right to transmit television signals out of the country. That law does not take into account the existence of technologies such as satellite broadcasting and the Internet.

The government has long promised to update the law, and will not renew the operating licenses of groups like the CNC until the law is changed.

Critics say the government has taken no action toward actually changing the law, and want to keep the media in a state of limbo.

"If you make a mistake the government will punish you for not having a license, but if you don't make any problems for them then you will be OK," says Gohar.

Critics say that those gray areas are the government's best weapon against the independent media.

Hussein Amin, the author of the Satellite Broadcast Charter, says that one of his goals for the document is to clarify those shades of gray. "Imagine you are walking in a dark room and someone turns on the lights," he says. "Censorship is that darkness and regulations are the lights."

He compares the guidelines to those of the Federal Communications Commission in the United States, and says it is meant to protect Arab youth from pornography, violence, and "hate campaigns" run by terrorist groups.

"It was obvious that some channels were really designed just to implement hate campaigns against Christians in general and Americans in particular."

He points to Al Zawra, a channel run by Sunni militants in Iraq that was pulled from both Nilesat and Arabsat last year.

Mr. Amin, who is chairman of the journalism department at the American University in Cairo and a member of the policy committee of the ruling party, which advises Mubarak, says critics of the document do not under "the difference between freedom and responsible freedom."

"People need to remember that this is not the United States or Europe," he says. "This is still authoritarianism. The government can ban any network they want if it is giving them a hard time. They can ban it. They are in control."

SF Chronicle: Cultural boycott partitions Egypt from Israel

2008-04-21T15:01:00.003+02:00

Cultural boycott partitions Egypt from Israel

CAIRO - Almost 30 years after Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David peace accords, the normalization of cultural ties is still mired in a cold war.

Since Egypt became the first Arab state to make peace with Israel, the two nations have exchanged ambassadors, cooperated on security issues and greatly increased trade. Yet for many Egyptians, the war has migrated to the cultural arena, including boycotts of Israeli artists and criticism of actors who work with their Israeli counterparts.

At the center of the normalization debate is the American University in Cairo, the most elite university in the Arab world and a stronghold of Egypt's secular ruling class of military officers and business leaders.

Last year, articles published in the local media that the university would hire Israeli professors and allow the entry of Israeli students provoked much campus outrage. Student activists organized protests, circulated petitions and organized opposition groups on Facebook, the popular social Web site. University administrators quickly intervened.

"Over the past several months rumors have circulated on campus and the local media that have had no basis in fact and may seek to harm the university and its reputation as an independent, apolitical institution," David Arnold, the university's president said in an e-mail to the student body. "These rumors are completely false and seek only to harm the university."

A boost to trade

Many Egyptian liberals favor cultural normalization with Israel. Some point to the financial benefits, while others stress the importance of dialogue in a region racked by conflict. A 2004 free trade pact more than doubled trade in its first 12 months from $58 million to $134 million, according to the Israeli Export Institute.

Yet cultural interactions are few, and those who travel or work with Israelis are harshly criticized.

Last year, Egyptian actor Amr Waked, who is best known for his role as a terrorist preparing young suicide bombers in "Syriana," was threatened with a lifetime ban from filming in Egypt by the nation's actors union. The union was angry that he had appeared opposite Israeli actor Yigal Naor in a 2007 BBC film called "Between Two Rivers" about the life of Saddam Hussein. The union eventually dropped the threat after Waked said he did not know an Israeli was involved and that the film criticized U.S. foreign policy.

The actor's union and other critics who reject any cultural exchange with Israel say it is a matter of standing up for Palestinian human rights.

"In this case, art must follow politics and not the other way around," said Rafiq el-Saaban, the organizer of the annual Cairo international film festival. "I can't accept the idea of having artistic relations with Israel before we have found a political solution to this crisis."

Envoys frustrated

Officials at Israel's heavily guarded embassy in Cairo say that even though the two countries have good political relations, they are frustrated by the cultural boycott. Tourism between the two nations has dropped significantly since the peace agreement and only a handful of Egyptian artists, writers and academics has traveled to the Jewish state.

"It has been 30 years since (President Anwar) Sadat came to Israel to break down the wall of ignorance and hate between our countries, and he was successful in certain respects," Israeli Embassy spokesman Shani Cooper-Zubida said. "But there are still some bricks in the wall that are still standing, and one of them is cultural relations."

High-ranking officials in Egypt agree that the cultural boycott has not reduced the strong political ties between the two nations.

"On the level of prime ministers and foreign ministers, there have been many exchanges between our countries, but you can draw a line between them and all the different groups in society that do not encourage any kind of cooperation with Israel in any way," said Hussein Amin, the chairman of the journalism department at the American University.

Amin says the human rights concerns that motivate the boycott are "respectable reasons," but are misguided. "You have to understand that the people, the public, do things with their feelings, not with their minds," he said.

But most critics disagree.

Ibrahim El Houdaiby, a prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood, says the boycott is all about politics.

"Cultural normalization will never happen as long as Palestinians are slaughtered and killed, and the whole world can see them being deprived of their human rights," said Houdaiby, an American University alumnus. "I am always in favor of dialogue, but you need a good atmosphere to have a healthy dialogue. You can't just kill people and then ask the survivors to have a dialogue."

Critical of Mubarak

Yasmeen Jawdat El Khoudary, a 17-year-old undergraduate at the American University from the Gaza Strip, says Israelis should not be allowed to study in Egypt until the occupation is over.

"My major reason for being opposed to normalization is that no one ever listens to the Palestinians," she said. "The occupation has taken every opportunity and right that we have, including the right to education."

For other critics of normalization, attacks on the Camp David accords are part of larger criticism of the autocratic government of President Hosni Mubarak, its close relationship with the United States and its embrace of free trade.

"Rumors always grow, develop and acquire dynamism in the absence of transparency," said Mahmoud El Lozy, an American University in Cairo drama professor and well-known critic of normalization. "If there were clear principles established, and people believed that policies would be based on those principles, then there would be no more rumors. The problem is that we are dealing with shifting grounds."

But among the university's students, there are those who disagree with the cultural boycott against Israel.

Passant Rabie, an American University senior supports normalization and wants to visit Israel someday.

"People here need to learn to differentiate more between Israel, Zionism and Jews," she said. "You can't just say that all Israelis automatically have Zionist beliefs, because that is like saying that all Arabs have terrorist tendencies. That's what we always accuse the West of saying about us."

This article appeared on page A - 6 of the San Francisco Chronicle

CSM: Amid violent riots, Egyptian elections fizzle

2008-04-21T14:56:00.004+02:00

Amid violent riots, Egyptian elections fizzle

The opposition Muslim Brotherhood, facing repression, failed to harness growing public discontent.

By Liam Stack Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
April 9, 2008

Cairo - Finally, after a two-year postponement, Egypt's polls opened Tuesday for municipal council elections. But hardly anyone came.

In Cairo's Manyal neighborhood, many residents said they did not realize there was an election. Among those who were aware, many said voting was useless, with candidates loyal to President Hosni Mubarak running unopposed in 90 percent of the races.

"I voted last time but this time I won't because I don't think it is going to be fair," says Hany, a young man who declined to give his last name. "It makes all of us feel like the government is only doing what it wants, and doesn't care about what we want."

The elections are being held at a time of burgeoning economic unrest and ongoing political repression. Public discontent with the regime is widespread, and opposition groups appear unable to successfully mobilize this growing dissent.

The weeks before Tuesday's vote were marked by a systemic campaign to block regime critics from running in the contest, which had been postponed since April 2006. At the center of the crackdown were the arrests over the past several weeks of 1,000 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's main opposition group.

The Brotherhood, which holds a fifth of parliament's seats, says it had planned to support 10,000 candidates for 52,000 posts on local councils at the town, city and province level across Egypt. But faced with intimidation and bureaucratic technicalities, fewer than two dozen managed to get their names on final election lists.

On Monday, the Brotherhood pulled their candidates from the race and called on Egyptians to boycott the vote, saying that it would not reflect the will of the Egyptian people.

"The regime has adopted a strategy to keep us from competing with them in elections – they decided they would start arresting people, detaining people, and trying some of them in front of military courts," says Mohamed Habib, the group's deputy leader. "They want to have the security apparatus control the whole country, and put the Brotherhood on the sidelines of political life so it can not be an active participant in it."

The government also tried, through state-run media, to intimidate prospective participants in a general strike called by secular opposition groups over the weekend. In the first major attempt by opposition groups and intellectuals to coordinate actions with labor activists, the strike was planned to coincide with a worker's strike at the state-run Misr Spinning and Weaving Company in Mahalla. The factory is the largest public-sector firm in the Middle East and a national icon.

But both strikes were thwarted by a combination of worker infighting and a crackdown by state security, which arrested 150 labor leaders early Sunday morning. Protests erupted in Mahalla late that afternoon when townspeople, including a large number of women and children, gathered in the main square to protest the morning arrests as well as a skyrocketing inflation rate, which has nearly doubled the price of many staple foods in the last three months. Nearly 40 percent of Egypt's 80 million people live at or near the poverty line of $2 a day.

The protest turned violent when thugs hired by security services, called baltageyya, began pelting demonstrators with stones, according to witnesses.

"One minute there was nothing, and then suddenly there were big crowds of people and state security officers and baltageyya," says Joel Beinin, a labor historian and professor of Middle East Studies at the American University in Cairo, who was present at the Mahalla demonstrations.

"The baltageyya started throwing rocks very carefully, like they were firing volleys. They aimed very high so they would arc up and then fall on people's heads."

According to Ahmed Seif, Director of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, rioting spread across the city as police pursued demonstrators from neighborhood to neighborhood firing tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, and live rounds of ammunition. Protesters responded with stones, bricks and Molotov cocktails.

Monday afternoon saw new clashes when a crowd of young men tore down a large portrait of President Mubarak in the city's main square. Demonstrators also burned banks, schools, buses and shops. Estimates of those injured in the violence range from 80 to more than 150. Local media reported up to five killed.

"Workers and people from the town came out in to the streets all around the factory without any organization, breaking things and setting them on fire," says Syed Habib, a Mahalla labor organizer reached by phone after the riots. "Everything has come to a standstill. The only thing working now is the factory."

Observers say the outburst of violence in an iconic factory town, as well as the inability of opposition movements to organize a strike, demonstrates both the disorganization of the Egyptian opposition and the deep frustration felt by many Egyptians across the boundaries of social class.

"The regime knew it could not let a general strike happen and that any movement that came from the working classes as well as [the] intellectual [classes] is not a good sign for them," says Mr. Beinin. "The regime reacted very, very strongly, judging correctly that this was a potentially very serious challenge to them," he added. "But what happened surely indicates that opposition movements are very disorganized."

CSM: Egypt targets Muslim Brotherhood moderates

2008-04-21T14:50:00.003+02:00

Egypt targets Muslim Brotherhood moderates

President Hosni Mubarak's regime is clamping down on the banned opposition group ahead of next month's local elections.

By Liam Stack Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
March 26, 2008

Cairo - Hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood members waited under the hot spring sun on the Hikestep Army Base near Cairo on Tuesday to hear the verdict against 40 other influential members on trial for participating in the banned opposition movement.

Many traveled from far away provinces to hear the decision, only to be told that the verdict was being delayed – again.

It was a repeat of a similar scene in February, when around 1,000 Brotherhood members holding banners, photographs of the defendants, and copies of the Koran filled the parking lot of the base, only to be told then that the decision was postponed.

Members of the opposition group, human rights activists, and other reform advocates here see the 14-month-old military trial as part of the government's ongoing crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood to diminish its political prospects ahead of next month's polls in which more than 10,000 local council seats are up for grabs. They say the trial has targeted key moderates in the movement, as well as important financiers, in an attempt to push it further to the margins of Egyptian public life.

"The fact that they keep delaying the verdict means that this case is purely political and there are no actual, serious charges," says Mohamed Habib, deputy leader of the Brotherhood, who himself was sentenced to five years in prison by a military court in 1995 for membership in a banned group. "The regime is mainly interested in keeping pressure on the Brotherhood to prevent us from taking any action."

Detained, intimidated, on the run

More than 800 Brotherhood members who have been involved in campaigns for local council seats have been detained in recent months and many of its prominent members have gone into hiding around the country.

Thousands of aspiring Brotherhood candidates have been barred from filing their paperwork by a mix of bureaucratic trickery and violence, says Mr. Habib, who estimates that the group will not be able to field more than 15 candidates in next month's race.

While the Muslim Brotherhood is officially banned in Egypt, its members run in elections as independents. In parliamentary elections in 2005, the group stunned President Hosni Mubarak's regime by winning one-fifth of the seats in the country's People's Assembly.

The group renounced violence in the 1970s and focused on establishing a vast network of charitable activities for the country's poor, such as schools, clinics, and youth centers.

In recent years, it has emerged as a major advocate of democratic reform in Egypt, coupling calls for elections with its longstanding arguments for Islamic law.

Brotherhood members and outside observers say the crackdown has weakened the influence of the movement's moderates and empowered its more conservative ideological elements.

Ibrahim El Houdaiby, an editor of IkhwanWeb, the group's English-language website, says the government is cracking down on moderate Islamists because they are more willing to engage with the international community and to work across party lines with opposition groups of different ideological stripes.

He points to the recent arrest of a senior IkhwanWeb editor, Khaled Hamza, who was detained on a busy street just hours after meeting with visitors from an international human rights group.
Moderates increasingly targeted

"People with a greater ability to reach out to those with different ideologies and backgrounds, like secular opposition groups in Egypt and the international community, are at a higher risk of being detained," he said.

That view is shared by Zahraa El Shater, the daughter of Khairat El Shater, the movement's No. 3 leader and a lead defendant in the case.

Ms. El Shater says it will take "a miracle" for her father and her husband, Ayman Abdel Ghani, who is also on trial, to be released.

If the regime wanted to give them a fair trial, she says, it would abide by the multiple acquittals they received in civilian courts.

Instead, she thinks the regime wants to punish the men for their moderate views and openness to the West.

"My father was taken because he was moderate and liked to open dialogue with Western people, with American people," she says. "The government here hates that. It does not want the Muslim Brotherhood to talk to Western people.

The imprisonment of Mr. El Shater and other moderates has had "a tremendous effect on the internal workings of the group" by upsetting the balance between pragmatists and conservatives, says Joshua Stacher, a fellow at Syracuse University who specializes in Middle Eastern politics.

This case is the first time the government has gone after the finances of Brotherhood members, says Samer Shehata, a professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University.

That is significant, he says, because it strikes a blow at the charitable activities that draw in many of its supporters, and also sends a warning to the movement's donors.

"If the government goes after its funding, then this stops the money used to fund these activities," says Shehata. "Now the government is not only jailing people, but also threatening their families' well-being."

CSM: U.S., Egypt disagree over Suez shooting, fueling suspicion

2008-04-21T14:45:00.002+02:00

U.S., Egypt disagree over Suez shooting, fueling suspicion

A US Navy-chartered cargo ship fired on a small Egyptian boat Monday night. Egypt says at least one man was killed, while the US initially reported no casualties.

By Liam Stack Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
March 26, 2008

Cairo - Egypt and the United States issued conflicting accounts Tuesday of a shooting incident involving a US cargo ship and a small boat in the Suez Canal, feeding into the deep distrust here of American motives in the Middle East.

The Global Patriot, which was under short-term charter to the Navy's Military Sealift Command, entered the canal from the Red Sea after dark Monday, when it was approached by several small boats, US and Egyptian officials say.

According to the Egyptian government and local reports, the vessel opened fire on one of the motorboats as it transited through the canal, killing an Egyptian man and injuring two others.

Two men on the boat were injured and one man, identified as Mohamed Moqtar Afifi by Agence France-Presse, was killed.

The US Navy has been particularly alert to the activities of such small boats near its warships since Al Qaeda's 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole in Yemen killed 17 sailors.

"The Americans come to the Middle East and deal with everyone like they are Al Qaeda," says Essam el-Erian, a prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's most influential opposition group. He says that it is "well known in the area that these people sail beside big ships and sell things."

"It is terrible to kill poor people like this without any warning and it reflects the foolish American policy of treating everyone like an enemy," he said.

But US officials say preliminary reports from the ship indicate there were no casualties.

According to the US Embassy in Cairo, the small boats approaching the ship were warned to move away from the vessel by an Arabic speaker on a bullhorn. The ship then fired "a warning flare" at one boat that did not change its course.

"One small boat continued to approach the ship and received two sets of warning shots 20 to 30 yards in front of the bow," reads the statement. "All shots were accounted for as they entered the water."

The motorboats in the Suez Canal incident are believed by many Egyptians to have belonged to mamboutis, local vendors who peddle simple goods such as cigarettes, tea, and snacks to ships passing through the canal.

Pending the results of an investigation, there has been no ready explanation for why the American account is so different from the one reported in the Egyptian local and state-run media.

Nabil Abdel Fattah, the deputy director of the Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, also attributed the incident to an American "obsession" with terrorists.

"The American soldiers who come to the Middle East see a threat in everything," he said. "They think so much about terrorist groups, Al Qaeda, nationalist groups. There are many phantoms and obsessions in their minds.

"Egyptians are angry," he added. "There are many nonviolent ways that the American soldiers could get these people away, who were just trying to sell them some simple goods."

Al Jazeera English: Iraqis in Cairo struggle to rebuild

2008-04-21T14:41:00.002+02:00

Iraqis in Cairo struggle to rebuild

By Liam Stack in Cairo

An Iraqi woman waits for a bus bound for Syria. Many Iraqis are still trying to flee to Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon [AFP]Azhar Adnan turns his hands restlessly in his lap as he talks about his fall from middle-class comfort in Baghdad to poverty and instability in Cairo.

Once a political prisoner during Saddam Hussein's rule, Adnan, a secular Shia, took a job in the Ministry of Finance in the months after the US invasion in 2003.

When the country's reconstruction began to falter and the power of rival insurgent factions grew, he said he and others like him began to receive threats from all sides.

"Al-Qaeda sent me a threatening letter because I worked in the ministry," he said. "Everyone who worked there was targeted."

Secularists targeted

The Iraqi refugee crisis since 2003
But Adnan was also persecuted for his religious lifestye.

"The Mahdi Army considered me an atheist because I am secular. They said I did not believe in God so I should be killed," he told Al Jazeera.

"Then they called and said they were going to come and kill me."

The deaths threats prompted Adnan and his family to leave Iraq and come to Cairo.

He has lived here since 2006 as a refugee with his wife, uncle and two cousins in Sixth of October City, a sprawling suburb that is home to many Iraqi refugees.

Cairo is one of the largest urban refugee centers in the world, and has for decades hosted people fleeing violence or persecution in the Horn of Africa and the occupied Palestinian territories.

No rights in Cairo

The UN estimates violence has displaced another two million within Iraq itself [EPA] The Egyptian government estimates that about 100,000 to 150,000 displaced Iraqis have settled in the country.

The number is small compared to Jordan and Syria, which together host more than 2 million, but many Iraqis who live in Cairo, including Adnan and his family, migrated in 2006 after Jordan stopped accepting refugees.

Others chose Egypt because of its relatively low cost of living, though restrictions imposed last January have since curbed their entry.

Egypt does not grant Iraqi refugees resident status and does not encourage them to put down roots here.

Iraqi children are not allowed to attend public school, say refugee rights advocates, and their parents cannot legally work. Researchers say that leaves them vulnerable to exploitative work in the informal economy and puts them at a greater risk of poverty and disease.

Adnan said he lives hand-to-mouth in Cairo. Without a steady income, his family cannot afford suitable health care or even buy medicine or leg braces for his wife, who suffers from polio.

"Life here is very hard," he said. "Our biggest problem is that there is no way for me to work. We live off our savings and my uncle's pension, but it is hardly enough."

Moving beyond anecdotes

Researchers say that problems like Adnan's are common among Iraqi refugees in Cairo, but that it is hard to grasp the bigger picture of the community's situation.

"We know almost nothing about Iraqi refugees in Egypt," said Phillippe Fargues, chairman of the Department of Forced Migration and Refugee Studies (FMRS) at the American University in Cairo (AUC).

Of the more than 100,000 Iraqis estimated to be living in Egypt, fewer than 10,000 have registered with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Fargues added.

Furthermore, these government estimates are based on the number of Iraqis who have entered the country since 2006 at Cairo Airport, which Fargues said is an inadequate measure. "People move back and forth and we have no way to estimate that."

AUC will conduct the first census of Iraqi refugees in Cairo this spring. It will focus on refugees' social class and family structure, religious sect, personal history, the problems they have faced in Egypt and their plans for the future.

"We need to know the size of the community and the magnitude of the problems they encounter before we can have policies to solve their problems," Fargues said.

"Personal stories and rumors do not give an accurate picture, especially from a policy-making point of view."

But for now, personal stories and rumors provide the only picture of Iraqi life in Egypt's teeming capital.

Distrust and disorganisation

But Mike Kagan, a professor of international law at AUC, says local government treatment of Iraqis and the sectarian divisions among the refugees themselves have stunted the growth of Iraqi organisations.

"Other refugee communities have a much longer history in the country, and international organisations and aid workers get to know them through their community leadership," he said.

"Iraqi refugees are harder to get to know because there is little internal organisation, largely due to government pressure and distrust among Iraqis."

"The question is, is there an Iraqi community, or are they many Iraqi communities?"

Hassanein, a refugee who asked to be identified only by his first name, understands all too well the deep unease that many Iraqi refugees feel around each other.

After fleeing the violence of their homeland, often leaving loved ones behind, the displaced find it hard to trust one other again, he said.

Sensitive subjects

Distrust and violence back home means Iraqis abroad have little community assistance [EPA]Hassanein came to Egypt a year ago, after militants in his neighbourhood discovered that he had a job with a US firm inside the Green Zone. Gunmen opened fire on his car as he drove home from the barber shop one day, only a week after his wedding.

He narrowly escaped, but said he "knew that Iraq was no longer the place for me".

He and his wife came to Egypt, where their son was born. But it was impossible to support all three of them in Cairo without a steady income, so after several months his wife and child returned to live with family in Baghdad.

Concerned about their safety, he is always careful when talking with other refugees about his reasons for fleeing.

"If you have some money or have ever worked with the Americans, then you don't want anyone back in Iraq to know that," he said. "People here can't tell each other their stories easily."

"I still have family in Iraq, so I don't trust anyone. I feel like I can't talk to any Iraqis about my life."

"I would never join any Iraqi organisation here. I don't think anyone else would either."

Guardian Weekly: Rough Justice for Egypt's Brotherhood

2008-04-21T14:25:00.007+02:00

Rough Justice for Egypt's Brotherhood

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is the country’s most popular political movement, despite a 1954 ban. It won one-fifth of the seats in the People’s Assembly in 2005, becoming the largest opposition bloc in Egypt’s history. Stunned by their success, the regime has come down hard on political opponents. Zahraa El Shater is the daughter of Khairat El Shater, the Brotherhood’s third-highest ranking member; her husband, Ayman Abdel Ghani, is a member too. Both men are standing trial at a special military tribunal, where the verdict has been postponed until late March. Meanwhile Zahraa struggles to explain the world to her four children and to keep them focused on a peaceful future

My husband has been arrested four times since we got married. They take him away every time there is an election.

Everyone was happy when the Muslim Brotherhood won the elections in 2005. I was happy too, of course, but I was also upset; I knew that they would come and arrest my husband. And that is exactly what happened. They took him away for six months.

We were all in the car when they took him. We had moved house and the police didn’t have our new address, so they were looking for him in the streets. We had just collected the children from school when suddenly there were officers jumping on the car, screaming: "Stop trying to escape!" My husband wasn’t trying to escape; he hadn’t even known that they wanted him. If he had he would have gone to see the prosecutor by himself.

The officers pulled him out of the car in a very violent way. My children were screaming: "They are trying to kill my father! No, don’t kill him!" One of the officers was crying as he did it. (Afterwards, many of them asked me to forgive them. They said that they were just following orders. They went and bought sweets for my children.)

The officer in charge insisted on taking me and the children with them to the State Security station. My husband said to them: "Let her take the children and go; she knows how to drive. I am the one you want. Let her leave." But they refused. My husband asked them to let us go in the same car so the soldiers would not do bad things to me, but the officer made us go in different cars.

All of my children were crying and screaming, and my husband started to shout to passers-by in the street. It was 3pm and there were a lot of people around. They were gathering to see what was happening. My husband gave people my father’s phone number and asked them to call it. He was afraid that no one would know what had happened to us. The police didn't want anyone to know, so they beat him harder.

The police usually arrest members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the middle of the night when everyone’s asleep. The first thing they do when they attack a house is take out all the phone wires so the inhabitants can’t call anyone.

When they brought us to the State Security station they kept my children and me inside our car in a big garage for seven or eight hours. My children were shocked and scared and have not been the same since. My son soiled himself out of fright and since then has had the same problem when he is sleeping.

They kept asking me questions: "Why did they take him this way? What did he do?" I had to try to calm them down, but I needed someone to calm me down too. I couldn't really do anything for them because I was too upset.

When we left I asked the officer to please give me back my mobile phone – and he did. This was very kind of him. I think he was upset as well. He was a human being and thought what was happening was wrong.

When they let us out I called my father. No one knew that we had been taken from the street. He sent a friend to come and collect us because I was too shocked to drive.

My husband spent six or seven months in jail. After that he was free for only three months before the police came back to arrest him. I was so surprised; we weren’t expecting them to come back. We were planning to go to Mecca to make our pilgrimage a week later, but of course we couldn’t.

Then my father was arrested. I never thought they would arrest him; he’s a very moderate and diplomatic member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Also, it's unusual for the Supreme Guide or his deputies to be arrested, and this was the first time it had happened. It was a big shock.

It was 3am when I heard the phone ringing. I was scared something bad had happened so I tried to ignore it. I said to myself: "OK, just keep sleeping."

A minute later there was loud knocking at the door, but my husband did not wake up. I wasn't veiled, so I ran to the door to say: "Wait, please let me get veiled." My younger brother Saad was with them on the other side. I asked him what was happening and he said: "It’s State Security. They’re here."

When I opened the door my husband asked: "Why me? I have only been out for three months. I haven’t had a chance to do anything new." The police officer said: "Show me where you keep all your books and papers." But they had taken everything the last time they came and we had nothing for them to see. It had only been three months. We didn’t have time to buy anything new.

When my children woke up and discovered their father been taken again, and their grandfather, they were shocked. In the Muslim Brotherhood, we try to bring up our children with peaceful values. We want them to live in a good way. But now my oldest daughter Sara – she is 10 – asks me dangerous questions. She says things like: "You are so weak. You couldn’t defend our father. Isn’t he a strong man? He should not allow them to take him so easily every time. You are weak people."

It is astonishing to my children that their father should be taken if he is a good man. I try to explain to Sara how things are, but she does not understand. I told her: "Your father and grandfather are good people, but the problem is this government."

She asked me once: "If they put good people in prison and let bad people go free, then why should we be good people?" I explained it to her from an Islamic point of view. I told her that in order to make our community a good community we should be patient and try to be good people. We have to make sacrifices and do the right thing.

My children have begun to understand that we are living in a mess and I’m afraid that they will learn bad values from it. I try to tell them that their father is political prisoner, not a criminal. In Arabic, I tell them that he is mo’ataqal, a detainee; not masgoon, which means prisoner. I tell them there is a special kind of prison that is not for bad people, that sometimes good people can become mo’ataqal.

Every now and then I bring my children with me to protest against the trial. But it just convinces them that peaceful ways don’t work. Now, when we go to demonstrations, my children say to me: "Nobody hears you, nobody is listening to you." Knowing that my children think this way makes me afraid.

The Muslim Brotherhood wants to change society in a peaceful way, not in a violent way. But I am convinced that pressure produces pressure. If the government is violent there will be violence in society. What the government is doing makes a lot of young people feel upset and that the peaceful ways are useless.

If my husband and father were found guilty by a civilian court it would mean they had done bad things and I would not try to defend them. But to watch them go to jail when they haven’t done anything wrong, when they were found innocent by [three separate] civilian courts? The government thinks that the Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t deserve to have justice. Criminals in Egypt have justice, and we deserve it too.

• Zahraa El Shater was talking to Liam Stack in Cairo.

Al Jazeera English - Interview: Cindy Sheehan

2008-04-21T14:15:00.006+02:00

Interview: Cindy Sheehan

By Liam Stack in Cairo

Cindy Sheehan is in Cairo to protest the Egyptian government's decision to try members of the Muslim Brotherhood in a military court
Cindy Sheehan, an American activist who was nicknamed the "Peace Mom" by the media for her criticism of the Iraq War, retreated from her public campaigns in 2007.

The death of her son Casey, a US soldier, in a Baghdad battle in 2005 had transformed Sheehan into a public figure in the US.

But she resurfaced in Cairo last week as a member of a delegation from the Muslim American Society which is in Egypt to protest against the military trial of 40 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood.

She spoke to Al Jazeera about her journey from peace activist to Congressional candidate, her thoughts on Iraq and her experiences in Egypt.

Al Jazeera: You first became famous for your protests against the Iraq war in August 2005, but you have not been an active anti-war figure for a while now. What happened?

Sheehan says she wants to put impeachment of George Bush back on the agenda [GETTY]Sheehan: In May 2007, I decided to quit actually being the face of the anti-war movement in America. I quit and I have not gone back to that. When I left the movement I was broke, I was tired, I was sick – literally sick and in pain.

I wanted to just totally be out of the political realm and not have anything to do with it. The establishment that runs our country just disgusted me and I was tired of it. It is very corrupt and I definitely saw that when I was focusing on anti-war activism.

The leaders of both parties work together to keep normal people out of the process. In many ways the Democratic leadership, especially in Congress, has been complicit with George Bush, the US president, in his crimes against humanity.

How can [Democratic Speaker of the House] Nancy Pelosi say unequivocally that water-boarding is torture and that Bush and [Richard] Cheney, the US vice-president, should not only be impeached but they should be charged with war crimes when in 2002 she herself was briefed on water-boarding and shown video of the rendition places where water-boarding happened?

Impeaching George Bush was a popular demand among liberal Americans at one time, but very few people talk about it anymore. Is that what turned you into an activist again?

When George Bush commuted [vice-presidential aide] Scooter Libby's sentence, the Democrats in Congress didn't do anything about it. When the Administration said they would not cooperate with subpoenas against [presidential aide] Harriet Myers, the democrats didn't do anything about it.

That's what pulled me back into activism. I thought how can they do that? How can they say 'I'm just not going to come to your stupid trial,’ and no one will say anything about it?

When the Democrats took impeachment off the table, I decided enough was enough. On July 23, 2007, I officially announced that I was running for Congress against Nancy Pelosi.

Why the focus on Nancy Pelosi?

I don't think politicians who make political decisions necessarily think about how they are going to affect people and their families. I decided if Nancy Pelosi wasn't going to put impeachment on the table then I would run against her.

You can't take any part of the Constitution off the table, even though they have rendered it almost meaningless between George Bush and Karl Rove. Since they came to power they have institutionalised torture and spying against Americans.

They have passed the Military Commissions Act and just done away with habeas corpus. They have practically rendered it meaningless. That is why I decided to challenge Pelosi for her seat. I always say if you want change you have to vote out the enablers, and Pelosi is the biggest enabler there is.

If your new focus is on unseating Nancy Pelosi, what are you doing in Egypt?

My anti-war work evolved into work for global human rights because I saw the problem was much deeper than just George Bush.

It's about militarism and violence, globalisation and free trade.

I decided I wanted to do human rights work on behalf of people around the world who have been harmed by US imperialism.

Part of why I am here, also, is to draw attention to the parallels between the military courts here and the same kinds of courts that are being used to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay by the US.
If this becomes the standard for the world, and there is no international outcry, then everyone is in big trouble.

But what does the US have to do with a military trial in Egypt?

Egypt is a major recipient of US foreign aid, and there is no relationship between American aid and human rights.

If we [America] really want to promote democracy in this region then we cannot silence the voices of the Muslim Brotherhood because they're the moderate voice here and they are the ones who are actually working for democracy.

Do you think your presence in Egypt will have an effect on the trial?

