Just where do they get the balls: Al Masri Al Youm, the quite reliable independent daily, today had an article claiming that five members of the National Democratic Party were suing three Kifaya leaders — George Ishak (one of Kifaya’ss main organizers, but who is rather elderly to be violent), Muhammad Abdel Qudous (a portly [...]

This is reproduced from an email I just received:
This item is from the London-based Arabic daily newspaper Al-Hayat (May 29, 2005):
CAIRO – Egyptian Parliament member Hamdi Hassan demanded an immediate investigation into a report that the Education Department, in preparing for a visit by US First Lady Laura Bush to a school in Alexandria last [...]

Today, the WaPo has an editorial where Eugene Robinson links Laura Bush’s visit to the region on behalf of women’s rights with the beatings that occurred on the 25th in Cairo during a national referendum.
The heart of the editorial is:
U.S. involvement in the Middle East deepens every day, as the Bush administration struggles to [...]

UPDATED:
This morning I grabbed a copy of al-`Arabi. Without reading an article or a column yet, it is safe to say it is the Egyptian paper most critical of last week’s events.

Below the pictures of three different women being assaulted, the headlines say:
“The Police in the service of ’sexually assaulting’ Egyptian women’”
“We Demand President [...]

In light of an article on the National Council for Human Rights that is coming out next week in MER, I am curious if anyone has seen it referenced in the past week.
More specifically, has anyone heard anything from Egypt’s NCHR regarding last week’s electoral violence?
My guess Abul-Magd and the boys are going to [...]

Today the American Chamber of Commerce hosted NDP policies secretariat chairman Gamal Mubarak, who gave a press conference at the Four Seasons.
Gleaned from foreign press journalists invited to attend, Gamal gave a presentation which mainly dealt with economic – rather than political – issues.
After the presentation, a Q&A section followed. Rather than directly taking [...]

According to Reuters, the Egyptian government is responding to the accounts of violence against demonstrators last Wednesday.
According to the report:
Presidential spokesman Suleiman Awad told Reuters he believed the U.S. comments and media coverage in the United States and elsewhere were “unfair and unjustified”.
“When you have more than 54,000 electoral units nationwide, (and) when you have [...]

In a text from al-Ghad party member, Wael Nawara:
“Mona Makram Ebeid, Secretary-General of El Ghad, had today resigned from the party for what she described as ‘Personal reasons in addition to internal division.’
We realize that these are difficult times for anyone to be in opposition in Egypt. We respect Dr. Mona’s decision and wish her [...]

al-`Arabi newspaper, the voice of the Nasserist opposition party, has been delayed for at least 24 hours. Usually, the highly critical paper is released on Sunday morning but can be picked up at a news-agent on Saturday night.
The paper’s editorial staff is saying that it has been delayed but will be available by this [...]

Kifaya’s Website is not working this morning.
Whether this is a temporary glitch in the system or because the government has taken it down is undetermined at this time.
The Arabist will monitor and update the situation.
UPDATE:
The Website is backup for now.

Stacey’s back. Read the post, and read her new article on Lebanon. It’s good. (And not just because I edited it.) She makes sense of some headache-inducing complexities of Lebanese politics.
And remember to scroll down and look at the second picture!

I’ve just received this SMS:
Protesting against police brutality, Egypt will wear BLACK on the 1st of June. Tell your friends.
More of this type of reaction will come, I’m sure.
Update: As pointed out in the comments, this will centered around a demo at 1pm at the Journalists’ Syndicate in Downtown Cairo.

Below is a profile by WaPo’s Daniel Williams regarding one woman’s experience last Wednesday. The story was published on 27 May. I could not locate it on theWaPo website but found it via MSNBC. Williams’ profile can be found here.
The LA Times‘ Megan Stack also had quotes from this victim in her article on [...]

Last evening, I met up with my shilla (gang). It was partly a get-together to relax in the aftermath of the previous days, but also an apt setting to compare notes.
Two interesting points are worthy of sharing (although there were others).
1:
The Wafd newspaper sent a journalist out to see how many times he could vote [...]

Don’t miss Anthony Shadid’s article on Syria in today’s WaPo, Syria’s Unpredictable Force: The State-Sanctioned Clergy. It fits in nicely with the wider debate in the Arab world about the role of religion and religious groups in politics.

NDP-supporters aim to scuffle with Kifaya demonstrators at the Journalist Syndicate.

Human Rights Watch released a press release regarding the violence in Cairo on the 25th of May.
Some of the key portions of the release are:
A witness to the Sa`d Zaghlul confrontation told Human Rights Watch that there were two separate groups totaling about 50 Kifaya demonstrators on the sidewalk, with a cordon of about a [...]

Tonight, it has been reported by the BBC that yesterday’s referendum passed with 83-percent of the votes being “Yes.”
According to the Egyptian state 16.4 million of the 32 million (54-percent) eligible voters turned out nation-wide.
UPDATE:
Reuters is reporting that the initial electoral returns from the first two provinces showed that referendum was approved by 98-percent.
Hence, [...]

DISCLAIMER: Everyone whose name I use was consulted for permission.
____________________________
There has already been much said about yesterday’s referendum to amend constitutional article 76 and the accompanying violence against protesters (including the harassment and beatings of women) in Egypt. I doubt I have much to add or contribute. But I will try to give as [...]

