The following account, by activist and artist Aalam Wassef, details a meeting with prisoner of conscience Maikel Nabil, who was sentenced to two years in jail by a military tribunal on 14 December 2011 for "insulting the military." It is reproduced here with permission and was originally published on Facebook.

This is an account of my encounter on December 31st with Egyptian blogger and activist Maikel Nabil, arrested by the Supreme Council of Armed forces for opinions he posted on his blog. Maikel is now serving a two years sentence and is enduring inhuman conditions of detention. Since his arrest Maikel has refused to recognize the Military Prosecutor’s ability to judge him. Military trials for civilians have swept the Egyptian revolution with no less than 12,000 arrests since January 28th 2011.

El Marg Prison, 8.40 am. Waiting for Mark, Maikel Nabil's younger brother. Mark arrives carrying three heavy bags containing juices, milk, books, hundreds of sympathy messages, newspapers… An ornamented award certificate reads Istanbul, AHRLY, To Maikel Nabil for his firm commitment to freedom. I read again and stop at the word firm.

As we pass the prison’s porch, we’re immediately identified as Maikel people. Walky talkies start buzzing. Harrassment starts, routine bullying and unwritten administrative measures that Mark denounces vocally, one after the other, fearless.

Our bags and ourselves are searched and scanned, papers are confiscated. We board the traditional yellow wagon-bus that will take us to the visitor's hall. Right and left, all we can see are fields and animals. At the end of this unexpected green road, stands a white, blind, imposing wall, topped with barbed wire and, in the middle of all that whiteness, a small black door.

We watch officers banging at the door, going in, going out, at mothers, sisters and children waiting to be let in.

We wait as well. We give our IDs to Mrs Sabah. Mark knows everybody by their first names. I suddenly remember that he’s been coming here for 9 months and that, each time, he goes through the same bullying, and harassment. We wait ten more minutes and are let into the visitor's hall. Visits end at 12 and it's already 10.30. We wait, surrounded by informants who aren't really hiding from us. Mark asks the warden why Maikel hasn't come yet. Maikel's cell is 40 meters away and all other prisoners have come to their visitors. It's 11.

Maikel finally appears, carrying a plastic chair on which prisoners sit, maybe to be easily identified. I don't know. He comes to us. He can barely carry the light chair he finally puts down. I measure his exhaustion. It's the first time I ever meet him in person. Maikel is tall, pale, underweight, hunched, loosing his hair. His brother and I sit on the cold stone benches. Maikel brings his knees together and slips his hands in between to keep them warm. He's shaking cold. He says hello but is eager to start talking and working his way out of hell.

Mark says he has to leave in 30 minutes to sit for an exam. Time is tight. Maikel takes control of the conversation. I'm struck by the weakness of his body compared to the strength of his mind.

Mark fills him in with the latest news regarding the mobilization and march that was held for him on December 29th 2011. We see a shine in Maikel's tired eyes. Mark shows to his brother some photographs of the march, of the military violence footage youngsters projected on the walls of the Supreme Court of Justice, of this unforgettable charismatic woman wearing a niqab, carrying his picture all through out the march. We tell him about the UN Watch statement signed by 30 Human Rights organizations, about articles pouring in the international press, about Alaa Abdel Fattah who saluted him on ONTV, about students, mothers, fathers, friends, public figures and Egyptian activists who joined the march in solidarity. I give him a glimpse of Ahdaf Soueif marching in Tahrir, Lobna Darwish, Salma Said, Sultan Al Qassemi embracing his brother, Hossam el-Hamalawy and Omar Robert Hamilton filming and taking snapshots, of the thousands of friendly posts in social networks, of Mona el Tahawy tweeting and retweeting at all times of day and night, of this amazing woman who, out the blue, sent us her entire press contact list… I tell him about Tamim Al Barghouti's stance about him and the many unhappy reactions he received.

Maikel addresses me for the first time. I like Tamim's poetry. Sometimes, he snaps.