Well, we have been doing a lot of media work since we came to Egypt and we hope this will put pressure on the Egyptian government to treat the prisoners better and to also maybe alleviate their punishment.

Hopefully we will draw some international attention to what is happening here, too, and that will help the situation.

You also went to the National Council of Women in downtown Cairo to request a meeting with Suzanne Mubarak, Egypt's First Lady. How did that go?

I didn't really understand a lot of what was going on. There was a lot of yelling in Arabic. They weren't the right people to get us a meeting with Suzanne Mubarak ... I left a letter for Madame Mubarak and they promised that she would see it.

We thought it was important to go there because there are women and children who are being harmed by having their fathers and husbands detained, so I wanted to talk to Suzanne, mother to mother.

We brought along mothers and wives of the detainees and they were actually able to file complaints, and it was really great.

Have you spoken to many of the families of the defendants in the military trial? Have you spoken to many female members of the Brotherhood mother-to-mother?

My conversations with the mothers and children of the detainees have been really emotional. They told me about the hardships [the arrests and trials] have placed on their families, from financial hardships to emotional and physical hardships.

It is very emotional for me because my family has gone through the same things since my son died. It has been really hard for us.

People always say to me, 'Cindy, why do you always make everything personal?'.

But in the end, everything affects people, whether it's war or economics or human rights violations. I don't think politicians who make political decisions necessarily think about how they are going to affect people and their families.

That is why when I meet people who have been harmed by the policies of their own countries, or the policies of my country, it just makes me resolved to work harder to make the world a better place.

SF Chronicle: Egypt working to reclaim the desert

2008-01-04T23:37:00.000+02:00

Egypt working to reclaim the desert
Remote areas grow crops, but some say they are ignored

Liam Stack, Chronicle Foreign Service
Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Abu Minqar, Egypt -- This remote Sahara oasis on the edge of the Great Sand Sea is far from the noise, pollution and crowded throngs of the fertile Nile Valley. In fact, its 4,000 residents call it "the farthest place from Egypt."

Abu Minqar, 404 miles southwest of Cairo, had previously been a bleak moonscape before the government began drilling for water in 1987 in the vast Nubian Sandstone Aquifer. Now, this area is a green stretch of wheat fields and lemon trees.

"Here, we are free," said longtime resident Magdy Mubaraz Ibrahim. "We can plant whatever we want and do whatever we want."

Reclaiming Egypt's desert lands, which cover about 96 percent of the nation's territory, has been a major government objective for more than 50 years.

Successive presidents have said reclamation is a key component in countering not only urban crowding - the population grows by 1.5 million annually - but high unemployment. The official unemployment rate is 10 percent, but many believe it is twice that amount. Currently, 98 percent of Egypt's 78 million inhabitants live in the densely populated Nile River Valley or along the Mediterranean Sea.

But in the past five decades, development experts estimate that as many as 2 million people have moved to reclaimed lands in the Sinai and Sahara deserts. Such desert plots now account for almost 25 percent of Egypt's 8 million acres under cultivation, these same experts say.

President Hosni Mubarak has allocated an estimated $70 billion to reclaim some 27 million acres by 2017. Under his plan, the government offers land to peasants, small-business investors and even university graduates who can't find a decent-paying job in the cities.

At Abu Minqar, the state provides each family with a house and 2 1/2 to 6 acres, for which they pay $35 to $52 annually for as many as 30 years. The oasis consists of two-room cement homes, roads and gravel paths, electricity lines and a rough network of canals that irrigate area crops.

But in spite of its success in lessening pressure on urban areas, state reclamation projects have experienced the same difficulties associated with cities and towns across Egypt, observers say.

The reclamation project "is a way to push the country's problems into the desert," said Jessica Pouchet, a researcher at the American University's Desert Development Center in Cairo.

Abu Minqar residents say the mayor does little, the state-run farmer's cooperative store is poorly stocked and the most significant state presence - the State Agricultural Bank - hordes fertilizer to create a black market. The bankers then sell it to outside interests who sell it back to villagers for two to three times the normal price.

"There is no one to complain to about our problems," said Ali Yassin Marai, a bean and wheat farmer.

Moreover, water experts fear the repercussions once the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer, which Egypt shares with Sudan, Libya and Chad, goes dry.

"The real problem is uncertainty," said Rick Tutwiler, director of the Desert Development Center, who has spent several years working on desert irrigation projects in Egypt. "No one knows how much water is even in the aquifer, let alone how fast it is being drained."

Residents also say the state has failed to build cement-lined canals, causing irrigation water to be absorbed by canal walls or evaporated under the desert sun. Electricity is available only a few hours a night, and no adequate health clinics or secondary schools exist. To treat a major illness or attend high school, villagers must travel hundreds of miles on rocky desert roads.

Marai, who moved to Abu Minqar with his family from the Cairo suburb of Giza as a child in 1987, says the central government has forgotten its Sahara transplants.

"Abu Minqar is far from the eyes of the government," he said. "They don't pay attention to us."

Yehia Ibrahim, a spokesman for the Ministry of Local Administration, which oversees in the delivery of services to desert towns and villages, says the government is well aware of the problems in Abu Minqar and other reclaimed desert areas.

"The ministry has 840 million Egyptian pounds ($146 million) for development, but it has to be done step-by-step. People have to be patient."

Moreover, the State Agricultural Bank does distribute some fertilizer at low prices and, more importantly, purchases area crops. Without such support, farmers in this remote spot would find it difficult to sell wheat - the area's main cash crop - to distant cities and towns.

But that is little consolation for most residents here, who finally banded together in September to form an independent association that helps them pay for such necessities as heavy machinery to keep the canals clean or medicine to keep their livestock healthy.

"We have a lot of problems here, and if we work together we can solve some of them," said Ibrahim, who now heads the farmer group.

At the Desert Development Center in Cairo, researcher Tina Jaskolski says the farmers' association is a healthy sign that oasis residents plan to make their own future.

"A lot of people are saying 'forget the government, we have to do this by ourselves,' " said Jaskolski, who has spent more than a year working in Abu Minqar.

"These people all moved to make a new life for themselves, and they have kind of a frontier mentality," she added. "I think that the will to make it work is a big part of what does make it work."

This article appeared on page A - 14 of the San Francisco Chronicle

The Forward: Decades After Camp David, Resistance to Normalization Endures in Egypt

2008-01-04T22:43:00.000+02:00

Decades After Camp David, Resistance to Normalization Endures in Egypt

By Liam Stack
Wed. Dec 19, 2007

Cairo, Egypt - The American University in Cairo is a neatly landscaped stronghold of Egypt’s ruling elite, the alma mater of the wife and children of the country’s autocratic and deeply unpopular president, Hosni Mubarak. As a symbol of the ruling class and its close ties to the United States, the university has long been the focus of rumors and popular unease in this bustling city of 18 million.

In the past few months, the unease reached a crescendo amid a heated debate on campus and in the local media about rumored university plans to launch academic exchanges with Israeli universities. According to campus gossip, the university was looking at a secret plan that would allow Israelis to come to the university to study and teach.

On Facebook, the popular social networking site, students organized a group opposed to any “normalization” of ties between their school and the Jewish state that attracted more than 900 members.

Students on the Facebook group called for “a strict boycott against Israeli academics” and urged the university to “act on its good judgment and refrain from any dealings with Israeli academic institutions.”

The quick opposition that formed on campus underscores the fact that, almost 30 years after Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David Peace Accords, cultural normalization with the Jewish state, through academic or artistic exchanges, is still a touchy subject. The university administrators acknowledged this by quickly and assertively denying the rumors.

“Over the past several months, rumors have circulated on campus — and have also been reported in the local media — that have had no basis in fact and may seek to harm the university and its reputation as an independent, apolitical institution,” said AUC President David Arnold in an e-mail message sent to the university community November 11.

University provost Tim Sullivan was blunt when asked about possible cooperation with Israel.

“There are no agreements with Israeli universities,” Sullivan told the Forward. “We don’t have any now, nor are we contemplating any. And David Arnold never said we were.”

Even after these denials, though, many students are skeptical.

“I think the rumors are true,” says Yasmeen Jawdat El Khoudary, a 17-year-old undergraduate from Gaza. “It’s not a lie. As we say in Palestine, there is no smoke without fire. If these things weren’t happening, then why would people be talking about them?”

El Khoudary says that her opposition to normalization is based on her childhood in Israeli-occupied Gaza.

The peace between Egypt and Israel is often described as a cold one, but that does not mean the two countries ignore each other. Since the peace treaty between them was signed in 1979, they have exchanged ambassadors and cooperated on a number of security issues in the Sinai Peninsula. Israeli diplomats in Cairo say that their ties with Egypt are strong and that they meet with officials at the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs every other day.

There is a significant economic component to the Egyptian-Israeli relationship, as well, and it becomes more significant every year. Cross-border trade has more than tripled since Egypt and Israel signed a limited free-trade deal in 2004.

Despite three decades of negotiation, cooperation and trade, many people here act like the conflict never ended. Ibrahim El Houdaiby, a prominent Muslim Brotherhood member and the tech-savvy editor of the organization’s English-language Web site, says that the cultural boycott is all about politics.

“Cultural normalization will never happen as long as Palestinians are slaughtered and killed, and the whole world can see them being deprived of their human rights,” said Houdaiby, who is an alumnus of the AUC.

For many Egyptian intellectuals, the battle migrated to the country’s cinemas and coffee shops and to the campus of the AUC, which is a stone’s throw from the Nile and from crowded Liberation Square. Many Egyptian liberals from the country’s ruling class favor cultural normalization and economic ties with Israel. Some point to the financial perks of working with Israel, while others stress the importance of dialogue in a part of the world wracked by conflict.

Those who work with Israelis can face severe criticism and potential ostracism in Egypt. This fall, the actors’ union investigated Egyptian actor Amr Waked, best known in America for his role in “Syriana,” after he appeared in a BBC film opposite an Israeli co-star.

The union dismissed the case against Waked, but the furor the actor provoked reveals the degree to which most of Egypt’s intelligentsia still regards Israel with suspicion. It is a hostility that cuts across the political spectrum, from artists and actors to members of the powerful Muslim Brotherhood.

Mahmoud El Lozy, an AUC theater professor and a well-known critic of normalization, is typical of many elite members of the Egyptian left who reject normalization. A highly educated playwright, he laments life in Egypt under the Mubarak regime with a posh British accent.

Israel is “the enemy,” he said, and cooperation and business ties with Israel are just one of the many insults brought to the country by the autocratic Mubarak regime. “People who support normalization are just a bunch of bend-over Egyptians who support globalization and the rape of the country,” he said.
University administrators privately blame the controversy on the popularity of conspiracy theories in Egypt, which are influential in forming many people’s political opinions.

El Lozy says that the reason the rumors are so powerful in Egypt is that the country’s institutions suffer from a lack of accountability.

“Rumors always grow, develop and acquire dynamism in the absence of transparency,” he said. “If there were clear principles established, and people believed that policies would be based on those principles, then there would be no more rumors. The problem is that we are dealing with shifting grounds.”

Officials at Israel’s heavily guarded embassy in Cairo say they are frustrated by Egypt’s cultural boycott of their country. They say it is “a source of sorrow” that Egyptians cannot watch Israeli films or study next to Israeli students. Shani Cooper-Zubida, the spokeswoman for the Israeli embassy, said that Egyptian-Israeli relations are strong at the political level. She attributes the cultural boycott to the ignorance of the Egyptian people.

“We have good relations regarding political issues, but when it comes to cultural affairs it is a little tougher,” she said. “It has been 30 years since Sadat came to Israel to try to break down the wall of ignorance and hate between our countries, and he was successful in certain respects. But there are still some bricks in the wall that are still standing, and one of them is cultural relations.”

Among the students at the AUC, a small coterie is amenable to the Israelis — though that does not equate with sympathy for Israel politically. Passant Rabie, a senior who has long, curly hair and who sports a backpack with peace signs, supports normalization with Israel and would like to travel there someday.

“I support normalization because we’re all people,” she said. “Normalization does not necessarily mean that you are pro-Israel. You should be civil enough not to have hate for any one big group of people.”

“People here need to learn to differentiate more between Israel, Zionism and Jews,” she added. “You can’t just say that all Israelis automatically have Zionist beliefs, because that is like saying that all Arabs have terrorist tendencies. That’s what we always accuse the West of saying about us.”

DNE: ID card policy violates religious freedom, say rights groups

2007-11-13T17:41:00.000+02:00

ID card policy violates religious freedom, say rights groups

By Liam Stack
First Published: November 13, 2007

CAIRO - Human Rights Watch and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights called on the government to allow Egyptian citizens to list their actual religion on national ID cards and other necessary official documents in a joint report released on Monday.

At the age of 16, all Egyptians are required to obtain a national ID card that states their religious affiliation.

Religion is listed on most official documents, including birth certificates, although in some cases the religion written on the ID card is different from the religion listed at birth.

No law on the books requires people to believe only in Islam, Christianity or Judaism, and activists say that Egyptians are guaranteed freedom of belief by both international and domestic laws.

But according to the new report, members of the Baha’i faith, as well as those who have converted from Islam, are systematically prevented from getting official documents listing their true religious beliefs.

Many say they are bullied or forced into lying about their religion, and some are later prosecuted for fraud if police learn that they are practicing a different religion than the one listed on their ID. Activists say that this is the fate that befalls many converts.

“The problem that we identify in this report is that Ministry of Interior officials systematically prevent some people, in particular Baha’is and people who have converted from Islam, from properly identifying themselves in their documents,” says Joe Stork, Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Division at Human Rights Watch.

Baha’is and converts are often unable to acquire any documents at all, and are consigned to a bleak state of official non-existence.

Without proper government identification, it is impossible to accomplish many basic tasks, such as going to a hospital, getting a job, collecting a pension or enrolling in a university.

“This is a violation of religious freedom that has much broader implications on a whole range of people’s rights,” says Stork. “This is not based on any Egyptian law, and our message today is that the government should begin to follow its own laws.”

The rights groups say that the restrictions on people’s official religious status are not sanctioned by existing Egyptian law, but rather come from some officials’ misguided belief that allowing people to record their actual faith would encourage heresy and violate Islamic law.

Under certain interpretations of Islamic law, both converts from Islam and those who believe in faiths beside the three “revealed” religions are considered apostates.

Since sharia is legally considered one component of public order in Egypt, some officials at the Ministry of Interior consider recognition of conversion and other religions a threat to society.

But Islamic law is not a monolithic body, says Hossam Bahgat, the Director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.

Islamic jurists have reached no consensus on what punishments, if any, should be meted out to people considered apostates in the here and now.

Matters of Islamic jurisprudence are also far outside the jurisdiction of bureaucrats inside the Ministry of Interior’s Civil Status Department, he says.

“We agree with many Islamic scholars that the state is under no obligation to punish people for their religious beliefs and that it should not impose worldly penalties on people who leave the Islamic faith,” he says.

“We are not saying there is a consensus supporting our opinion, we are saying there is no consensus supporting any opinion on this matter. Scholars widely disagree on the issue.”

Furthermore, he argues, the Egyptian penal code does not forbid conversion from Christianity to Islam, or bar citizens from practicing a religion outside of Islam, Christianity or Judaism.

“For the government to say that sharia requires these violations of religious freedom and equality is both a violation of international law and of sharia itself,” he added.

The Egyptian Baha’i community is small, numbering no more than 2,000 people. For decades they have lived peacefully beside their Muslim, Christian and Jewish countrymen.

But the community began to face hardship in the 1950s, when Arab nationalists cast a suspicious gaze on their faith and its world headquarters in Haifa, a formerly Palestinian town that had recently become part of the State of Israel.

Egyptian Baha’is have been able to obtain national ID cards in the past, which until recently were hand-written. Under the old system, workers at the Ministry’s Civil Status Department were allowed to write ‘other’ or simply leave a dash in the space left blank for religious affiliation.

But the system of hand-written ID cards and birth certificates have been steadily phased out in recent years, and may be declared null and void as soon as this January.

They are being replaced by sleeker computer printed versions, but Ministry guidelines now forbid people to leave their religious affiliation blank, and only a rare few are allowed to be marked “other.”

Wafaa Hindi and her family, all Bahai, say they live a life full of worrying bureaucratic hardships because the government will not issue them official documents that list their true religion.

Her two sons, Nabil and Kareem, were both given hand-written birth certificates listing their religion as Baha’i.

But when the Ministry of the Interior modernized the country’s birth registries, putting everyone’s information on computer databases, the whole family’s religious affiliation was changed.

To make matters worse, each member of her family was assigned a different religion.

“Nabil’s religion is listed as ‘other.’” She says. “ But Kareem is listed as a Muslim, and my husband Sami and I are both listed as Christians. It’s like we are a mixed salad. But this is not me, this is not any of us – we are Baha’i.”

Now Nabil, her oldest son, faces expulsion from Suez Canal University because he does not have proper identification.

“We are so afraid for our son,” she says. “Anyone can stop him in the street and ask for his ID, and he doesn’t have one.”

Hindi says she does not understand why the government does not let them list their actual religion on their IDs, or at the very least let them leave the cards blank. She sees a difference between official toleration of the Baha’i faith and official endorsement.

“If the government says that I am a Baha’i and recognizes that in the official documents I need, then that is not the same thing as them agreeing with my religion or recognizing four revealed religions,” she says.

“Just saying that they recognize that I have my own religious beliefs does not mean that they believe them too.”

DNE: Cornel West: 'as American as cherry pie'

2007-11-10T16:07:00.000+02:00

Cornel West: ‘as American as cherry pie’

By Liam Stack
First Published: November 9, 2007

CAIRO: This year’s Edward Said memorial lecture at the American University in Cairo was delivered by Dr Cornel West: a philosopher, activist, cultural icon, occasional film actor and professor of religion and African American studies at Princeton University.

He has won critical praise for his work on race, democracy and imperialism, and his books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide. He sat down with Daily News Egypt for a conversation on imperialism, justice and what it means to be American.

Daily News Egypt: You are in town to deliver a lecture in honor of Edward Said, who was a close friend of yours. How does that feel?

Cornel West: You know, I get sentimental thinking about Edward. He was a real soul mate, and that kind of thing doesn’t happen too often. He was 18 years older than me. We met when I was 24 years old and he was 42, but he always treated me like an equal.

DNE: Your work, like Said’s, confronts institutionalized injustice head-on. But some have said that in a country as socially divided as Egypt, an elite university like AUC itself represents an institutional injustice. How do you feel about that?

It’s hard. I think universities all over the world face these kinds of challenges. It’s hard for a university president to be both a moral leader and a fundraiser for the institution.

And as far as students go, all over the world young people are seduced by the idea of the bourgeois good life, by fitting into the mainstream, the malestream. You have to look for that Socratic, prophetic, courageous slice of humanity willing to look outside of that.

DNE: Much of your work discusses the importance of justice, human dignity and democracy. Many people say that here in Egypt, all three are threatened.

Democracy and the value of every person are at the center of my vision, and in that is an implicit critique of authoritarianism and militarism. I don’t want to come in to a country like Egypt, which is so ancient and so complex, and criticize things in the spirit of arrogance or condescension. But at the same time you have got to take a stand.

In my lecture yesterday I made an allusion to the relationship between the United States and Egypt. It’s worth billions of dollars, and those are my tax dollars too. Working for justice is about identifying the facts and the truth of the matter and that is one of the challenges of remaining true to the life of the mind in a context where democracy has had such trouble gaining traction.

DNE: But in a situation like the one currently facing Egypt, the facts and the truth are both contested subjects. It’s not always so easy to pin them down.

To really identify the facts and the truth, you need to keep putting forward your argument and showing the ways in which the distortions of the truth are tied to the interests of those in power. The key is to connect those distorted interpretations on the one hand to intrinsic interest on the other. Fighting for the truth doesn’t always mean your argument will win in the short term, it means that you continue to put it forward again and again no matter what.

DNE: You have been a critic of American foreign policy for a long time, and began calling it “imperialism” years ago, which is a word many Americans find controversial. What ways have you seen American imperialism change in your lifetime?

I think that Joseph Nye’s distinction between soft and hard power is a very important one. The United States has been an empire for a long time, but outside of Latin America and Vietnam it has mostly used its soft, cultural power to convince and seduce people, and to highlight the best about the country. The use of hard power and force, outright coercion, violence and military action has increased a great deal under Bush. I think Iraq is just the tip of the iceberg, and there has been an ugly backlash against America which I think is no surprise. This happens to any empire, make no mistake.

DNE: How do people in the United States respond to your criticisms?

Critiques of anti-imperialism at home are often seen as anti-American. But I am not anti-American, I am anti-injustice, whether it is happening in Cuba or Burma or Egypt. As a Christian and a democrat, sometimes it is hard to get that message through to people. Americans have a self-image that we are an innocent, pure, unadulterated force for good in the world. There are some very good things in the American democratic experiment, and some very ugly things.

I consider myself as American as George W. Bush, and we are both as American as cherry pie. I represent the other America, the America that has much less power but has deep roots in American history — Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr, Fanny Lou Hamer, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heshem, and Edward Said himself. We are as American as any group.

DNE: As both a committed democrat and a committed anti-imperialist, what is your take on American calls for democratization in the Middle East?

I think that America ought to be explicit in the view that democracy is a desirable way of life. But it is important to say this in the spirit of humility and dialogue, not force or coercion. This include being self-critical about the limitations and shortcomings of our own democracy. But I do believe that democracy is desirable around the world, whether that means China or Singapore or Cuba or Egypt.

Part of the problem with American policies, especially under Bush, has been that the rhetoric of democracy has had very little to do with actually promoting genuine democracy. We saw that when it came to the coup in Venezuela — there you had a democratically elected president who was nearly overthrown in a coup, and all of a sudden we saw that America’s commitment to democracy didn’t cut too deep. America’s moral high ground has been lost.

DNE: Do you think that America can bounce back?

Sure, American can absolutely bounce back, if enough citizens are devoted to justice out of a vision of deep love for each other and the common good. It will take a tremendous amount of vision, courage and determination — I am not naïve about that. But I think that people are tired of the politics of greed and fear, and hungry for a politics based on compassion and justice.

One day the empire will die. All empires go — it is part of the ebb and flow of history. My concern is with the democratic practices and procedures within the empire, because the two do coexist. Aspects of democracy are still there, like the rule of law. They may be weakened but they are not gone, and they are worth fighting for — intellectually, morally and politically.

DNE: When you say that you are as American as cherry pie, what exactly does that mean?

I like to tell the truth so that people can see that the forces for good in America are American, too. I can accent that while I talk about income inequality, structures of domination and the Bush administration. You can be truthful as well as not one-sided. When I go to speak in Cuba or Venezuela they expect me to bash America, but my mama is American, so there must be something positive going on. My tradition is American, and I didn’t become a committed democrat because I dropped out of heaven — I learned it in America.
I should say that as a Christian and a democrat I always put the flag under the cross. I put democracy over nationalism. So that makes me an internationalist in a fundamental way. A lot of people question my patriotism because of my concern for the unjust policies of America — to be concerned with justice across the board is always to risk being called unpatriotic. But if you ask me, it is all a part of the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. As he said, “an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” And Martin is as American as cherry pie too, no doubt about that.

DNE: Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark denounces Brotherhood trial

2007-11-08T19:57:00.000+02:00

Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark denounces Brotherhood trial

By Liam Stack
First Published: November 8, 2007

CAIRO: Ramsey Clark, the former attorney general of the United States, is visiting Cairo this week to denounce the military trial of Khayrat El Shater and 39 other leaders of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

In a wide reaching speech delivered at the Lawyer’s Syndicate, Clark drew parallels between the Brotherhood case and the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.

He accuses the Mubarak regime of trampling on human rights and the rule of law, and says that respect for both is the key to peace and prosperity throughout the Middle East.

“The major reason for the tragedy of Palestine in my lifetime has been the world’s failure to live up to the sacred covenant enshrined in Article 22 of the League of Nations Charter, which promised a free and independent Palestinian state on Palestinian soil more than 80 years ago,” he said, referring to the document that founded the now defunct League in 1919.

“If the world had fulfilled that sacred covenant, I think it would be fair to say that we would all live in a different and much better world — not just for the Palestinians but for all people, brothers and sisters living together in peace and respect,” he added.

Clark argues that by trying the civilian Brotherhood leaders before a military court, the government is violating a “sacred covenant” of its own. The 40 members standing trial are accused of money laundering and membership in a banned organization.

He says the trial is illegal, and in violation of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights that the regime signed in 1984. The treaty guarantees defendants the right to a fair public trial before a legally competent court that is both fair and impartial, and forbids the referral of civilians to military courts.
“The violation of this covenant against the Muslim Brotherhood is as clear as anything before law and life may be,” said Clark.

“But we know why the military court is trying this case — because the president told them to,” he added. “In a free society living under the rule of law, the president cannot tell the court who to try and how, especially if he is sending people to a military court.”

Clark served as attorney general from 1967 to 1969 under the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson.

During his time as the head of the Justice Department, he supported a number of important advances in the American civil rights movement, including the desegregation of schools that had formerly divided black and white students.

Since then, he has embarked on a second career as an international human rights campaigner.

But his activism has brought him a controversial reputation as the outspoken defender of men such as former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic and Liberian dictator Charles Taylor.

Clark says that he has defended such controversial figures because he believes that they are the most likely to be treated unfairly in emotionally charged court cases.

“I feel like the most important cases are those that involve the most hated and feared people,” he said. “Whatever they have done, they are still human beings and still have the same civil rights as anyone else.”

“If you don’t stand up for these people, then you say that not everyone has the same rights all the time,” he added. “And that is a world of enormous sadness and danger.”

The controversy surrounding political Islam in the West drew Clark to the Brotherhood case. He sees the trial as an important test of Egypt’s commitment to democracy and the rule of law.

He says the group is a beneficial part of Egypt’s national life.

The Brotherhood is the country’s largest political opposition group, but has been banned since 1954.

Despite the ban, the group has long been tolerated. In the 2005 parliamentary elections, the group startled both the government and its allies in Washington by capturing 88 of the 454 seats in the lower house of parliament. The members ran as independent candidates.

Since then, more than 1,000 members of the group have been detained by the government.

Many analysts say the military trial against El Shater is part of a larger crackdown meant to weaken the group.

Clark says that the United States has been scared away from previous commitments to democracy in Egypt by the war in Iraq and Hamas’ election victory in the Palestinian Territories.

Unwilling to upset an old ally, he says the American government has decided to turn a blind eye to the military trial and other human rights abuses committed by the Egyptian government.

“A case like this is a dilemma for the United States,” he says. “For its own domestic politics, it needs to support democratic rulers and democratic societies. But the US wants to stay away from this case because it is an assault on democracy that they don’t want to appear to support.”

DNE: Trial on refugee gang murder postponed, case referred to State Security Court

2007-11-08T19:54:00.000+02:00

Trial on refugee gang murder postponed, case referred to State Security Court

By Liam Stack
First Published: November 8, 2007

CAIRO: The state prosecutor on Wednesday postponed indefinitely the trial of eight men charged in connection with a gang murder on World Refugee Day just outside the American University in Cairo (AUC) campus this past July.

Prosecutors changed the charges against the defendants at the last minute, and referred the case to a State Security Court under the country’s Emergency Law.

Family and friends of the accused gathered at the South Cairo Courthouse in Bab El Khalq Wednesday morning. The eight were told two weeks earlier that their months of detention would finally come to an end.

The defendants have been in legal limbo since their arrest in July, when they were detained in connection with a gang fight between members of two Sudanese gangs “the Lost Boys” and “the Outlaws.”

The fight left one man hacked to death by a machete outside the Greek Campus of AUC.

Friends of the eight men insist they were innocent by-standers to the violent melee, and say there is no evidence against them.

For its part, the prosecutor’s office has avoided setting a firm trial date and instead repeatedly extends their detention for weeks at a time.

At the last such hearing in October, the men were told they would see their day in court on Nov. 7, but it was not to be.

At the last minute, the defendants were taken in shackles from the open-air pen behind the court house to the nearby State Security directorate. They were told that they were now to be charged with a more serious offense.

All eight now stand accused of murder. Before Wednesday’s session, only one of the men was accused of “accidental murder,” which carried a penalty of seven to 10 years in jail.

Weapons possession charges against all eight still stand, a crime which carries a sentence of three months to one year in prison.

Lawyers for the men predict that the case will be tried in the State Security Court in Rehab City by mid-December. But they admit that, as the events in Bab El-Khalq demonstrate, the justice system is unpredictable.

Members of the men’s families reacted to the change in the case with dismay, holding their heads in their hands in the court’s crowded entrance hall.

Mohamed Bayoumi, the lawyer in the case, said he remains committed to the case and to his client’s innocence.

“This puts these men in a very difficult situation, and now we just have to work harder,” he said. “The prosecutor is still convinced that these men killed the person who died at World Refugee Day because that is what the police officers said. But there are no other witnesses and no real reason to believe that they did this. They are just listening to the testimony of the arresting officer.”

Yousef Ahmed Saleh Idris, a friend of Essam Eddin Jubarra — one of the accused — agrees that the men are innocent. He says that Essam was working as a volunteer at the event, and was not a member of any gang.

Idris witnessed his friend’s arrest, and says it was conducted haphazardly by abusive plainclothes officers. He says he thinks the officers wanted to look like they were responding competently to the situation, but were in fact seizing random bystanders based on the color of their skin.

“Essam and his friends were been grabbed by some plainclothes police officers who were dragging them away,” he said. “I went over and told the police that he was with us, but they didn’t respond.”

“I said I wanted to talk to his boss, so the guy grabbed me too and dragged me over to the main gate at AUC where there was a plainclothes officer sitting,” he added. “The officer started screaming ‘Don’t bring anyone to see me over here, how dare you let someone see me here!’”

“I told him Essam was with me but he didn’t respond to me and just started screaming at Essam to shut up, and then he told the cops to put Essam in the truck,” he said. “When the cops were throwing him in the truck they told me I had two choices — I could either get out of there, or they would arrest me too.”

Estimates on the number of refugees in Egypt vary wildly. According to the UNHCR, it has officially registered 45,000 refugees in the country, mainly from Sudan, Somalia and Iraq. But some independent estimates push that figure to as many as three million.

DNE: Kefaya holds short, lackluster protest against NDP conference

2007-11-08T19:52:00.000+02:00

Kefaya holds short, lackluster protest against NDP conference

By Liam Stack
First Published: November 5, 2007

CAIRO: Members of the Kefaya Movement for Change demonstrated on the steps of the Press Syndicate on Sunday afternoon against the annual conference of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), which Kefaya accuses of corruption and human rights abuses.

But few activists showed up to the short protest. Those that did were herded inside a security perimeter in front of the syndicate by lines of armored riot police, which outnumbered protestors by almost four-to-one.

Some demonstrators attributed the small size of the lackluster demonstration to disorganization within the Kefaya movement and a sense of hopelessness among its members.

“We don’t agree with the regime, we don’t believe in the regime, and we don’t have any faith in the regime,” said George Ishaq, former Kefaya leader who still plays an organizational role within the group.

The movement’s current leader, Abdel Wahab Al Messiri, did not attend the protest because he was sick, said Ishaq.

“All the talk of change at this conference is just a load of rubbish,” Ishaq added. “It’s the same thing every time the NDP meets. We are against this regime and we oppose the president and everyone who leads this bloody party.”

The demonstration was originally planned to take place in front of the Lawyer’s Syndicate on Ramses Street at noon, but facing last minute security pressure, both its time and location were changed.

Many human rights activists and journalists seemed to be unaware of the original plan for the demonstration in the first place.

Some protestors said the movement’s confusing approach to planning demonstrations was to blame for the low turnout — less than 50 people attended. On occasion, past demonstrations have drawn several times that number.

“Unfortunately, the protest is kind of weak today,” said Nadia Mabrouk, a veteran Kefaya activist. “We should have protests in other places, but security always tries to stop us and people get scared.

“Sometimes everyone is told to meet somewhere else, like Talaat Harb Street or in front of the Lawyer’s Syndicate, and then at the last minute the place or the time gets changed,” she added. “It’s not consistent.”

