Live: Al Jazeera coverage of Egypt’s growing revolution

[stefano]

I wasn't expecting them to go this far - they've really got going now.

Egypt to criminalise insults to 'revolutions' of 2011 and 2013 - spokesman
Wednesday, December 03, 2014 9:24 PM

CAIRO (Reuters) - President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi plans to issue decrees to criminalise insults to Egypt's two "revolutions" of 2011 and 2013, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

The first, a street uprising, toppled longtime military-backed autocrat Hosni Mubarak. The second also arose from mass anti-government protests but was taken over by the military then led by Sisi and brought about the overthrow of freely elected Islamist President Mohamed Mursi after a year in office.

The Muslim Brotherhood and other opponents of Sisi say the mid-2013 uprising was a coup rather than a revolution, and fear the proposed decree will stifle their scope to express such views amid a broader crackdown on public dissent by Sisi.

"Yes, it is true, but it has to be approved first by the cabinet," Sisi spokesman Alaa Youssef said of the planned law.

Egyptian media reported that the law was first announced following a meeting with young journalists Tuesday evening.

"Preparations are under way for two presidential decrees to criminalise the defamation of the January 25 (2011) and June 30 (2013) revolutions," Sisi said in a statement following the meeting, according to state news agency MENA.

The statement said the decrees come "within the framework of combating corruption and protecting public funds..." MENA said, and the cabinet would act on Sisi's move shortly.

After spearheading the overthrow of Mursi and his Muslim Brotherhood last year, in which hundreds of Mursi supporters were killed in the streets and thousands jailed, Sisi went on to be elected president in May.

But the crackdown that began with the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups has expanded to include secular activists and others critical of Sisi's government.

Critics point to long-delayed parliamentary elections, which has allowed Sisi to rule by decree, as an example of how he has concentrated power in his cabinet.

Analysts said Sisi, with his planned decrees, appeared to be seeking to put the uprisings of 2011 and 2013 on a par with each other to help solidify his political position.

Allowing civilians to be tried in military courts and restricting protests have further eroded hopes among liberals that Egypt's second uprising would finish the job begun with Mubarak's ouster in 2011.

This weekend, a court dismissed charges against Mubarak for ordering security forces to kill protesters during the 2011 uprising.

That verdict, and others handed down to Mubarak-era figures, has led some to conclude that the old regime that existed before either revolution is back in all but name.

[stefano]

Egypt to criminalise insults to 'revolutions' of 2011 and 2013 - spokesman

Or maybe not? Not sure what's happening - MENA quotes Sisi on it, then the transitional justice minister says Cabinet has no such plan.

Minister of Transitional Justice Ibrahim al-Heneidy said that the ministry has no plans to draft a law that criminalizes insulting the January 25 and June 30 uprisings. Sources within the cabinet’s legislation reform committee also confirmed that they have not received any information on the draft bill.

[stefano]

Court orders release of Mubarak's sons, Alaa and Gamal
Thursday, January 22, 2015 2:13 PM

CAIRO, Jan 22 (Aswat Masriya) - The Cairo Criminal Court ordered on Thursday the release of the sons of ousted president Hosni Mubarak, as their retrial for embezzlement continues.

In May, 2014 Mubarak was sentenced to three years in prison after being found guilty of seizing over 125 million Egyptian pounds allocated to presidential palaces, while sons Alaa and Gamal were sentenced to four years each for aiding their father in the embezzlement.

Earlier this month, the Court of Cassation overturned the conviction and ordered a retrial.

Family lawyer Farid El-Deeb was cited by Reuters as saying that the court’s decision today, means that Mubarak’s sons should be released, since they are not facing any other cases.

El-Deeb had challenged the verdict last July, calling for the sentence to be overturned.

Both he and the prosecution urged the Court of Cassation to order the retrial.

Mubarak and his two sons were taken into custody in April 2011. Alaa and Gamal have been jailed since then, while Mubarak was released in August 2013 when he was put on house arrest in a military hospital.

On November 29, 2014, the Cairo Criminal Court dropped the case against Mubarak over complicity in the killing of protesters during the 18-day January 2011 uprising which toppled his regime.