Mark and I try to convince Maikel to end his strike. We tell him how much mentalities, awareness and commitment have changed. He tells us how much he's in pain. Kidney pain. Maikel adresses me again, privately. I want to tell you something. For nine months, from prison, to hospital, to torture, to prison, I was let down by almost everybody. Opinions are opinions, human rights are human rights, military trials are military trials.

I ask him again to end his hunger strike. Maikel looks at the bags and asks. What did you bring, Mark? Mark responds. Maikel looks at us again. You have to take me away from here. Submit a request today to the General Prosecutor for my immediate transfer to Torah Prison. It's rotten here, people are rotten, cells are rotten, water is rotten, sewage water floods in my cell everyday, I can't bathe. He looks at me and points with his chin at an informant almost glued to me, and at another one sitting in our back. Maikel interrupts the conversation. How are you Abu Alaa! How are you Abu Hemed! Both informants turn around. Their faces break into a corrupt cringe of a smile.

Maikel resumes. I would like Alaa Abdel Fattah to come and visit me. Tell him he might be able to come on January 7th. And Mona Seif from No Military Trials. Tell them I would like to see them. I tell him about a post by Mona Seif saluting him and Mark for their struggle and resilience. The more we speak to Maikel about support, sympathy and commitment, the more I see him sitting straighter and straighter.

Maikel looks at the bag filled with books and pulls them out one by one, quietly. Sitting there, half dead on a plastic chair in El Marg Prison, he looks at each book, with patience and care. You can take that one back, I’ve read it already.

Aalam Wassef Cairo, January 6th 2011

I am delighted to offer this guest post by the wonderful Sarah Carr, who blogs at Inanities.

I am a journalist, so my fate for the past two days was to drag myself between schools in Cairo looking at people, a bit like a paedophile.

We started out in Shubra, where long queues of people patiently stood in muddied streets waiting to attack the ballot box. It became clear early on who was dominating the whole affair. Outside virtually every polling station stood a small group of men with laptops providing information (voter number, which polling station they should go to) to confused voters. A useful service, but one whose legality is clouded by the fact that they information they provided was written on slips of paper bearing the insignia of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP).

Even in Christian-majority Shubra liberal and leftist parties were strikingly absent, leaving last-minute rallying outside polling stations to the FJP and their confreres in Islam the Nour party. The same pattern was repeated in Sayeda Zeinaba, Ain Shams and Abdeen.

This was the FJP’s moment, and they knew it. Their members were positively buoyant. It reminded me of first-time winners at Wimbledon who go on about how all the sacrifice and hardship was worth it for this moment. Outside one polling station in Sayeda Zeinab, former stomping ground of the peanut-eating People’s Assembly speaker, Fathy Sorour, two smiling men, one of them holding a camera descended on me and another journalist.

We had just emerged from the polling station, and the man not holding a camera enquired as to whether we had noticed any irregularities inside. I embarked on a long description of how one FJP member had stood at the door of one room and controlled access to the room, guiding voters to the correct polling station room. I suggested that while this is a useful service, it is one better carried out by a government employee. For good measure I added that most of the violations I had seen over the two days were carried out by the FJP (but then what other parties were visible to commit violations). I stopped and asked the man who he was.

“A member of the FJP,” he said, grinning.

He listened to the accusations in good humour and then launched into a strange defence of the FJP’s motivations in these elections. I pointed out that ultimately they are in it to win it, and the man responded with a detailed description of how yesterday an FJP member had assisted a traffic cop in guiding snarled traffic outside the polling station. “It’s not all about politics!” he insisted.

My friend Sherif “Sharshar” Azer agrees. He described the election as “moulid el sandooq”, “the ballot box moulid”, a spirit reflected in the festive and self-congratulationary tone of radio coverage (not only can Egyptians queue for democracy in an orderly fashion, they can do so in rain-soaked streets!) and one report I heard that SCAF had wheeled out a military band to entertain voters while they waited. On state TV last night a correspondent, overcome with emotion, burst into tears as ballot boxes were being sealed prompting an unplanned return to an uncomfortable-looking studio anchor.

