Charles’ story on yesterday’s protests in on the Cairo website, along with some powerful photos. Read it all.

Yesterday, the groups that comprise Kifaya launched a protest against President Mubarak’s candidacy ahead of elections on 7 September.
PICTURES:
Pictures are in this album.
For the second time in shortly over two months, security quashed the protests violently. Plain clothed security employees beat and arrested the movement’s leadership. Some have been released while others [...]

I heard this story this morning, but here is a report from AFP that has a few more details. It is basically about how Mubarak cheated Ayman Nour of he symbol he had chosen for his campaign, the crescent moon. Because there are many illiterate people in Egypt, candidates in parliamentary election must choose a [...]

I wasn’t there (stayed home because I felt sick) but heard that today’s cross-faction rally against the nomination of Mubarak for president was squashed violently. Riot police, plainclothes security goons and other baltaguia charged protesters and hit them with clubs, kicked them and generally seem to have behaved as they did on 25 May during [...]

The Aaardvark has in interesting post on recent changes in the programming and style of Al Jazeera. I had noticed the long overdue stylistic makeover (Al Jazeera for a long time looked a bit like an Eastern European channel from the 1980s), especially with the competition from Al Arabiya (which still has the best graphics [...]

It’s an uncomfortable fact of life for Muslims that the most prominent terrorists of our times commit murder in the name of their religion. That is something that has caused a fair amount of soul searching in the Islamic world, even if it is sometimes muddied by conflicting thoughts on other problems that preoccupy Muslims [...]

Readers of Arabist.net might be interested in Cairo’s analysis of the fallout of the Sharm Al Sheikh bombings, an interview with radical writer Sayed Al Qemani, who gave up his writing career and recanted after receiving a death threat, a campaign against the way the ministry of tourism depicts Egypt that got started online, a [...]

As expected, there will be protests against Mubarak’s announcement that he will stand for a fifth six-year term. Manalaa.net has announced a demo on Saturday at 6pm in Midan Tahrir. It will be attended by most leftist opposition parties and and the major movements that march under the Kifaya slogan, including Kifaya itself.
Also, don’t miss [...]

Here’s a partial transcript of the speech from the official Middle East News Agency:
Brothers and sisters,
I speak to you today from the Al-Masa’ee al-Mashkoura School in the Menoufeya Governorate where I completed my high school education. I speak to you after a short visit to Quowesna where I made a stop at the emergency hospital [...]

Just a few minutes ago, Hosni Mubarak officially announced that he would be running for president for a fifth term, after 24 years of rule. No big surprise there, the announcement has been expected for a while and was previewed in yesterday’s papers. Mubarak made the announcement in Shibin El Koum in the governorate of [...]

The death toll for the Sharm Al Sheikh bombings is likely to continue to rise, doctors on the scene say. Some of those who are counted among the wounded today are not likely to make it. In the meantime, there are conflicting reports about who claimed responsibility and what kind of explosives were used.
There’s plenty [...]

As Issandr posted the other day, the Muslim Brotherhood and several leftist groups – most notably the Revolutionary Socialists – protested at the Lawyer Syndicate on Wednesday the 20th of June.
Here is a small selection of photos of the event.

About half an hour ago, five explosions went off in Sharm Al Sheikh. There are three casualties for now, according to AFP and Al Jazeera.
I have little info to add, except that:
1. These are the first bomb attacks in Sinai since last October’s Taba bombings;
2. It’s worrying that Sharm is attacked because it’s the crown [...]

When you’ve lived in Egypt long enough and you take an interest in politics, sooner or later you’ll hear a story about how one of Mubarak’s sons edged himself into a business. The one I heard was about one of the more prominent members of an old Egyptian family — what would have been called [...]

As many of you know, there was a Muslim Brotherhood organized protest on Wednesday evening, with one of the bigger turnouts we’ve seen in a while in Cairo (turnouts in the governorates–the areas of Egypt outside of Cairo–tend to be higher, especially when Brotherhood-led). Although some say there were as many as 5,000 people there, [...]

“Find the chemist” was the headline in the UK tabloid The Sun a few days ago, and he has now been found. I’ve spent the past several days on the track Magdy Al Nashar and was actually not far from him when he was arrested (although I did not know it then.) There’s been a [...]

It looks like Hizb Al Wasat, the centrist Islamic political party, may be on its way to legitimacy. A report commissioned by the Cairo administrative courts gave a hearty endorsement to the party. The court will issue a final ruling on the party in October. Hizb Al Wasat has been rejected by the parties committee [...]

The Abdeen demo was the first Kefaya sponsored rally in a month. After declining turnouts at recent demos, as Issandr pointed out in his post on the Imbaba demo, last Thursday’s protest saw improved turnout and a more charged atmosphere.
The demo was bigger than past demos (Al Misry Al Yom generously estimated turnout at [...]