[stefano]

Egypt: Protests marking uprising leave 18 dead

26 January 2015 Last updated at 01:06 GMT

At least 18 people have been killed in clashes between police and protesters across Egypt, officials said.

Three police cadets were among the dead, and dozens of protesters were also injured, the officials said.

The clashes follow the death of an activist in a march in the capital Cairo on Saturday.

The protests were staged to mark the fourth anniversary of Egypt's 2011 uprising, which toppled long-time leader Hosni Mubarak.

Security in major cities was tightened ahead of the anniversary, and key locations in Cairo were blocked off.

Dozens of people were killed in similar protests last year.

Crackdown on dissent

The police cadets were killed during protests in Cairo, the officials said, while protesters were also killed in the capital and the northern city of Alexandria.

Police said two militants were killed as they tried to plant an explosive device in the Nile Delta.

More than 400 people were arrested.

On Saturday, activist Shaimaa al-Sabbagh, aged 32, was shot dead during a march by the socialist Popular Alliance party in central Cairo.

The party blamed police for her death. She was buried amid angry scenes in Alexandria on Sunday. Hundreds of people attended the funeral.

Prosecutors have launched an investigation into her death.

Since ousting the elected President Mohammed Morsi in July 2013, Egypt under new leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has cracked down on political dissent.

Unauthorized memory

Yasmin El-Rifae

Sunday, January 25, 2015 - 18:03
[...]
The place where Shaimaa was killed for trying to remember the lives of others who have fallen is now off-limits. There are tanks and barbed wire barriers and hundreds of thousands of police and state security, many of them dressed in black face masks and combat boots, like gunmen in a bad film or, I suspect, many nightmares.

The gunmen and their bosses have made it clear that unauthorized memory will not be tolerated. Neither will grief. Public language, thought, and opinion is either legal or illegal, patriotism or treason.

What we have been authorized to do is to spend a week mourning the death of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, whose Wahabi tradition teaches those in grief not to demonstrate it in public. Perhaps the regime would prefer this of us.

We have been authorized to mention the word “martyr” in the context of January 25 as long as we agree that what they died for is what lies in front of us. We can speak of Egypt’s youth in the context of political participation, meaning participation in parliamentary elections. We have not yet been authorized to speak about the dead of June 30 and its bloody summer in any tone other than gratitude.

Spaces for freer thought remain on the margins, for now. The atmosphere is one of distortion and obfuscation, in which clear thought can be a difficult challenge. Much changes around us, but what has remained constant is that the state does not know how to use its violence without hubris stemming from impunity.
[...]

[stefano]

I really enjoy this guy's posts. Thoughtful, and seldom judgemental or prescriptive, he puts current events in the context of Egypt's 20th century history, and I enjoy his writing. "Revolutions, like boys, grow older, and without effort or accretion of knowledge, promise inevitably turns to disappointment." That's good stuff.

Sons of The Revolution
Posted: January 26, 2015 | Author: salamamoussa

Throughout the 1960s the Egyptian government sponsored a special celebration every July 23 in honor of the children born on that day. In Cairo, the celebration was at the old Rivoli Cinema. The routine was set and unchanging from year to year. It started with the 1 year olds, brought to the stage by their beaming mothers, then 2 year olds, and so on in increasing order of age. The grand finale was the march of those born exactly on July 23 1952, who dashed up to the stage to receive their certificates. By the time of the last such celebration in 1967, those “sons of the revolution” were surly 15 year old adolescents and no longer charming young boys. The affair was sad and ramshackle, like the city outside steeped in defeat. The cinema had a half-built brick blast wall that seemed to do little but obscure the once grand entrance. Revolutions, like boys, grow older, and without effort or accretion of knowledge, promise inevitably turns to disappointment.

On the fourth anniversary of the January 2011 uprising many have mourned the fact that the young revolutionaries were largely sidelined, with some even in jail. They advanced the dreams of an alternative path where the young would now be ruling, the country free, the old regime entirely upended, and the vigor of youth leading Egypt forward. None have noted that Egypt had experienced one such outcome, in 1952, where young men came to power, upended the old regime, and attempted to govern by the dent of a spirit of revolution and without any discernible program. The young men who came to power brandished promises of Ishtirakiya, Hurreyia, Demokratia (Socialism, Freedom, and Democracy). In fact they brought forth a repressive regime where mouthing these slogans in the wrong order earned one a beating. The repression and paranoia of the Free Officers regime was rooted in a variety of societal factors, but also in the lack of a governing vision. The 1952 revolution had no defining document such as the 1776 American declaration which put forth a concise definition of appropriate governance and a legal case for revolt. The best 1952 could do was the flowery words of Anwar El Sadat, who sonorously intoned a mixture of platitudes and intimations of conspiracies. There was more than a faint echo in 2011.