This isn’t sour grapes talking (I’m a boycotter) but the elections were, as usual, fucking boring to cover.

Sharshar, who works in an NGO, was initially enthusiastic about telling leaflet-distributing candidates that they were in breach of the law (campaigning must stop 48 hours before the vote) but soon flagged when we realised that everyone was at it, at every polling station. Also, it’s difficult to make your voice heard when a man with a huge microphone erected on a car is calling on voters to elect such an such a candidate in between snatches of an Om Kalsoum disco remix.

In fact the only events of note and excitement on both days was firstly, when Sharshar’s hub cap was half ripped off in a minor brush with a taxi and, secondly, when we saw three youths on the back of a mini pick up truck stacked with huge speakers playing rousing Shaaby pop music as one of the youths again encouraged people to vote for Fulan El-Fulany.

“Shagga3 el democratateya” (“Support democratety”) a weary Sharshar mocked.

ASIDE: I also had an interesting insight into the Egyptian education system in one polling station on the second day of elections.

It being a slow day the bored judge overseeing voting allowed us to lurk about at the entrance to the school room where civil servants sat amongst half filled ballot boxes imbibing refreshments and twiddling thumbs. I read the posters on the walls and saw a handwritten one reading thusly, in English:

Circle the longest words in the following paragraph.

The butcher was cutting meat when he saw the lion. While he was sitting in the café. The photographer was drinking tea.

The subliminal association of lions with photographers might explain several facets of the treatment of the press during the Mubarak regime and beyond.

The voters I spoke to voted either FJP, Nour or Wafd. Some were not voting at all, like a man in Shubra who said that you have to know “candidates’ CVs” in order to be able to vote and all he knows about them is what they look like, “not like the old days when you knew everyone” he said, somewhat wistfully.

A journalist colleague said that she voted for the list, but not the individual candidate because she was confronted with 136 names and didn’t know any of them.

Another woman I know, Samia, said that she and her daughter deliberately ruined their vote for the same reason, and that they only voted to avoid the possibility of being fined LE 500. Samia seemed disgusted by the imposters who stared out at her from the voting paper, one of whom she described as a stocky-looking woman called “Om Mohamed”.

“Who are all these people?? I have no idea who they are,” she said despairingly, adding that a polling station employee had watched her daughter ruin her vote (by drawing a big X through it) and praised her.

Dalia Malek send this dispatch from London on the experience of registering to, one day, be able to vote in Egypt's elections.

After months of protests at Egyptian embassies around the world, SCAF announced that Egyptians abroad would have the right to vote. However, at least in the United Kingdom this has been more challenging than it would seem.

A delegation went to the Egyptian consulate in London between 18 and 22 November to issue Egyptian IDs, while online registration for voting closed on 19 November. This overlap of dates appears intentional, but in fact, no one with an Egyptian ID issued after 27 September 2011 could register to vote.

Egyptian IDs and the “new” versions of the Egyptian birth certificates and passports have a serial number (raqam qawmi) that is identified with a citizen’s records, and this is not present on the “old” birth certificate or the “old” passport. Religion is also not written on the passport. Although both of my parents are Egyptian and I have had the old version of the Egyptian birth certificate since I was born, and the old passport since 2007 (valid until 2014), I have chosen not to request an Egyptian ID until now because of the privacy issues.

While it may not be immediately apparent for those who have habitually had their religion written on official government documents like the Egyptian ID for most of their lives, voting for Egyptians is inherently the laying down of the right to privacy. For those who practice or identify with religions other than the three recognized religions of Islam, Christianity and Judaism —- or no religion, it is also the laying down of the right to freedom of religion.

