Tag Archives | Egypt

Anonymous Takes On the Muslim Brotherhood (Video)

By on November 9, 2011 in News 18

Michael Stone reports in the Examiner:

Anonymous targets Muslim Brotherhood In Egypt, claims Muslim Brotherhood is a threat to Egyptian revolution, plans a coordinated Distributed Denial of Service attack on Nov. 11. Those claiming to represent the nebulous and notorious international Internet hacktivist collective known as Anonymous released a YouTube video announcing an operation directed at the Muslim Brotherhood.

According to the announcement, the Muslim Brotherhood is a “corrupt” organization “bent on taking over sovereign Arab states in its quest to seize power.” The announcement goes on to compare the Muslim Brotherhood to the Church of Scientology, and declares the Brotherhood to be “a threat to the people.”

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Egyptians March In Support Of Occupy Oakland

By on October 31, 2011 in News 13

American politicians and pundits have scoffed at the notion that there’s any connection to be drawn between the Occupy Wall Street protests and the “Arab Spring” of the past year. At least some involved in the Middle East uprisings would disagree. From journalist Mohammed Maree, via Boing Boing:

As they vowed earlier this week to do, Egyptian protesters marched from Tahrir square to the U.S. Embassy [on Friday] in support of Occupy Oakland—and against police brutality witnessed in Oakland on Tuesday night, and commonly experienced in Egypt.

march… Read the rest

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Zahi Hawass Conflicts Of Interest Exposed

By on July 13, 2011 in News 10

Zahi Hawass in northern Egypt on 8 May 2010Kate Taylor’s front page article for the New York Times suggests that Dr. Hawass, the controversial Egyptian antiquities minister, is on the way out. I know more than a few people who think it’s more than past due:

Until recently Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s antiquities minister, was a global symbol of Egyptian national pride. A famous archaeologist in an Indiana Jones hat, he was virtually unassailable in the old Egypt, protected by his success in boosting tourism, his efforts to reclaim lost artifacts and his closeness to the country’s first lady, Suzanne Mubarak.

But the revolution changed all that.

Now demonstrators in Cairo are calling for his resignation as the interim government faces disaffected crowds in Tahrir Square.

Their primary complaint is his association with the Mubaraks, whom he defended in the early days of the revolution. But the upheaval has also drawn attention to the ways he has increased his profile over the years, often with the help of organizations and companies with which he has done business as a government official.

… Read the rest

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Egyptian Pyramids Found By Infrared Satellite Images

By on May 25, 2011 in News 7

Gizah Pyramids. Photo: Ricardo Liberato (CC)

Gizah Pyramids. Photo: Ricardo Liberato (CC)

Not only were pyramids found, but an entire city-scape could be seen, fit with various buildings and roads. Frances Cronin of BBC News reports:

Seventeen lost pyramids are among the buildings identified in a new satellite survey of Egypt.

More than 1,000 tombs and 3,000 ancient settlements were also revealed by looking at infra-red images which show up underground buildings.

Initial excavations have already confirmed some of the findings, including two suspected pyramids.

The work has been pioneered at the University of Alabama at Birmingham by US Egyptologist Dr Sarah Parcak.

She says she was amazed at how much she and her team has found.

“We were very intensely doing this research for over a year. I could see the data as it was emerging, but for me the “Aha!” moment was when I could step back and look at everything that we’d found and I couldn’t believe we could locate so many sites all over Egypt.

… Read the rest

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Former Egyptian Special Forces Officer Named New Al Qaeda Leader

By on May 18, 2011 in News 6

Flag of Al-Qaeda in Iraq

Flag of Al-Qaeda in Iraq

Hindustan Times reports:

A fierce succession battle appears to be gripping the senior ranks of al Qaeda in the wake of the death of leader Osama bin Laden, pitting regional affiliates against the central “hardcore” of the organisation. Reports from Pakistan have named an Egyptian former special forces officer, ,as the acting leader of al Qaeda.

Adel, who is in his late 40s, is a veteran militant who was close to bin Laden in the 1990s. He was detained in Iran after fleeing Afghanistan following the ouster of the Taliban in 2001. According to Noman Benotman, a former Libyan militant now living in London, al-Adel, also known as Muhamad Ibrahim Makkawi, was released from Iranian detention and returned to Pakistan last year.

The report in the News newspaper of Pakistan identified al-Adel as having been chosen as “interim leader” after a meeting at “an undisclosed location”.