The 1952 revolutionaries detested politics. They strove to destroy the old political elite, on the correct charges that they were inept and sometime corrupt. But in the absence of politicians what rose was leadership by charisma and unchecked power; by men who insisted they are too pure for politics, and that their purity justified coercing others to their views. Anyone who challenged their methods or actions belonged to the discredited “feudal” classes. Nasser may have lifted land reform policies from Mirrit Ghali, but he could not tolerate the man in his cabinet. This propensity to demonize politics and refusal to honor differing views is also apparent in the 2011 edition of revolution. The grating word “felool” was hurled easily, and after July 3 the preferred term was “coup supporter” or “Fascist”.

Egypt of course experienced many “revolutions” in the past two centuries. All have failed to bridge the economic and social gap between the country and the global world, and even within Egypt, the gap between rich and poor continues to grow. The death of revolutions comes in many forms. The ‘Urabi revolution died in the quick defeat of his forces at the hands of a British expedition, in his humiliating barefoot surrender, and his ultimate disillusion with his actions. The 1919 revolution died at the hands of anti-liberal forces, as well as the paradox of the slogan “Egypt for Egyptians” mouthed by an elite that had little trust in the people (perhaps with good reasons). The 1952 revolution was in deep trouble by the mid-1960s, but got a quick shove from the 1967 defeat. The 2011 revolution died many deaths; by the anarchic violence in the fall of 2011, by the farcical Parliament brought forth by free elections, by the chaotic and rule-free Presidential elections of 2012, the lack of a constitution, and by the loss of nerve on part of the people who could not detect in Morsi’s rule the end-game of Islamism’s profound lack of a workable governing philosophy.

Cromer hurled the withering, and incorrect, charge against Egyptians as incapable of organized planning. Mirrit Ghali refined that by focusing it on the ruling elite. Actually, the appropriate analogy comes from the American film “Cool Hand Luke”, where the protagonist, Paul Newman, resists an oppressive order with nothing more than his courage. He builds no rapport with other prisoners, even when they profess admiration for him, and does not negotiate for any tangible improvement in the prison camp. The alpha prisoner, George Kennedy, admires Luke, insisting that “nothing can be a cool hand”. In the end, however, nothing can’t beat the established oppressive order. Luke is broken by the repeated brutality of the guards and pleads for mercy on the promise of never attempting to revolt. The other prisoners walk away from him. Luke, it seems, wasted his courage and the trust of others by his utter lack of discipline. He came at them with nothing.

Nasser always insisted that 1952 revolution continues, especially during difficult days. The wily Egyptians largely chalked that up to brave talk, and walked away. Something like this is happening today. Whether wisdom or additional suffering will emerge from this chaos remains unknown.

— Maged Atiya

[stefano]

[stefano]

This Ahmed Moussa has become the face of the counter-revolution on TV and a sort of kite-flyer for increasing repression: he says the most outrageous fascist things then they see how it plays. It plays pretty well.

Endowments minister: Citizens instigating violence against security must be stripped of nationality

Speaking to mainstream satellite channels, Minister of Religious Endowments Mokhtar Gomaa is reiterating his demand for the state to strip citizens of their Egyptian nationality in cases where they are found to promote acts of violence against the country's national security.
[...]
Speaking on Tuesday to the pro-regime TV presenter, Ahmed Moussa, on the “Ala Masou'ouleyati” program, Gomaa commented that terror groups are instigating and promoting violence against Egypt's security forces from abroad, whilst funneling funds for terrorist operations across the country. Gomaa claimed that at the forefront of these terror groups is the Muslim Brotherhood.
[...]
"We are calling for, and continue to call for, the stripping of citizenship from such criminals. This is an honor which they do not deserve," Gomaa said. "Such individuals are traitors and agents, and they do not deserve the honor of belonging to this country."
[...]
However, Gomaa's comments also directly contravene the rights of citizenship enshrined in Egypt's 2014 Constitution.