An Egyptian passport and/or birth certificate is not considered enough proof of citizenship to vote: and an Egyptian ID is required. Dual-national Egyptians like me who are asking an ID for the first time will have to prioritize their rights before deciding whether to keep religion out of public government documents or to vote in the upcoming elections. While I have the option to make a nuisance of myself regarding my opposition of this practice at the consulate or the Mogamma because I have dual citizenship to fall back on, for those who do not have that option this is also an issue of citizenship rights. Religious minorities like Baha’is have been embroiled in lawsuits over the issue of religion on the Egyptian ID for years, while others have simply said they are Muslim to save themselves the trouble. While many Egyptians do not see the harm in having what is normally an aspect of their public lives written on government-issued documents, for these reasons it is still a form of repression.

When I went to the consulate in London to issue an ID, I said that I did not want a religion stated on my ID. I was shuffled between three or four members of staff who wanted to know my reasons for not wanting to declare a religion on the application form. One asked plainly, “Are you Baha’i?” I was also told that if I wanted to convert, I needed to provide documentary evidence from the mosque, church or synagogue in which I had converted. It seemed that the ideas of renunciation of religion and the concept of privacy, or simply declining to state a religion, were being conflated conceptually.

Since I had already paid a non-refundable fee of £55 for the application form, I submitted it with a vertical line through the field that asked for a religion. Interestingly, on the old birth certificate, it does not say what religion I am, but rather the religion of both of my parents. It is implied that the religion is inherited from the parents, and at some point, their religion has been attached to my own records. Just before visiting Egypt in October, I had someone issue a new version of the birth certificate for me and sure enough, on a separate line it says that I belong to the religion of my parents, in addition to stating their religion. Just to be sure, when I tried entering the raqam qawmi on the new birth certificate into the online voter registration form, it gave an error message that said that my information was not in the system.

I was told at the consulate in London that even if I were to strike through the “religion” field on the application form, or even write a different religion than that of my parents, when it reached Cairo for processing, my ID would still have the religion of my parents on it. Changing religions is a separate process that needs to be done before issuing an ID, and declining to state one at all is not an option. At the consulate I was told that if I wanted to do this, I would have to make a case before a court in Egypt. It was also suggested to me to put down the name of a contact in Egypt to chase after my application before it is processed to see what will happen with the religion category on the ID. Although I was given a lot of conflicting information from different staff members, I was also told that processing should take a month.

The voting process for those who successfully registered has also been confusing. Deadlines have been extended with little notice, and sometimes this has been announced by emails that only a few people have received. For example in the US, the Elections Committee in Egypt sent a circular to consulates announcing an extension of the deadline to have votes mailed to Washington, D.C. In Texas, for a deadline of 25 November, the consulate did not receive this circular until Friday 25 November at 17:30, and the consulate distributed the email at 19:25 that day.

The Arab League’s deadline for Syria to stop the “bloody repression” has passed, paving the way for stronger action after the League’s surprisingly hardline stance towards the Assad regime. Jenifer Fenton looks at what is motivating the GCC states, most notably the one taking the lead in the new regional diplomacy, Qatar. 

Qatar, with its progressive foreign policy, is publicly driving the Gulf’s response to Syria and carving out a role for itself as a country that can quickly adapt to the sweeping changes resulting from the Arab spring, but the regional weight it carries and its motives are more nuanced. 

The six countries that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council  - Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates - and the majority of Arab League member states agreed that there was a limit to the violence unleashed by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad it could tolerate.  The United Nations puts the death toll since the unrest began at well over 3,500 people. Last week, the Arab League decided to suspend Syria’s participation and to impose political and economic sanctions against the Syrian government.  

The decision approved by 18 members, Lebanon and Yemen objected and Iraq abstained, was “a difficult one,” the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor Al Thani said  .

Bilateral trade between Syria, whose GDP is $60 billion, and the Arab countries amounts to roughly $8 billion, according to Abdulaziz Sager, chairman of the Gulf Research Center.  But 40 percent of Syria’s non-oil trade is with Iraq so Iraq’s abstention is significant, he said. 

The Arab League decision was overdue. “It was the right one,” said Khalid Al-Dakhil, professor of political sociology at King Saud University. “They needed to not allow Syria to use the Arab cover to continue with its brutal crackdown on the Syrian people and the Syrian regime has to know that this must stop.”