… Read the rest

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Egypt’s Zahi Hawass Gets Jail Term

By on April 18, 2011 in News 10

Zahi Hawass in northern Egypt on 8 May 2010The soap opera saga of History Channel’s swashbuckling Egyptologist continues. Dr. Hawass appeared to have survived the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, but now finds himself sentenced to a year in jail. He’s appealing of course, but it seems that the controversial Egyptian is on the ropes. Alan Shahine reports for Bloomberg:

Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s minister of state for antiquities, said he will appeal a one-year jail sentence imposed on him yesterday.

The sentence is related to a lawsuit accusing him of refusing to carry out a court ruling, the state-run Middle East News Agency said today. The court had ordered a halt to bidding from companies to run a bookstore in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Hawass said today in his blog.

“Tomorrow, the head of the legal affairs department at the Ministry of Antiquities will go to the court to file our appeal,” Hawass said in the Web log.

… Read the rest

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Egyptian Blogger Maikel Nabil, Critical of Military, Jailed By New Egyptian Government

By on April 14, 2011 in News 12

Maikel NabilVia BBC News:

A military court in Egypt has sentenced an internet activist to three years in jail for criticising the armed forces. Maikel Nabil was arrested last month for blogs that criticised the army’s role during anti-government protests.

The 26-year-old is thought to be the first blogger jailed in Egypt since the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak.

Activists said the trial set a dangerous precedent at a time when Egypt was trying to move away from the alleged abuses of the Mubarak era. Lawyers representing Maikel Nabil have criticised the conduct of the military court.

“We are in a state of shock because [on Sunday] they told us the decision would be on Tuesday, so the family and lawyer left. Afterwards the court announced its decision,” said Gamal Eid, a lawyer who heads the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.

Mr Eid said the trial was unfair because the court did not even consider the content of Mr Nabil’s blog posts.

… Read the rest

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The Human Agency of Revolution

By on April 3, 2011 in News 2

FistScholar Tarak Barkawi argues revolutions are caused by human agency; not telecommunications technologies, in Al Jazeera:

To listen to the hype about social networking websites and the Egyptian revolution, one would think it was Silicon Valley and not the Egyptian people who overthrew Mubarak.

Via its technologies, the West imagines itself to have been the real agent in the uprising. Since the internet developed out of a US Defense Department research project, it could be said the Pentagon did it, along with Egyptian youth imitating wired hipsters from London and Los Angeles.

Most narratives of globalisation are fantastically Eurocentric, stories of Western white men burdened with responsibility for interconnecting the world, by colonising it, providing it with economic theories and finance, and inventing communications technologies. Of course globalisation is about flows of people as well, about diasporas and cultural fusion.

But neither version is particularly useful for organising resistance to the local dictatorship.

… Read the rest

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Anti-Protest Laws Being Pushed Through Egyptian Government

By on March 29, 2011 in News 10
Tahrir Square on 8 February 2011

Over 1 million protestors in Tahrir Square demanded the removal of the Mubarak regime on February 8, 2011. Photo: Jonathan Rashad (CC)

Ahram Online reports:

The Egyptian cabinet approved yesterday a decree-law that criminalises strikes, protests, demonstrations and sit-ins that interrupt private or state owned businesses or affect the economy in any way.

The decree-law also assigns severe punishment to those who call for or incite action, with the maximum sentence one year in prison and fines of up to half a million pounds.

The new law, which still needs to be approved by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, will be in force as long as the emergency law is still in force. Egypt has been in a state of emergency since the assassination of former president Anwar Sadat in 1981.

Since former president Hosni Mubarak stepped down on 11 February, Egypt has witnessed escalating nationwide labour strikes and political protests.

… Read the rest

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Self-Immolation and the Heart of Revolution

By on March 26, 2011 in News 2

Ryszard Siwiec Self-Immolation“It’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” — Peter Benenson, founder of Amnesty International, at a Human Rights Day ceremony on 10th December 1961

In November, 1990 a man set himself on fire in front of the U.S. capitol, the news reports from the time say that the reasons for the man’s act were unknown, no riots were forthcoming. Last year the cultural shifts in Egypt, Yemen and Algeria proved a different outcome in light of similar self-immolation. As individuals express their anger, alienation and rejection in self willed conflagration it is igniting their communities into violent uprisings shaking the foundations of global culture.

As I’m writing this a young man sits in protest in a Palestinian Mosque, part of the March 15 Youth Coalition who set up tents in the Bethlehem municipality to demand a new Palestinian national council and a unified Palestine. He is threatening to set himself on fire if the Coalition’s demands are not taken seriously.

… Read the rest

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