Article 6 of the national Constitution stipulates: "Citizenship is a right to anyone born to an Egyptian father or an Egyptian mother. Citizens have the right to legal recognition and official documentation that proves their personal information, as regulated by the law."

Furthermore, Article 62 of the Constitution stipulates: "No citizen may be deported from or prevented from returning to the country."

TV host Moussa had described this year's commemorations of the January 25th revolution anniversary as an attempt to destabilize the country. Moussa referred to participants in these protest rallies as "members of the terrorist (Muslim) Brotherhood society," along with "the terrorists of the April 6th Youth Movement," and "the saboteurs of the Revolutionary Socialists Movement."

"I have no problem with the killing of two, three, or four hundreds terrorists," commented Moussa on the episode of his show that aired on January 25.
[...]

[stefano]

The terror threat remains serious, and cops shooting beardies in the streets of Cairo only makes it easier for these groups to recruit.

Islamic State's Egypt wing claims deadliest attacks in months: official Twitter

By Yusri Mohamed, Ali Abdelaty and Mostafa Hashem

CAIRO Fri Jan 30, 2015 4:25am EST

(Reuters) - Islamic State's Egypt wing claimed a series of attacks that killed at least 27 security personnel on Thursday in some of the worst anti-government violence in months, after commemorations around the anniversary of the 2011 uprising turned deadly in the past week.

Egypt's government faces an Islamist insurgency based in Sinai and growing discontent with what critics perceive as heavy-handed security tactics.

A series of tweets from the Sinai Province's Twitter account claimed responsibility for each of the four attacks that took place in North Sinai province within hours of one another on Thursday night.

Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, Egypt's most active militant group, changed its name to Sinai Province last year after swearing allegiance to Islamic State, the hardline Sunni militant group that has seized swathes of Iraq and Syria, drawing U.S.-led airstrikes.

Thursday's first attack was a bombing targeting a military headquarters, base and hotel in the capital of North Sinai province that killed 25 and wounded at least 58, including nine civilians, security and medical sources said.

The flagship government newspaper, al-Ahram, said its office in the city of Al-Arish, which is situated opposite the military buildings, had been "completely destroyed," although it was not clear if it had been a target.

Later, suspected militants killed an army major and wounded six others at a checkpoint in Rafah, while an assault on a checkpoint south of Al-Arish wounded four soldiers, security sources said. A roadside bomb in Suez city, not in the Sinai, that killed a police officer was not claimed by IS.

After Sinai Province's claim of responsibility, security sources said a suspected militant had been killed while attempting to plant a bomb at a power transformer in Port Said.

Sinai-based militants have killed hundreds of security officers since President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood was removed from power following mass protests against his rule.

The military said in a statement on its Facebook page that the attacks were the result of a successful campaign to pressure the militants.

The U.S. State Department condemned the attack, saying in a statement: "The United States remains steadfast in its support of the Egyptian government’s efforts to combat the threat of terrorism in Egypt as part of our continuing commitment to the strategic partnership between our two countries."

FRAGILE RECOVERY

The violence and civil unrest comes as Egypt is trying to burnish its image in the run-up to an investor's summit in mid-March, to be followed by parliamentary elections.

The attacks in Al-Arish and Rafah continue a pattern of unrest in the remote but strategic Sinai Peninsula, which borders the Gaza Strip, Israel and Egypt's Suez Canal.

But the less common attempts in Port Said and Suez, at opposite ends of the Canal, bring the insurgency nearer to a key source of hard currency for the cash-strapped state.

Income from the canal has not been hurt by the turmoil following the 2011 uprising to the same extent as foreign investment and tourism, and a planned second canal is meant to boost the waterway's value to Egypt.

However, Egypt's attempts to attract investors for mega-projects, such as the second canal, that the government says are key to securing a nascent recovery could stall if instability increases.

The last major attacks in Egypt were on Oct. 24, when militants killed at least 33 members of the security forces. That operation was also claimed by Sinai Province.

That prompted the government to declare a state of emergency in parts of Sinai, allow civilians to be tried in military courts, close the border with Gaza, and begin building a kilometer-wide buffer zone abutting the Palestinian enclave.