The Arab body had to show they are decisive, that they do not just bark but bite also, according to Abdulkhaleq Abdullah, a professor of political science at UAE University. But there is “no doubt in my mind… what is driving all this is the GCC, especially Qatar, especially the UAE. Saudi Arabia… are giving all the green lights Qatar needs at this moment. In essence, as I see it, Qatar is just speaking for Saudi Arabia which is usually a timid player. They don’t want to be in the front so Qatar is having all the backing from Riyadh.”

It is clear that visionary Qatar and the old order of Saudi Arabia do not always see eye-to-eye  (for years they had uneasy relations), but if Saudi Arabia actively challenged a Qatari foreign policy decision - which recently it does not appear to have done - it seems unlikely that Qatar would not heed Saudi Arabia’s wishes.

In late January, while Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was still in power, Saudi Arabia defended the status quo and strongly condemned the protests. “No Arab and Muslim human being can bear that some infiltrators… have infiltrated Egypt, to destabilize its security and stability and they have been exploited to spew out their hatred in destruction, intimidation, burning, looting and inciting a malicious sedition,” Saudi King Abdullah said at the time, according to the Saudi Press Agency. Tunisia’s deposed Zine El Abidine Ben Ali took refuge in the Kingdom as well. 

Compare Saudi’s actions to Qatar, which was the first Arab country to recognize the National Transitional Council as the legitimate government of Libya and it contributed planes to assist the Nato-led operation. 

While the GCC nations may not agree on aspects of foreign policy “at least there is minimum coordination,” Al-Dakhil said.  “I think there is a misperception about the Saudi position regarding Egypt or any of the Arab revolutions,” he added. “Basically Saudi Arabia is not different from the rest of the Arab states. They don’t like the idea of revolution, but at the same time they are pragmatic enough… They are willing to get along with what the Egyptian people want in Egypt. I mean if they want to make a revolution… that is their country, that is their right.” That sentiment Al-Dakhil believes is also the Saudi position with respect to Tunisia and Libya. 

Saudi Arabia is willing to accept the changes, but they are less willing to accept the unknown - so the Kingdom is taking a wait-and-see policy, while Qatar is getting out ahead. But by allowing Qatar to be the public face of the Gulf leadership, Saudi Arabia is also spared the negative repercussions and close scrutiny that publicity brings. 

However, Qatar’s grand vision is unclear. “Qatar is dancing on all floors to be able not miss the boat and make sure that they keep their link open to everybody whether they are Islamist, or liberal or conservative,” Sager said. It is also hard to reconcile Qatar’s physical size, it is smaller than Connecticut, and small national population, some 300,000 people, with such ambitious regional and international interests. A lot of people are questioning if Qatar is acting to a degree on behalf of an international agenda: with the United States with whom it is very close, or Iran with whom it shares economic interest, or Saudi Arabia and the other GCC countries, Sager said.  It is certain though Qatar is “filling a gap also because other regional powers are not acting, they’re not moving for their own reasons.” Iran, Sager believes, wants to keep their link with Syria, but not necessarily al-Assad. Qatar also does not want to upset Iran because they know Iran has spheres of influence with other Arab countries, he added. So it is difficult to asses the Syria-Qatar-Iran dynamics with certainty.  

In Libya, Qatar even went ahead of the UAE. The Emirates, before contributing military power to Libya, wanted first to get Western assurances that the GGC’s deployment of troops in Bahrain would not be characterized by the West as a step in the wrong direction, according to retired UAE Maj. Gen. Khaled Abdullah Al-Buainnan whom I spoke to earlier this year. Qatar did not wait for that scaling back of Western condemnation. 

With respect to Bahrain, the GCC has been accused of a double standard - supporting the government against  an opposition that has legitimate grievances. Consistency is not a very common aspect of foreign policy, Rami Khouri, director of Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs said.  “The Saudis will act differently, the Qataris will act differently in Bahrain then they might in Libya…Foreign Policy is not an ethics based process, it is an interests based process,” he said.