Activists said the point was not Kefaya’s confusion but the fact that the NDP conference was taking place across town.

During the conference, President Mubarak was re-elected as chairman of the National Democratic Party, which he has led for 26 years. His son Gamal was appointed to a newly formed Supreme Committee, whose members are eligible to be the party’s presidential candidate.

In a speech at the opening of the second day of the conference, Gamal told the assembled delegates that the party is looking out for the concerns of the average citizen.

“The problems of all Egyptians are the priorities of our party,” he said, according to a press release. “The political activities and actions of the NDP are working at the local level, to the benefit of the villages, the families and the hard-working people of Egypt.

“Their needs are for more jobs, better schools, improved healthcare and greater access to basic infrastructure and that is what our party is working to provide,” he added.

Kefaya members expressed angry skepticism at the party’s claims that it represents the Egyptian people. They charge its leaders with corruption and say the NDP is the party of the country’s abusive ruling class.

“They don’t represent the people, they are not talking about the people, and they are not discussing the people’s ideas,” said Rabaa Fahmy, a human rights lawyer who works at the Ibn Khaldun Center research center, which was founded by activist and sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim.

“The conference is like a meeting of gangsters,” she added. “They are talking about their plans for their futures and thinking up ways to defend all their corruption. This isn’t a political conference, it’s a social club.”

But as the protest drew to a close with the singing of the Kefaya song and the rolling up of banners, Nadia Mabrouk expressed a frustration that many seemed to share.

“The NDP and our political leaders are all focusing on Gamal Mubarak,” she said. “Nobody wants him to be president, but we don’t know what we can do. I think that for us to be successful in the short term is basically impossible. It is a hopeless situation.”

DNE: Rights group calls on Egypt to stop forced return of refugees to Sudan

2007-11-08T19:49:00.000+02:00

Rights group calls on Egypt to stop forced return of refugees to Sudan

By Liam Stack
First Published: November 5, 2007

CAIRO: Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a statement calling on Egypt to stop sending Sudanese refugees back to Sudan against their will.

Authorities forcibly repatriated five Sudanese citizens detained by Israel in August after crossing the Sinai to seek refuge there.

The New York-based rights group fears that the returned refugees will face persecution in their home country, and say that such forced repatriations are in violation of international law.

It says that many of the people in question came to Egypt to escape violence in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region.

"We are extremely worried by Egypt's failure to account for these people," said Sarah Leah Whitson, the director of the Middle East and North Africa division of HRW. "The entire incident reveals Egypt and Israel's shared disregard for the plight of Sudanese fleeing Darfur."

The repatriated Sudanese were part of a group of 48 detainees caught by Israel and handed over to Egypt. Israeli authorities claim they received assurances from Cairo that the detainees would not be returned to Sudan, although Egypt denies making any such promise.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, at least 23 of those detainees were either officially classified as refugees or have outstanding asylum claims.

But the exact number of refugees in the group is unclear because Egyptian security has not allowed the UNHCR access to the detained men.

"Egypt cannot avoid its obligation to assess the refugee status of persons fleeing a conflict by preventing the UN refugee agency from seeing them," said Whitson. "Egypt is thumbing its nose at a fundamental principle of refugee law."

Refugees expelled from Israel face increased danger back in Sudan, which considers it to be an enemy state.

In September, the Sudanese Foreign Minister announced that visiting Israel was a criminal offense and accused those who do of participation in a Zionist plot against Khartoum. It called on the Egyptian government to punish Sudanese caught trying to make it to the Jewish state.

HRW criticized Cairo for not taking Sudan’s hostility towards Israel into account when dealing with refugees who have traveled there. It says Khartoum’s stance gives extra urgency to the issue of forced repatriation.

"In the face of Sudan's record of rights abuses and its hostility toward its citizens who seek refuge in Israel, Egypt's apparent decision to forcibly return Sudanese asylum seekers is unconscionable," Whitson said.

Israel captured the group of migrants and refugees on Aug. 17 after they crossed the mountainous Sinai desert with the help of human traffickers. They were returned to Egypt less than 24 hours after their detention and were not allowed to present asylum claims, in violation of international law.

Israel was widely criticized for sending the refugees back to Egypt, where they complain of racism and random violence at the hands of Egyptian police and civilians.

Earlier in the summer, Israeli border police claimed to witness their Egyptian counterparts gun down a group of refugees running for the border. A young mother was killed in the incident, and several others were seriously wounded.

DNE: Egypt, Mugabe and a diplomatic slip-up

2007-10-31T12:39:00.000+02:00

Egypt, Mugabe and a diplomatic slip-up

By Liam Stack
First Published: October 31, 2007

CAIRO: Last week Gamil Fayed became the newest addition to the Egyptian diplomatic corps when he presented his credentials to Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, in a run-of-the-mill ceremony in Harare, the capital.

In his new role, Fayed will oversee an embassy staff of only two. He represents Cairo to a country coming apart at the seams under the weight of widespread social unrest and an inflation rate of 13,000 percent a year.

His position is hardly at the forefront of Egyptian diplomacy. But remarks he made after one of his first official meetings provoked uncomfortable back-tracking by superiors in Cairo and cast light on both Mugabe’s approach to the Arab world and Egypt’s attitude towards its African neighbors.

After meeting with the country’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fayed made routine promises to provide Harare with agricultural advice, according to the Zimbabwean state-run daily The Herald.

But the quote picked up by the paper, and nervously criticized by Cairo, was far from a bland commitment to fertilizer sales.

“I would like to express my government's support to Zimbabwe's land reform and mechanization programs,” the paper quoted Fayed as saying.

Land reform in southern Africa, and Zimbabwe in particular, is a touchy subject.

During the era of white minority rule in Zimbabwe, then called Rhodesia, the white elite comprised one percent of the population but owned 70 percent of the country’s arable land.

After the end of minority rule in 1980, the new government began to commandeer many of the large agricultural estates owned by the white elite.
In theory, the reform program would alleviate poverty by dividing up the land among poor blacks, while the white farmers were to be given fair compensation.
But in practice, say critics, the Mugabe regime carried out the policy thuggishly.

They say much of the land was turned over to political allies with no experience or intention of farming it, creating an economic and humanitarian catastrophe.
In addition, they accuse the state of unleashing a campaign of violence to intimidate both the small white population and the president’s political opponents, whatever their race.

Before Mugabe came to power, the country was a net exporter of foodstuffs and seen as a bread basket of Africa.

Now, more than two decades after land reform began, Zimbabwe is in a shambles. It is racked by quintuple-digit inflation and more than 45 percent of the country is malnourished. It has been heavily sanctioned by western governments, and Mugabe himself is one of world politics’ personae-non-grata.

After Fayed’s statements in Harare, representatives of the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reacted with nervous bewilderment. Speaking to a foreign reporter, one expressed a sense that Ambassador Fayed made a rookie mistake and was not reading from the right page in Cairo’s playbook.

“This man is really dreaming,” said a senior official in the Ministry’s Division of African Affairs, who did not want to go on record criticizing a colleague. “These are explosive comments. This is just not what our relationship with Zimbabwe is about.”

According to the diplomat, Egypt’s main interaction with Zimbabwe is to occasionally provide it with technical advice or humanitarian assistance through the Egyptian Fund for Technological Cooperation with Africa. Every year the Fund sends a handful of physicians and engineers to the country.

“There is no agreement between Egypt and Zimbabwe when it comes to land reform — not at all,” he told Daily News Egypt. “I think Fayed was just making up the speech as he went along. This is just humorous, it is completely invented, that we agree with them on this or would even consider agreeing with them.”

“Even in informal meetings we have with the Zimbabweans, we don’t even bring up land reform. It is a very sensitive issue with them. We think it is an internal Zimbabwean issue and we don’t have any official position on it.”

While the official was careful to point out that Cairo considers Mugabe’s land reform policies to be an internal affair, he was also emphatic that Egypt’s experience of land reform bore no resemblance to the controversial and bloody Zimbabwean model.

“Our land reform in the 1960s under Nasser was completely different than what they are doing there,” he emphasized. “Completely different.”

Cairo’s presence in Southern Africa is also felt through its investments in the telecom sector, where Egyptian giant Orascom has competed against local firms for a share in the regional mobile phone market.

Until earlier this year, it had met some success in Zimbabwe. Orascom was a 60 percent owner of local firm Telecel Zimbabwe, with the other 40 percent of the funds invested by a local group of shareholders called the Empowerment Group of Zimbabwe.

But in August the Mugabe regime revoked Telecel’s license, and accused Orascom of not doing enough to attract more Zimbabwean investors. Egyptian diplomats are quick to write off the dispute as a misunderstanding.

Observers of the relationship between Cairo and Harare say that it is not just limited to aid missions and investment deals.

Simon Myambo, a former professor of development studies at Belvedere Teacher’s College in Harare, expresses surprise at the offer of development assistance from Cairo.

But he suggests that business deals and aid offers like these are backed up by a personal relationship between the two countries’ presidents.

Because of the sanctions imposed on his country by Europe and America, western multinationals cannot invest in Zimbabwe and Mugabe cannot travel there. In response, he tries to attract support and investment from China and the Islamic world under his regime’s “Look East” policy.

“Mugabe always stops here to visit on his way to summits at the UN or to visit investors or friends in places like Malaysia or China,” says Myambo. “When he comes here he always stays for a few days. He has already been here about five or six times this year.”

According to Myambo, “Look East” deserves credit for the Orascom deal as well as Mugabe’s recent success in attracting major investments from Qatar-based Venessia Petroleum.

Earlier this month, the Gulf firm announced plans to build a 120,000 barrel-per-day refinery in Harare, at a cost of $1.5 billion. In addition, its sister company will build a five-star hotel in downtown Harare.

“Mugabe has been trying to woo the entire Middle East, because he can’t go to Europe anymore,” explains Myambo. “It is all part of his ‘Look East’ policy, which includes Egypt as one of the strongest countries in the Middle East.”

But if Mugabe is looking east, officials at the Egyptian Foreign Ministry insist that Cairo is also looking south.

They insist that the ruined investments, small humanitarian missions and bungled speeches that are the hallmark of the ties between Cairo and Harare do not do justice to Egypt’s role in Africa at large.

According to them, Egypt is a natural leader on the continent.

They say it has played an important historical role in bringing civilization and freedom from colonialism to its southern neighbors, and point to investments and aid work in countries like Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Nigeria as evidence of that.

“Egypt is a leader in Africa,” said the official in the Ministry’s Division of African Affairs, who spoke to Daily News Egypt on condition of anonymity.

“We are a pioneer in everything,” he said. “We are one of the most important countries, and one of the biggest economies, on the continent. We helped the entire African continent gain independence, and we have always been eager to help them develop and to provide humanitarian aid when disasters happen.”

“In terms of civilization and culture Egypt has been a pioneer,” he added.

“Egyptian civilization is 7,000 years old. Most African countries are new and are not deeply rooted like Egypt. We were here when there was no one else”

DNE: Harassed journalists file complaints against Ain Shams University

2007-10-31T12:30:00.000+02:00

Harassed journalists file complaints against Ain Shams University

By Liam Stack
First Published: October 29, 2007

CAIRO: Two journalists have filed a series of complaints against both campus security at Ain Shams University and its president, Ahmed Zaki Badr, and say that guards obstructed them from reporting on student demonstrations last week, blocking one man’s entrance to the campus and violently beating another who made it inside.

Aboul Seoud Mohamed, a journalist with Al-Masry Al-Youm, says that security forces barred him from entering the campus when he went to cover the demonstrations protesting vote-rigging and state interference in student body elections.

“I gave the security officers at the gates my card saying that I am a journalist and a member of the syndicate, but they said that I couldn’t enter unless I had a special pass,” Mohamed told Daily News Egypt. “I knew this wasn’t right, so I called the President of the University, Ahmed Zaki Badr, and he said he would send someone from the public relations (PR) office down to escort me in to the campus.

“I waited for two hours and no one came,” he added. “I called the president’s office and the PR office again and again and no one ever came down.”

While he stood waiting outside the university, Mohamed says he saw Amr Sharaf, a photographer from Al Dostour, come stumbling out. He had been badly beaten.

“He was badly hurt and had wounds on his head,” says Mohamed. “He said he had been beaten by a police officer.

“We tried to take a picture of Amr Sharaf and his wounds but the security officers said we couldn’t because it would tarnish the reputation of the university.”

Sharaf could not be reached for comment at press time, but according to reports published in Al-Masry Al-Youm he was beaten with clubs by campus police and a mob of plainclothes officers until he lost consciousness. He was later hospitalized at Ain Shams University Hospital.

According to the complaint, the two have accused Ahmed Helmy, an officer with campus security, and President Ahmed Zaki Badr of illegally denying Mohamed access to the grounds of the university.

Sherif Kadry, another officer with campus security, stands accused of smashing Sharaf’s camera and assaulting him along with a number of unidentified plainclothes agents.

Security was on high alert on the day of the demonstrations, which witnesses say drew 500 student activists to the campus to chant slogans against both the Mubarak regime and university president Ahmed Zaki Badr, son of a former Interior Minister.

Students complain that university officials loyal to the ruling National Democratic Party intervened in student elections, disqualifying candidates seen as not being loyal enough to the government. Islamist candidates in particular were barred from running for seats in the student union.

Such tactics are a common feature of Egypt’s annual student elections, as the government tries to ensure that student unions at the nation’s largest
universities do not become a platform for opposition groups.

Protests and clashes erupted at several universities after last week’s elections, with students across the country complaining that votes were being rigged by state security forces and NDP loyalists within university administrations.

In Zagazig University alone, located at the delta town of Zagazig, the university disqualified more than 500 students from running for office based on their perceived political affiliation.

DNE: Security detains Brotherhood students after violence at Ain Shams University

2007-10-29T17:43:00.000+02:00

Security detains Brotherhood students after violence at Ain Shams University

By Liam Stack
First Published: October 25, 2007

CAIRO: State security forces arrested 13 students at Ain Shams University affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) on Wednesday after violent clashes between student groups and uniformed and plainclothes security forces during a protest against alleged vote rigging on Monday’s student elections.

Students complain that university officials disqualified candidates not aligned with the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), and focused on barring Islamist candidates in particular.

Such tactics are a common feature of the country’s annual student elections, as the government tries to ensure that student unions at the nation’s largest universities do not become a platform for opposition groups.

According to witnesses, roughly 500 students from a range of opposition movements gathered in front of university administrator’s offices to collect signatures against vote rigging and chant slogans.

“We decided that we wanted to have a big demonstration and a sit-in because the government would not let the elections happen freely,” Mohamed Soliman, a student at the Faculty of Arts and a member of the MB told Daily News Egypt.

“This happens every year. The rules are always broken in student elections in Egypt.”

Shortly after gathering, they say they were attacked by uniformed security forces and a crowd of plainclothes agents wielding machetes, Molotov cocktails and clubs.

The Brotherhood’s website claims that 13 students were detained by police, although student protestors say that 14 were detained by university security and nine were later transferred to El Waily police station.

At least one man, Amr Sharaf, a photographer with the opposition daily Al Dostour, was hospitalized at Ain Shams University hospital after being beaten by plainclothes officers, who took the memory cards out of his camera.

Student protestors blame the university administration for the violence, and in particular attack its president Ahmed Zaki Badr. He is the son of former Minister of the Interior Zaki Badr, who was the target of an assassination attempt in 1987 for allegedly sanctioning torture in prisons and his fierce campaign against Islamists.

“Ahmed Zaki Badr refused to meet with student protestors, instead he called in these thugs to attack us, he gave them the orders and watched the whole thing,” said Soliman.

“He is the president of this university and he is responsible when violence like this happens here,” he added.

Protests and clashes have accompanied voting at universities across the country this week, as student union elections are scheduled to take place under the watchful eye of state security.

Opposition groups complain of widespread government interference in student elections, and say that university administrators loyal to the NDP routinely disqualify candidates considered insufficiently loyal to the government.

In Zagazig University alone, in the delta town of Zagazig, the university disqualified more than 500 students from running for office based on their perceived political affiliation.

DNE: Trial date set for refugee gang murder, lawyers insist wrong men are charged

2007-10-29T17:39:00.000+02:00

Trial date set for refugee gang murder, lawyers insist wrong men are charged

By Liam Stack
First Published: October 23, 2007

CAIRO: More than four months after the annual World Refugee Day at the American University in Cairo was disrupted by gang violence that left one man dead outside the university premises, the state prosecutor has agreed to bring the case to trial on Nov. 6.

But friends and family of the eight defendants insist they were innocent bystanders swept up in a frantic police crackdown following the murder, which occurred during a fight between two Sudanese gangs, the Outlaws and the Lost Boys.

“The men that the police arrested were not the ones who were involved in the fighting,” said Mohamed Bayoumi, a lawyer representing the defendants. “The ones who committed this crime ran away before the police arrived, so the police just arrested anyone who was there.

“The ones they arrested are innocent. They did not do anything,” he added.

Seven of the men are charged with possession of knives, a crime which carries a sentence of three months to one year in prison. One of the defendants is charged with “accidental murder,” for which he may face seven to ten years in jail.

According to witnesses to the attack, a gang of Sudanese men wielding machetes attacked another Sudanese man on the sidewalk outside AUC’s Greek Campus, hacking at his arms and head.

After the assault the gang of attackers quickly dispersed, leaving the victim, identified in as Taha Malea Fealjour Bekam, on a sidewalk streaked with blood.

Police arrived soon after and began arresting all the Sudanese men they saw in the vicinity in what some have described as a random, hurried manner.

One of the defendants, Essam Eddin Jubbara, was arrested while hailing a taxi near the university, according to friends. He had been working as a volunteer at World Refugee Day and was leaving with two Sudanese friends when they were detained by police.

He and his friends are among those charged with weapons possession, but friends say it is impossible that Jubbara or his friends were involved in the attack.

They say none of the three were involved in the gangs, and that Jubbara, who is recognized as a refugee by the UNHCR, was an upstanding member of the refugee community. He spent his free time helping out his fellow refugees and babysitting, according to friends, and was supposed to start his studies this semester at Cairo University.

They additionally point out that both the Lost Boys and the Outlaws are based in the Cairo neighborhoods of Maadi and Ain Shams, but Essam lived in Bab El-Louq and had little contact with those communities.

“The people who committed this crime must be laughing,” said Peroline Ainsworth, a friend of Jubbara. “They’ve arrested the wrong people.”

As for the two men arrested with Jubbara, they do not live in Egypt at all, and were only visiting from Sudan to attend a training course hosted by EgyptAir.

According to Bayoumi, the lawyer for the defense, the state prosecutor’s office takes special interest in cases involving Sudanese refugees because they are afraid that the community will organize more demonstrations like the 2005 protest in Mustafa Mahmoud square.

Thousands of refugees took part in a high-profile sit-in in the Mohandiseen roundabout that year, which ended in a bloody crackdown by state security forces in which as many as 30 refugees, mainly women and children, were killed.

“After the violence that occurred at the square, they are always afraid that the Sudanese are going to organize another demonstration,” he told Daily News Egypt. “They are just scared.”

Estimates on the number of refugees in Egypt vary wildly. According to the UNHCR, it has officially registered 45,000 refugees in the country, mainly from Sudan, Somalia and Iraq. But some independent estimates push that figure to as many as three million.

DNE: International labor groups condemn conviction of labor leader Kamal Abbas

2007-10-29T17:37:00.000+02:00

International labor groups condemn conviction of labor leader Kamal Abbas

By Liam Stack
First Published: October 21, 2007

CAIRO: A string of international labor and human rights groups have come out in support of Kamal Abbas — the director of the shuttered Center for Trade Union and Worker Services (CTUWS) — condemning a recent court decision which sentenced him and a freelance journalist associated with his group to one year in prison.

The two were convicted of defamation and public abuse after writer Mohamed Helmy published an article on corruption at the 15th of May Youth Center, where he was a member of the board. The story was published in Kalam Sanay’iya, a magazine published by the CTUWS.

Last week, the International Confederation of Trade Unions (ITUC) issued a statement expressing its “most serious condemnation” of the conviction.
The group, which represents 168 million workers in 153 countries, accused the government of orchestrating the convictions as part of its broader crackdown on opposition groups and independent media.

“We are very concerned about this latest attack on the CTUWS,” said Guy Ryder, ITUC general secretary, in a statement released to the press. “We are particularly concerned that these prison sentences follow a long tradition of repression of the CTUWS, an independent civil society organization committed to defending trade union and workers rights in Egypt.

“We cannot accept that the CTUWS be intimidated through the courts or otherwise for actions that are perfectly legal and legitimate,” he added.
In addition to the ITUC, statements of support have poured in from a number of European organizations.

A coalition of the three largest Italian trade unions sent a letter to President Hosni Mubarak urging him to “ensure that CTUWS is not persecuted” and demanding that “this particular case could be reviewed.”

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network also issued a statement “expressing its deep concern” over the case.

The conviction has attracted particular attention and anger from rights groups because in between the publication of the corruption accusations and the two men’s September conviction, an investigation launched by the Governor of Cairo revealed the charges against the youth center management to be true.

After the investigation, Cairo Governor Abdel Azim Wazir ordered the entire board of the center to be disbanded and singled out Chairman Mohamed Mustafa Ibrahim for particular censure.

In an ironic twist, it was Ibrahim who filed the case against Abbas and Helmy, and on Sept. 30 the Helwan Misdemeanor Court ruled in his favor.

“The article that we published about the 15th of May Youth Center was based on facts and research which proved the corruption,” Abbas told Daily News Egypt. “Those complaints and facts were all accurate and legitimate, and eventually led to many of the problems at the center being solved.

“Ibrahim filed his suit against both the writer and I before it was clear to everyone that the facts were true, and before the problems there were solved,” he added.

In a statement released to the media, the CTUWS expressed “extreme concern” at what it called an “unbelievable sentence.”

The group says it plans to appeal the conviction at a court session scheduled for Dec. 29, and both Abbas and Helmy remain free until the appeals have been completed.

DNE: Syrian rights activist condemns motives behind Brotherhood trial

2007-10-29T17:35:00.000+02:00

Syrian rights activist condemns motives behind Brotherhood trial

By Liam Stack
First Published: October 18, 2007

CAIRO: Lawyer and human rights activist Gamila Sadek, a representative of the Syrian Bar Association and the Paris-based Arab Committee for Human Rights, like several would-be observers before her, has recently been barred from attending the trial of 40 Muslim Brotherhood leaders.

The trial has attracted widespread attention both at home and abroad, largely because the defendants were acquitted of the same charges of membership of a banned organization and money laundering before a civilian judge.

“Referring civilians to military courts is wrong, this is not why military courts exist,” Sadek told Daily News Egypt. “The government already knows what verdict it wants to see in the court and has forged evidence to make its point. It has all been pre-arranged from the beginning. The whole thing is illegal, unconstitutional and illegitimate.”

Sadek says she is not surprised that, like all the observers before her, she was barred from the trial. Even though no one has yet been successful in observing the proceedings, she thinks that it is important for observers to keep trying.

“We have sent four observers before me to observe nine separate court sessions, but each time they have gone to the court our observers have been denied access,” she says. “Nevertheless, it is important to come and highlight the political nature of these trials. They are full of legal violations as well, but we think that the political aspects of the case are the most important.”

According to Sadek, the military trial is only one front in a widely reaching government crackdown on opposition figures that also extends to factory workers and newspaper editors. But she thinks it is significant due to both the personal wealth and economic influence of many Brotherhood leaders and the public support that the movement enjoys.

“The Muslim Brotherhood includes some very wealthy members who have accumulated a lot of influence in the economy, and the government is afraid of their growing economic power,” she says.

“The economic rise of the Brotherhood is competition for the economic monopoly of the National Democratic Party and its elites. That is why they have been charged with money laundering, to attack their finances and block their economic achievements.”

Despite the wealth that many of its leaders have accumulated, Sadek says that Egyptian society’s religious devotion has kept many people from considering the Brotherhood to be just another gang of elites.

An avowed secularist and one-time communist, Sadek says that while she herself is not swayed by religious arguments she thinks that for many people the movement’s piety is a big part of its attraction.

“The Arab public usually supports Islamist parties because they think that they are the only ones who can actually fulfill their promises and meet the people’s demands. Most Arabs are religious Muslims so they find Islamist parties generally attractive.”

But she says the movement’s Islamic piety also gives the regime an effective means of attacking it, and accuses the regime of attracting Western support for cracking down on opposition groups by painting Islamist activists and politicians as violent extremists.

“The regime here is cracking down on Islamists in part to please Western governments,” she says. “It has done a good job of spreading the image that Islamists are all radicals and terrorists, and uses this image to gain the support of Western governments.”

“But it’s not true that they are all like that, and it is not true that they are the only ones suffering now,” she adds. “The crackdown we are seeing in Egypt now does not just include Islamists. This is not just about the Brotherhood. The government is attacking everyone, and cracking down on leftists and secularists as well.”

DNE: MB military trial resumes today as human rights observer arrives in Egypt

2007-10-29T17:33:00.000+02:00

MB military trial resumes today as human rights observer arrives in Egypt

By Liam Stack
First Published: October 16, 2007

CAIRO: The military trial of Muslim Brotherhood leader Khayrat El Shater and 39 others continues today, as the latest in a string of foreign human rights lawyers attempts to observe the proceedings, which have so far been closed to both media and international monitors.

Gamila Sadek, a Syrian attorney representing the Paris-based Arab Committee for Human Rights, arrived in Egypt last night. She is one of several representatives of that group who have tried to observe the trial. All have been turned away.

“She will attend the trial, but we don’t expect that they will let her enter because they don’t let anyone in,” Zahraa El Shater told Daily News Egypt.
Zahraa is the daughter of Khayrat El Shater and the wife of Ayman Abdel Ghany, who is also a defendant in the case.

“It is good to see that there are organizations and people out there who support us, but for the Egyptian government it doesn’t matter,” she continued. “They won’t let her in, but we do appreciate her support.”

Khayrat El Shater and his co-defendants stand accused of being members of a banned organization and money laundering, charges which they were acquitted of before a civil court last year.

On the day of their acquittal they were re-arrested before leaving the courtroom and recharged with the same crimes before a military court, which is empowered to sentence them to death and whose decisions they cannot appeal.

The Brotherhood is Egypt’s most influential opposition group. It holds 88 seats in the 454 member People’s Assembly, which it won during a brief period of political opening that coincided with elections in the fall of 2005.

Since then, over a thousands members of the group have been detained, including top leaders like El Shater.

DNE: Responses to worker unrest a government tactic, says observer

2007-10-29T17:30:00.000+02:00

Responses to worker unrest a government tactic, say observers

By Liam Stack
First Published: October 3, 2007

CAIRO: Life in the delta town of Mahalla was disrupted last week by a boisterous strike at the mammoth Ghazl El Mahalla industrial complex, where 27,000 workers walked off the job and took up residence with their families in a tent city inside the factory gates.

At energetic rallies in front of the factory gates, workers banged drums and chanted slogans against a cast of would-be villains including their local government-appointed union committee, the chairman of the board of Misr Spinning and Weaving, and the World Bank.

They demanded a host of changes ranging from the payment of promised bonuses to the dissolution of Egypt’s union system and the overthrow of President Mubarak.

The strike had its roots in a similar protest last December. That strike ended when management and the state promised to improve working conditions and include employees in a profit-sharing deal that would pay them a bonus equal to 150 days wages if the company turned a profit of more than LE 60 million.

At the end of the fiscal year in July, Misr Spinning and Weaving posted profits of more than LE 170 million although workers only received a bonus of 20 days’ pay.

Worker leaders reacted with outrage. They accused the management of reneging on its promises and began to organize for a new action.

After striking for six days, the workers’ negotiating team abandoned many of their more radical political demands and focused instead on winning a verbal commitment to the payment of their bonuses. In talks that stretched late into the night, the two sides agreed upon a deal that independent observers say is both financially generous and politically significant.

“The settlement is pretty remarkable for a couple of reasons,” said Joel Beinin, the director of the Middle Eastern Studies department at the American University in Cairo.

“In terms of the economic issues, the workers pretty much won everything they wanted, and they did it pretty quickly.”

According to Sayed Habib, a leader of the Mahalla movement, the management agreed to pay the workers an immediate bonus equal to 70 days’ wages. They also pledged to pay a later bonus of 60 days’ wages after consulting with the firm’s administrative general assembly.

While management failed to commit to the principle of profit-sharing, they promised that future bonuses will be larger than in the past and will also be tied to an annual salary increase of seven percent.

The negotiations did score some political victories even though they did not result in extreme changes such as the overthrow of the regime or the dissolution of the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) — a government body formed in 1957 and widely seen as a tool of state repression.

Chief among them was the forced resignation of company CEO Mahmoud El Gibali and the firm’s board of directors.

“That is a pretty political thing to do, considering that this is a public sector company and those guys are all government appointees,” says Beinin.

Additionally, the chairman of the factory’s local union committee also resigned after he was hospitalized following an attack by a group of striking workers. Like all members of the local union committee, he too was appointed by the state.

As the largest and one of the oldest public sector enterprises in Egypt, Ghazl El Mahalla has always served as one of the bellwethers of labor unrest. What workers there win from the state, workers elsewhere can be expected to demand as well.

For that reason, Beinin thinks Mahalla will inspire more strikes in the coming months, and that the regime will most likely continue to appease workers’ economic demands while overlooking the political ones.

“The Mahalla workers are in an almost unique position vis-à-vis the government because their legitimacy is unassailable,” he told Daily News Egypt.

“Their enterprise is the flagship enterprise of Egyptian economic nationalism, and unlike many textile firms, it is profitable. But the workers there are paid a pathetic amount of money that it is impossible to raise a family on.

“Everyone but the business elite supports them,” he added. “I think the regime has either decided that it should help them, or that it has to.”

The government’s conciliatory approach to labor unrest is in stark contrast to the increasingly repressive measures it has taken over the last year against dissent from the middle class and urban intellectuals.

Some, like AUC Professor Saad Eddin Ibrahim, have fled the country. Others, such as newspaper editor Ibrahim Eissa or Muslim Brotherhood leader Khayrat El Shater, have been subjected to grueling trials within the civil or military justice system that critics dismiss as kangaroo courts.

While it appears the regime is trying to smother working class dissent with financially favorable settlements, Beinin warns that the regime’s willingness to pay out could quickly harden if workers pressed their demand for the dissolution of the ETUF.

“The demand for an independent labor union has been around for at least a decade, but there has never really been any rank-and-file organizing around it,” he says.

“What is happening in Mahalla is the first real instance of that,” he added. “But the regime will fight very, very hard against this demand. Control of the union apparatus is one of its main tools for retaining power and has been for years.”

The distance between the ETUF and workers is the most serious problem in labor politics, says Kamal Abbas, the director of the Center for Trade Union and Worker Services, which was shut down by the authorities in March.

He says that as long as the union fails to represent workers, more strikes are inevitable.

“The real problem here is that the union is isolated from the workers themselves,” he says. “This problem has not been solved, and because of that and other problems the strikes will just continue.”

“It is just like with anything else,” he added. “If the problems are not addressed, then they will only lead to the same outcomes.”

DNE: Director of labor rights group, freelance journalist sentenced to one year for defamation

2007-10-29T17:28:00.000+02:00

Director of labor rights group, freelance journalist sentenced to one year for defamation

By Liam Stack
First Published: October 3, 2007

CAIRO: Kamal Abbas, the director of the Center for Trade Union and Worker Services (CTUWS), a high-profile labor rights group shut down by the authorities last winter, was sentenced to one year in prison for defamation.

The case was filed against both him and a freelance writer for the group’s magazine, after it published allegations of corruption against a Cairo youth center which later proved to be true.

Both Abbas and the writer, Mohamed Helmy, were sentenced by the Helwan Misdemeanor Court, but remain free pending an appeal which will be heard on Dec. 26.

The charges were published in Kalam Sanay’iya, the magazine of the Center for Trade Union and Worker Services, which was shut down in March after the state accused it of threatening national security by encouraging workers to strike.

In the article, Helmy alleged that the management of the 15th of May Youth Center was corrupt, and laid the blame on Mohamed Mustafa Ibrahim, the chairman of its board and a member of the National Democratic Party who was once a parliamentary candidate.

