Testimony from a labor organizer, involved in Mahalla’s 6 April Uprising…
The factory floor in the days preceding the 6th of April was a battleground between the Textile Workers’ League activists who were agitating for the strike on the one hand, and the security and Attar’s group on the other. Every day, in the week before [...]

Al-Masry Al-Youm’s Investigative journalist and dear friend Ali Zalat has just won the 2nd Award by the UNDP given to the best investigative journalism piece on human rights-related issues, for his coverage of the Fayoum torture case of Mohamed Goma’a el-Dahshouri.

[Ali Zalat, during Socialist Days 2007, Cairo's Press Syndicate. Photo by Hossam el-Hamalawy.]
Mabrouk ya 3elwa!

I had no doubt Al-Masry Al-Youm’s journalist, blogger, and friend Ali Zalat would be among the first of the army of independent and opposition journalists and bloggers who flocked to the Nile Delta to report on the Mahlla intifada…

[Above: Ali interviewing one of the Mahalla workers.]
Ali has been one of the independent daily’s best investigative [...]

Around 30 Egyptian photographers assembled today in front of Press Syndicate in downtown Cairo, to protest police assaults against them while covering demos, and to condemn the recent draconian decree by the Parliament Speaker to ban photographers from taking shots during sessions, after Al-Masry Al-Youm published a picture of PM Ahmad Nazif eating watermelon seeds [...]

The North Giza Prosecutor interrogated Al-Masry Al-Youm’s investigative journalist and friend Ali Zalat this evening for more than two hours, as a “witness” in the current investigation into the El-Adly Video-Gate scandal. At least one lawyer from the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights was present with Ali during the interrogation.
Ihab Magdi Farouk is currently at [...]

I was just on the phone now with Al-Masry Al-Youm’s Ali Zalat.
Ihab has been detained yesterday by the police.
Ali Zalat has been requested to show up for interrogation at the Prosecutor’s office, today 6pm.
More details later…

Ihab Magdi Farouk, the victim of Imbaba Police brutality video is still on the run, fearing for his safety after he went public with the details of his torture in an interview with Al-Masry Al-Youm on Thursday, only to have his house raided and family detained.

Ihab made a phone call yesterday to journalist and friend [...]

Al-Masry Al-Youm’s investigative journalist and friend Ali Zalat has managed to identify the victim of Imbaba police brutality video, one of the first to be leaked by Wael Abbas in April 2006.

According to Thursday’s issue (which I bought an hour ago from a night news stand and should be available online in the morning), [...]

The police torture video scandal is getting more media attention…
Journalist and friend Ali Zalat ran a frontpage story at Al-Masry Al-Youm, with photos from the latest Interior Ministry video productions, of the woman murder suspect being tortured to extract a confession…

Ali also had a Q&A interview with Wael Abbas, the digital master of the Egyptian [...]

From Al-Masry Al-Youm…
الأمن ينهي اعتصام ١١٦ عاملا في «ترسانة أرمنت» قبل زيارة مبارك الأقصر
كتب: علي زلط ومحمد حمدي
علق ١١٦ عاملاً في شركة «القناة للترسانة النهرية» في أرمنت إضرابهم عن العمل بعد تعرضهم لضغوط أمنية شديدة،
وقالت مصادر عمالية من الشركة لـ «المصري اليوم» إن مأمور مركز أرمنت العميد، محمد سلامة، توجه لمقر الشركة التي تقع في [...]

Mubarak’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood continues. Five businessmen belonging to the group were detained by State Security, and had their businesses raided in Cairo…

Meanwhile, the State Security Prosecutor renewed today the detention of Khairat el-Shatter, the group’s third-in-command, together with 15 other senior members for another 15 days…
Here’s a report in Arabic on the [...]

As expected with the latest bogus “jihadi group” case uncovered by the Interior Ministry: The American was released, the nine French suspects were released, and so were the two Belgians. As for the Arab and Egyptian detainees, they disappeared…

The father of Adel Fattouh el-Gazar, one of Gitmo’s Egyptian detainees, called on the Egyptian Foreign Ministry to intervene to secure his son’s release. The father complained, in an interview with Al-Masry Al-Youm’s Ali Zalat, that “government agencies are not doing any efforts to free Egyptians” locked up in the US gulag in Cuba.

At dawn, State Security agents kidnapped at least 180 Muslim Brotherhood students from Al-Azhar University, and arrested senior leaders from their home, including the all-powerful Khairat el-Shatter, the deputy head of the group’s Supreme Guide.
The crackdown comes following a campaign by the state-owned press against Al-Azhar MB students, who held a demo that included a [...]

Three Israeli scientists took part in last week’s scientific conference at the Alexandria Library. Iranian scientists, however, could not get visas, Ali Zalat reports…

I’m away from the computer for sometime because of IT problems and work commitments. Happy Eid to all of you…
When you get the time please check out the following feature I co-authored with Al-Masry Al-Youm’s Ali Zalat, on the Muslim Brotherhood’s plans to produce a movie about its founder, Hassan el-Banna.
Hassan el-Banna Super Star?
The feature [...]

The local council authorities in the Giza neighborhood of Agouza, aided by a police force, demolished buildings in the old quarter the day before yesterday, arrested some youth who tried to resist the government bulldozers, and left the residents in the streets. The demolition comes as part of the “development efforts” by Gamal Mubarak’s Future [...]