Khouri agreed there is greater Gulf activism, which includes the dynamism of Qatar and the UAE, but thinks there are several different currents at work. “The Saudis are against these revolutions, they don’t like them. They don’t like populist revolutions,” Khouri said. What the Qataris are doing is hard to tell, perhaps the state is just giving into reality, he added. What is interesting is that popular opinion in the Arab world is now driving the response of the Arab governments, including the Gulf, and the Arab League realized that it was on the verge of being irrelevant, Khouri added. Some aspects of the Arab League’s work is starting to reflect a semblance of Arab opinion and the major world powers are not playing a major role, and in a weird way they are kind of following the lead of the Arab League, he added.  

However, public opinion in the Gulf is a bit of a mystery. But each leader in the region that falls acts an unnerving reminder to powers in the Gulf that their rule is not unquestionable. Right now it is about Syria, but “the winds of changes are banging on everyone’s door,” Abdullah said.  

We were in Tunisia for nearly a week and it was impossible for me not to spend a lot of my time there making comparisons with Egypt. 

It would be hard to find two more different countries than small, Francophone, organized, serious Tunisia and boisterous and chaotic Egypt, a cultural and intellectual hub of Arabism with a population eight times larger. 

But the comparison between the two countries in the Arab world who, through peaceful demonstrations, overthrew their dictators, in nonetheless unavoidable. And, sadly, much to Egypt’s detriment. 

One thing that was so moving in Tunisia was the sense of what dramatic and unhoped-for reversals have taken place there -- what true flips in power. Dissidents who had been completely marginalized and persecuted are now in government. 

Of course there is powerful resistance. The judicial process has yet to hold the former regime accountable for its staggering corruption and its human rights abuses. The informers and policemen who once terrorized the country are still there. But they are cowed. They didn’t want the election to succeed -- but they were seemingly powerless to sabotage it. 

And people went to the polls -- after months of planning and of public awareness campaigns -- in joyful but very serious-minded way, convinced that the votes they cast mattered, and that they should matter; that they were exercising a duty and a right. They owned their election. Small infractions and irregularities were met with indignation. 

After having seen what an election that the state is truly supportive of and wants to succeed looks like,  I can’t help thinking that the Egyptian election is being orchestrated to fail. Egyptians head to the polls in a month with the police unreformed and in near-open rebellion; with fundamentalist emboldened and violence against Coptic voters a distinct possibility; with former NDP members running and openly challenging the state to prevent them; with the rules themselves intricate, confusing and announced at the last minute; with the government refusing to allow international election monitors; and with the general public resigned to violence and chaos. And this electoral process (taking place in rounds, for both the lower and upper house) will last six months. 

Meanwhile, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces continues its slide from just plain undemocratic to positively anti-democratic. While I was in Tunisia, I checked Egyptian news once, to read that two April 6 activists have been referred to military courts (the ones that Field Marshall Tantawi announced would be suspended a few weeks ago) for putting up election graffiti. Yousri Fouda, an OnTV presenter whose show has been a beacon of reasonableness and courage, has gone off the air, reportedly due to military censorship. An army spokesman, meanwhile, has helpfully explained that calling for an end to military trials is itself illegal. 

The disastrous way in which the Egyptian elections are being conducted is not just a matter of mismanagement (although there is plenty of that too) -- it is a matter of making democracy as dangerous and confusing as possible. It a purposeful politics of chaos. 

In Tunisia democratic and opposition forces from across the political spectrum managed to form a consensus about what the transition process should be -- and even now, after competitive and at times acrimonious campaigning, that consensus largely holds. 

Here in Egypt, everyone is competing -- from the Muslim Brotherhood to the liberal and progressive parties -- in the hopes of securing some influence over the transition period. But the new parliament will have little power as long as SCAF rules the country. I fear that they will simply be legitimizing election-laced autocracy.