When the article appeared, Ibrahim sued both Helmy and Abbas for “public abuse” and “defamation of his capacity as a public representative.”

The author claimed inside knowledge of the center’s operations because he was also a member of its board of directors, and, along with four other board members filed a complaint against Ibrahim before Cairo governor Abdel Azim Wazir last year.

Wazir assigned a task force to investigate the charges, which released a report last January confirming Helmy’s allegations of financial misconduct and recommending that Ibrahim be removed from his position.

In response, Wazir disbanded the entire board of the 15th of May Center, relieving both Helmy and Ibrahim of their duties.

Abbas stands by the article, saying that the governor’s action against the center’s management proves that it was based on facts.

“The article that we published about the 15th of May Youth Center was based on facts and research,” he told Daily News Egypt.

“Those complaints and facts were all accurate and legitimate, and eventually led to solving many of the problems at the center.”

“Ibrahim filed his suit against both the writer and I before it was clear to everyone that the facts were true, and before the problems there were solved,” he added.

In a statement released to the media, the CTUWS expressed “extreme concern” at what it called an “unbelievable sentence.”

It says the sentence is just another example of the regime’s crackdown on both free speech and non-governmental organizations, and demanded the government “annul penalties which restrict freedom of publishing and also called for Egyptians to “defend freedom of expression.”

DNE: Wage concessions end Mahalla strike, leave political demands unaddressed

2007-10-29T17:26:00.000+02:00

Wage concessions end Mahalla strike, leave political demands unaddressed

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 30, 2007

MAHALLA EL KOBRA: The Ghazl El Mahalla workers’ movement ended its week-long strike early on Saturday morning after negotiations with management and the state-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation yielded concessions on wages and working conditions, although the strike’s political demands have not been met.

The strike, which united more than 27,000 employees of Egypt’s largest public sector plant and brought production at the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company to a stand-still, was the second to grip the site in the dusty industrial city of Mahalla in less than a year.

The most recent protest began last week, when workers said that management and the ETUF had reneged on a series of promises they made after last December’s strike.

At that time, workers were told that conditions at the factory would improve and that they could participate in a profit-sharing deal that would pay them bonuses equal to 150 days pay if the company turned a profit of more than LE 60 million.

At the end of the fiscal year in July, workers in Mahalla complained that the firm posted profits of more than LE 200 million, but that they had only received a bonus of 20-days pay.

Combined with the abysmal conditions in the plant and what workers call widespread corruption, the broken profit sharing promise ignited a new wave of frustration and militancy among the company’s employees.

“The people on strike are the factory workers, the office workers, the engineers, the people who work in the management building — everyone except for the board of directors,” one protestor, who was afraid to give his name, told Daily News Egypt during the strike.

“We are here because [Minister of Manpower] Aisha Abdel Hady and [Minister of Investment] Mahmoud Mohieddin made promises to us in the last strike but now they say they didn’t promise us anything,” he added. “We are here because they are liars.”

But after one week of high-profile strikes, dubbed “The Mahalla Intifada” by some independent Arabic-language dailies, the management of the firm has renewed its rhetorical commitment to many of those promises.

According to Sayed Habib, a leader of the Mahalla Workers Movement, the management has agreed to pay the workers an immediate bonus equal to 70-days pay and additionally will pay a later bonus of 60-days wages after a meeting of the firm’s administrative general assembly.

They have not agreed to the principle of profit sharing in the future, although they say that future bonuses will be larger than in the past and tied to an annual salary increase of 7 percent. Management has also agreed to consider the days of the sit-in a paid vacation, and says that no worker will be penalized for their participation in the action.

For its part, the government has promised to form a committee in the Ministry of Investment to negotiate hazard pay for workers whose jobs expose them to dangerous conditions or health risks, as many positions in the textile mill do. They will also increase each worker’s clothing allowance.

“We are happy with the deal that was reached,” said Habib. “It is a good deal for us.”

While the concessions made by management are a welcome boon to the lives of some of Egypt’s poorest workers, Saturday’s pre-dawn agreement addressed none of the political demands made by the increasingly politicized Mahalla movement.

After last December’s strike, in which the workers’ local union sided with management against them, the workers’ movement collected over 14,000 signatures calling for the impeachment of local union officials and the dissolution of the ETUF.

They say the national union body is an arm of the state, and cares more about keeping the Mubarak regime in power than it does about defending the interests of the working class.

But the ETUF has consistently ignored the worker’s petitions, and their demands for reform have never been the subject of any negotiation between workers and the state.

Habib says that the movement is “still in discussions” with management about forming a free union, but that in the meantime they are considering other options for exerting pressure on their bosses from within the existing union framework.

“We are thinking about forming a worker’s collective at the factory,” he says. “We hope that a collective would be able to put pressure on the union committee here to listen to us and fight harder for demands we make.”

DNE: Striking Mahalla workers demand government fulfill broken promises

2007-10-29T17:19:00.000+02:00

Striking Mahalla workers demand government fulfill broken promises

By Liam Stack and Maram Mazen

First Published: September 27, 2007

Workers at Ghazl el Mahalla complain they are "not treated like human beings."

Photo by Liam Stack

EL MAHALLA EL KOBRA: A crippling strike at Egypt’s largest public sector factory entered its fifth day on Thursday as workers, angry at corruption and what they call a string of lies and broken promises, say they will not end their occupation of the factory until their demands have been met by both the company’s board of directors and by President Hosni Mubarak.

The strike has united more than 27,000 employees of the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company, from manual laborers to more highly skilled engineers and clerical staff, and has brought production at the factory in the dusty Delta city of Mahalla to a standstill.

Workers in Mahalla complain of low wages which leave them subject to grinding poverty, abuse by management, corruption, and above all a host of unfulfilled government promises made after a similarly large strike last December.

Workers throughout the company insist that they want nothing more than what is rightfully theirs, and accuse their managers of widespread corruption and violating past agreements.

“We just want them to treat us like human beings,” said one man, who like most of the strikers preferred to remain anonymous for fear of possible reprisals by management or its allies in state security.

“There is corruption in this company,” alleged another man “They treat us badly. There is mismanagement and they are bad at planning for the future.”

“If the chairman gave us the price of one of the iftar meals that he eats, it would be enough to pay us what is rightfully ours,” shouted a third.

In last December’s strike, the shop floor came to a standstill over the non-payment of bonuses workers said they were promised by a government decree guaranteeing public sector employees an annual bonus equal to two months salary.

Ghazl El Mahalla management said that the decree did not apply to workers in public sector factories, but was only meant for employees in government ministries and offices.

The workers’ union, which they say is corrupt and dominated by loyalists of the ruling National Democratic Party, sided with management.

Workers said the union did not represent them and staged a strike despite its opposition, which ended after management and the Ministry of Labor conceded to many of the workers’ demands. They gave the strikers a one and a half month bonus and made a host of other promises, including a commitment to profit sharing.

That profit sharing agreement is at the crux of the new strike, say workers. Under it, management agreed that if Misr Spinning and Weaving turned a profit of more than LE 60 million, then it would set aside 10 percent of that to be distributed among the 27,000 employees. Under the deal, each worker was supposed to receive a bonus roughly equal to 150 days pay.

But workers say that the management has not held up its end of the deal. Over the past year the company has recorded profits of more than LE 200 million, although despite these apparent boom times workers say they have only received a bonus equal to 20 days pay.

They accuse the management of diverting LE 40 million of that profit into private bank accounts, and say that they want the rest of the money they are owed.

“The main problem we have here is that we were promised that if the company made LE 60 million in profit then we would all get paid a bonus out of 10 percent of it,” said one man, who like the other was afraid to give his name.

“The Chairman of the Board told us all that the company made LE 245 million this year, but they only gave us a bonus of 20 days.”

The management of Ghazl El Mahalla refused to comment. When approached by foreign and Egyptian reporters for a response to the worker’s charges, one member of the Board of Directors fled through the streets of Mahalla in a polished Toyota.

After December’s strike, the Mahalla workers movement began a campaign to impeach their local union leaders and abolish the country’s national union body, the General Federation of Trade Unions.

They claim that the General Federation has been co-opted by the Mubarak regime, and is more interested in keeping the regime in power than it is in helping the country’s workers. According to them, what Egypt needs is an independent labor movement.

“We want a change in the structure and hierarchy of the union system in this country,” said Mohamed El Attar, one of the leaders of the workers’ movement.

“The way unions in this country are organized is completely wrong, from top to bottom. It is organized to make it look like our representatives have been elected, when really they are appointed by the government.”

El Attar and seven others were arrested late on Tuesday night and charged with the potentially serious crimes of sabotage, unlawful gathering, the destruction of public property and instigating riots.

But they were released two days later, El Attar says, after police told them that they sympathized with the strike. Their first court session is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 29.

Speaking to a crowd of hushed workers in the factory’s Talaat Harb Square just before sunset, El Attar urged them not to give up their fight against the factory management and its allies within the government and state security forces.

For him, the Mahalla strike is not just about wages and benefits, but about the future of the country.

“He built this company for the workers and for the people of Egypt,” he told them, gesturing to a nearby statue of Talaat Harb, a national leader who helped forge Egypt’s economy after independence from Britain. “Every grain of sand in this company is yours. He built it for you, and it still belongs to you.”

But the management of Misr Spinning and Weaving disagrees. They say the company belongs to them. The Board of Directors issued a statement on Wednesday declaring that the company is on a week-long holiday and that any workers who remained on the premises were trespassing on company property and would be open to prosecution.

Workers fear that the sudden declaration of a week-long holiday will be used to justify the use of force against them by state security, which they say has sent soldiers to barricade the factory gates during the night.

Each time soldiers approach the factory, workers say they have outnumbered and intimidated them, but the threat of future violence against the Mahalla strikers and their families is real.

“We have to stay here no matter what,” El Attar told the mostly-male crowd on Wednesday. “Even if a worker, or two or 20 are killed. If you leave your places inside this strike, then you are running away from your blood and your manhood.”

Many in the crowd agreed with El Attar.

“We are ready to die to get what is ours,” said one. “We don’t want anything more than that.”

“We just want our rights,” insisted another. “We are ready to die for our rights.”

But a mood of frustration hangs over the tent city at Ghazl El Mahalla, and many workers say they are angry that factory management and government officials are unwilling to negotiate. Four days into the strike, workers say the only times that they have heard from officials is when they make statements to the media.

“There are no government representatives coming here to try to reach a common ground,” said one man. “The government cannot just abandon people like this.”

So far, it seems the government has little interest in finding common ground with the strikers.

On Wednesday night, Minister of Labor Aisha Abdel Hady appeared on El Beit Beitek, a nightly news magazine show on Egyptian Channel 2, and accused the Mahalla workers of sabotaging the factory machinery. But she later called the workers “loyal, honest and honorable people” and said that she would work to ensure their rights.

Residents of the tent city say they are uninterested in Abdel Hady’s compliments, and angrily deny her accusations of sabotage. They say that they would not sabotage the very machines that provide their livelihood.

To demonstrate that no sabotage has taken place, members of the private security team employed by Misr Spinning and Weaving took two Daily News Egypt journalists inside the locked factory to show them that the machines were in working order.

“We are not sabotaging this factory,” growled one gray-haired worker, showing the machinery to visitors as a uniformed member of factory security stood nearby. “We are guarding these machines. This is our factory. This is where we make our living. We understand that.”

Workers say they want a resolution to the strike, but believe that in the end the only person with the authority to meet their demands is President Mubarak. While some workers say they want him to get more involved in the dispute, others say it is time for his rule to end.

That is the position taken by Mohamed El Attar, the influential worker leader. For him, organizing workers, as in the Mahalla movement, is the way forward for Egypt.

“I want the whole government to resign,” he told the crowd standing in Talaat Harb square, just before the end of the Ramadan fast. “I want the Mubarak regime to come to an end.”

“Politics and workers’ rights are inseparable,” he added. “Work is politics by itself. What we are witnessing here right now, this is as democratic as it gets.”

DNE: Eight Mahalla strikers arrested, thousands erect tent city inside factory

2007-10-29T17:17:00.000+02:00

Eight Mahalla strikers arrested, thousands erect tent city inside factory

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 25, 2007

CAIRO: Thousands of workers in the Nile Delta town of El Mahalla El Kobra continued their strike for a third day on Tuesday, erecting a tent city in the center of the factory grounds even as three more strike leaders were arrested by state security.

About 27,000 employees of the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company in Mahalla went on strike on Sunday, about 10 months after a previous strike won them increased wages and benefits.

They say that management has not fulfilled the promises it made after that strike, in December, and that none of their gains have been realized. They say wages have remained very low and bonuses they were promised have not been forthcoming.

An original string of arrests on Monday saw workers Mohamed El Attar, Feisal Naqousha, Magdy Sherif, Mohamed Abu El Isaad, Wael Habib taken in to custody. They were charged with a string of potentially serious crimes including sabotage, unlawful gathering, the destruction of public property and instigating riots.

On Tuesday Khattaby Eid, Ahmed Sharaa, Farag Awad, also workers in Ghazl El Mahalla, were detained and charged with the same offenses.

Sources in Mahalla say that they are not intimidated by the arrests. They vow to continue their strike for as long as it takes, and to prove their determination have begun to erect a tent city in compound’s central Talaat Harb Square.

“We are putting up tents inside the factory grounds, and no one is stopping us,” said Gehad Taman, an employee at Misr Spinning and Weaving. “We want to send a message to the management that we are not going anywhere.”

“We are bringing our wives and our children, our whole families, here,” he added. “We will eat and drink and sleep here and will show them that we are not going anywhere. If we have to we will stay here until Eid.”

DNE: Family accuses police of torturing man to death in Fayoum

2007-10-29T17:14:00.000+02:00

Family accuses police of torturing man to death in Fayoum

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 24, 2007

CAIRO: The family of Mohamed Gomaa Hassan has accused police in Fayoum of torturing him to death after he passed away over the weekend from injuries sustained under unclear circumstances last month.

According to lawyers of Hassan’s family, he was detained by police and brought to Bandar Fayoum police station after arguing with officers in the street on Aug. 17.

While there, they say, he was beaten severely with shoes and whips by Lt. Col. Osama Gomaa and Captain Moataz Abdel Mongi. His brother found him unconscious on the pavement outside the station and rushed him to Fayoum Public Hospital.

At the hospital, the family was asked to file a police report. Fearing police, they claimed that they did not know what had happened to Hassan, says Taher Aboul Nasr, a lawyer for the family.

After being released from hospital, his health continued to deteriorate and he was brought to a specialist facility in Fayoum’s Mecca Hospital. There they were asked to file a second police report, and at that time claimed he had injured himself when he tripped and fell down the stairs.

At Mecca Hospital he was diagnosed with severe concussion, internal bleeding in his brain, and tearing of the liver and spleen. He remained in the hospital for several weeks and passed away over the weekend.

It was only after his death that Hassan’s family accused police in Fayoum of torture. Representatives of the family say that they were afraid of police reprisals if they filed a complaint against them, and their main concern while Mohamed was sick was paying for his treatment.

Lawyers for the family also say that the officers who tortured Hassan offered to pay for his expensive treatment, which made his family think twice before charging them with a crime.

“When the victim was sent to the hospital, his family did not make any complaints against the police officers because they are very poor,” said lawyer Aboul Nasr. “They thought the case would end safely without any serious problems for anyone and they thought the police officers would pay for his treatment, which they did."

“They never thought he was going to die,” he added. “His death is what brought the case to the surface.”

Aboul Nasr says that the first two police reports filed by the family must be seen in the context of their poverty and fear of authorities.

“They were afraid of the police,” he said.

The prosecutor’s office in Fayoum started an investigation into Hassan’s death, but Aboul Nasr foresees a long battle ahead. He said they have already had trouble moving the case forward.

The forensic examiner’s office in Fayoum issued a preliminary autopsy report for the victim shortly after his death, but the family angrily rejected their findings.

The forensic examiner, who is employed by the state in Fayoum declared that Hassan suffered from “no apparent injuries,” even though he was diagnosed with severe internal injuries by doctors at Mecca Hospital.

Aboul Nasr says the case is additionally complicated because the officers accused of torturing Hassan, Osama Gomaa and Moataz Abdel Mongi, allegedly offered the family a sum of LE 150,000 to drop the case. He says the family refused the money and that it was quickly withdrawn once it was reported to the Fayoum prosecutor’s office.

Hassan’s case has become a morbidly familiar one in Egypt in recent years, say government critics, as more and more stories of men and women tortured and killed in the country’s police stations are revealed.

“Many people have died from torture over the last few months,” said Dr. Magda Adly, the director of the Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture. “It is a daily occurrence. Every day someone in our country dies or suffers a severe injury due to torture.”

DNE: Kafr El Dawwar workers threaten Tuesday strike in solidarity with Mahalla

2007-10-29T17:12:00.000+02:00

Kafr El Dawwar workers threaten Tuesday strike in solidarity with Mahalla

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 24, 2007

CAIRO: Workers in the Nile Delta town of Kafr El Dawwar will go on strike today in solidarity with workers in nearby Ghazl Al Mahalla, according to sources within the labor group Ghazl Kafr El Dawwar Workers for Change.

Thousands of workers at the Ghazl Al Mahalla factory in Mahalla have been on strike since Sunday, staging a sit-in inside the factory. The new strike comes roughly 10 months after another strike involving 27,000 workers forced the management of the state-run factory to make concessions on issues of salaries and benefits.

But Mahalla workers say few of management’s promises have been fulfilled, and that months of negotiations have been fruitless. The mood of frustration appears to be spreading to other industrial sites as well.

“After closely following what is happening to our brothers and comrades from the Mahalla workers, and after all the efforts they did to reach a just settlement with the management, we find there was rightly no other choice in front of them but to strike,” said Kareem El Beheiri, an employee at Ghazl Kafr El
Dawwar and an activist with Ghazl Kafr El Dawwar Workers for Change, in a statement released on the group’s website.

“Diplomacy, delegations and pleas are not going to solve the workers’ problems,” he added.

Like workers in Mahalla, those in Kafr El Dawwar also complain that eight months after they struck a deal with management to end their own strike, the bosses have failed to live up to their end of the deal.

“We also demand that the Kafr El Dawwar management implement the rest of our demands, which they have shelved, including fixing the transportation buses at the factory, improving medical services for the workers, and opening the door for promotions for those have earned diplomas,” said Beheiri on the group’s website, http://egyworkers.blogspot.com .

DNE: National Council for Human Rights condemns conviction of newspaper editors

2007-10-29T17:10:00.000+02:00

National Council for Human Rights condemns conviction of newspaper editors

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 20, 2007

CAIRO: The National Council for Human Rights expressed its “distress” this week over the convictions of four newspaper editors on charges of insulting President Hosni Mubarak, his son and the ruling party, and called for the President to fulfill promises made in his 2005 electoral campaign to overturn laws that curtail freedom of expression.

In a statement released to the media, the Council, which is backed by the government, urged President Mubarak to “re-examine laws pertaining to freedom of expression” and to “draft new legislation to allow the free flow and exchange of information.”

It urged the President to consider the “gravity of the negative political impact of these provisions on the freedom of press and expression to the entire process of democratic reform.”

The convictions have landed the editors of some of the country’s most popular independent newspapers in serious legal trouble, and each face steep fines of LE 20,000. The four were Adel Hammouda, of Al-Fajr weekly, Ibrahim Eissa, editor of Al-Dostour daily, Wael Al-Ibrashy, editor of Sout Al-Omah weekly, and Abd Al-Halim Kandil, ex-editor of Al-Karama newspaper.

Lawyers of the four men say they will appeal the convictions, and that they are being punished not for insulting the regime but for airing fair criticisms of the government.

Under a deal reached with the court, the men paid LE 10,000 in bail but will not have to begin their incarceration until the appeals process is complete.

This conviction is separate from another case currently pending against Eissa, who has described the regime as “archaic” and “fascist.” He will be tried in October for spreading what the state calls false information about the president’s health.

In its statement the National Council says that the state must foster “the right environment for independent journalism that will play a positive role in paving the path of democracy.”

Independent observers say that the convictions must be seen as part of the larger crack down on civil society and opposition groups, which has resulted in the arrest of hundreds of members of the Muslim Brotherhood and the forcible closure of active civil rights groups like the Center for Trade Union and Worker Services and the Association for Human Rights and Legal Aid.

Indeed, some say, rather than a detour on the road to reform, the crack down is an indication of the state’s hostility to the path of democracy.

“This is a clear indication that we are seeing the end of the relative openness that began in 2005,” says Hossam Bahgat, the Director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.

In light of the case, rights groups on Saturday accused Egypt of curbing press freedom.

Human Rights Watch called on the government to repeal laws that allow authorities to "imprison writers and editors solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression."

Amnesty International called for a review of the press law passed in July 2006 in which publishing offences, such as insulting public officials, carry prison sentences.

"Press freedom does not exist in a country where the state can put you in prison simply for criticizing the president," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

"This ruling and the new charges against (Eissa) are incompatible with Egypt's constitution and its commitments under international human rights law, not to mention Egypt's current membership on the UN Human Rights Council," she said.

In comments to the weekly Al-Osboa paper published Saturday, Mubarak defended Egypt's press laws and insisted he was an advocate of press freedom, but within limits.

"I am not against criticism... but there is a difference between constructive criticism which seeks to benefit society and destructive criticism which seeks to undermine society's achievements.... This is not criticism, this is abuse of freedom of the press," he said.

Additional reporting by AFP

DNE: As state closes prominent human rights group, activists fear further crackdown

2007-10-29T17:05:00.000+02:00

As State closes prominent human rights group, activists fear further crackdown

By Liam Stack

First Published: September 16, 2007
Photo by Liam Stack

CAIRO: Human rights activists from an array of civil society groups took to the streets of downtown on Sunday to protest what they call the politically motivated shut down of the Association for Human Rights and Legal Aid (AHRLA).

The closure comes after a bureaucratic saga in which the group spent months trying to deflect government accusations that it took money from the United States without receiving permission from the Ministry of Social Solidarity.

Staff lawyers for AHRLA vigorously denied any financial misdeeds, even as representatives of the Interior Ministry swept through their office seizing files and documents.

They say the ministry gave them permission to receive funds from the National Endowment for Democracy, and that when the state first made its accusations in June they provided it with copies of all the relevant paperwork.

“We sent all the necessary documents to the Ministry of Social Solidarity,” said Mohamed Bayoumi, a lawyer for the group. “When we sent them, the Ministry said they would respond after ten days, and we waited for their response for two months. After two months, they told us they were going to close us down.”

“Now that they have seized all of our files and documents, they can really see for themselves that we did not do anything wrong,” he added, pointing out a ministry official walking down the street with a box of papers to a foreign reporter.

Members of AHRLA received notice that the government was considering shutting the group down in late August, but were not told that the decision had been made until Sept. 9.

They say they will appeal the decision before the Administrative Court on Oct. 23, but express little optimism in the future of their association. Instead, says Bayoumi, the current AHRLA legal team plans to reopen as the Group for Human Rights and Legal Aid at a new office located in Cairo’s Tawfiqeyya neighborhood.

“Now we are worried that when the government announces their new amendments to the law on organizations they will say it is illegal for any organization to have the word ‘group’ in its name,” he said with a wry laugh.

Rights activists and opposition leaders say that the AHRLA shut down is an escalation of the crackdown that has been slowly descending on Egypt since the mass arrests at judicial demonstrations in 2006. Over 700 people were arrested over several days during protests in support of greater judicial freedom, a demand to which the state never acquiesced.

Demonstrators were quick to point out that the closure of the legal aid group comes only six months after the closure of the Center for Trade Union and Worker Services, a prolific workers’ rights group that was accused of endangering national security through its advocacy of labor unions independent of state control.

The closure of the AHRLA also comes less than a week after the editors of four independent newspapers, including firebrand newspaperman Ibrahim Eissa, were sentenced to one year jail terms and hit with heavy fines for insulting the ruling National Democratic Party of President Hosni Mubarak.

The four were also convicted of insulting the “symbols” of the party — President Mubarak and his son Gamal, who many opposition figures consider the heir apparent to the presidency.

“This cannot be seen in isolation from the general crackdown that we are witnessing now,” said Hossam Bahgat, the director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.

“The beginning of the end was the crackdown on supporters of the judges’ demonstration in the spring of 2006, and now this closure comes at the same time as last week’s attack on independent media,” he added. “This is a clear indication that we are seeing the end of the relative openness that began in 2005.”

Protestors and opposition leaders were united in their belief that AHRLA was innocent of the financial misdeeds it stands accused of, and that it has instead been targeted by the regime for its legal work on behalf of torture victims.

“AHRLA was very outspoken in bringing state security officers closer to criminal trials before the courts,” said Aida Seif El Dawla, a professor at Ain Shams University and member of the Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture.

“Over the summer they filed charges against state security officer Ashraf Safwat on the murder under torture of Mohamed Abdel Adel,” she said. “Even though he was eventually acquitted, this was the first time since 1986 that a state security officer was referred to criminal court.”

Ultimately, Seif El Dawla believes, it was that historic court case that may have been AHRLA’s undoing.

“They were too loud a voice against torture and the policies of the Interior Ministry,” she said. “The regime does not want to tolerate any criticism of any sort — it is closing NGOs, it is persecuting journalists, it is banning peaceful gatherings. This is the state of emergency in action.”

Noha Atef, the editor of the advocacy website http://www.tortureinegypt.net/, agrees. According to her, the shut down of such a prominent legal aid organization is meant to have a chilling effect on human rights advocacy in Egypt.

“This association is very active and has defended many torture victims, so it is only logical that the government would come after them,” she says.

“The state wants to send a message to other civil society groups — they say ‘this was one of the biggest groups and we can just dissolve it whenever we want.’” she adds “That this can happen to a big organization with a lot of its own lawyers — how do you think normal people who don’t have a team of lawyers with them will feel about standing up against torture?”

Bahgat agrees that the specter of further shut downs, and the shock of seeing one of the most prominent human rights groups shuttered by the state, may be what motivated so many different organizations to come to AHRLA’s aid.

“There is a sense of urgency here. This is an increasingly irritated and autocratic regime that is intent on shutting down any channels for peaceful dissent,” he said, watching as rings of baton-wielding, black-clad riot police encircled a small group of protestors.

“People can tell that something serious is about to happen.”

Tampa Tribune: Mohamed enjoyed upscale Cairo community life

2007-10-29T16:56:00.000+02:00

Mohamed enjoyed upscale Cairo community life

Abdel Latif Sherif says his son is innocent of the terror-related charges filed against him in Tampa.

Photo by Liam Stack

By LIAM STACK / Tribune correspondent
Published: September 14, 2007

CAIRO - The Heliopolis Club is an oasis of leafy green calm in the heart of the congested but upscale Cairo suburb of Heliopolis.

The address is one of the city's most elite. It is home to gracious villas with luxury cars parked out front, boutiques that sell Gucci head scarves and the heavily guarded palace of President Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt with an iron fist since 1981.

It is also home to the family of Ahmed Mohamed, a 26-year-old student at the University of South Florida.

On Aug. 31, Mohamed was indicted in Tampa on federal charges of trying to help terrorists by aiding, teaching and demonstrating the use of an explosive device.

The indictment also charges Mohamed and another USF student, Youssef Megahed, with transporting explosives. Both men are Egyptian citizens – Megahed a permanent, legal U.S. resident and Mohamed visiting on a student visa.

The men were arrested Aug. 4 after a routine South Carolina traffic stop uncovered what sheriffs there say were pipe bombs and bullets in his car trunk.

They were pulled over for speeding about seven miles from the Goose Creek Naval Weapons Station, which houses a military prison for enemy combatants.

Organizations like the Heliopolis Club are an institution in the life of upper-class Egyptians, who can slip inside their gates to escape from the noise and overcrowding of this city of 18 million.

But few are allowed inside those gates. Membership in such social clubs is hereditary, with children inheriting from parents and spouses marrying into them from families less well-connected.

Inside, children run around jungle gyms and teenagers lounge by the pool while their parents mingle over buffet lines or a game of golf or croquet.

To enroll as a new member, a family must fork over a lump sum of $10,000 and pay an annual fee; this in a country where the average annual income hovers around $800.

Family members say Mohamed was a regular at the club. He liked to spend his days splashing around one of its several swimming pools or playing sports with his friends.

In a country where poverty and illiteracy are endemic, his was a life of privilege and comfort.

That elite world of pool parties and croquet games is far from the Tampa jail cell where he now sits, and his family and peers expressed shock and disbelief at the charges against him in the United States.

"I was surprised to hear about him," said Maram Mazen, 22, a law graduate from Cairo University. Mazen is a member of the club and lives nearby, but does not know Ahmed personally.

"There is nothing really missing from our lives here," she said. "Why would someone ever do something like that? He's not poor, so he has no reason to be angry."

Across town lies Ramses Square, the transportation hub of the Egyptian capital.

It is a dense knot of highways, overlapping flyovers and foot bridges, and crisscrossing subway and trolley lines wedged between Cairo's cavernous central train station and a patch of sparse grass.

The square swirls with commuters, vendors hocking knock-off designer shades and small glasses of tea, and screaming taxis and shaky microbuses.

On Thursday, the last day before Ramadan, the square was alive with a mass of people hurrying home from work or going to relatives in the countryside to celebrate the beginning of the holy month.

In the center of the rush sits the squat headquarters of the National Authority for Tunnels, the division of the Ministry of Transportation responsible for the network of subways and underground traffic tunnels that cut beneath the city.

And on the second floor of this building, beneath a portrait of Mubarak flanked by framed verses from the Quran, sits Abdel Latif Sherif, vice chairman of the authority and father of Ahmed Mohamed.

Sherif – whose name has been reported in the United States erroneously as Abdellatif Mohamed – sits behind a large desk lined with telephones that ring incessantly. A phalanx of assistants, secretaries and well-wishers files in to his office with paperwork to be signed, hands to shake, and best wishes for the approaching holiday.

He is a heavyset man who is by turns distraught and angry about his son's predicament in the United States, but he is unfailingly polite. He receives every visitor, wishes everyone who passes a happy holiday and makes sure his secretary keeps a steady stream of Coca-Cola coming for a visiting foreign reporter.

Sherif is the image of a successful, prosperous government official. Throughout his life, he said, he has given his children every opportunity that his connections can provide. The chance for Mohamed to study in America was just one of those opportunities, the fulfillment of what he calls his son's lifelong dream.

"Ahmed was very, very happy to go to America. His dream was always to go to Europe or America and to study for a PhD," Sherif said. "And all of us were happy because he was so happy."

Mohamed loved the United States, his father said. Even though he had lived there a short time he told his family he had made a lot of friends and felt at home in Tampa.

"He liked Florida very much and he was very happy there," Sherif said. "When his mother or I would say to him 'Oh, you are living abroad' he would tell us that he felt like he was living in his own country because he had so many friends there."

In the month since he has been imprisoned, Sherif and his wife have been able to speak to Mohamed once. He sounds well, they say, and he said he has put his faith in God to protect him.

But thanks to his father's connections, Mohamed also has more earthly forces coming to his assistance in prison.

Sherif said he has marshaled those connections to help his son in any way possible.

"I contacted lots of high-ranking people that I know in Cairo and they are doing their best to help us with this matter," he said. "I am in contact with them every day and they are doing more than you can imagine, even as we speak."

Sherif fervently believes his son is innocent of the terror-related charges filed against him in Tampa and says his son has been caught in a mixed-up case of racial profiling.

"They are only saying he is a terrorist because he had a long beard at the time he was arrested, because he did not shave for maybe two or three days before his vacation," he said. "I am sure that he was targeted because of the way that he looks – because he is Arab and wore a long beard."

"If my son looked more like you," he said, staring across his massive desk at a pale, clean-shaven foreign reporter, "then he would not be having any of these problems."

Sherif's confidence in his son's innocence seems to be matched only by his faith in the Egyptian government to bring him home.

"The Egyptian government has helped us so much, especially the Foreign Ministry and Ministry of Higher Education," he said. "They have helped us to speak to him in jail, they are helping us get a lawyer, and they will also pay for the lawyer. The government will never leave him. They will do their best to bring our son home."