PROTEST DEATHS

Tensions have risen across Egypt in the past week with protests, some of them violent, marking four years since the uprising that ousted veteran autocrat Hosni Mubarak from power.

Earlier on Thursday, a group of women protested in Cairo over the death of activist Shaimaa Sabbagh and around 25 others said to have been killed by security forces at rallies commemorating the 2011 uprising.

Sabbagh, 32, died on Saturday as riot police were breaking up a small, peaceful demonstration. Friends said she had been shot, and images of her bleeding body rippled out across social media, sparking outrage and condemnation.

"The Interior Ministry are thugs!" chanted about 100 female protesters at the site of Sabbagh's death. Some held up signs with the word "murderer" scrawled over the face of Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim.

The protesters were defying a law that severely restricts protests. "People are here at incredible risk to themselves. But it's a way of standing against the fear they have instilled," said activist Yasmin el-Rifae.

Ibrahim has said an investigation into Sabbagh's death will lead to prosecution if any member of the security forces is found responsible.

One of the organizers of Thursday's demonstration said they had asked only women to attend because they feared infiltration by plainclothes male agents.

Across the street from the protesters, beside police officers, men stood making lewd gestures and yelling profanities. Others chanted in favor of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Criticism is growing of the security tactics Sisi has used since Mursi was ousted.

A crackdown that began with the deaths of hundreds of Brotherhood supporters and the imprisonment of thousands more has expanded to include liberals and other activists.

Some of those now opposed to the government initially supported the protests that led to Mursi's removal and Sisi's rise to power, as people who knew Sabbagh said she had.

(This story was corrected to make clear IS Egyptian affiliate claimed responsibility for attacks in North Sinai only, and not Suez)

[beeline]

I am wondering how much truth there is to this, and I've never read the Free Beacon before so take it with a grain of salt. Thoughts?


[url]http://freebeacon.com/national-security/open-jihad-declared-in-egypt-following-state-dept-meeting-with-muslim-brotherhood-aligned-leaders/
[/url]

Open Jihad Declared in Egypt Following State Dept. Meeting with Muslim Brotherhood-Aligned Leaders
Muslim Brotherhood call for ‘long, uncompromising jihad’

BY: Adam Kredo
January 30, 2015 5:00 am

The Muslim Brotherhood called for “a long, uncompromising jihad” in Egypt just days after a delegation of the Islamist group’s key leaders and allies met with the State Department, according to an official statement released this week.

Just days after a delegation that included two top Brotherhood leaders was hosted at the State Department, the organization released an official statement calling on its supporters to “prepare” for jihad, according to an independent translation of the statement first posted on Tuesday.

The State Department meeting was attended by a deputy assistant secretary for democracy, human rights, and labor and other State Department officials.

The Muslim Brotherhood statement also was issued just two days before a major terror attack Thursday in Egypt’s lawless Sinai region that killed at least 25.

“It is incumbent upon everyone to be aware that we are in the process of a new phase, where we summon what is latent in our strength, where we recall the meanings of jihad and prepare ourselves, our wives, our sons, our daughters, and whoever marched on our path to a long, uncompromising jihad, and during this stage we ask for martyrdom,” it states.

Preparation for jihad is a key theme of the Brotherhood’s latest call for jihad.

An image posted with the statement shows two crossing swords and the word “prepare!” between them. Below the swords it reads, “the voice of truth, strength, and freedom.” According to the statement, “that is the motto of the Dawa of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The statement also invokes the well-known Muslim cleric Imam al-Bana, who founded the Brotherhood and has called for the death of Jews.

“Imam al-Bana prepared the jihad brigades that he sent to Palestine to kill the Zionist usurpers and the second [Supreme] Guide Hassan al-Hudaybi reconstructed the ‘secret apparatus’ to bleed the British occupiers,” the statement says.

The Brotherhood’s renewed call for jihad comes at a time when current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is cracking down on the group and imprisoning many of its supporters, who notoriously engaged in violence following the ouster of Brotherhood-ally Mohamed Morsi.

Egypt experts said the timing of this declaration is an embarrassment for the State Department.