Pictures taken from yesterday’s voting, protesting, and violence can be viewed here.
One thing I failed to clearly capture were the attacks against females (primarily demonstrators and journalists). I have some pictures of one woman in a group of men but it is impossible to see what is going on (although I cannot even imagine).
That [...]

Published as Received:
Massacre in the Streets of Cairo
The Police Leads Ruling Party Thugs to Attack Demonstrators
What happened on the day of the (historic!) referendum is an additional black spot in the history of the Egyptian regime and its security authorities. A day before the Minister of Interior had announced that he will meet any breach [...]

There will be a lot more tomorrow on today’s referendum, but it’s been a long and tiring day for us all, so take a look instead at Paul Schemm and Ursula Lindsey’s coverage for Cairo magazine. The violence that took place today against women is really unprecedented and shameful.
‘Eb.

In a turn around trip in response to Egyptian PM Ahmad Nazif’s visit to the States last week, Laura Bush has come to Cairo.
It seems as if George W. and Hosni are comfortable talking about democratization and “the Process” through proxies.
And because we all know that there has not been much commentary [...]

The website of the Muslim Brotherhood, www.ikhwanonline.net, seems to have been blocked by the Egyptian authorities. (I have asked a friend in London and it works fine there, but it also seems blocked in the UAE.)
Does anyone reading this know how frequently Egypt blocks access to websites? To my knowledge, very few sites get blocked [...]

Terrorism analysis Sherifa Zuhur wonders if the recent terrorist attacks in Egypt are a sign of “a new phase for Jihad“:
The recent attacks raise a number of important questions. First and foremost, is a new phase of radical activity in Egypt emerging precisely because of repressive tactics? How might better tactics against terror be [...]

The LA Times reports on how pictures of US soldiers killed in Iraq are largely absent from American press coverage:
A review of six prominent U.S. newspapers and the nation’s two most popular newsmagazines during a recent six-month period found almost no pictures from the war zone of Americans killed in action. During that time, 559 [...]

The man believed of being the architect of the recent Cairo bombings hasdied in custody:
“Police informed prosecutors on 11 May that their prisoner had become ‘very agitated and deliberately hit his head on the wall of his cell’, prompting his transfer to hospital.”
You know, it’s not that I feel particularly sorry for him or [...]

Don’t miss Saad Eddin Ibrahim’s best column yet. About time someone of his stature writes this stuff. The only thing that has me wondering is his description of the political process in Jordan in the 1990s — he seems to give the monarchy a bit too much credit. But otherwise, a fine and important piece.

A few days old, but I just came across this transcript of a Q&A session by Prime Minister Nazif at the Council on Foreign Relations. Not that exciting really, except for that it captures quite well how the trip was essentially about trade and democratization and contained nothing about foreign policy issues such as Sudan, [...]

And I thought he was a boxer shorts kind of guy:

It seems that this has stirred quite a fuss, notably prompting a Pentagon investigation into how the pictures got to the Murdoch empire (entirely legitimate since soldiers should not be distributing this kind of stuff) as well as some outrage. I have absolutely no sympathy [...]

From Roula Khalaf’s article on democracy and Islamists in the Financial Times:
The Islamists, however, have learned from the mistakes of the past and now adopt a more democratic rhetoric and espouse nationalist goals. This evolution has been accentuated by the global war on terrorism, which has raised international pressure on the more radical groups, making [...]

Josh Landis writes about theBlogging Association of Syria. He says there’s an explosion in blogs there, just as there has been in Egypt over the last two years. For the Egypt part, check out the excellent Egyptian Blog Ring.

The Council on Foreign Relations still thinks that “Better communication efforts can significantly improve America’s image in the Muslim world:”
Rather than trying–and failing–to persuade Muslims to support American policies in Iraq or Palestine, the report says that the United States should publicize its significant development aid to their lands, which, despite soaring aid budgets, is [...]

Michael Young fisks Walid Jumblatt:
“It was a coincidence, but doubtless one many would find illuminating, that Walid Jumblatt was recently reading (and may still be) Rebecca West’s ‘The New Meaning of Treason.’ For the prevalent view among many Christian voters today is that the Druze leader is a compulsive turncoat. A title he is [...]

“Now I know that standards have slipped over the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer, you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice,”
- UK Respect party MP George Galloway
(speaking to Senate committe chairman Norm Coleman, 17 May 2005)
For more candid remarks, see the BBC story.

For those who might be interested, we are making the Egyptian National Council for Human Rights recent report, which is quite hard to find, available here [324kb]. It’s in Arabic and an English version will not be out for a while.

Juan Cole gives the Star Wars treatment to the Iraq war:
Star Wars Episode 3 Revenge of the StiffPlot Summary Script Synopsis Story
A Satire
War! The Republic is crumbling under attacks by the ruthless Stiff Lord, Count Saddam. There are fools on both sides. Jello is everywhere.
In a super-astounding gigantic Saturday move, the fiendish droid [...]

From The Onion:

The Guardian’s Middle East editor, Brian Whitaker, writes that Egypt must let its people go:
The Mubarak regime has got itself into a mess. Instead of accepting that political reform is inevitable, embracing it wholeheartedly and then claiming the credit, it is resorting to half measures and belated sops to its critics that can only worsen [...]

Newsweek is in big trouble for its report that Korans were desecrated by US soldiers in Guantanamo as a way to “provoke” inmates to speak. The report was cited at a Pakistani press conferences last week and has led to riots in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
As far as I understand, Newsweek was told by an [...]