In the meantime, Mohamed's Tampa arrest has left a wake of sadness and confusion in his Cairo social circle.

As Egyptian families settle in to a season of religious devotion, family dinners and holiday TV specials after a day of fasting, Mohamed's family said they are depressed, angry and afraid to allow their other son to travel abroad.

"This whole situation is so strange and horrible," Sherif said. "Of course we are suffering, my family is in a very bad state."

Outside the Heliopolis Club, Maram Mazen strikes a similar tone.

"Why would a terrorist ever come from someplace like this?" she said. "For people who are very poor, I understand why they would be angry enough to do something extreme. But for someone like him, it makes no sense."

Liam Stack is a Cairo-based reporter.

DNE: Family of Egyptian charged with terrorism in the US speaks out

2007-10-29T16:53:00.000+02:00

Family of Egyptian charged with terrorism in the US speaks out

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 13, 2007

CAIRO: Ahmed Abdel Latif Sherif was a promising student from a well-connected family who spent his days playing sports at the Heliopolis Club, say relatives. He was so bright that as a fresh graduate of Ain Shams University he was hired to teach in its Faculty of Engineering.

He always wanted to study abroad and last year his dream came true when he was awarded a scholarship for graduate study in the United States. But Sherif’s dream has turned into a nightmare, says his family.

He now sits in solitary confinement in a Florida jail cell, accused by the United States government of explosives charges. Rather than teaching engineering, they say, he was giving lessons to would-be terrorists in the construction and detonation of bombs.

Abdel Latif Sherif, Ahmed’s father and the vice chairman of the National Authority for Tunnels, firmly rejects the American government’s charges.

“We are sure that he is innocent and did not do anything bad to anyone in America or to the community he lives in,” Sherif told Daily News Egypt. “These are false charges.”

Ahmed’s troubles began when he and a friend, Egyptian-American Yousef Megahed, were pulled over for speeding on a South Carolina highway on Aug. 4, near a navy base housing weapons facilities.

Ahmed’s family says he and Megahed were taking a vacation to celebrate his twenty-sixth birthday, but according to police they were carrying weapons and an explosive device in their car.

They were detained and charged with possession of explosives in the state of South Carolina, and were then transferred to Tampa, Florida, where they both attend the University of South Florida. There they were charged with transporting explosives across state lines, and Ahmed was additionally charged with teaching the use of an explosive device.

Ahmed’s father says that his son was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that the charges against his son are a mixed up case of racial profiling.

“They are only saying he is a terrorist because he had a long beard at the time he was arrested, because he did not shave for maybe two or three days before his vacation, just like any other young man might not shave,” says Sherif.

“I am sure that he was targeted because of the way he looks — because he is Arab and wore a long beard,” he added. “If he was white, and not a little bit colored like he is, then he would not be having any of these problems.”

Sherif and his wife have been able to speak to Ahmed only once in the month that he has been imprisoned in Florida, and say that he sounds well. He fervently believes he is innocent, they say, and has put his faith in God to protect him.

Thanks to his father’s connections as a prominent government official, Ahmed also has more earthly forces coming to his assistance in prison.

Sherif says that a range of officials in ministries across the government, in particular the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Higher Education, are working to help the family.

They arranged for Ahmed to speak with his parents from inside the prison and are going to pay for an American legal team to seek his release.

“I arranged to speak to my son through high level authorities. They are doing more than you can imagine for us,” says Sherif. “They are taking all the necessary actions and are doing their best to help us with this matter.”

“They are doing everything that is required to deal with this subject, even as we speak,” he added. “I am in contact with them daily.”

It is unclear what role his father’s connections may play in Ahmed’s criminal case. As a non-citizen he has few rights in the United States, and as a suspect in a terrorism case he may be afforded even fewer. The maximum penalty for the two charges against him is 30 years in prison.

In the meantime, the Sherif family begins Ramadan under a cloud of uncertainty and worry.

“Our family is living in a very bad situation,” he says. “We are very depressed. We are angry. We are unhappy. We are sure that he is innocent.”

If he is allowed to meet with his son, Sherif says he will go to him right away.

“If I can get an appointment to meet him, then I will go to see Ahmed and how he is being treated in America. I don’t want to go anywhere in this world anymore, I just want to go see my son.”

DNE: MB detainee freed for heart surgery, but most sick prisoners remain in jail

2007-10-29T16:51:00.000+02:00

MB detainee freed for heart surgery, but most sick prisoners remain in jail

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 11, 2007

CAIRO: Muslim Brotherhood detainee Dr Sanaa Abu Zeid was released from Tora Prison on Monday night after suffering chest pain.

He was then sent to the intensive care unit at Manial University Hospital where open heart surgery was recommended.

Abu Zeid is the seventh Brotherhood detainee in recent weeks to face serious illness in Tora prison, but one of only two to be released into what friends and associates consider appropriate medical care.

Mahmoud Hussein, who was arrested in a Giza raid on Aug. 17, was released shortly thereafter when he suffered a heart attack inside prison. He was also sent to Manial University Hospital, which has a special ward to treat prisoners and convicts. There he received medical care while handcuffed to a gurney.

Also released to Manial Hospital this week was Hassan Zalat, a defendant in the military trial currently taking place against 40 Muslim Brotherhood leaders on charges of money laundering and membership of a banned organization.

He was also told he needed a bypass operation, but the hospital said it did not have the resources to treat him. When his family requested he be moved to Al Qasr Al Aini hospital, authorities at Tora refused.

“Zalat is supposed to have open heart surgery, but they won’t allow it,” said Ibrahim El Houdaiby, board member of ikhwanweb.com.

“He has been sick for a long time — when they arrested him back in February he had just had a heart operation.”

According to Brotherhood blogger Abdel Moneim Mahmoud, detainees Dr Mohamed Kamal and Dr Mahmoud Doheimy also suffer from heart conditions and may require open heart surgery, but authorities at Tora prison have so far refused to release them.

Zahraa El Shater, daughter of Brotherhood Deputy Khairat El Shater, who is currently standing trial before a military court, says that many Brotherhood family members fear sending their loved ones to Manial Hospital because it has a reputation for poor treatment and unsanitary conditions.

Her father is a diabetic suffering from a potentially dangerous leg infection in jail, but she says that her family has urged him not to go to Manial Hospital.

“The prison hospital is even dirtier and worse than the prison itself,” she said. “We would rather he stay in his cell than be sent to that dirty hospital.”

DNE: Brotherhood military trial reconvenes today amid lingering concerns over detainee health

2007-10-29T16:48:00.000+02:00

Brotherhood military trial reconvenes today amid lingering concerns over detainee health

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 11, 2007

CAIRO: The military trial of Muslim Brotherhood leader Khayrat El Shater and 39 others continues today.

Meanwhile, the family says that the state continues to deny proper medical care to several defendants who are in poor health.

According to Brotherhood sources, the presiding judge in the case also refused to open a criminal investigation into the conduct of the state security officers involved in the arrests of the defendants. Fourteen of these officers are the prosecution’s primary witnesses in the case.

Family members of the 40 defendants say that police seized money and valuables from their homes during the arrests, which were ostensibly to be entered into evidence against the men. That was months ago, and so far prosecutors in the case have never seen any of the seized goods.

In the last session chief defense lawyer Abdel Moneim Abdel Maqsud accused the arresting officers of robbery and demanded they be investigated by the prosecutor’s office.

The judge formally refused that request on Sunday, although the Brotherhood legal team asked him to reconsider.

Brotherhood lawyers also asked the judge to consider two motions to improve the quality of life of the defendants and their families. The first would release the defendants into house arrest for the holy month of Ramadan, as was allowed for other high profile defendants before military courts in the past.

The second motion would allow businesses owned by the men to be reopened, ending state-ordered closures that took effect after their detentions.

The judge will respond to all three requests today, but Brotherhood sources say they do not expect him to agree to any of them.

On Sunday, the defense continued its cross examination of the prosecution witnesses, although it says that the security officers testifying for the state refused to answer any questions.

“The police witnesses kept saying their usual answer to every question the defense lawyers asked them. They just kept saying ‘I don’t remember,’ or ‘I can’t say,’ or ‘that is classified information,’” complained Zahraa El Shater, who has been at all 11 sessions of the trial. She is the daughter of Khayrat El Shater and the wife of Ayman Abdel Ghany, who is also standing trial before the military court.

Hassan Zalat, one of the defendants in the case, was not present at Sunday’s session because he is awaiting permission to undergo open heart surgery in the prisoner’s ward of Manial General Hospital.

According to El Shater, Zalat and his family have requested that he be moved to Qasr El Aini Hospital to receive the operation, but the court has overruled the request.

It recommends that he have the surgery in Manial General, which has already said it cannot do it. In addition, Brotherhood sources worry that the hospital is not sanitary enough to be the setting for complicated open heart surgery.

They point to the death of Brotherhood detainee Abdel Rahman Abdel Fattah in the prisoners’ ward in the late 1990s. After being convicted by a military court in 1995 for membership in a banned organization, Abdel Fattah was sentenced to three years in prison.

During that time he developed complications related to diabetes and was sent to Manial General, where Brotherhood sources say he was left unattended for long periods of time without medical attention and eventually died.

DNE: State accuses human rights group of corruption, threatens shut down

2007-10-29T16:46:00.000+02:00

State accuses human rights group of corruption, threatens shut down

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 9, 2007

CAIRO: The Association for Human Rights and Legal Aid (AHRLA) has received notice that the governor of Cairo is weighing a decision to close the organization and try its members on corruption charges.

The group’s director says these allegations are fabricated.

The decision appears to have come directly from the desk of Cairo Governor Abdel Azim Wazir, who claims that since its foundation in 1999 AHRLA has illegally raised funds both domestically and abroad without seeking prior approval from the Ministry of Social Solidarity.

The Ministry of Social Solidarity maintains that it is within neither their mandate nor the power of the governor to shut down NGOs, and told Daily News Egypt that this authority rests with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Representatives from the office of Governor Wazir, on the other hand, say that a decision is still pending and that they cannot comment on the case until it has been reached.

Tareq Khater, director of AHRLA, says he learned that a decision on the future of his NGO was pending after reading about it in Al Masry Al Youm last week.

He rejects the accusations of corruption and says this is a politically motivated attack.

“The government wants to close AHRLA because this association works on torture cases,” Khater told Daily News Egypt. “If the governor of Cairo decides to close us down we will continue our work. The government has declared war on NGOs, but they cannot stop us.”

To combat the corruption charges, Khater says that AHRLA will publish a detailed financial statement next week outlining its fund-raising activities and expenditures over the past eight years.

“Since AHRLA was founded in 1999 we have raised around LE 1.3 million, which we have used to fund programs here in Cairo and out of three branch offices in Alexandria, Tanta and Minya,” said Khater.

The potential shut down of AHRLA follows in the footsteps of the closure last winter of the Center for Trade Union and Worker Services (CTUWS), an independent labor rights group that the government claimed was a threat to national security.

Activists say it is more likely that the government felt threatened by the Center’s support of striking workers, many of whom forced state-owned industries to compromise on wages and benefits and called for the resignation of pro-government union officials.

“If you are very active in your field, then the government will come after you,” said Rahma Refaat, the program coordinator at CTUWS. “They are coming after AHRLA now because this organization has been very active against torture, and they came after us last year because we were very active in workers’ rights.”

Members of AHRLA are nervous about the future, and worry that if the state does shut their organization then it will follow through on its threat to open criminal proceedings against them individually on charges of corruption. But they say that the possible closure of another human rights organization only means that rights activists must work together more closely to fend off state accusations.

At the end of the day, they say they believe they are doing the right thing.

“My colleagues and I may not know exactly what to do against the state, but we are confident that we have international law and all of Egypt’s international conventions on our side,” said Khater. “We will complete our work.”

Additional reporting by Khadiga Samir

DNE: HRW condemns Israeli targeting of Lebanese civilians in 2006 war

2007-10-29T16:43:00.000+02:00

HRW condemns Israeli targeting of Lebanese civilians in 2006 war

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 8, 2007

CAIRO: Human Rights Watch released a report on Thursday condemning the Israeli government for what it called “indiscriminate” attacks on civilians during the 2006 Lebanon war, saying that intentional attacks on civilians were responsible for the majority of the more than 1,000 deaths in that conflict.

The New York-based group also says that there is no evidence to support the Israeli argument that most civilians were killed because they were acting as human shields for Hezbollah fighters.

During a five month investigation, researchers visited more than 50 villages in Lebanon and interviewed 316 victims and eyewitnesses, as well as 39 military experts, journalists and officials from the governments of both Israel and Lebanon as well as Hezbollah.

HRW investigated the deaths of 510 individual civilians and 51 combatants, nearly half of all those killed in the war. Of those civilian deaths, more than 300 were unarmed women and children.

According to the report, Israel warned civilians to leave their homes before intentionally targeting neighborhoods it considered sympathetic to Hezbollah. But not all civilians heeded the warnings, and HRW says Israel was aware of that before it began bombing.

“Israel wrongfully acted as if all civilians had heeded its warnings to evacuate southern Lebanon when it knew they had not, disregarding its continuing legal duty to distinguish between military targets and civilians,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of HRW. “Issuing warnings doesn’t make indiscriminate attacks lawful.”

HRW says that similar logic was behind devastating Israeli attacks on civilian institutions such as charities, schools and hospitals which had no military value.

Because many of these organizations receive funding in whole or in part from the humanitarian arm of the Shia group, Israel considered them legitimate targets. HRW says this too is in violation of international law.

“Israel’s treatment of all parts of Hezbollah as legitimate military targets flies in the face of international legal standards and sets a dangerous precedent,” Roth said.

“To accept the argument that any part of Hezbollah can be targeted because it aids the military effort would be to accept that all Israeli institutions that aid the IDF can be targeted.”

According to the report, Israeli air strikes often targeted simple movement of civilian vehicles or persons, such as those attempting to buy bread or move inside their own homes, as well as trucks which carried refugees trying to flee the fighting.

HRW says in most of these cases it found no evidence of Hezbollah military involvement that would have justified an attack.

“Hezbollah fighters often didn’t carry their weapons in the open or regularly wear military uniforms, which made them a hard target to identify,” said Roth.

“But this doesn’t justify the IDF’s failure to distinguish between civilians and combatants, and if in doubt to treat a person as a civilian, as the laws of war require.”

The report on Israeli misconduct during the war comes one week after a highly controversial report condemning Hezbollah for similarly targeting Israeli civilians during the fighting.

That report was condemned by political players as diverse as pro-US Prime Minister Fouad Seniora and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who described it as “scandalous” and an act of “political debauchery.”

A planned press conference to release the report was cancelled at the last minute under the threat of Hezbollah protests outside the venue.

At the time, HRW said Hezbollah was just trying to bully its critics, and accused the group of running a smear campaign against them.

It says that it is committed to defending human rights and upholding international humanitarian law, no matter what controversy that may create.

“Our focus is on the protection of civilians wherever they may be, and not about taking sides in a conflict,” said Sarah Lee Whitson, director of HRW’s Middle East and North Africa division

DNE: Brotherhood trial adjourns to Sunday amid allegations of police theft

2007-10-29T16:41:00.000+02:00

Brotherhood trial adjourns to Sunday amid allegations of police theft

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 8, 2007

CAIRO: The military trial of Muslim Brotherhood Deputy Chairman Khayrat El Shater and 39 others has been adjourned to Sunday, Sept. 9, after its tenth meeting on Tuesday devolved into an argument between the defense and the judge about the fate of money seized by police during the arrests of the defendants, according to Brotherhood sources.

Zahraa El Shater, daughter of Khayrat El Shater and wife of Ayman Abdul Ghani — who is also on trial before the military court — says that during the arrests police confiscated money and other valuables from Brotherhood members’ homes but never entered them as evidence in the case.

She describes it as an act of theft, and says that both the police and the presiding judge in the case have so far refused to investigate the matter.

“Our lawyers asked the judge to investigate where all this money went and to investigate the police for theft, but he would not listen,” El Shater told Daily News Egypt.

“When the lawyers asked any questions that embarrassed the police witnesses, like any question about the missing money, or why the prosecution has never seen any of it if it was supposed to be evidence, the judge stops the questioning,” she added. “He says ‘stop this questioning, the court refuses this question.’”

Also on Tuesday, military police denied entry to Ammar El Qurabi, a representative of both the Arab Organization for Human Rights and the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights.

Qurabi had permission from the Foreign Ministry to attend the trial as an international observer, but at the court house was told that to attend the proceedings he needed permission from military intelligence, which he was unable to obtain.

The case has attracted both international attention and condemnation because the men were acquitted of the same charges before a civilian court, only to be rearrested inside the court room and immediately re-charged with the same crimes before a military judge.

Brotherhood members and their families say they are beginning to feel the pressure of the trial. Some defendants have seen their health deteriorate in prison, including El Shater, who has developed a potentially serious leg infection complicated by diabetes.

“There are so many pressures on us,” said Zahraa El Shater. “The law is not respected inside this court room. It is very hard to be in a place where there is no media allowed and no human rights organizations allowed … and to know that no one outside knows what is happening.”

DNE: Muslim Brotherhood: third detainee in 'critical condition,' denied treatment

2007-10-29T16:38:00.000+02:00

Muslim Brotherhood: third detainee in ‘critical condition,’ denied treatment

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 4, 2007

CAIRO: A third detained member of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has been admitted to the intensive care unit at Manial University Hospital after developing a serious heart condition in Tora prison, but prison officials have denied him access to treatment, the group said in a statement.

Hassan Zalat, who is one of 40 Brotherhood members currently being tried before a military court on charges of money laundering and membership of a banned organization, was admitted to intensive care and put on a respirator after his health deteriorated inside the prison.

Brotherhood sources say that Zalat suffers from high blood pressure and clogged arteries and may require bypass surgery. Manial University Hospital says it does not have the resources to treat him.

His family has requested that he be moved to a more specialized hospital for the surgery and has offered to pay the full cost, but prison officials have so far refused to approve the transfer.

“Zalat is supposed to have open-heart surgery, but the regime won’t allow it,” said Ibrahim El Houdaiby, board member of ikhwanweb.com, the MB’s official website.

“He has been sick for a long time — when they arrested him back in February he had just had a heart operation,” he added. “He was arrested out of his bed and carried in to the police truck [wrapped] in blankets.”

Zalat is the third Brotherhood detainee to develop serious health problems while in prison, and in all three cases there have been complaints that the state is denying prisoners proper medical care.

Two weeks ago Mohamed Hussein, a member of the Brotherhood’s political bureau who was detained in mid-August, suffered an acute heart attack in Tora prison. He was rushed to El Qasr El Aini hospital, where doctors inserted a catheter to clear blocked arteries in tight security measures.

Khayrat El Shater, the deputy leader of the MB, has been detained since December and is also standing trial before a military court. He is a diabetic who last month developed a severe infection in his leg as a consequence of high blood sugar.

His family fears that without immediate medical attention his leg may have to be amputated, although prison officials refuse to let him see a specialist and say he can be treated at the prison hospital.

The Shater family says that the prison hospital is unsanitary and unsafe and that doctors there are not specialists in diabetes.

“The hospital in the prison is even dirtier and worse than the prison itself,” his daughter Zahraa previously told Daily News Egypt. “We would rather he stay in that cage than be sent to that dirty hospital.”

The Brotherhood is Egypt’s most influential opposition group. It holds 88 seats in the 454 member People’s Assembly, which it won during a brief period of political opening that coincided with elections in the fall of 2005.

More than 600 members of the group have been detained since December.

DNE: Upper Egypt farmers dip into agro-business, challenge social norms

2007-10-29T16:35:00.000+02:00

Upper Egypt farmers dip into agro-business, challenge social norms

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 4, 2007

CAIRO: Hunched over in a dark galabeya, Haj Gamal may appear an unlikely vector of economic reform. He has spent his entire life farming wheat and sugar cane in a village outside Beni Suef, the same two staples that his parents grew before him.

With little attention paid to the laws of supply and demand, he once grew his crops and then took them to market in the hopes of finding someone to buy them. He and his fellow villagers were living on a bare subsistence level, without enough money to even send their children to school.

But now, thanks in part to business training he received under a recently completed USAID project, Haj Gamal has gone to the market in a whole new way. Armed with an internet connection and a new understanding of market forces, he and his neighbors now grow more lucrative cash crops for sale in Cairo and on the international market.

They have made the leap from subsistence farming to small-scale yet shrewd agro-business, and have organized into a cooperative farmers’ association, one of 104 established with the help of the American aid agency.

“Before we used to cultivate beans, wheat and sugar cane, but now after researching the market we decided to grow cantaloupes, green beans and organic onions,” says Gamal.

“When we started out we just [cultivated] 20 feddans of cantaloupe and now we have 200 feddans of it.”

Gamal’s story is typical of Upper Egyptian farmers who participated in USAID’s El Shams program — short for Enhanced Livelihood from Smallholder Horticultural Activities Managed Sustainably — which provided business and skills training and support to communities of small-scale farmers and also helped them form cooperative farmer’s associations.

Launched in September 2003, the El Shams Project is part of USAID’s Agricultural Exports and Rural Incomes horticultural grant and it is coming to an end on September 20, 2007. Throughout the life of the project, El Shams organized small land-holding farmers throughout Upper Egypt into voluntary, member-based, service associations.

USAID provided each farmers’ association in nine governorates with a computer and a stable internet connection. It helped them compile databases of marketing information as well as a list of contact information for buyers, exporters, processors, wholesalers, and suppliers of seeds and other farm supplies.

“If there is a problem with the cantaloupe or spring onion crop, the farmers have a database of experts to help them solve the problem and to give them advice on raising different crops and on post-harvest handling,” said Ibrahim Siddik Ali, an agricultural marketing specialist who worked with the program.

“They have learned how to search the net to learn about market conditions and other relevant information,” he adds. “Some farmers’ associations even have their own websites so anyone can contact them.”

Local businessmen like the project too.

Mona Shaer runs a company that exports fruits and vegetables from Egypt. She prefers working with farmers’ associations because it is easier than dealing with hundreds or thousands of farmers across many provinces who each till small plots of land.

“For me the foundation of these associations has been a good thing,” she says. “It allows me to communicate with one responsible body, so I don’t have to run around and talk to hundreds of small farmers who maybe have 1 or 2 or 3 feddans each.”

“It also makes it easier to communicate international market demand to the farmers,” she adds.

The results of the project have been promising. Upper Egypt is home to 40 percent of poor Egyptians and 70 percent of those who live in extreme poverty.

In many villages, few children attend school and many work in the fields alongside their parents. This is especially true for young girls, who are kept at home and work throughout their childhoods to pay for a bridal trousseau for their eventual marriage.

During the project’s four-year run, farmers saw their average daily wage double from LE 7 a day to LE 15. In some communities, which produced crops requiring more skilled handling, the wage jumped to LE 30 a day.

This has had an effect on school enrolment too, says USAID. They point to the case of the village of Awlad Yahya in Sohag, where only 10 percent of school aged children were enrolled before the El Shams project began.

In 2005, the community began cultivating green beans for export, and soon the average annual income for a farmer producing only one feddan of green beans jumped to LE 30,000.

As incomes rose, more farmers began to hire skilled labor to perform tasks once completed by their children. Many sent their sons to school, and once they realized that educated village boys would prefer to marry educated girls, they began to send their daughters to school as well.

By 2007, says USAID, 100 percent of school aged boys and 70% of school aged girls in the village of Awlad Yahya were enrolled in the local primary and secondary schools.

Ibtisam, a smiling young woman from Qena governorate, says she is living proof of the changes that the business training program has brought to many rural communities.

She is the first woman to lead a farmers’ association in a province where many girls are not even taught to read. Her new position commands a great deal of respect from her neighbors and challenged social norms about what a woman is capable of doing.

“Now that we have more money and more skills, woman can get out of their old box,” she said. “We never have to go back to the way it was again.”

DNE: No evidence to indict Christian activists, release expected Sept. 5

2007-10-29T16:33:00.000+02:00

No evidence to indict Christian activists, release expected Sept. 5

By Liam Stack
First Published: August 31, 2007

CAIRO: Two Coptic Christian activists accused of sedition and insulting Prophet Mohamed (PBUH) will be released on Sept. 5 after a government investigation found scant evidence to indict them on the charges, said their lawyers.

Adel Faltas Fawzy Hanna and Peter Ezzat, members of the Toronto-based Middle East Christians Association (Meca), were detained on Aug. 9 in a night-time raid of their homes.

They were accused of contempt for religion and offending Islam in published works, as well as conspiring against Egypt with the aid of a foreign country.

Following the arrests a spokesman from the Ministry of Interior told Daily News Egypt that, “Adel [Fawzy Hanna] wrote on the net subjects…talking in a bad way about Prophet Mohamed [PBUH].” He could provide no further information about his claims.

During the raid police confiscated laptops, CDs, books and cassettes from the men in the search for evidence against them, but from the beginning their lawyers maintained that the charges were baseless.

After almost three weeks of interrogation, it appears the state agrees.
“There is no evidence against them,” said Ramses El Naggar, a member of the legal team.

“Investigations were made by the state and they were found not guilty,” he added. “They belong to a Canadian institution that promotes freedom and equality. The rumors that they insulted the Prophet or Islam are just rumors.”

While the stated reason for their detention was insulting the Prophet, sources close to the men say that the case was really about sending a message to Coptic activists in the wake of recent tensions surrounding the issue of religious conversion.

Earlier this summer Egyptian media was abuzz with the story of Mohamed Hegazy, a Port Said man who made history by filing a court petition to have his religious affiliation changed from Muslim to Christian on his national ID card.

The case sparked a national uproar and Hegazy began receiving anonymous death threats. Fearing for their lives, he and his wife, a convert who is also four months pregnant, have been in hiding ever since.

El Naggar says that his clients were arrested for being supportive of Hegazy.

According to him, their real crime was getting too close to a hot social issue.

“Meca helped Hegazy and gave him a platform to talk about his life and his decision to convert from Islam to Christianity,” El Naggar told Daily News Egypt. “Arresting them and putting them in jail was a kind of warning to the organization to keep its distance from these kinds of cases.”

DNE: Hezbollah, Seniora condemn Human Rights Watch report

2007-10-29T16:30:00.000+02:00

Hezbollah, Seniora condemn Human Rights Watch report

By Liam Stack
First Published: August 31, 2007

CAIRO/BEIRUT: Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a controversial report in Beirut on Thursday documenting Hezbollah’s attacks on Israeli civilians during last summer’s Lebanon War, only to face a fierce campaign by the Shia party to discredit the organization and its findings.

HRW says that Hezbollah fired rockets at civilian targets with no military value, in violation of the laws of war.

But Hezbollah condemned both Human Rights Watch and its report as “scandalous” and an act of “political debauchery”. It began to broadcast its criticism on Tuesday on Al-Manar TV, a station it controls, as well as on Al-Manar’s website.

The group says that Israel is the guiltier party in last summer’s war and that HRW’s focus on Israeli civilian deaths is biased.

Speaking to Al-Manar, Hussein Khalil, political advisor to Hezbollah leader Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, said he “strongly criticized attempts to equate the executioner and the victim, and to blame the victim and give them responsibility for what happened.”

“They come to stand on top of the head of the victim, the country destroyed by the Israelis, to talk about how this victim has hurt the Israelis,” he added.

Embattled Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Seniora, an American ally and staunch opponent of the Shia group criticized the report as well. He said that Human Rights Watch was not paying enough attention to Israeli abuses in the war.

The rights group had never shown “such vigor toward Israeli crimes committed against Lebanese civilians,” he said.

Hezbollah supporters said they would hold rallies to protest the report and to prevent a planned press conference from taking place in downtown Beirut.

Faced with pressure from across the Lebanese political spectrum, as well as the spectacle of protests on its doorstep, the hotel that agreed to hold the press conference cancelled the event at the last minute.

The rights group says that Hezbollah is simply trying to bully its critics and distract from its own human rights abuses. They vigorously reject the accusation of bias and say that their troubles in Lebanon are the result of a smear campaign.

“Hezbollah is trying to silence criticism of its conduct during the 2006 war,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division. “But the fairness and accuracy of our reporting will speak for themselves, whether we hold a press conference or not.”

In response to charges of bias, Human Rights Watch says it is accusing both Israel and Hezbollah of the same rights abuses.

It points to criticism it received last summer for releasing a report before the fighting had ended in South Lebanon, accusing Israel of targeting civilians.
Next week it will hold a press conference in Jerusalem to release a follow-up report, elaborating its accusation that Israel deliberately targeted Lebanese civilians in violation of international law.

“Our focus is on the protection of civilians wherever they may be, and not about taking sides in a conflict,” said Whitson.

For human rights advocates working in the Middle East, charges of bias seem to come with the territory.

Gasser Abdel Razeq, the acting regional director for the Middle East and North Africa for Human Rights Watch, says that when it comes to the Lebanon-Israel conflict his organization would be accused of bias no matter what it did.

“Whenever you criticize one side people say you are biased towards the other,” he told Daily News Egypt. “People say you are an Arab-lover, an anti-Semite, or a Zionist organization.”

“When we released our initial report about Israeli abuses last summer we were called anti-Semitic, and this has already begun in the Israeli press in anticipation of next week’s report,” he adds. “They are saying ‘why did Human Rights Watch wait a year to criticize Hezbollah? Why didn’t they start at the beginning of the war?’”

Last summer’s war erupted with little warning after a Hezbollah raid into northern Israel in which three Israeli soldiers were killed and two were captured.

Israel responded with overwhelming force, bombing highways and bridges throughout Lebanon as well as destroying the country’s sole airport and leveling Shia slums and villages in the south.

Israel also sent soldiers across the border for the first time since its 2000 withdrawal ended a nearly 20-year occupation of South Lebanon.

According to an Associated Press report, over 1,000 Lebanese were killed during the 34-day war, the vast majority of them civilians, as were 159 Israelis, of which 120 were soldiers. Hezbollah launched more than 4,000 rockets into northern Israel during the conflict.

DNE: Brotherhood military trial continues despite El Shater health concerns

2007-10-29T16:26:00.000+02:00

Brotherhood military trial continues despite El Shater health concerns

By Liam Stack
First Published: August 28, 2007

CAIRO: The military trial of Khayrat El Shater, deputy head of the Muslim Brotherhood, and 39 other members of the organization continues today amid concerns over both the legitimacy of the proceedings and the defendants’ health conditions.

El Shater, who is being tried for money laundering and membership of a banned organization, is a diabetic who also suffers from heart problems and high blood pressure.

Last week he developed a severe infection in his leg, and his family fears if it is left untreated his leg may have to be amputated.

So far, they say, the management of Tora prison has not allowed him to see a doctor who they consider qualified.

“The hospital in the prison is even dirtier and worse than the prison itself. We would rather he stay in his prison cell than be sent to that dirty hospital,” Zahraa El Shater, daughter of Khairat El Shater, told Daily News Egypt.

His family complains that although El Shater is being denied adequate treatment, he is still made to attend lengthy court sessions.

“On Monday he had to sit for nine hours at the hearing, which caused him horrible pain in his leg,” said Ibrahim El Houdaiby, director of Ikhwanweb.com.
“Instead of helping to improve his condition they are actually making it worse.”

Brotherhood sources deride the trial as “nonsense.” They say the military prosecutions, which could result in the death penalty and cannot be appealed, are politically motivated and part of a broad crackdown against opposition forces.

Furthermore, they say, the prosecution case against 40 men relies almost entirely on one witness, state security officer Atef Al Husseini, who refuses to provide any detailed evidence in his testimony.

“This man is the main witness in every case, but every time they ask him a question he says ‘I don’t remember’ or ‘that is classified information,’” added El Houdaiby. “He does not provide any information or evidence in his testimony, so why should the defendants even be there?”

The Brotherhood is Egypt’s most influential opposition group. It holds 88 seats in the 454 member People’s Assembly, which it won during a brief period of political opening that coincided with elections in the fall of 2005.

More than 600 members of the group, including top leaders such as El Shater, have been detained since December.