“The fact that the Brotherhood issued its call to jihad two days after its meeting at the State Department will be grist for endless anti-American conspiracy theories about a supposed partnership between Washington and the Brotherhood,” said Eric Trager, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). “The State Department should have foreseen what an embarrassment this would be.”

One member of that U.S. delegation, a Brotherhood-aligned judge in Egypt, posed for a picture while at Foggy Bottom in which he held up the Islamic group’s notorious four-finger Rabia symbol, according to his Facebook page.

“Now in the U.S. State Department. Your steadfastness impresses everyone,” reads an Arabic caption posted along with the photo.

Other members of that group included Gamal Heshmat, a leading member of the Brotherhood, and Abdel Mawgoud al-Dardery, a Brotherhood member who served as a parliamentarian from Luxor.

When asked on Tuesday evening to comment on the meeting, a State Department official told the Washington Free Beacon, “We meet with representatives from across the political spectrum in Egypt.”

The official declined to elaborate on who may have been hosted or on any details about the timing and substance of any talks.

The meeting was described by a member of the delegation, Maha Azzam as “fruitful,” according to one person who attended a public event in Washington earlier this week hosted by the group.

The call for jihad, while surprising in light of the Brotherhood’s attempts to appear moderate, is part and parcel of organization’s longstanding beliefs, Trager said.

“Muslim Brothers have been committing violent acts for a very long time,” Trager explained. “Under Morsi, Muslim Brothers tortured protesters outside the presidential palace. After Morsi’s ouster, they have frequently attacked security forces and state property. “

“But until now, the official line from the Brotherhood was to support this implicitly by justifying its causes, without justifying the acts themselves,” he added. “ So the Brotherhood’s open call to jihad doesn’t necessarily mean a tactical shift, but a rhetorical one.”

Terrorism expert and national security reporter Patrick Poole said he was struck by the clarity of the Brotherhood’s call.

“It invokes the Muslim Brotherhood’s terrorist past, specifically mentioning the ‘special apparatus’ that waged terror in the 1940s and 1950s until the Nasser government cracked down on the group, as well as the troops sent by founder Hassan al-Banna to fight against Israel in 1948,” he said.

“It concludes saying that the Brotherhood has entered a new stage, warns of a long jihad ahead, and to prepare for martyrdom,” Poole said. “Not sure how much more clear they could be.”

Poole wondered if the call for jihad would convince Brotherhood apologists that the group still backs violence.

“What remains to be seen is how this announcement will be received inside the Beltway, where the vast majority of the ‘experts’ have repeatedly said that the Brotherhood had abandoned its terrorist past, which it is now clearly reviving, and had renounced violence,” Poole said. “Will this development be met with contrition, or silence? And what says the State Department who met with these guys this week?”

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment before press time.

[stefano]

Thanks beeline - this thread has turned into a bit of a one-man show now that Alice has left. A great pity - I'd love to know whether she's changed her mind over the past year, and especially over the Gaza war.

As to your post - it's very spicy and I'd treat that source as suspicious. Firstly we don't hear who the 'independent translation service' is, and then they get a quote from WINEP, which is affiliated to AIPAC. And the reporter obviouly doesn't have a clue: e.g. "An image posted with the statement shows two crossing swords and the word “prepare!” between them" - that has been the MB's seal for decades. Off the top of my head I'd say that is a right-wing outfit looking to flog the dead horse of Obama being some sort of secret Brother, and a sign of the way in which a clear majority of Israel-firsters in Washington support Sisi. Although the Georgetown meeting (a better source on it is here) is weird - the State Department's continued insistence on keeping channels open to the MB seems more futile by the day.

A Mada Masr article on this links to the original article in Arabic, which I don't have time to work through today, but Mada Masr is quite a bit more circumspect than Free Beacon:

A strongly-worded statement posted on the group’s Arabic website days earlier took a more martial tone, urging its supporters to “prepare” for a new phase in which “we summon all our strength and evoke the meaning of jihad.”

The statement talks about the meaning of strength, citing Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna’s definition of the word.

For Banna, strength involves emotional as well as physical fortitude, the statement said.

The statement also referred to the Special Apparatus, a secret paramilitary wing of the Brotherhood created by Banna which fought against British rule, and which the group has recently worked to distance itself from.