A written account of Kifaya’s Abdeen protest will follow in the coming days when my schedule frees up.
For now:
Here is an album of pictures from yesterday’s demo.

My favorite part in a good editorial from the Daily Star’s Rami Khouri, from a few days ago:
The allusion is often made to America’s failures in Vietnam; the better analogy is the Russians in Afghanistan. A generation has passed, and the Americans in Baghdad in 2005 have become like the Russians in Kabul in 1985 [...]

Just saw Issandr posted as well. For those of you asking of Imbaba coverage, here is a double dose.

_________
For pictures see this album.
_________
Another Wednesday protest happened on the 6th of July.
It could of of been the heat, how busy the streets have been the past 6 weeks, or that my camera and I [...]

A few days late, yes, but here are some quick thoughts on the Imbaba demo that took place on Wednesday. First, these protests seem to be getting smaller. I don’t think there was more than 150 people (Josh says 300). Secondly, they seem to be attracting more dedicated activists (especially the communists/revolutionary socialists and Islamists [...]

The biggest news of the week is the changing of the editors in Egypt’s big three state papers – al-Ahram, Akhbar al-Yom, and al-Gumhuriya.
At Al-Ahram:
Ibrahim Nafie was replaced by editor Osama Saraya and chairman Salah al-Ghamri.
At Akhbar al-Yom:
Ibrahim Saada was replaced by Momtaz al-Qut.
At Gumhuriya:
Samir Ragheb was replaced by Ali Ibrahim.
_______
There are rumors that [...]

Amir Salim — Nor’s lead defense attorney
Today, in the third day of Ayman Nor’s trial, judge Adil Abd al-Salam Guma postponed the trial until the 25th of September. This is two-and-a-half weeks after Egypt’s scheduled presidential elections on 7 September.
The immediate repercussions of today’s announcement suggest that Ayman will officially be a candidate [...]

A source at state-owned paper al-Gomhouriyya reports that editor Samir Ragab, one of the regime’s most loyal toadies, has been sacked. No official confirmation yet…
Update
A list of major changes at Egyptian newspapers, including Ragab’s departure, is found here

The Chicago Tribune has more on the renditions to Egypt, including a profile of the man kidnapped in Italy and this interview with Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, who seems to have no problems whatsoever with renditions:
WASHINGTON — “I think that the war on terror, if it’s a war, then it has to be treated as [...]

The campaign’s
near-total focus on senior officials in President Mubarak’s NDP has been
concurrent with the political rise of his son, leading to speculation that
the crackdown is simply clearing a path for an increasing public role for
Gamal.

This just in: Al Ahram chairman and editor-in-chief Ibrahim Nafie has been replaced today by Osama Saraya, formerly editor of Al Ahram Al Arabi. Saraya will only take up the editor-in-chief title, while the chairmanship of the Al Ahram press group will be going to Salah Al Ghamri. This is the first of presumably several [...]

UPI’s Arnaud de Borchgrave continues his attacks on Ayman Nour and reflects that democracy might not be so good after all:
If stability had been sacrificed for democracy, the former national security adviser and secretary of state to Presidents Nixon and Ford could not have negotiated major Arab-Israeli disengagement agreements: Sinai I, Golan and Sinai II. [...]

‘Aqoul, a new apparently Dubai-based collaborative blog, has an interesting and incisive look at the quality — or lack thereof — of what it calls Dubai Media-ocrity.

Although the only candidates that have declared their intentions to run for Egypt’s presidency are Ayman Nor and Talat Sadat, the government finally, finally, finally set a date for the presidential elections.
Zakariya Azmy, the presidential office’s chief-of-staff, said that those elections will be on 7 September 2005 (which is a Wednesday).
Invest in mace now while [...]

So I am a couple days late.
After the Zaytoun protest on Wednesday, I was drained. At the post-protest festivities I could hardly concentrate. As I left, I told friends I doubted I was going to Ayman the following day. Fresh off the uncomfortable experience of Ayman’s first day at trial, I dreaded the thought [...]

On Wednesday, 29 June, Youth for Change (Y4C) held a demonstration in the Zaytoun section of Cairo. The demo was to be held at the Church of the Holy Virgin (Kanesat al-Azra’). Instead, it was moved down the street because of the security’s interference.
The group had come under pressure for conducting a demo at [...]

Regular reader and The Guardian Middle East Editor Brian Whitaker has an article about censorship in Egypt in which he mentions both Cairo and Arabist.net:
The only real effect of this sort of behaviour is to make the state media look ridiculous, since people can easily find out what is going on from satellite television, the [...]

In the midst of a very busy week in Egypt, opposition forces outside the main established opposition parties seem to be finally uniting around a single platform. This is an issue that Cairo has covered in the past, and readers will have noted the skepticism about whether an alliance was possible considering how the historical [...]