DNE: Brotherhood detainees denied medical treatment in prison

2007-10-29T16:22:00.000+02:00

Brotherhood detainees denied medical treatment in prison

By Liam Stack
First Published: August 26, 2007

CAIRO: Muslim Brotherhood detainees Mohamed Hussein and Khayrat El Shater have both developed serious and possibly life-threatening illnesses in prison, according to Brotherhood sources and family members.

The regime has so far refused to provide the men with appropriate medical treatment, they say, blaming the unhygienic conditions of Tora prison and its hospital for the deterioration of their health.

Family members say they want the men released to house arrest, which has been allowed for some high-profile detainees in the past. But the government seems unlikely to acquiesce to their demand.

Hussein, a member of the group’s Executive Bureau, suffered what Brotherhood sources call “an acute heart attack” and was rushed to Qasr Al Aini Hospital, where doctors inserted a diagnostic catheter while he was handcuffed to the operating table.

Officials at Qasr Al Aini could not be reached for comment at press time, and his prognosis is unclear.

Hussein was detained last week in Giza en route to an appointment at Cairo’s Dar El Fouad Hospital, where he was to be treated for a chronic heart condition.

“He needed to go to the hospital and instead he went to prison,” said Ibrahim El Houdaiby, director of Ikhwan.net.

“When he was taken to prison the police would not let him see a doctor or get any medicine,” he added. “When you are put in jail in bad conditions and put under a lot of pressure, of course that could lead to a heart attack, [especially] when someone has a pre-existing condition.”

El Shater, who has been detained since last December and is currently standing trial before a Cairo military court, is a diabetic who suffers from high blood pressure and chronic heart problems.

As a consequence of high blood sugar, he has developed a severe and painful infection in his leg. His family fears that without immediate medical attention his leg may have to be amputated.

His daughter Zahraa El Shater says that her father’s condition has been exacerbated by the dirty and overcrowded conditions in which he is being held. The prison hospital where he is being treated is even worse, she says.

“He is being held in a very narrow cell with three other men and it is so small that they can’t even pray,” she says. “But the hospital in the prison is even dirtier and worse than the prison itself. We would rather he stay in that cage then be sent to that dirty hospital.”

In addition to unsanitary conditions, Brotherhood sources say that prison doctors are not trained to treat diabetics and would not know how to deal with an advanced infection.

Members of El Shater’s family have tried to get specialists to travel to the prison to treat their father, but say they have found no one willing to treat a detained political prisoner.

“Many of them are afraid to go to with us to treat a Muslim Brotherhood detainee,” says Zahraa El Shater. “People are afraid to go to the prisons when they don’t have to because they are afraid that the police with take their ID number and cause trouble for them later."

“Even at my sister’s wedding last month, the police surrounded the whole place and took everyone’s ID number,” she adds. “Later they called people and asked why they came to a Brotherhood wedding.”

El Shater’s family is calling for the regime to release him in to house arrest, where he could more easily be treated by specialists. They point out that other high-profile detainees who have been tried before military courts in recent years, such as Talaat El Sadat, have been allowed to remain in their homes throughout the trial.

“He is a well known person, he will not [try to] run away,” says Zahraa.

“Prison is a very dirty place and is not suitable for a sick man,” she adds. “His situation is critical now. I just want him to get good medical care quickly and get some good medicine.”

The Brotherhood is Egypt’s most influential opposition group. It holds 88 seats in the 454 member People’s Assembly, which it won during a brief period of political opening that coincided with elections in the fall of 2005.

More than 600 members of the group, including top leaders such as El Shater and Hussein, have been detained since December.

El Shater is one of 40 currently being tried for money laundering and membership of a banned organized before a military court, which is empowered to sentence them to death without appeal.

He was referred to a military court by special order of President Mubarak, after he was acquitted four separate times by civil courts.

Hussein has been charged with membership of a banned organization and working against the public interest, although no trial date has been set.

The arrests began after a kung-fu themed demonstration by students in an MB youth group at Al-Azhar University, which the regime condemned as a militia exercise.

Brotherhood sources argue that the recent wave of arrests are in response to the group’s plans to register as an official political party, in defiance of constitutional amendments passed in March that forbid political activity based on religion.

DNE: MB lawmakers Amer and Abu Zaid released on LE 10,000 bail

2007-10-29T16:20:00.000+02:00

MB lawmakers Amer and Abu Zaid released on LE 10,000 bail

By Liam Stack
First Published: August 25, 2007

CAIRO: Lawmakers Sabri Amer and Ragab Abu Zaid were released from detention on LE 10,000 bail on Thursday, one day after their arrest in a midday raid on their Menufiya homes and accused of “'terrorism and possession of banned materials” related to their membership of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB).

Hamdi Hassan, the spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood bloc in the lower house of parliament, the People’s Assembly, welcomed the release of both men but called their arrests politically motivated.

“MPs affiliated with the ruling National Democratic Party don’t face any legal action, although they commit moral crimes,” he said. “We find that MPs affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood are detained only for their political affiliations.”

Both Amer and Abu Zaid were previously arrested on May 9 at a Menufiya meeting to plan for the elections to Egypt’s upper house of parliament, the Shoura Council. At that time Amer and Abu Zaid were released because their parliamentary immunity protected them from prosecution.

Shortly after their release in May, the PA voted to revoke their immunity and open a criminal investigation against them. But neither man was subpoenaed before this week’s arrests, which MB sources say were conducted without a warrant.

The Brotherhood is Egypt’s most influential opposition group, and holds 88 seats in the 454 member PA.

Brotherhood sources argue that the recent wave of arrests are a response to the group’s plans to register as an official political party, in defiance of constitutional amendments passed in March that forbid political activity based on religion.

More than 600 members of the group have been detained since December, when students in an MB youth group staged a kung fu-themed demonstration at Al Azhar University which the regime condemned as a militia exercise.

The crackdown has not only focused on the group’s youth cadres, but has ensnared many of the Brotherhood’s key leaders as well.

Forty of the group’s top financiers, including Deputy Chairman Khayrat El Shater, are currently standing trial before a military court on charges of money laundering and membership of a banned organization. Their case has attracted condemnation from human rights advocates around the world.

Additionally, Essam El Erian, a well-known Brotherhood spokesman and coordinator of the group’s political department, was detained along with 15 others in a raid on the Giza home of businessman Nabil Moqbel last week.

They stand charged with membership of a banned organization and working against the public interest, although no trial date has yet been set.

DNE: Mahdi Bray: Bringing the conscience of Muslim America to a Cairo court

2007-10-29T16:15:00.000+02:00

Mahdi Bray: Bringing the conscience of Muslim America to a Cairo court

By Liam Stack
First Published: August 25, 2007

Imam Mahdi Bray is the Director of the Muslim American Society’s Freedom Foundation, the human and civil rights project of the largest grass-roots Muslim organization in the United States. He was in Cairo this week to express solidarity with Muslim Brotherhood detainees on trial before a military court and to call for an end to the crackdown on the Egyptian opposition. Bray sat down with Daily News Egypt to talk about his trip.

Daily News Egypt: What brings you to Egypt?

Bray:We are here to express our concern about the use of military tribunals in Egypt, as in the United States. Military tribunals should be used for members of the military, not civilians.

As human rights activists and Muslims, justice and human rights are universal moral and physical demands. We are here because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, because justice delayed is justice denied.

We live in a global society, and there is a great deal of discourse about the global economy, and global technology, but we hardly ever hear about global justice. The issue of global justice is what brings me here.

DNE: Why does the Muslim American Society object to the use of military tribunals?

Bray: These courts lack transparency. We tried to go to act as observers at the court but we were denied entry after waiting in the sun for four hours, as were most of the defendants’ own defense lawyers. Military tribunals are not designed to seek a just result. They are designed to guarantee the result already determined by the government or to seek an unjust result.

We are particularly concerned that these detained men were released four separate times by civilian courts because there was not enough evidence to convict them, but were then brought back to stand trial before military courts. We are also concerned because some of these detainees are quite ill and two have verified heart conditions.

DNE: What can be done on an international level to address the problem of human rights abuses in Egypt?

Bray: Well certainly there are a number of international treaties that Egypt is a signatory to that bring some symbolic pressure on the government. For example, the African Commission on Human Rights, which Egypt is a party to, states that military courts must only be used for offenses committed by members of the military, and that they can not be used under any circumstances for civilians.

But as human rights activists, the greatest pressure that can be leveraged is through the international media. We need to take this case from the military court, to the court of international public opinion. If the media can bring this case before the international community, then that is one way to resolve this matter.

DNE: What kind of human rights work does MAS Freedom do?

Bray: We’ve done work abroad in Sudan and in Ethiopia, as well as in the Balkans in Slovenia and Croatia. I myself lived in Somalia for several years in the 1980s when Siad Barre was president. Later on I moved to Kenya to work with Somali refugees on the border.

Because America has such global influence we do a lot of advocacy work around America’s international relations and foreign affairs. We were really concerned with the void on human rights coming from Muslim American community. Sometimes on human rights issues there is a conspicuous silence from the Muslim American community.

Part of our mission is to give the American Muslim community a sense of urgency when it comes to human rights around the world, and to educate people about the importance of global justice. It doesn’t matter if you have a religious or a secular agenda, if you are religiously observant or only pray during Ramadan. We need justice. The only thing that Allah has forbidden is injustice.

DNE: During the week you tried to enter the military courtroom and act as an international observer to the proceedings. What happened?

Bray: The trial is happening on a military base in the desert, on the outskirts of Cairo. When I went to the trial I had an invitation from the defense lawyers. I gave the soldiers my credentials and after about four hours in the sun we were told that we couldn’t go in and that only 10 of the defense attorneys could go in. Each of the 40 defendants has their own attorney so not everyone was able to have their lawyer present.

I wasn’t surprised to be barred from the court because even in my own country I probably would not be allowed to attend a military tribunal. Only some of the lawyers and a few family members were allowed in.

DNE: Outside the court you spoke with several of the detainees family members. What did you learn from them?

Bray: Talking to the families of the men on trial really made me think of the American families I talked to after the raids in Northern Virginia after Sept.11, 2001. These men were all doctors, lawyers, professional people who were really active in their communities. Here some of them were members of Parliament.
The police come to their homes in the middle of the night. Their wives are not allowed to get dressed or cover themselves at all. The police took money and jewelry and beat people up.

One woman told me that these raids are like a violation of the values she is trying to teach her children — that she is trying to raise them to be good people and not to hate anybody, but that their homes have been invaded by anger and fear and anxiety.

DNE: Brotherhood lawmakers arrested in Menufiya raid

2007-08-24T17:31:00.000+03:00

Brotherhood lawmakers arrested in Menufiya raid

By Liam Stack
First Published: August 23, 2007

CAIRO: The government crackdown on opposition groups continued this week with the arrest of Sabri Amer and Ragab Abu Zaid, two members of the People’s Assembly who also belong to the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) group.

State security police raided the two lawmakers’ homes in Menufiya governorate around midday on Wednesday, according to Brotherhood sources.

Both men were previously arrested on May 9 at a meeting to plan for the elections to Egypt’s upper house of parliament, the Shoura Council, in which the Brotherhood does not hold a single seat.

At that time Amer and Abu Zaid were released because their parliamentary immunity protected them from prosecution.

Shortly after their release in May, the Legislative and Constitutional Affairs Committee of the People’s Assembly, which is dominated by the National Democratic Party of President Hosni Mubarak, voted to revoke their immunity and open a criminal investigation against them.

But Muslim Brotherhood sources say that neither man was subpoenaed or made aware of an ongoing criminal investigation before Wednesday’s raids on their homes. Mohamed Habib, the deputy chairman of the MB, called the detentions “an unjustified measure which lacks decency.”

“They should have subpoenaed them in a way which is in line with their prestige socially and politically,” he said in a statement to Daily News Egypt.

“The regime continues its tyrannical method in dealing with people in general and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular."

The government is cracking down on the group “to paralyze its political and social activities and to sideline its role in the political landscape,” he argues.

MP Mohamed Saad El Katatni, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood bloc in the PA, called the arrests politically motivated and urged the regime to respect its own elected officials.

“These detentions are, legally speaking, arbitrary actions against two public figures,” he said.

“There is a specific message and a target for these actions — humiliating MPs and exploiting the prosecution as a tool in the hands of the regime to settle scores with the opposition,” he added. The Brotherhood is Egypt’s most influential opposition group, and holds 88 seats in the 454 member PA.

Brotherhood sources argue that the recent wave of arrests are in response to the group’s plans to register as an official political party in defiance of constitutional amendments passed in March that forbid political activity based on religion.

More than 600 members of the Muslim Brotherhood have been detained since December, when members of an MB-affiliated youth group staged a kung fu-themed demonstration at Al Azhar University.

The demonstration was heavily covered by the media and denounced by the government as a militia exercise.

But the crackdown has not only focused on the group’s youth cadres, but has ensnared many of the Brotherhood’s key leaders as well.

Forty of the group’s top businessmen and financiers, including Deputy Chairman Khayrat El Shater, are currently standing trial before a military court on charges of money laundering and membership of a banned organization. Their case has attracted condemnation from human rights advocates around the world.

Additionally, Essam El Erian, a well-known Brotherhood spokesman and coordinator of the group’s political department, was detained along with 15 others in a raid on the Giza home of businessman Nabil Moqbel last week.

They stand charged with membership of a banned organization and working against the public interest, although no trial date has yet been set.

DNE: UN officials warn of humanitarian crisis in Gaza

2007-08-24T17:28:00.000+03:00

UN officials warn of humanitarian crisis in Gaza

By Liam Stack
First Published: August 23, 2007

CAIRO/GAZA: A senior United Nations official voiced concern about the deteriorating humanitarian situation inside the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, joining an anxious chorus of international figures worried about the effects of the two-month closure of the Strip’s borders.

The main border crossing between Gaza and Israel, Karni checkpoint, has been shut since June 9, when the Hamas takeover of the territory sparked internal fighting there.

Border closures and restrictions on the movement of goods have slashed exports and forced factories to close, leaving tens of thousands of Palestinians without jobs or income.

According to UN figures, before the June blockade began roughly two-thirds of Gaza’s residents lived below the poverty line. Officials worry that if the current restrictions remain in place, that figure could skyrocket.

Kevin Kennedy, the deputy UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said in a statement that while the basic humanitarian needs of Gaza's estimated population of 1.4 million people are largely being met, the conditions remain very difficult. He said that as a result of the border closure "tens of thousands of people have lost their jobs and income," and that as a result the demand for UN humanitarian assistance had increased dramatically.

During an Aug. 9 visit to Gaza City, Filippo Grandi, deputy commissioner general of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which cares for millions of Palestinian refugees, struck a similar chord. He demanded that Israel re-open the main crossing into Gaza.

“Failure to do this will lead to disastrous consequences: an atmosphere of hopelessness and despair in which extremism is likely to take hold,” said Grandi.

“This is not in the interests of anyone who sincerely seeks a lasting peace, in which the Palestinian people can live in dignity,” he added.

According to the latest figures from the Palestinian Association of Businessmen, the already anemic Gazan economy has lost $23 million since June. If the closures are not lifted, the group estimates that more than 120,000 Gazan workers could lose their jobs.

International development projects are also threatened by the closures, according to Maher Nasser, the UN spokesman in Egypt.

He says that import restrictions on building materials such as concrete and steel have brought $160 million worth of construction projects financed by UNRWA and the UN Development Program to a halt.

“If what is left of the Gazan economy is allowed to collapse, then poverty will rise and the people will become totally dependent on foreign aid,” he told Daily News Egypt.

“Israel must reopen the border crossing or risk serious humanitarian consequences.”

DNE: State denies workers’ rights group registration, citing “security reasons”

2007-08-24T17:22:00.000+03:00

State denies workers’ rights group registration, citing “security reasons”

By Liam Stack
First Published: August 18, 2007

CAIRO: Four months after shutting down the headquarters of Egypt’s most active workers’ rights group, the government has refused to allow the Center for Trade Union and Worker Services (CTUWS) to register as a non-governmental organization.

In its decision, the Ministry of Social Solidarity told the group that "the security bodies rejected its registration for security reasons.”

According to a statement provided to Daily News Egypt, the CTUWS petitioned the state to be registered as an NGO on June 13, after several weeks of consultations with the Ministry of Social Solidarity and the Director of the Central Department of Associations and NGOs.

The group says it was informed of the state’s decision at the end of the mandatory 60-day waiting period, and has expressed “surprise” at the rejection of its application.

The Center’s woes began in April when the government began to close its provincial branch offices one by one, first in the Upper Egyptian province of Qena and later in the delta town of Mahalla. By the end of that month state security shut down the Center’s headquarters in Cairo’s Helwan neighborhood as well, also citing security concerns.

Egypt has seen a surge in labor unrest in recent years, with strikes spreading to almost every sector of the economy.

The most high profile of these actions was last December’s strike in Ghazl El-Mahalla, where 27,000 workers organized in defiance of their government-backed union leaders and forced factory management to compromise on wages and benefits.

The strike became iconic in the labor movement, and has inspired other workers to organize outside of the official union system, which is dominated by the ruling National Democratic Party of President Hosni Mubarak.

The regime has reacted warily to the strikes, viewing them as a threat to national stability but unsure of exactly how to respond to such widespread protests and to the increase of independent worker activity.

The shut down of the CTUWS was part of that response. As the country’s most active independent labor group, the state accused the Center of inciting workers to strike, organizing them outside the union system and endangering national stability.

But in remarks given to Daily News Egypt before his offices were shuttered, CTUWS Director Kamal Abbas denied that the Center had any organizing role in the strikes.

“The government has tried to lay all the blame on CTUWS and say that we instigated it all,” he said. “It’s an honor we can’t claim, although we would have loved if this had been the case.”

“Just by the fact that some of the strike leaders were either members of groups like the Tagamu Party or the CTUWS or any other organization does not mean that these groups were the ones that mobilized for the strike,” he added.

The surge of labor unrest and strikes has continued in the absence of the CTUWS, with July witnessing 97 separate strikes across the country, according to the Egyptian Workers and Trade Unions Watch. More than 17,000 people participated in these actions, with another 100,000 threatening to join in.

DNE: State denies child died of torture, rights groups see a cover-up

2007-08-24T17:20:00.000+03:00

State denies child died of torture, rights groups see a cover-up

By Liam Stack
First Published: August 14, 2007

CAIRO: The Interior Ministry has denied allegations that 12-year-old Mohamed Mamdouh Abdel Aziz was tortured to death in a Mansoura police station after his arrest for petty theft, and asserted instead that he died of pneumonia.

In a phone interview with Dream TV’s magazine show Al Ashera Masaan, Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Diaa El Din, said that a preliminary autopsy of the boy revealed a pulmonary infection was the cause of death.

Diaa El Din stressed that Mohamed’s family’s claims that beatings and electrocution to which he was subjected while in police custody were mere allegations.

Other ministry sources who preferred to remain anonymous told Agence France-Presse that Abdel Aziz’s brother, currently in prison on charges of knife possession, said that Mohamed had sustained electrical burns prior to his arrest on Aug. 2.

Abdel Aziz was accused of theft and arrested in the Dakahliah village of Shaha on August 2. He was detained in a local police station for six days, during which time his family claims he was savagely beaten and electrocuted.

On August 8, neighbors found the boy’s badly beaten and burned body lying in the street behind the village gas station, and his family rushed him to Mansoura Hospital. Four days later, he was pronounced dead.

Human rights advocates are skeptical about the ministry’s claims, although they say they are not surprised to hear them.

“The Interior Ministry is blatantly lying about this,” said Gamal Eid, director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information. “From the outset, Egyptian child protection laws totally ban any form of overnight detention for children.”

“What they are saying is expected,” he added. “They are trying to cover up what they have done to this boy.”

According to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, torture, police brutality and sexual assault in detention are system-wide problems in Egypt. In most cases, perpetrators are never punished.

This is a source of alarm for rights groups, who say that Egypt has a legal obligation to eradicate the practice as a signatory of the Convention Against Torture.

“This is a legally binding document. Whether or not the government will choose to abide by these agreements is not an issue,” said Gasser Abdel Razek, regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch.

“The Egyptian government made the choice to agree to this document,” he added. “It is a legal and a constitutional obligation.”

DNE: Aboul Gheit condemns US human rights pressure, 2 die of torture

2007-08-14T12:13:00.000+03:00

Aboul Gheit condemns US human rights pressure, 2 die of torture

By Liam Stack
First Published: August 13, 2007

CAIRO: Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit lashed out on Sunday at American criticism of Egypt’s human rights record under President Mubarak’s rule, denouncing what he called “interference” in Egyptian affairs.

This came after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed concern about the health of jailed opposition leader Ayman Nour.

Coming on the heels of two stories of police brutality in the delta — one of which ended with the death of a child — some say Aboul Gheit’s saber-rattling did less to showcase government resolve than it did to demonstrate the divide between the regime’s words and deeds on human rights.

"Despite the solidity of Egyptian-American relations, Egypt doesn't think that allows anyone — even the United States — to interfere in its internal affairs," said Aboul Gheit.

"Egyptian affairs concern Egypt. Egyptian law is the master on Egyptian territory and we reject some people's attempts at interference."

Government statements denouncing foreign pressure have become more frequent in recent months as the United States debated tying portions of its annual military aid to Egypt to improvements in human rights.

In June, the US House of Representatives voted to withhold $200 million of aid — out of a total sum of $2 billion — until some improvements were made. The measure will not become law until passed by the Senate. Many observers say this is an unlikely prospect.

Egypt’s attack on foreign meddling in local human rights issues comes at a macabre time. Local media reports are currently abuzz with two disturbing stories of torture and murder at the hands of police in Dakhaliah province.

On July 31, police came to the home of Ali Ahmed Abdullah in the village of Telbana to arrest him on unstated charges, but he was not at home. Ali’s brother Nasr came to the house to speak to the police on behalf of his brother’s wife and daughters, but the conversation soon turned violent. According to witnesses, police began to brutally beat him and other family members in the street with metal bars and wooden clubs.

Nasr was detained and brought to the police station, where lawyers later found him unconscious and tied to the legs of a desk. After his release he died of his wounds, and police claimed he had been a drug dealer.

Fearing unrest during his funeral, the government surrounded the village with state security troop carriers. As tensions rose, police fired tear gas into the funeral and arrested 13 people.

“Nasr was arrested because the police wanted to extort money out of his family, like he was a hostage,” alleged Magda Adly, director of the Nadeem Center, which led a fact-finding mission to the village after the incident.

“The police say he was selling hashish out of his house, but before they went there they had no permission from police to arrest anyone or conduct a search,” she adds. “They did not start talking about drugs until after he had died.” Days later, in the nearby village of Shaha in Mansoura province, Mohamed

Mamdouh Abdel Aziz, aged 13, was arrested for petty theft and detained in a local police station.

While in custody, his family says, he was brutally beaten and shocked with electricity for six days before neighbors found his comatose body lying in the street next to the village gas station. He was brought to Mansoura hospital, where he was treated for four days before dying of his injuries on Aug.12.

Although local media reports expressed outrage at Abdel Aziz’s young age, the deaths of him and Abdullah are sadly not an unusual occurrence in Egypt. Many observers say that both police brutality and torture are widespread.

Since 1996, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture has maintained that torture is a policy of the Egyptian government. The UN says beatings, sexual assault and violence are used “systemically” throughout the criminal justice system and in matters related to the state security police.

Human rights activists say that the only way to end these abuses is to punish the perpetrators. But many agree that the regime has little stomach for rooting out such a deeply embedded problem.

“No matter how gruesome the crimes are, or how much pressure is put on the government by the United States and the European Union, the regime is not willing to punish the perpetrators by the appropriate means,” said Gamal Eid, the director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.

“All we ever see is a slap on the wrist,” he added. “Police brutality will never stop until the regime is willing to punish the perpetrators, who as police officers are also a part of the regime.”

According to Gasser Abdel Razek, the Middle East and North Africa regional director for Human Rights Watch, ending torture in Egypt is more about local political will than it is about foreign interference.

He points to a number of common sense steps the government could take to rein in police violence. Chief among them are changing the legal definition of torture, which is currently not in agreement with the standard set by international law; establishing an independent commission to investigate torture; and placing detention centers used by police and state security interrogators under judicial oversight.

But none of these measures has been adopted by the government, nor does it seem in a hurry to do so.

“There are many simple things that can be done to show that there is the political will to end the prevalence of torture in Egypt,” said Abdel Razek. “It would take very little effort, time or money to do any of these things, but they are not being done.”

“Egypt can do or refuse to do whatever it wants in its bilateral relationship with the United States,” he added, “but this country is bound by its commitments to international human rights law.”

DNE: Church keeps its distance from Higazy case, convert receives death threats

2007-08-13T00:54:00.000+03:00

Church keeps its distance from Higazy case, convert receives death threats

By Liam Stack
First Published: August 12, 2007

CAIRO: Mohamed Higazy, a Port Said man who converted from Islam to Christianity, has gone into hiding after attempts to change his religion on his government ID card sparked a national controversy.

According to friends of Higazy, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear for their personal safety, he and his wife, also a convert who is four months pregnant, went into hiding after receiving death threats.

Now the two live in an undisclosed location and change their phone numbers frequently, for fear that they will be discovered.

Religious conversion is a taboo topic in Egypt, where Muslims and Christians live side by side in an often tense peace. In recent years the two communities have clashed several times in small skirmishes in Alexandria and villages in Upper Egypt, which have left several dead. Frequently, these clashes have been sparked by rumors of conversions.

Most Muslims who convert do not wish to draw attention to themselves, because renouncing Islam is considered an act of apostasy which many believe is punishable by death.

In this context Higazy’s court petition to legally change his religion is a surprisingly bold step. But, according to an interview with the Associated Press, he is unwilling to back down.

''I know there are fatwas [religious edicts] to shed my blood, but I will not give up and I will not leave the country,'' said the 25-year-old, who has adopted the Christian name Beshoi.

Already, his legal case has run into trouble. His original lawyer, Mamdouh Nakhlah, quit after the public outcry began, and his new lawyer says he is still weighing whether or not to continue with the case.

Higazy’s case was dealt another potentially serious blow on Saturday, when TV newsmagazine El Ashera Masa’an, reported that the Coptic Church had released a statement dissociating itself from the case.

Daily News Egypt could not reach the church for comment at press time.

At the heart of the case, say human rights advocates, is the role that religion plays in documents issued by the Egyptian government.

“Including one’s religion on identity cards is nothing but a means of discriminating against people on the basis of religion. It should be totally discarded,” said Gamal Eid, Director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.

“Mohamed Higazy’s intentions were sincere,” he added. “He should be able to choose his own beliefs and religion free of any pressure from anyone else.”

DSE: For gay Egyptians, life online is the only choice

2007-07-17T06:58:00.000+03:00

For gay Egyptians, life online is the only choice

By Liam Stack

First Published 5/18/2007

Growing up in a small delta city, Gamal Alaa always knew that he wasn’t like his school mates. He and his friends were all from good, educated middle class families, but at the end of the day there was something that did not add up. He excelled at school, and got top honors at the prestigious Faculty of Engineering at a nearby university. But he still felt out of place.

“I knew that I was different, even when I was a little kid,” he says. “Even before I knew about sex or any of those adult terms, a long time before that I knew any of that, I knew I was different in a way. But I didn’t know what to call it.”

In his first year of university, Gamal began using the internet and making friends in chat rooms. Online, he discovered a whole new world. Women and men chatted and flirted through coy profiles and messenger services in a way that would be impossible in public.

Even more taboo, there were chat rooms just for gay Egyptians to meet, make friends, and flirt. It was in this parallel e-world that Gamal found a name for his feelings. Gamal, he realized, was gay.

“I could go online and read about people’s lives, and see that they had lives and relationships and they dated,” he says. “That was when I knew what to call it, that it existed in the world and it wasn’t just me. I wasn’t the only one.”

Adam Aboul Naga, a twenty-something media professional also raised in the delta, felt the same way the first time he found a gay Egyptian website during his university days.

“I went to this site www.gayegypt.com because I heard people at school talking about it, making fun of it and saying how bad it was that it was there,” he says. “I didn’t have any gay friends, or know anyone who was gay. Before I went on that site, I had no idea about being gay in Egypt.”

In the last decade, the Internet has opened up whole new worlds of information for those tech-savvy enough to turn on a PC and give their mouse a few clicks.
While market research indicates that internet penetration in Egypt is a low 8%, these forces of free-flowing information are nonetheless showing the wired, largely urbanized few a whole new set of sexual possibilities and lifestyle options that were unheard of a generation ago.

After reading the message boards at gayegypt.com for several weeks, Adam moved on to gay dating websites based in foreign countries, like www.gaydar.co.uk . On these sites, members can create profile pages, send messages, make friends and arrange dates.

“I’ve met a lot of guys over the internet. With very few exceptions, everybody I met was online, through Gaydar,” he says. “I have met maybe 50 people over the internet. Some of them turned into friends – 2 of my best friends I met through Gaydar. One of them actually was my school friend at university. We didn’t know that each other were gay, we just knew each other from school.”

Gamal, who is almost 30, also opened an account on a dating website. Soon he was browsing profiles, making new friends through chat services and trying to decide which men were safe to meet.

Both men say they have a number of guidelines they follow before they decide to meet one of their online buddies. They have to have things in common and get along well in their chats; they must both be interested in being friends and not in just meeting for a quickie; and they must agree to meet in a public place for coffee or lunch, just like two friends.

If someone meets those criteria, and they have fun in their real-life meeting, then they might become friends or even start dating. But more often than not, both men say, such meetings lead to neither long-term friendship or serious dating.

Sometimes they end up as one night stands, says Adam, especially if one or both men are feeling depressed about other things happening in their lives.

“A few months ago I was really feeling down one day and I was online and I saw this Dutch guy,” he says. “He was kind of old, in his 40s, and was staying here in a hotel. I asked him when he was leaving and he said that night. So I went to his hotel and we had sex like one hour before his flight.”

Afterwards, Adam says, the tryst made him feel bad, and he realized that it was just a way of coping with his unhappiness.

“After we had sex, I felt cheap. I felt like an unpaid prostitute,” he adds. “I don’t even know his name. Maybe he said it, but I don’t remember his name now. I think I only did it because I was feeling down.”

Other times, the meetings get off on the right foot but end very badly. Both men say that stories of homophobic violence and petty mugging are common. Gamal has experienced it first hand.

“Back in a time when I was less careful, years ago, I met someone after chatting just one time,” says Gamal. “He seemed to be a good guy - cultured, educated, a university graduate, he had a job, he was good looking. It should have worked fine.”

“I met him, and he robbed me, even though I met him in a public place – we met in a shopping mall in Nasser City, in one of the coffee shops on the first floor. It scared the hell out of me – I never expected it to happen.”

Working with a partner who made a distraction inside the shop, Gamal’s date took off with his expensive new mobile. When Gamal called the man to confront him and ask why he had stolen the phone, the man threatened to tell everyone on his SIM card that he was gay.

“You’re a fag,” he said, “and you deserve what happens to you.”

Still, Gamal says he was lucky that nothing worse happened.

“I have heard of worse stories, horrible stories of people being mugged and robbed, or tranquilized, drugged and thrown out of cars while driving on the highway,” he says. “There are horrible risks you take with gay chatting and dating here.”

Years of online dating have taught both men a lot about gay life in Egypt, and the perils and possible happiness of a life lived with a little help from the internet world.

Adam met his current boyfriend, Sherif, over the internet. The two are in a happy, committed relationship and so are predictably not as pessimistic as some about the possibility of gay romance in Cairo. But Adam says that he is acutely aware of the challenges, both personal and professional, of living a gay life in Egypt.

“I am involved in a lot of different things,” he says. “In university I was involved in a lot of student activities. I was a leader of a big organization at my university, so State Security knew who I was. Now I am a journalist, so State Security knows who I am. I think the government has it on my file that I am gay, and my biggest fear is that someday they will black-mail me.”

“Its hard to think about the future because right now its easy for Sherif and I, we’re young,” he says. “But people talk to me about marriage a lot. And what about ten years from now - two 35 year olds living together? And they’re not dating? What’s the story with that?”

