Click on the cartoon below to read Al-Masry Al-Youm’s report on how Cairo has come under siege over the past couple of days, with police deployed in all major streets and square, searching citizens, closing down coffeeshops, banning people from sitting in public gardens, putting up banners supportive of the amednments, and forcing civil servants [...]

Here’s a video of government officials in Belqas, stuffing ballots in yesterday’s glorious referendum…

Also, the Sandmonkey called in to say he was so excited about the carnival of democracy the country is witnessing, so he voted three times yesterday in three different polling stations…
UPDATE: And here’s another monitoring report…
The Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights
The Second [...]

From Al-Jazeera…
An al-Qaeda suspect accused of involvement in terrorist attacks in Kenya in 2002 has been handed over to US custody by Kenyan authoirites and transported to Guantanamo Bay.
Abdul Malik was transferred to the US military prison due to the “significant threat” he represented, Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters in Washington.
He said [...]

Around 3,000 activists demonstrated in Alexandria’s Manshiya Square today for two hours against Mubarak’s authoritarian constitutional amendments…

Today, activists demonstrated in DC and NYC on behalf of the detainees in Egypt, and to express their opposition to Mubarak’s dictatorial consitutional amendments.
Click on the photo below to read Nora’s report about the DC protest…

And here’s a report about the NYC demo, from activist and friend Shehab Ismail…
Around 20 people gathered today in front [...]

The Students’ Union at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) has sent a solidarity message to Egyptian activists struggling against Mubarak’s police state.
Click on the cartoon below to download it

Shokran ya SOAS!

A beautiful carnival of hypocrisy, reaction, and presidential ass-kissing…

Police released the remaining Kefaya activists in custody today in the afternoon, after they spent their night in the Qattamiya desert, locked up in two prison trucks.
There were two prison trucks; one containing eight detainees: Ahmad Droubi, Adham el-Safti, Omar Mustafa, Ahmad Samir, Khaled Mustafa, Sherif Ragab, Mohamed Abdel Qader, Kareem el-Sha’er.
The other car, it [...]

As expected, the government-controlled General Federation of Trade Unions is trying to force the public sector workers to vote in the referendum and not follow the opposition’s call for boycott.

Kefaya activists in the northern Nile Delta province of Kafr el-Sheikh have called for a sit-in tomorrow, Tuesday 27 March, from 9am to 5pm, at Dawaran Kafr el-Sheikh (opposite to the Telephones Centrale), to protest Mubarak’s constitutional circus.
For contact number and more information in Arabic click on the banner below…

I co-authored an article with Joel Beinin for MERIP on the recent wave of labor strikes in the textile sector, and the prospects of political change in Egypt.
Click on the photo below to read it…

[Above: A photo I took of Ghazl el-Mahalla December strike leaders Mohamed el-Attar and Sayyed Habib, during our interview in [...]

I managed to escape. I’m home now. Will file a report shortly.
UPDATE: Here’s the report…
Police cracked down today on Kefaya’s demo against Mubarak’s dictatorial constitutional amendments, arresting more than 20 demonstrators.
Downtown once again (and again and again) has come under occupation since the morning by Mubarak’s Central Security Forces troops, plainclothes State Security agents, and [...]

Judges in Alexandria have raised black flags over the Judges’ Club building, to protest Mubarak’s dictatorial consitutional amendments…

Security services have confiscated all copies of the weekly Al-Karama’s latest issue, due to hit the news stands last night.
The issue included critical articles of Mubarak’s constitutional amendments, and its frontpage headline said: “Together to topple a dictator.”
More details in Arabic here.

Click on the cartoon below to read two letters written by political detainees from the notorious Abu Za’abal Prison, providing some insight into life in Mubarak’s Gulag that is administered by his criminal butcher Interior Minister General Habib el-Adly…

The Administrative Court will look into the lawsuit filed by Judge Abdel Fattah Mourad to block 21 blogs and websites, on Tuesday, 9am, claiming they “harm Egypt’s national security, defame Egypt’s image abroad, and insult Hosni.”
The trial is at the State Council building in Mourad St, Giza, 2nd Floor, Hall #11.

PLEASE SHOW UP! THE EGYPTIAN [...]

In the midst of our country’s constitutional massacre, and as we embrace a “September 1981″-style crackdown on dissent, Condi has arrived in Egypt to meet Arab Foreign Ministers and Mubarak–part of her plan to “rally Arab moderate states for regional peace,” as Western news reports say.
Moderates?! Moderates eih ya zebala ya 7awash ya shewayet baltaggiya… [...]

Here’s a video of the Thursday clashes between Mubarak’s troops and the poor citizens of Qale’t el-Kabsh in Sayyeda Zeinab whose houses were burnt down two days before …