Gamal, who is currently single, says that his years of online dating have made him pessimistic about gay life in Egypt.

There is too much hostility to homosexuality, he says, too little respect for people’s private lives, and too much pressure to follow the acceptable path of sexual chastity until heterosexual marriage. Egyptian society does not leave any space for people like he and Adam to live their own lives, he says.

“Since I started dating through the internet, I’ve had 3 serious relationships,” says Gamal. “Two were with Egyptians and one was with an American. But they were all failures, of course. None of them worked. I don’t think it is possible for two guys in Egypt to stay together for the long term. Everything is against it here – it’s taboo, it’s illegal, it’s forbidden.”

“You have to be discrete, and discretion is one major element that makes everything fall apart, that makes it break up,” he adds, his voice more resigned than sad. “If you’re going to share a life together people have to know about it. But you can’t do that here, so everything always falls apart.”

DSE: Mansoura workers attack factory sale, sit-in reaches day 20

2007-07-17T06:55:00.000+03:00

Mansoura workers attack factory sale, sit-in reaches day 20

By Liam Stack

First Published 5/10/2007

MANSOURA: Since April 21, the Mansoura Spanish Garment Factory in the Nile delta has been occupied by almost 300 mainly female workers, who are staging a sit-in on the plant’s shop floor after a dispute with management over missed pay and the controversial sale of the company.

Workers say they are too poorly paid to meet many of their basic needs, a problem made worse by the failure of the company to pay them their last 17 bonuses since 1999. Additionally, they are concerned that the factory may close after a recent announcement that it was sold through a process they condemn as lacking transparency.

The protestors, many of whom recently spoke with foreign visitors while wearing dark niqabs, say they remain committed to the factory occupation despite a deal offered by Aisha Abdel Hady, the Minister of Manpower and Labor, on Tuesday May 8. According to sources on the factory union committee, which negotiated the offer, Abdel Hady agreed to pay the workers one month salary out of the Ministry budget in exchange for an immediate end to the protest.

The local union committee, which is supposed to represent the employees of Mansoura Spanish, accepted the deal without consulting them. Upon learning the details of the offer, workers rejected it.

Initial media reports claimed that 70 percent of the protestors had accepted the offer and ended the sit-in, but those reports were not consistent with the scene on the shop floor.

“The union is not there for us,” said Gamal Ramadan, a middle aged production worker who has been employed by Mansoura Spanish for 19 years. “The union is not effective. Ideally it should work for both the employer and the workers, but in reality it doesn’t take our side in anything. We don’t know anyone on the local committee who is on our side, they all side with the management.”

“The vice president of the local factory committee was just here a few minutes ago to negotiate with us, to convince us to accept the deal,” Ramadan added. “But he left the moment he heard there were journalists around. The local union doesn’t want any confrontation.”

For years, workers complain that wages in Egypt’s textile sector have been stagnant. At the Mansoura plant, many of the protesting workers said that they were not even paid enough to meet their basic needs and provide for their families.

“I just got married and my father still pays everything for me,” said Mohamed Sayyed Mahmoud, 24, who works at the plant with his younger brother Ahmed. “Electricity, water, food — he pays for everything. I only make LE 150 a month and I just don’t have the money to support myself. Without my father’s support I wouldn’t be able to survive.”

Mansoura Spanish was founded in 1985 by a consortium of Spanish investors, who sold it shortly thereafter to the Cairo-based United Exchange Bank. According to Mohsen El Shaer, a member of the local factory union committee, on April 19 workers were told by the company CEO, Magdy El Magharby, that the bank was selling the firm. El Magharby would not tell the workers who the new management would be and could give them no indication of their future job security.

After learning about the sale, workers began to fear the worst. In the months leading up to the announcement, rumors swirled around the shop floor that the plant would be closed. Over the last year the company has been racked with massive lay-offs, and the work force has shrunk from almost 1,200 to just 284.

Now, mostly disused sewing machines line the inside of the plant in long rows. Only a few women continue their work on the ever-dwindling number of orders, sewing brightly colored t-shirts for sale in the local market. They say that in the last several months leading up to the sale, the management stopped taking new commissions. Of the 11 production lines that were once active, only two are now in use.

All of these signs, they fear, point to the company’s shut down.

“We want the money we are owed, we want to keep the factory open so we can keep making a living,” said one woman, who asked not to be named. “We want to know the truth about what is going on with the sale. We are not asking for much, but we want our rights.”

“We don’t want the factory to close,” said another woman. “There are a lot of people here who depend on it. It’s their work, it’s how they live. We just want to be well-paid and have a good job, that’s the most important thing.”

“The management won’t tell us anything about the sale,” she added. “They come in here and look around and take pictures of the inside, but then they don’t tell us what is going on.”

The workers have occupied the factory floor for the last 20 days, and on average 200 people sleep there each night on sheets of cardboard arranged on the floor in-between the sewing machines. Many women have brought their children, some as young as four months old, inside the plant to spend the night with them. They say they will not go home until the factory management meets their demands.

“I only make LE 136 a month. That’s been my salary for six years and I have never gotten a raise,” said one woman, handing her pay stub to a foreign visitor.

“I have two children, and now the exam weeks are coming up in school and there are all these problems with the factory too. If the factory closes, how am I supposed to support my family? How are we supposed to live?”

DSE: Activists cancel Downtown demo for security threats

2007-06-12T20:18:00.000+03:00

Activists cancel Downtown demo for security threats

By Liam Stack and Alexandra Sandels
The Daily Star Egypt staff

First Published 5/6/2007

CAIRO: State security forces and plainclothes agents swarmed Talaat Harb square on Friday night due to rumors of a mock ‘wedding party’ organized by Egyptian opposition activists to mark the wedding of Gamal Mubarakand his bride Khadija El Gammal in Sharm El-Sheikh the same day.

Due to the heavy security deployment activists decided to cancel the protest shortly before its scheduled start at 6 pm, leaving a field of security troops and accompanying army trucks patiently awaiting their appearance for hours.

"Bloggers and activists were planning to hold a mock wedding celebration for Gamal Mubarak and his bride, but the security situation did not allow for it as you can see for yourselves," journalist and blogger Hossam El-Hamalawy told The Daily Star Egypt pointing to the hordes of soldiers.

As reporters from local and international channels arrived on the scene, state security troops quickly surrounded the group urging them not to take pictures and leave.

"This is surreal. It really shows how frightened the government is of the opposition activists. All this circus for a small group of bloggers holding a peaceful protest," El-Hamalawy sighed.

DSE: A tale of courtship, love and heartbreak on the World Wide Web

2007-06-12T20:14:00.000+03:00

A tale of courtship, love and heartbreak on the World Wide Web

By Liam Stack
The Daily Star Egypt staff

First Published 5/4/2007

The Daily Star Egypt continues its exploration of Internet dating in Egypt.

Finding love has never been easy, but in a socially conservative, booming metropolis like Cairo it can be especially hard. Romantic ballads blast from every radio and marriage is supposed to be the ultimate goal, but that doesn’t mean that love is easy to come by. Young men have the daunting task of saving up money to provide for their bride, while many young women are pressured to please their families, and attract a husband, by being well-behaved and religious.

Faced with all this stress, some young people escape online to make friends and find potential mates. But many of those who do find that while the Internet is a new way to make a love connection anywhere in the world, there’s still no way to upgrade past break-ups and heart ache.

Leila Abdel Salam, 28, is a successful professional woman who cares deeply about her Islamic faith. She works for a religious charity in downtown Cairo, has never been married, and lives with her parents. After graduating from university she found that it wasn’t so easy to meet new people in the working world. So she signed online and began chatting about religion.

“I was in a Yahoo! group called Islamic Pen-pals because I was looking for spiritual guidance,” she says. She also began chatting on Yahoo! Messenger with other group members. Her user profile displayed a picture of the Kabaa in Mecca.

“Sometimes you just meet people who want to have sex online, or who think that just because you’re chatting you’re cheap or easy. So I uploaded this picture so that everyone would know that I’m not looking for anything like that.”

Eventually, she hit it off with one of her Islamic pen-pals. His name was Ryan. He was British, 13 years her senior, and converted to Islam years ago. He lived in the north of England and sent a message to the group about his plans to make a pilgrimage to the graves of holy men in India. Leila thought a pilgrimage like that was against Islam, and sent him a message to tell him so.

“I sent him an email and said this isn’t Islam, this is wrong and you shouldn’t be doing it. It’s shirq, it’s like you believe in two gods,” she says. “If you worship at a shrine because someone is buried there, it is like you are seeking them. But the only one you should seek is God.”

Ryan responded to her email, addressing her as “brother,” and so she responded to tell him that she was in fact a sister. After that, they kept in touch and were soon emailing frequently.

“We ended up emailing a lot and talking about life and our interests and stuff. And then pictures came in to it, too,” she says. “Then one day he sent me a really funny email and told me ‘from now on I will think of you as my wife.’ He didn’t even ask me to marry him, he just said ‘from now on I will think of you as my wife.’”

At the time, Leila was thrilled.

“I was so naïve and stupid about it,” she says. “I was crying in the British Council library when I read that email. I don’t remember how soon he told me he thought of me this way, but it didn’t seem fast to me. It made sense. I was so much in love with him. We used to talk and share our ideas, and we had so many things in common .”

When Leila told her parents about her online courtship, their reaction was mixed.

“My father and brothers were ok with the idea. My dad said he just wanted to make sure that Ryan was a respectful person who could take care of me,” she says. “But my mom was really upset. She said ‘he will take you away, he wont take care of you, maybe he has another family that you don’t know about, those people are not true believers, who know why he converted.’”

A year after they met online, Ryan came to Egypt to formalize their engagement. Fearing her family’s reaction, Leila did not tell them he was in town. She wanted to wait until everything was perfect so they could not reject him.

But in the meantime, they began to have problems. “At the time he didn’t have a job or a house. He still doesn’t as far as I know. He lives in a small town in the north of England, and plays the north Hiberian bagpipes on the street for money,” she explains. “He said that after we were married he wanted me to stay here in Egypt. He said it would be better for the family and children because it is cheaper to live in Egypt, but then he said he didn’t want to have kids. He said he hated kids.”

Most surprising of all, Ryan revealed to her that he had been married once before, although he never mentioned that in a year of online chatting. With all these shocks, things between them began to change. Uncertain of their future, Ryan returned to England in a rush after becoming sick with Hepatitis A. They stayed in touch for several months, until one day Leila got an email. Ryan was sorry. It wasn’t her, it was him. They just weren’t meant to be.

After they broke up, the two stayed in touch and tried to be friends. Ryan returned to Egypt last winter on holiday, but when they met up things were different. He was afraid that Leila was trying to woo him back. She was doing her best to get over him. In the end, he left Egypt without saying goodbye.

At her age, when many Egyptian women already have school-aged children, Leila says she is not sure that she will ever marry. Her internet romance has shaken her faith in romantic love, but she says it has shown her what values are really important — all of the ones her former fiancé lacked.

“In a marriage, love is not the most important thing,” she says. “Compassion is, and forgiveness and understanding. Passion gets cold, it cools down and people change. But if I found someone I could have compassionate friendship with, then I wouldn’t mind that. I could se myself going out with them, and maybe marrying them later.”

“Love is good, if you can have it,” she adds. “But in today’s world, let me tell you, compassion is a more trust-worthy thing.”

DSE: On the internet, is it pornography or a lifestyle?

2007-06-12T20:09:00.000+03:00

On the internet, is it pornography or a lifestyle?

By Liam Stack
The Daily Star Egypt staff

First Published 4/27/2007

Mohamed Abdel Moneim is an upscale Nasr City boy like any other. A twenty-something graduate of Cairo University, he is a successful, tech savvy, English-speaking IT specialist from a good family.

Unlike many students, Mohamed did not date much in university. For him, college was a time to discover himself and figure out what he wants in a partner. The internet was an essential part of this process. Now, he has turned to the website Craigslist to help him meet the right kind of girl.

On Craigslist, Mohamed goes by the tagline “Sexy Dominant Egyptian Master.” What he is looking for is “a female submissive/slave for no-strings attached fun.”

Ok, so maybe Mohamed, which is not his real name, isn’t just like any other Nasr City boy. But, he says, his fetish does not make him as different as some might think.

“I'm sure the number of people who think like me is so large as to surprise many,” he says. “In fact, I believe most people have some kind of fetish or another, but they are unaware because they have not explored themselves enough to find out.”

For Mohamed, that exploration took place over the internet during his days at Cairo University. While other students were playing the dating game on campus, he was going online to learn more about his desires and the world outside his upper middle class, Egyptian life.

“Most people in Egypt meet their partners or future spouses in college,” he says.

“However I was mostly out of that scene since I did not socialize there — I mostly showed up just for exams and important stuff and then went straight home. I guess I'm the kind of person you'd call a geek. I have trouble blending in well with crowds of average people.”

Sitting at his computer, the internet introduced Mohamed to a whole new world of endless information that he never even knew existed. Sexual fantasies were just a part of that.

“BDSM is just one example,” he says, using the abbreviation for the phrase Bondage, Domination and Sadomasochism. He also learned about art, news, films, and recipes he shared with his family.

Mohamed learned about BDSM for the first time when he was 22 years old. Playing on the popular search engine Google, he discovered a wealth of pornographic websites depicting S/M sex. After that, he began to seek out other S/M sites, and was soon posting on message boards looking to connect with and meet other BDSM fetishists in Egypt and around the world.

“I found the idea very exciting and identified with the dominant role,” he says. “Before then I had no such fantasies, though. They began to develop as I learned and explored more.”

He feels no embarrassment or shame about what he likes, says Mohamed, but he is aware of the stigma that many Egyptians attach to sex outside of marriage. Combined with many people’s disapproval of kinky sex, he decided it was best to keep his fetish to himself.

“I didn't think it was something I should share with anyone except close friends and prospects,” he says. “Not everyone is open-minded enough. I'm sure many people would find it sleazy or weird, especially in a conservative society like this one.”

In the United States, Craigslist is a wildly popular online “swap-meet.” Looking at any of the site’s American web pages, one can find thousands of posts advertising apartments for rent, appliances for sale, jobs to fill or people to date.

If you were lucky and timed it right, with Craigslist you could go up the main street of any North American city and rent a new apartment, buy a used car, find a job and meet a cute girl, all before noon.

Despite the boom in Egyptian blogging and internet use over the last few years, Craigslist remains unpopular here. Mohamed insists that the site’s low popularity is the reason his ad has attracted only a handful of responses, and that many women share his sexual desires.

“The BDSM fetish is a very popular one,” he says. “Many females enjoy being submissive in bed and taking on roles where they feel helpless and dominated. There is a whole subculture with different degrees of commitment and sometimes surprising extremes. But for most, including myself, it's just a way to have fun in a less ordinary way.”

Like many internet daters, Mohamed says he is not looking to meet someone for a long-term commitment. He is looking for a few dates, maybe a cup of coffee, and hopefully some kinky, casual sex. “It appears that very few Egyptians know about Craigslist, and most of the ones who do seem to have a North American background.”

Of the handful of women who have responded to his ads, Mohamed has met only one. He calls her Nour, which is not her real name. She was a 29-year-old divorcee, and worked as a human resources specialist in Heliopolis. She learned about Craigslist while spending time abroad.

In Egypt, the internet is one of many forces reshaping the morality of the educated, wired elite. For the well-off few, those who speak foreign languages, drink iced mocha lattes and cruise the internet on laptops in hip coffee shops, it is opening up new romantic and sexual possibilities that were unthinkable for their parents.

“Sex outside of marriage is a fact of life,” says Mohamed. “The norms of this society are changing very rapidly. What was unheard of only 15 years ago, will not surprise many people anymore.”

DSE: Labor organizers meet at Ibn Khaldun Center, issue warning

2007-06-12T20:06:00.000+03:00

Labor organizers meet at Ibn Khaldun Center, issue warning

By Liam Stack
The Daily Star Egypt staff

First Published 4/26/2007

CAIRO: A panel of trade unionists from across the country gathered at Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies on Tuesday to discuss the wave of strikes that has swept Egypt in the last year, as well as their campaign to form new unions independent of state control.

The speakers included Alexandria-based organizer Ahmed Abdullah, Mohamed Darwish, of Assiut, a food industry worker; Abdel Latif Youssef, also of Assiut, a worker in a pharmaceutical factory; and Ali El Badry, an organizer, journalist and member of El Geel Democratic Party.

Labor activism has been spreading in the past 12 months, and many strikes have succeeded in securing industrial workers new benefits from state-run enterprises. These successes have occurred even as the state has cracked down on other opposition groups and figures, such as jailed presidential candidate Ayman Nour and the officially banned Muslim Brotherhood.

Despite these successes, workers have complained of little support from official opposition parties and influential figures.

“Worker leaders say that prominent opposition leaders and the Egyptian intelligentsia have not been supportive enough of their movement,” said Saad Eddin Ibrahim, chairman of Ibn Khaldun Center. “For this reason we here at Ibn Khaldun are very excited to host these labor leaders and to begin working with them.”

The organization of the strikes was a central topic of the evening. Each speaker strongly objected to the competing claims of responsibility made by Communists such as organizer Mahmoud Amin El Alim and the Muslim Brotherhood, each of which they say is now trying to take the credit for a grassroots workers’ movement.

“I take issue with the Mahmoud Amin El Alim’s claims,” said Ahmed Abdullah, of Alexandria. “Communism has failed in its own countries and there is no way it could ever be successful here. We live in a new world and an age of globalization and multi-national corporations, and we have to accept that and work with it. I think that most workers had never even heard of El Alim and the rest of the Communists before he ever made his statements claiming responsibility for their strikes. He is totally wrong.”

The shut-down of the Helwan-based Center for Trade Union and Worker Services (CTUWS), an independent labor rights group formed in 1990, also loomed large in the meeting.

Over the past month, the group has seen its branch offices in Nagaa Hamadi and Mahalla closed by the government. This week the state issued an order to shut its headquarters in Helwan, which has sparked an outcry from international rights groups and a sit-in by local human rights and labor activists.

According to the panelists, in the absence of independent labor unions, the CTUWS had long acted like one, performing many of the functions of a union and going to bat for workers during strikes.

“Because we haven’t got free labor unions in Egypt, the Center used to act like one,” said Abdullah. “It used to help workers, and speak out on behalf of those with grievances, either individually or collectively.”

The crackdown on the CTUWS comes amid a season of labor unrest in Egypt, which began with the high-profile Ghazl El-Mahalla textile strike in December, which involved 27,000 workers. They went on strike to demand their annual bonuses, equivalent to two months’ pay, even though their local union representatives opposed the strike and supported the position of the state-run factory’s management.

The Mahalla strike ended with a compromise, and workers received a 45-day bonus. Still energized from the strike and angry at the position taken by the local union, the Mahalla workers collected 13,000 names on a petition demanding the impeachment of their local representatives.

The petition was delivered to the General Federation of Trade Unions in January. If the Federation would not agree to impeach their representatives and hold new elections, the Mahalla workers have threatened to secede from the body and form an independent union. It would be Egypt’s first since President Gamal Abdel Nasser created the General Federation in 1956.

Worker leaders accuse the General Federation of Trade Unions of being dominated by the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) of President Hosni Mubarak. The Federation is made up of 23 large unions that cover each of the country’s public sector industries. Of those, six elect their leaders by a process that activists say strongly favors NDP candidates, and the other 17 are lead by officials appointed by the Ministry of Labor, Aisha Abdel Hady.

“When the government created the Federation back in 1956, workers were happy at first,” said Abdel Latif Yousef, the Asyut food industry organizer. “But then they realized that the Federation was like a clone of the child they really wanted, and that it had nothing to do with what they had been dreaming of.”

“It is a structure without a spirit, a giant beast with no soul,” he added. “It is a police man that watches all the workers in Egypt, and a way for the government to oppress and spy on the working class.”

According to Ali El Badry, an organizer and activist with El Geel Democratic Party, workers plan to unveil an independent union on May 1 and will hold a demonstration in Tahrir Square in conjunction with protests in several provincial capitals.

“We are not afraid of the ruling regime,” he told the audience. “We live our lives with our suitcases packed, ready for them to come and take us to prison at any time.

“From here inside the Ibn Khaldun Center, I want to send a message to Aisha Abdel Hady,” he added. “You will pay a price for rigging last fall’s union elections. We will show you who is really in charge of the Egyptian labor movement.”

DSE: Local and global rights groups condemn state order closing labor NGO headquarters

2007-06-12T20:01:00.000+03:00

Local and global rights groups condemn state order closing labor NGO headquarters

By Liam Stack
The Daily Star Egypt staff

First Published 4/24/2007

CAIRO: Following weeks of what labor activists have described as “harassment” and “intimidation,” the Ministry of Social Solidarity has issued an order to shut down the Helwan headquarters of the Center for Trade Union and Worker Services (CTUWS).

The CTUWS is an independent worker’s rights organization formed in 1990 by Egyptian industrial workers. The group says it is committed to encouraging the development of unions independent of state control and spreading democratic practices in Egypt, as well as improving working conditions.

The government tells a different story. It says the group threatens the welfare of the country by encouraging instability and labor unrest. In the last month, the state has shut two of the organization’s branch offices. The first shut down was in Nagaa Hamadi, Qena governorate, on March 29. Two weeks later, the government shut the group’s office in the delta town of Mahalla on April 10.

Egyptian activists have condemned the order to close the Center’s Helwan office, and many have begun a sit-in there in the hopes of deterring police from shutting it down. Several large international human rights organizations have also weighed in, urging President Mubarak to intervene on the group’s behalf and allow it to do its work. It is unclear in what capacity the organization would continue to operate if its headquarters was closed.

One thing that local rights groups say they are certain of is that the campaign against the CTUWS is a bad sign for the future of Egyptian civil society. They plan to organize to defend the Center.

“Human rights organizations have decided to sign on and confront this assault,” said the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (HRInfo) in a statement. “This could start a huge campaign against all civil society organizations and especially human rights groups.”

Activists from HRInfo and the CTUWS have gathered at the Helwan office and say they will “stand against police attacks” by engaging in an ongoing sit-in. They are supported, and in some cases have been joined by, members of an unusually broad range of advocacy groups.

While large rights organizations like the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights and the Nadim Center are throwing their weight behind the CTUWS, lesser-known groups like the Egyptian Center for Child Rights and the Egyptian Organization for Improving Community Participation have also joined in.

In addition to the sit-in, a delegation from this coalition of civil society groups met with the Minister of Social Solidarity on Tuesday morning to ask for clarification concerning the repeated shutdown of the Center’s offices, in particular the role the Ministry has played in the closures.

“We tried to meet with the Minister of Social Solidarity, and he told us that closing the Center was not his Ministry’s decision,” Gamal Eid, the Executive Director of HRInfo, told The Daily Star Egypt. “He said that the CTUWS should register as an NGO under the law, since right now it is registered as a civil company. After the Ministry closed down the CTUWS office in Nagaa Hamadi, they said it was not our decision. After they closed its office in Mahalla, they said it was not our decision. This is the third time they have given us this same answer.”

Eid says that the human rights organizations will continue their sit-in at the group’s Helwan office, and will continue to fight the decision to shut it down.

The closure of the Center’s offices has attracted attention from abroad as well. New York-based Human Rights Watch released a statement in support of the CTUWS last week, one day after a workers’ demonstration in Cairo was suppressed by State Security police. They have urged the government to revoke the orders closing the Center’s offices and to respect workers’ rights.

“Closing the offices of a labor rights group won’t end labor unrest,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should be upholding legal commitments to Egyptian workers instead of seeking a scapegoat.”

“Egypt should end its crackdown on the CTUWS and allow its branches to reopen,” she added. “The campaign violates Egypt’s obligations under international law to uphold the rights to freedom of association, free assembly and expression. These rights need defenders like the CTUWS if they’re to be upheld in Egypt.”

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), based in Geneva, has also expressed its support for the Center. ITUC Secretary General Guy Ryder has sent a letter sent to President Mubarak and Minister of the Interior Habib El-Adly, asking them to allow the CTUWS to operate freely.

“Mr. President,” wrote Ryder, “Egypt is a leader in the Arab world and your Government can be a role model in the Arab world as a protector of the right to freedom of association and other fundamental human rights, including freedom of assembly and expression. The right for the CTUWS to freely conduct its work to protect and advocate for workers rights is something that the Egyptian government should be eager to protect and could legitimately be proud of.”

“On behalf of the ITUC, I urge you to issue instructions to the relevant governmental bodies to rescind the restrictions and other measures imposed on the CTUWS, as a positive sign of your Government’s commitment to international labor and human rights,” he added.

The crackdown on the CTUWS comes amid a season of labor unrest in Egypt, which began with the high-profile Ghazl El-Mahalla textile strike in December, which involved 27,000 workers. They went on strike to demand their annual bonuses, equivalent to two months’ pay, even though their local union representatives opposed the strike and supported the position of the state-run factory’s management.

The Mahalla strike ended with a compromise, and workers received a 45 day bonus. Still energized from the strike and angry at the position taken by the local union, the Mahalla workers collected 13,000 names on a petition demanding the impeachment of their local representatives.

The petition was delivered to the General Federation of Trade Unions in January. If the Federation would not agree to impeach their representatives and hold new elections, the Mahalla workers have threatened to secede from the body and form an independent union. It would be Egypt’s first since the President Gamal Abdel Nasser created the General Federation in 1956.

DSE: Egypt celebrates past Sinai victory, but for the young frustration outweighs pride

2007-06-12T19:57:00.000+03:00

Egypt celebrates past Sinai victory, but for the young frustration outweighs pride

By Liam Stack
The Daily Star Egypt staff

First Published 4/24/2007

CAIRO: Egypt celebrates Sinai Liberation Day today, marking 35 years since the victories of the 1972 war against Israel which eventually led to the return of the Sinai Peninsula from occupation. After three consecutive defeats at Israeli hands, the battle victories near the Suez Canal produced a groundswell of national pride and were the first step in the peace process between the two countries.

Today, much of that national pride has been replaced by frustration, and many young people seem to have forgotten what the holiday is all about. And for people in the Sinai, it is unclear how much life has improved under Egyptian rule.

“For the generation of Egyptians who fought and lost and restored the Sinai, it is a part of their memory and identity and has been the subject of a great deal of soul-searching,” said Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a political sociologist with extensive knowledge of Egyptian-Israeli relations. “Thousands of Egyptians died in those battles and many times more were wounded. Their blood became like an indelible ink on this country. So people rejoiced when the land was restored in 1973.”

Ibrahim believes that the surge of pride following the war created a “psychological parity” that allowed Sadat to begin peace negotiations with Israel. Now that Egypt had won a war of its own against its bitter enemy, the two states were on a more equal footing when it came to the bargaining table.

After the victories in the Canal Zone, striking a deal with Tel Aviv was more palatable. But many young Egyptians do not seem to care one way or another.

“For the generation that was born after ’73, and who are now in their 20s and 30s, Sinai to them is a playground,” he added. “It is a place they either read about as a resort or a tourist attraction, or as a place they themselves go to during the holidays.”

Mohamed Ibrahim, 26, a lecturer at Menoufia University in the delta town of Shebeen El-Kom, agrees that few young people care about what the holiday is supposed to commemorate.

“After all these years, people don’t think about the war the way they used to,” he says. “Now it is just another holiday, a day off. People just stay home and watch TV.”

He blames much of this disinterest and apathy on the frustrations that many people feel in their lives.

“People were more proud before, when the war was still fresh,” he said. “Back then people thought this would mean a major change in their lives, but now the more recent generations know it doesn’t mean anything for them day-to-day.”

“I think the country is standing still now,” he added. “We are stuck in the same place. When people think about their lives, their incomes, their life styles — many people feel that things like these have not changed for the better. And when they are thinking about all of these things, they don’t care about Sinai Day at all.”

Reham Mabrouk, 28, a communications specialist who works for a nongovernmental organization in Maadi, disputes the value of the military victory itself. She says the army did not inflict enough damage on Israel. In her opinion, the government should have done more in the war and should be doing more for Egypt today.

“We didn’t triumph in the manner that we should have — we should have pushed the Israelis all the way back to Tel Aviv but we didn’t,” she says. “The fighting only took back small parts of the Sinai, Israel still kept most of it and we had to negotiate with them for it. Israel killed Egyptian civilians in factories and schools, but no Israeli civilians died because we didn’t attack them in the depths of their country. Israel as a country was not hurt at all.”

“I think that Sadat was right to make peace with the Israelis because we would not have survived another war with them,” she added. “But the victory was not military. I don’t want to undermine the courage and bravery of the soldiers who fought, but this victory had two parts to it, and the negotiations are what got us back the Sinai.”

In the more than three decades since the war, Sinai itself has changed dramatically. What was once a poorly understood desert backwater is now the site of intense investment in tourism, much of it in high-end hotels.

Sharm El-Sheikh has become international short hand for both luxurious beach holidays and important global summits, while other spots along the coast cater to nature lovers, Egyptian families, and back-packing foreign hippies. But some fear that the locals are being left behind in the development rush.

“For the people of Sinai themselves, the story or the script is a bit different,” said Ibrahim. “These people are mostly Bedouin tribes with customs and ways of life that are significantly different from the rest of Egypt.”

This has created a feeling of alienation on both sides that leads to bureaucratic attitudes and policies that make life hard for the Sinai Bedouins. The influx of more than $20 billion of tourism investment in the last two decades has aggravated these tensions, as locals watch their under developed desert home sprout posh colonies of sun bathing foreigners.

“Part of this strange relationship with the Bedouins has to do with the government’s treatment of Sinai as a military zone for much of its modern history, which has the implication of not allowing anyone to own land there,” said Ibrahim. “Even the Bedouin and the natives of Sinai cannot have deeds to own any of their land, but outsiders can come in and buy land and villas and invest in the area. South Sinai has more than $20 billion of tourism investment. Compare this to North Sinai, which is really neglected.”

Mabrouk, the Maadi communications specialist, agrees that much of Sinai has been neglected by the government. She thinks the emphasis on tourism is misplaced, and that under Israeli rule the region was on a better economic path.

“It’s been 30 years, and you can still go to the Sinai and see the farms that the Israelis started,” she says. “The Israelis worked hard there and we have not. Sinai is being totally ignored by the regime, except for Sharm.”

“Turning a society of Bedouin into bus-boys is not a positive achievement,” she adds. “I shouldn’t be saying this, but Sinai would have been better off under the Israelis.”

DSE: WHO declares first annual road safety week

2007-06-12T19:53:00.000+03:00

WHO declares first annual road safety week

By Liam Stack
The Daily Star Egypt staff

First Published 4/22/2007

CAIRO: The United Nations has declared April 22 – 29 the first annual Road Safety Week to call attention to the dramatic impact of road accidents on both human lives and economic development.

To inaugurate the initiative, the Cairo office of the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) held a conference to highlight the dangers of unsafe driving conditions in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean region, under the slogan “Road Safety is No Accident.”

“Road safety can only happen through the deliberate and determined efforts of many sectors of society, both government and non-governmental,” said Hussein Gezairy, the regional director of the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region.

The conference comes one week after a high-profile bus crash in Giza which killed 16 students on their way to school, and injured eight others.

More than 6,000 people die every year in car crashes in Egypt, and over 30,000 are injured.

The conference drew representatives from many government ministries, the WHO, non-governmental organizations such as the Red Crescent and the Boy Scouts of Egypt, diplomats from the United States embassy, and a host of celebrity goodwill ambassadors like actors Khaled Abul Naga and Youssra.

According to the UN, road crashes kill 1.2 million people every year world wide and millions more are injured. Young people are especially hard hit, as accidents are the leading cause of death world wide for people between the ages of 10 and 24.

According to figures provided by the Ministry of Health, 65 percent of those injured in accidents on Egypt’s roads in 2004 were between the ages of 15 and 45.

“This places tremendous pressure, not only on the public sector health care services, but, through direct and indirect costs, on the national exchequer in general,” said Gezairy.

“Estimates from the World Report on road traffic injuries prevention indicate that for a country like Egypt, this cost may be around 1 to 1.5 percent of the total gross national product per year, which may rise if the current trend continues.”

The challenges that poor driving and unsafe road conditions pose for developing countries is formidable. The United Nations says that a widespread and daunting challenge calls for a widespread, coordinated response.

“The problem is more than any one agency, sector, government department or ministry can do,” said M.A. Jama, a representative of the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office. “A number of governments must come together to make a difference, and that is why the UN as a whole and the General Assembly has come together with you to declare the first UN Road Safety Week.”

“Road safety can only happen through the determined effort of many people and groups,” he added. “Today we expect a commitment to improve what we see on the roads of our cities.”

At the conference, the WHO unveiled a number of television commercials which will air around the world telling people to fasten their seat belts, wear a bike helmet, and not drink and drive. In one video, a young Egyptian boy nervously tells the camera about the death of his best friend.

“We were riding in a micro bus, my friend and I, and the driver was going very fast,” the child says, staring in to the camera. “Then there was another bus also going fast, and we had an accident. My friend died.”

The WHO wants television viewers all over the world to know that people everywhere can take simple steps to prevent road accidents and save lives.

“We all know that prevention is the key to the road safety crisis, anywhere in the world,” said Gezairy.

DSE: Mahalla textile workers barred from Cairo protest, threaten new strike

2007-06-12T19:51:00.000+03:00

Mahalla textile workers barred from Cairo protest, threaten new strike

By Liam Stack
The Daily Star Egypt staff

First Published 4/15/2007

CAIRO: A delegation of 100 factory workers from the delta town of Mahalla was barred from holding a demonstration at the Downtown Cairo headquarters of the General Federation of Trade Unions on Sunday to demand the removal of their local union officials.

The workers charge their union leaders with corruption, and say they have been co-opted by the management of their state-owned factory.

But the delegation was prevented from leaving Mahalla by a phalanx of state security personnel, who stopped them at several points along the way.

According to witnesses, state security officers first stopped the group from leaving town by bus by confiscating the the driver’s license of their hired bus driver. When the workers then tried to reach Cairo by train, they were surrounded inside the station and kept from boarding.

“At the station, state security surrounded us and would not let us board. The police were everywhere, and they threatened to arrest all of us,” said Mohamed El Attar, a spokesperson for the Mahalla workers

In defiance of this crackdown, workers in Mahalla say they may launch a new strike early this week.

The Ghazl El-Mahalla factory became iconic within the labor movement after a successful December strike brought 27,000 workers together to demand their annual bonuses, and it is unclear what effect a new strike there would have on workers elsewhere in the country.

Workers in nearby Shebeen El Kom, who staged a strike of their own this winter, have already declared that they are “in solidarity with the Mahalla workers,” although they have stopped short of declaring a new strike.

The Mahalla workers first demanded the removal of their local union representatives in January, say organizers, and today’s protest was meant to pressure the General Federation into responding to that demand.

If the local representatives are not impeached, the workers threaten to resign from the General Federation en masse and form an independent union, which would be the country’s first.

“The workers are saying now that under no conditions will they accept the continuation of those labor union officials,” Kamal Abbas, the General Secretary of the CTUWS, told The Daily Star Egypt in February.

“Just the idea of presenting your resignation from the General Federation is unprecedented. It never happens. This is going to have a ripple effect in the same way that the Ghazl El-Mahalla strike sent a message to the entire working class of Egypt.”

According to the government, the message that the CTUWS sends is one of unrest and instability that threatens the social peace of the country. The state says the group “causes unrest” and “puts stability at risk,” and in the last month has shut two of its branch offices.

Labor organizers and a coalition of human rights advocates organized a separate demonstration on Sunday in front of the Ministry of Social Affairs, to protest the most recent CTUWS closure, which also took place in Mahalla.
Activists say the shutdowns are not about keeping the peace, but are part of a larger crackdown on political opposition, and accuse the regime of a campaign of harassment and intimidation.

Their protest attracted a crowd of about 40, as well as a heavy security presence. Protestors expressed their outrage at the shut-down and demanded to speak to a representative from the ministry, to whom they planned to deliver a letter of protest.

According to witnesses in Mahalla, officials from the Ministry of Social Affairs, accompanied by a detail of state security police, shut down the center’s Mahalla office on Wednesday at 8 pm, sealing its door with red wax.

The Mahalla shut-down came after a week-long campaign of harassment, said the CTUWS in a statement, and comes only two weeks after the government closed the center’s office in the Upper Egyptian city of Nagaa Hamadi, in Qena Province.

The CTUWS has called the shut-downs “an unjustifiable and unexplainable government escalation.”

In a statement, the group says it does not sow unrest, but is committed to “defend the right to go on strike as one of the human rights guaranteed by international conventions ratified by the government of Egypt and maintained by the Egyptian constitution.”

Workers say they think the regime is cracking down because it is afraid of them organizing independently of the General Federation, which has traditionally helped the regime pacify workers and reign in potential labor militancy.

“The regime knows there is a general frustration in the country,” said Abbas. “It’s like having a pimple somewhere on your body and you know if you just touch it, it is going to explode. We’re talking about strikes with thousands of people.”

“The regime is also very scared because whatever the workers are doing in one sector or in one place could just spread to the whole country because the workers are linked organically,” he said. “Today you impeach your factory union committee, maybe tomorrow you will impeach the People’s Assembly, and then maybe the next day you will try to impeach the President. Once this starts, who knows where it will lead?”

DSE: Dokki court hears case to ban human rights websites

2007-04-16T00:37:00.000+02:00

Dokki court hears case to ban human rights websites

By Liam Stack
First Published: April 12, 2007

CAIRO: The Sixth District Court in Dokki heard the first session of the case between Alexandria Judge Abdel Fattah Mourad and the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (HRInfo) over the weekend, in a hearing that group activists described as encouraging.

In early March Mourad filed a case with the State Council Court to block the website of HRInfo and 20 other organizations or individuals. In a March 2 interview with state-run daily Rose Al Yousef, Mourad alleged that the groups in question “tarnish the reputation of Egypt and insult the Egyptian president” and “pose a threat to the national security, stability and supreme interests of Egypt and Arab countries."

Among those Mourad wants to see banned are El Ghad Party, the Kefaya National Movement for Change, and the Iraqi News Agency.

HRInfo claims that Mourad’s accusations are driven by a personal vendetta against the organization after it began preparing to sue him for copyright infringement.

They claim that Mourad plagiarized more than 50 pages of his recent book, “Scientific and Legal Principles of Blogs on the Internet," from a report the group published entitled "Stubborn Adversary: The Internet & Arab Governments.”

"The judge violated our copyrights and when we exposed this he filed a lawsuit to block HRinfo's website and 20 others," said the group in a statement. "This campaign does not only target HRinfo but targets all those who support it. We will not give up our rights. This judge plagiarized large parts of our report and paraphrased some sentences for a book he sells.”

Mourad, who has written many other books on law and society, rejects the charges. The Daily Star Egypt could not reach the Judge for comment by press time.

According to Gamal Eid, the Director of HRInfo, at the beginning of the hearing Mourad requested a closed trial, with a ban on media coverage, which the court denied. He then launched an attack on human rights activism in Egypt.

“[Mourad] said that human rights organizations that receive funding from abroad are a kind of terrorist organization because they insult the president, Hosni Mubarak, and harm the country of Egypt,” said Eid.

After that, Mourad quickly turned his attention to the plagiarism charge, which is the subject of an entirely separate lawsuit, says Eid.

“When Judge Mourad started to talk about our report, he told the court that he referenced our report in his book 27 times,” Eid said. “The court told him that he was bringing up a completely different legal issue, so they asked me to speak on behalf of HRInfo to comment and tell him our side of the story. So I did.”

Hussein El-Sawy, a lawyer representing the state, was also present to argue against Judge Mourad. Technically, the lawsuit is between Mourad and the Ministry of Interior, and demands that they block the websites. As such, HRInfo is a third party bystander in the case of its own site.

In an unusual turn of events, El-Sawy was present to defend the government against the suit, and also implicitly to defend a coalition of human rights organizations which usually take an antagonistic stance towards the regime.

According to witnesses present at the hearing, El-Sawy argued that it is technically impossible to completely block or ban a website because the site can quickly be re-launched on a proxy server. In addition to being impossible to fulfill Mourad’s request, he told the Court that trying to do so would be a waste of the Ministry’s time and resources.

The Court asked both Mourad and lawyers for HRInfo to prepare legal briefs outlining each side in the case. In addition, Mourad was asked to submit a copy of his book and HRInfo a copy of their Internet report, and each will be entered as evidence.

No court date has yet been set on separate charges filed by Mourad against Eid and bloggers Alaa Seif and Manal Hassan. The Judge has accused both of defamation and insult.

In the meantime, HRInfo continues to petition the Judges Club to remove Mourad’s judicial immunity so that he can be prosecuted for copyright infringement. It is unclear how the events of Saturday’s trial will effect the separate plagiarism case.

The 20 other groups named in Mourad’s lawsuit are all organizations or private individuals who have been publicly supportive of the plagiarism case against the judge. They claim they are being punished for voicing that support.

The case is being closely watched by human rights groups, and has raised concerns about the regime’s commitment to freedom of expression. For many it has become a showcase for the abuse of power, and how far one influential man will go to avoid prosecution on charges of plagiarism or other petty crimes.

The next hearing on Mourad’s request for the blocking of the human rights websites and blogs will be held on May 5 in Dokki’s Sixth District Courthouse.

DSE: Word on the Street: Torture "happens," says vox populi

2007-04-16T00:36:00.000+02:00

WORD ON THE STREET: Torture “happens”, says vox populi

By Liam Stack
First Published: April 13, 2007

According to a report published earlier this week by human rights group Amnesty International, Egyptian authorities are systematically abusing prisoners — including torture and years of detention without trial.

The rights group warned that recent changes in Egypt’s constitution could further increase such abuses. The Al Jazeera Documentary Channel recently aired a program which alleged police torture in stations and precincts.

But the Egyptian government has repeatedly denied such reports saying that there are attempts to tarnish the image and reputation of this country.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that the authorities were actively working to promote awareness of and respect for human rights in the country.

The Daily Star Egypt took to the streets of Cairo and asked people their thoughts on the issue.

“People say it happens here a lot, but I don’t know how much it really does. I haven’t seen the show on Al Jazeera about it but I saw a clip on YouTube about a bus driver getting raped in jail, and it was really bad.”

Mohamed, 22, student, Zamalek.

“Of course there is torture here, its normal — it’s just the way the police always do things. I don’t think it’s a good thing but it’s hard to make them stop. A lot of the police here are low-class people. I haven’t seen that documentary but you know it happens.”

Omar, 25, student, Heliopolis.

“I don’t know anything about prison, thank God. I have never been arrested and no one in my family has ever been arrested, thank God. Egypt is a great country, but our lives here are hard.”

Mohamed, 46, taxi driver, Downtown.

“Well I haven’t seen the documentary so I can’t really comment. But I would imagine that it’s going on for sure and that it’s pretty wide spread. You really shouldn’t be asking random people questions like this, unless you want to find out for yourself how much torture there is in jails here.”

Ghada, 26, marketing executive, Heliopolis.

“I don’t know how much torture happens here but you hear about it a lot. My friend saw a video clip on the internet about a man being treated badly in a police station, but I didn’t want to watch it. I haven’t seen any movie about it on Al Jazeera either.”

Mona, 31, business woman, Dokki.

DSE: Choice of Sharm for peace summit displays Egypt-Iran tensions

2007-04-16T00:32:00.000+02:00

Choice of Sharm for peace summit displays Egypt-Iran tensions

By Liam Stack
First Published: April 12, 2007

CAIRO: Sharm El-Sheikh, long the destination of choice for package tourists and aspiring peace-makers alike, will play host to a high-level ministerial meeting on the future of Iraq from May 3–4.

The meeting will bring together Foreign Ministers from the United States, Iraq and its neighbors, Egypt, Bahrain and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

The meeting promises to be tense, and may be the first time that American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet with her Syrian and Iranian counterparts.

The bi-partisan Iraq Study Group, composed of senior American statesmen, urged such meetings in their December 2006 report, although little diplomatic headway between Washington, Tehran and Damascus has been made.

The Iraqi government hopes that the Sharm El-Sheikh summit will lead to more substantive discussions between the three and help to defuse tensions growing on each of its borders.

But far from easing tensions, the very choice of Sharm El-Sheikh as the summit venue has already caused strains among the participants.

Iran has objected to the choice of Egypt as the summit venue, and has said that if the conference is not held inside Iraq then it is not sure it will send a delegation to attend.

"Iran has not yet decided and Tehran's decision regarding this conference will be announced in due course," Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Reza Baqeri told the Fars news agency.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran wants the conference to be held in Baghdad or one of the cities in that country but if the conference is to be held outside Iraq then they should get the agreement of all relevant parties," he added.

Baqeri has also insisted to Iranian media that no member of the Iranian delegation will meet one-on-one with Secretary Rice.

The tensions may stem from Iran’s fraught relationship with Egypt.

Iran’s relationship with Egypt has been on the rocks since the 1979 Islamic Revolution overthrew the Iranian monarchy. Iran’s king, the Shah, fled into exile in Egypt, where he spent the rest of his life. His body now lies in an ornate tomb inside the Mosque of Al Rifai in Al Qala’a Square, in the shadow of Cairo’s looming Citadel.

When former president Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David Accords, making peace with Israel, the Islamic Republic fully cut diplomatic relations with Egypt. After Sadat’s death, the Iranian regime named a Tehran street after his assassin.

Ties have improved in the quarter century since Camp David, but neither country has fully resumed diplomatic relations with the other.

DSE: Parliament Speaker’s Comments on Prosecuting ‘Terrorist’ Media Raise Eyebrows

2007-04-12T16:17:00.000+02:00

Parliament Speaker’s Comments on Prosecuting ‘Terrorist’ Media Raise Eyebrows

http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=6571

By Liam Stack
First Published: April 11, 2007
CAIRO: Fathi Sorour, speaker of the People’s Assembly, raised eyebrows this week with comments he made at a counter-terrorism conference which suggested that Egypt’s draft anti-terror law, slated to replace 26-year-old Emergency Law by next year, could be used to prosecute journalists and media outlets.

The Muslim Brotherhood was quick to condemn the statements, although media observers affiliated with the National Democratic Party of President Hosni Mubarak say there is little cause for alarm.

“If any journalist is part of a terrorist cell or terrorist organization and is seen to be spreading the ideas of his organization, he will suffer the full extent of the anti-terrorism law,” said Sorour at the First Annual Anti-Terrorism Conference held at the Al-Gomhouria Studies Center. The event drew anti-terror experts from across the Arab world.

Responding to concerns that any prosecutions under the law would unfairly target the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been banned since 1954 but long tolerated, Sorour sought to reassure the audience.

“The Muslim Brotherhood is permitted to have political activities as long as they are within the legal parameters and as long as there are no covert activities that could be classified as terrorist,” he said. “The freedom to demonstrate and express one’s opinion democratically will always be upheld, but anything other than that will be considered criminal activity.”

He also told the audience that “the Brotherhood have political objectives, so they should set up a political party.” Sorour declined to comment on whether the state would allow them to do so.

Later in his remarks, Sorour told the conference, “Every nation has the right to fight terrorism in order to protect its sovereignty, security and stability. Fighting terrorism is a means of protecting human rights, and sometimes, in special circumstances, it supersedes personal rights and freedoms.”

When asked about potential abuse of anti-terror legislation by security forces, Sorour said: “Violations could take place, but they are the exception to the rule.”

Ibrahim El Houdaiby, an advisor to the Muslim Brotherhood and contributor to its website, www.ikhwanweb.com, does not find these reassurances convincing.

While he maintains that the Muslim Brotherhood is not a terrorist organization, Houdaiby says the vagueness of the Speaker’s language is cause for alarm.

“There was no direct reference to the Muslim Brotherhood in Fathi Sorour’s statements,” he told The Daily Star Egypt. “He spoke about any outlawed terrorist organization, and we are not terrorists. We are a civil organization that has a clear agenda of reform and a moderate orientation.”

“But he used very broad language that could be applied to anybody, so considering this I am sure it will be used to crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood,” he continued. “Looking at Sorour’s exact words against terrorism, of course we support them. But given the regime’s history, they will just be used to crackdown on opposition. That is a threat to all opposition groups, not just the Brotherhood.”

According to Hussein Amin, Chairman of the Department of Mass Communications at the American University in Cairo and a member of the Policy Committee of the National Democratic Party, Sorour’s comments are not a threat to anybody.

“These laws that Sorour is talking about have not even been passed yet. They still have to be discussed in the People’s Assembly,” he said. “What Sorour said are just his own comments, what he thinks the laws will deal with. He’s just thinking out loud.”

While he does not see the comments as an anti-Brotherhood maneuver in the making, Amin agrees that any legal move towards restricting freedom of the press would be bad for Egypt.

“I don’t think there should be anything restricting freedom of expression and the press,” he said. “Are we going forward or backwards?”

“In an era where anyone can say anything anywhere because of the internet and transnational media, why should we put restrictions on what journalists can say?” He continued. “What is going to be said is going to be said, whether we like it or not. Freedom of expression is one of the most important pillars of society, especially in a society where people have access to broadcasting and the transnational media.”

According to Amin, in a vibrant media environment in which television, radio, print and the internet all compete for the same stories, regulation of the media is important. But anti-terror legislation is not the right way to do it.

“Although there is a need for regulation, I don’t think that the governing body for the press should be the anti-terrorism law,” he said. “Maybe then more people would go to the political extreme because of stupid actions taken by the government to limit the free expression of journalists.”

On this, he and El Houdaiby seem to agree.

“Because of the regime’s continued crackdown on moderates and opposition groups, they are paving the way for radicals to emerge,” said El Houdaiby. “They are encouraging radical sentiments.”

DSE: Closure of Upper Egypt NGO condemned

2007-04-12T16:15:00.000+02:00

Closure of Upper Egypt NGO condemned

By Liam Stack
First Published: April 7, 2007

CAIRO: A coalition of 37 civil society organizations has called on the governor of the Upper Egyptian province of Qena to re-open the offices of a workers rights organization which was closed by the city government of Nagaa Hammadi last week.

The local branch office of the Center for Trade Union and Workers Services (CTUWS) was closed on Thursday, March 29, after an order to shut down the group was issued by the Chairman of the City, General Al Sherbeeny Hasheesh.

A broad range of Egyptian civil society organizations have endorsed the call for solidarity with the CTUWS, including the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, the Hisham Mubarak Law Center and the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.

According to a statement issued by the coalition, the closure of the Nagaa Hammadi office came at the end of a campaign of state harassment against the labor rights group.

“The issuance of this decision completes the series of administrative provocations against that branch throughout the last week,” read the statement, “the latest of which was summoning the staff of the said branch to the police station where the Chief Officer told them that the branch must be shut down and that as a police officer he is mandated to implement the decision regardless of its validity or legality.”

According to the CTUWS, the week before the shut-down its local staff in Nagaa Hamadi were summoned to meetings with both the director of the labor relations office of the Ministry of Manpower as well as the director of the social solidarity regional office of the Ministry of Social Solidarity.

Both directors said their offices were investigating the activities of the CTUWS, and told local staff they had been ordered to write a report on the organization by General Magdy Ayoub, the Governor of Qena.

The Center for Trade Union and Workers Services has complained of harassment since the government accused it of inciting disruptive strikes and protests in the Delta last December and January.

“The government has tried to lay all the blame on the CTUWS and say that we instigated it all,” Kamal Abbas, the group’s leader, told The Daily Star Egypt.

“It’s an honor we can’t claim, although we would have loved it if this had been the case. But just because some of the strike leaders were either members of the Tagammu Party or the CTUWS or any other organization does not mean that these organizations were the ones that mobilized them for the strike.”

The largest of those strikes took place at the Ghazl El Mahalla textile factory, where 27,000 workers protested against low pay, dangerous working conditions, and corruption within the state-dominated General Federation of Trade Unions, formed by President Nasser in 1957.

After the strike ended, Mahalla workers began an ongoing campaign to impeach their local union representatives. They have threatened to secede from the General Federation and form the country’s first independent union since 1957 if their impeachment drive fails.

If the Mahalla workers are successful in either impeaching their union or forming an independent one, the regime will be put on the defensive, says Joel Beinin, the Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the American University in Cairo and an expert in Egyptian labor history.

“If the factory committee is impeached it implies that either there will be a new election within the framework of the General Federation, and of course if the textile workers can arrange that, then if the General Federation tries to impose an undemocratic solution on such a well-organized group of workers it will be very difficult; or they will become independent,” says Beinin.

“Especially if the workers succeed in that locale, which is not only the largest industrial enterprise in Egypt, but also probably the largest industrial enterprise in the entire Middle East, then that is a very serious blow to the regime. If that happens they will have lost something very substantial and will set a very bad precedent for them.”

According to Abbas, despite these high stakes the state has not suppressed this winter’s labor unrest as hard as it has in the past. But in the midst of an ongoing crackdown against opposition groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, the environment is still a dangerous one for organizing workers.

“The government hasn’t acted with the heavy-handedness that it was once infamous for, although I don’t rule out the chance that this might happen eventually,” he said.

“There was talk last month in the Shura Council about the strikes, and members from the National Democratic Party were suggesting that the recent strikes were nothing but the Muslim Brotherhood’s general plan for civil disobedience in the country.”

DSE: Human rights lawyer, bloggers detained in latest twist of copyright case

2007-04-12T16:13:00.000+02:00

Human rights lawyer, bloggers detained in latest twist of copyright case

By Liam Stack
First Published: April 6, 2007

CAIRO: Human rights lawyer Gamal Eid and popular bloggers Manal Hassan and Alaa Seif spent yesterday in police custody after being accused of defamation by Alexandria Judge Abdel Fattah Mourad.

Their detention and the defamation charges are the latest development in a tangled copyright battle between Judge Mourad and Eid’s organization, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (HRInfo).

Last month the case turned into a test of Egypt’s commitment to freedom of expression and a showcase for abuse of power when the judge filed a lawsuit to block the web sites of HRInfo and its allies.

“We were called in to the Dokki prosecutor’s office on Wednesday morning and we thought it was just going to be a simple, easy case,” Eid told The Daily Star Egypt. “But when we got there, the case was four pages long and full of inaccuracies. They said that HRInfo was a group of bloggers receiving foreign funds, not an NGO, and that we were a threat to the government of Egypt. They even called witnesses against us.”

Among those was Mohamed Daoud, a prosecutor in the case of imprisoned Alexandria blogger Kareem Amer, who Eid defended in court. During the trial, Daoud accused Eid and the rest of the legal team of apostasy against Islam for agreeing to represent the
21-year-old.

Eid, Seif and Hassan were released by prosecutors at 1 pm, but were held until midnight by police and transferred back and forth between the Dokki and Giza prosecutor’s office several times.

No court date has been set for a hearing into the defamation charges, although the State Council Court in Dokki will begin proceedings on the case of the blocked blogs on Saturday, April 7.

HRInfo alleges that Mourad plagiarized more than 50 pages of his recent book, “Scientific and Legal Principles of Blogs on the Internet," from a report published by their organization entitled "Stubborn Adversary: The Internet & Arab Governments.”

The rights group has filed a lawsuit against the judge for copyright infringement, and has attracted support from many political parties, media outlets and non-governmental organizations.

Mourad, who has written many other books on law and society, rejects the charges.

In early March, he filed a case with State Council Court to block the website of HRInfo and 20 other organizations or individuals who had expressed support for the rights group on an internet petition. Among those Mourad wants to see banned are El Ghad Party, the Kefaya National Movement for Change, and the Iraqi News Agency.

In an interview with state-run daily Rose Al Youssef, Mourad alleged that the groups in question “tarnish the reputation of Egypt and insult the Egyptian president” and “pose a threat to the national security, stability and supreme interests of Egypt and Arab countries."

But according to Eid, the case is not about national security, it is about how far one man will go to avoid prosecution on copyright charges.

"The judge violated our copyrights and when we exposed this he filed a lawsuit to block HRinfo's website and 20 others," said Eid. "Today he is raising a criminal case against Alaa, Manal, and myself, and we know of another criminal case against Ahmed Seif Al-Islam, Director of the Hisham Mubarak Center for Law.”

The Daily Star Egypt was unable to reach Judge Mourad for comment.

In addition to directing the Hisham Mubarak Center for Law, Seif Al-Islam is also working as Eid’s attorney in the plagiarism case. He is also the father of blogger Alaa Seif and father-in-law of Manal Hassan, who were both detained alongside Eid.

"This campaign does not only target HRinfo but targets all those who support it,” charged a statement released by the organization. “We know that the battle is not easy and we will understand if others surrender, but we will not even if this entails the shut down of HRinfo and the imprisonment of its director. We will not give up our rights. This judge plagiarized large parts of our report and paraphrased some sentences for a book he sells.”

In the meantime, HRinfo has filed complaints with the Public Prosecutor, the Supreme Council of Judiciary, and the Minister of Justice demanding an investigation into the alleged plagiarism and the lifting of Mourad’s judicial immunity so that he can be charged.

"We are looking for a neutral investigation into this case regardless of who the parties are,” said Eid. “This is the foundation of justice.”

DSE: Demonstrators beaten at protest

2007-04-12T16:11:00.000+02:00

Demonstrators beaten at protest

By Liam Stack and Alexandra Sandels
First Published: March 26, 2007

CAIRO: A Downtown demonstration against controversial amendments to the constitution was suppressed in a violent crackdown on Sunday, as hundreds of state security riot police and thugs under their command beat and detained a crowd of several hundred pro-democracy activists and journalists.

Among those assaulted was 20-year old political activist Salma Said who was beaten and kicked in the stomach by the thugs.

“They beat me and screamed at me. I kept telling them to stop,” Said told The Daily Star Egypt, crying.

Activists from across the political spectrum planned to hold a rally in Tahrir Square at 6 pm, but the area was filled with thugs and baton-wielding police from the early morning hours. Downtown was filled with more than 50 military transport vehicles.

A crowd of over 200 loud protestors began marching up Talaat Harb Street chanting “Down with Hosni Mubarak!” As they approached the square, the demonstrators were crushed by police and thugs.

About a dozen protestors, including journalists, were herded into a tight security perimeter on the corner of the square, where they were and physically assaulted.

“Help me, please help me,” screamed one woman inside the perimeter. “I can’t breath.”

Police pulled foreigners out of the crowd and confiscated cameras and memory sticks from journalists and by-standers, then began to beat the remaining Egyptians more harshly than before.

According to witnesses, several demonstrators passed out inside the tight ring and the air in Talaat Harb was filled with screams.

“When people were trying to go to the actual square where the sit-in was supposed to be, the police surrounded them and started to beat them up,” said Miral, a student. “When people started walking away from the square the police surrounded them and kept beating them up.”

“I could hear girls screaming for 15 minutes but I couldn’t see them, I could just see police officers surrounding all the protestors,” she continued. “Then they brought a big police truck and filled it with protestors, and they took them all and left.”

Police arrested between 10 and 20 demonstrators, including blogger Malek Mustafa, leftist activist Adham El-Safty, blogger Omar El-Hadi, blogger Mohamed Gamal, activist Ahmed Droubi, blogger Kareem El-Sha’er, blogger Omar Mustafa, and journalist Jano Charbel.

At press time, several detainees, including Mustafa and Charbel, were released in remote locations in the outskirts of Cairo. Most of the current detainees are held in undisclosed locations.

Human rights activists expressed particular concern for the welfare of Ahmed Droubi, a diabetic without access to necessary medication while in police custody

Activist and blogger who writes under the alias Sandmonkey witnessed the assaults and arrest of his friends and colleagues.

“I saw them beat and arrest my friend Malek Mustafa and a group of young girls,” he said, preferring to remain anonymous for personal security. “It’s disgusting.”

Following the confrontations in Talaat Harb, a crowd of 250 activists gathered on the steps in front of the press syndicate, where they chanted slogans and waved banners.

The adjacent street was filled with hundreds of riot police and thugs, who encircled the demonstrators.

Outside the headquarters of Al Ghad Party many activists and party members were barricaded inside their Talaat Harb offices for the duration of the protest.

A crowd of roughly 30 thugs, commanded by two uniformed police officers, blocked the entrance to the building, which also houses the Greek Club restaurant. No one was allowed to enter or leave.

“We simply have no freedom here,” said Sarah Gemeinder, a student. Although she is not a member of Al Ghad, she was trying to enter the building to be with activist friends trapped inside.

“They are not even allowing me to go up to the Greek Club,” she exclaimed on the sidewalk. “These guys say they are low grade officers, but they don’t even have any badges or identity cards, nothing at all to say who they are. So obviously they are not police, they are just bought off.”

Every major opposition movement opposes the amendments, which Amnesty International has called the “most serious undermining of human rights safeguards in Egypt since the state of emergency” began at the start of President Hosni Mubarak’s rule.

The Muslim Brotherhood has called for a nationwide boycott of yesterday’s referendum.

“Based on these amendments, unless God shows mercy on us, the future for this country is dark,” said Supreme Guide Mohamed Mahdi Akef in an interview with Reuters.

“It’s 100 percent rigged,” he continued. “Watch the balloting stations tomorrow. It’ll succeed. [Egypt] has armies of civil servants and factory workers [to vote in favor].”

Activists argue that the constitutional changes undermine nascent democratic reforms made in the past several years.

Among the most controversial amendments are those banning political activity based on religion, seen as a direct attack on the Muslim Brotherhood; reducing judicial oversight of elections, after Judicial whistle blowing on vote-rigging in 2005; and giving the President wide-reaching security powers including the authority to transfer civilians to military courts, which offer no appeals.

“The proposed amendments limit the freedom of the Egyptian people and strip them of their rights,” said Magdi Hassan, a member of Al Ghad. “The only people who will gain from the new laws are Mubarak and businessmen. The Egyptian people will only keep suffering.”

DSE: Opposition groups urge all Egyptians to boycott referendum

2007-04-12T16:04:00.000+02:00

Opposition groups urge all Egyptians to boycott referendum

By Liam Stack
First Published: March 21, 2007

CAIRO: Mohamed Habib, deputy chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), announced that his group will boycott Monday’s referendum on the amendments to the constitution.

He says the MB, the largest and most well-organized opposition group which has long been banned by the regime, will boycott the referendum in solidarity with other political movements which have also decided to boycott.

“We will refuse to take part in this referendum,” Habib told The Daily Star Egypt.

According to a statement released on the MB website, www.ikhwanweb.com, “Habib demanded all Egyptian people boycott the referendum and not to participate in this farce that will lead to more dictatorship, repression and tyranny in Egypt.”

The site also reports that the Karama Party as well as opposition members of the People’s Assembly, drawn largely from the Brotherhood but registered as independents “have declared their boycott to the referendum and called on all sections of the society do the same.”

The announcement came one day after opposition members of the PA at a press conference, accused the ruling National Democratic Party of manipulating the constitution.

The opposition — which includes Muslim Brotherhood, Wafd and El Karama MPs — had boycotted parliamentary discussions of 34 constitutional amendments which were approved by the PA on Monday night.

They had spoken to the press amid tight security which blockaded the entrance to Meglis El Shaab Street, preventing anyone but journalists from entering.

The independent MPs claimed that the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) rushed the discussion of the amendments to avoid a confrontation with the opposition and the public that reject the proposed changes.

Al Wafd party’s MP Mohamed Abdel Alim Daoud said the newly adopted amendments reaffirm dictatorship.

He reaffirmed what the opposition has been saying about the amendments and reform.

“They take us a step back. They take us to the age of political arrests … and disrespect for the dignity of the Egyptian citizen.”

The wording of the amendments, especially the article concerning the introduction of anti-terrorism legislation “will increase political inflammation,” said Mohamed El Katatny, head of the MB bloc in parliament.

The Brotherhood will not, however, go into a confrontation with the regime, El Katatny had said during the press conference. “We want peaceful succession of authority.”

El Karama’s Hamdin Sabbahy said his party also plans to boycott the referendum.

He added that the parliamentary discussion was “murdering the constitution” and that the NDP was like “a criminal who wants to cover up all traces of his crime.”