“Rising nations need strength, and need to instil military morals into their children in this age where peace is only guaranteed by preparation for war,” the Brotherhood quoted Banna as saying.

“We are at the beginning of a new phase where we summon our strength and evoke the meaning of jihad, and prepare ourselves, our wives, our sons and daughters and whoever follows our path for relentless jihad where we ask for martyrdom,” the statement declared.

At the same time the MB (in English, where I follow their statements) has strongly distanced itself from the Sinai attacks, and has reaffirmed its commitment to non-violence, although it does call on its supporters to stay in the streets:

Your Revolution is the only way to spare the blood of the people and achieve progress for the homeland. There is no longer any way to save this homeland and its citizens except by eliminating the putschist gang, the traitorous agents of the Zionists and the allies of foreign colonial powers.

All streets and public squares across Egypt belong to you. It is up to you to gather for protests anywhere. Standing in the way of the coup gang and its allies has become an obligation, necessary for the Revolution to achieve victory. Punishing supporters of the coup is a legitimate right as well as being the duty of every patriotic revolutionary.

Muzzling the evil mouths that incite murder and call for fighting among the people of this one homeland is now a necessity. So, persist, persevere and continue to develop your Revolutionary action. God bless you.

Note that while jihad means literal war in English, its meaning is much broader in Arabic: it means struggle in general, and in Islam it principally means the struggle of the higher self against baser instincts. So the quotes as given don't mean that the MB has publicly called for armed insurrection. But it is obvious that Ansar Beit Al-Maqdes recruits in the MB, and that a large number of beardies will interpret a statement to "persist, persevere and continue to develop your Revolutionary action" as urging them to join the terrorist underground.

[stefano]

Here's a fairly clear piece on that Georgetown meeting. It seems to have been very minor - a matter of the State Department not wanting to refuse to see the guys. One strange thing is that Jen Psaki twice said that Georgetown University sponsored the meeting before going back on that. The current story is that they were sponsored by a US-based group of Moursi supporters.

Yesterday:

Egyptian court sends activist Ahmed Douma to jail for life

[beeline]

Link

Egyptian president calls Gulf leaders following alleged leaks
CAIRO - Anadolu Agency

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has phoned four Gulf leaders following the emergence of allegedly leaked audio recordings, in which senior officials, including him, made offensive remarks about wealthy Gulf nations.

El-Sisi made phone calls to the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain as well as the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi on Feb. 8 night, during which the Gulf leaders reassured Egypt’s leader of their continued support to his country.

The calls came a day after an audio recording was broadcast by an Istanbul-based pro-Muslim Brotherhood satellite channel purportedly featuring then Defense Minister el-Sisi, his chief-of-staff Abbas Kamel, and then army chief of staff Mahmoud Hegazi making offensive remarks about Gulf states.

The audio, which could not be verified, also allegedly includes talks about diverting part of the aid coming from Gulf states into Egypt’s army budget.

During his phone call with el-Sisi, King Salman Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia said his country’s position towards Egypt’s stability and security would not change, describing relations between the two states as a “strategic model,” Saudi’s state-run SPA news agency said.

The Saudi monarch stressed the well-established and distinctive relations between Egypt and Saudi Arabia are “stronger than any attempt to disturb them.”

Kuwaiti Emir Sabah al-Jaber al-Sabah, for his part, assured el-Sisi that “unity and solidarity with Egypt have not and will not be affected by any attempts to undermine them.”

The Egyptian president, meanwhile, expressed his appreciation for the Gulf leaders’ stances.

Arab countries channeled billions of dollars in aid to Egypt following the military ousting of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in mid-2013.

[American Dream]

The next battle will be much more violent: Interview with Philip Rizk
26. Jan 2015

In July 2013, the military ousted President Mohamed Morsi after millions had taken to the streets to protest against the rule of his Muslim Brotherhood (MB). What was the driving force behind this mass dissatisfaction?

Especially considering the current situation, it is quite important to remember that when Morsi won the presidential elections in 2012, there was a huge celebration in the street. Many people saw it as a moment of victory, as a revolutionary moment. In this election, you mainly had those that clearly represented the previous regime and you had Morsi. So he was seen as something different from this military constellation. That day I was in a lower class neighborhood of Cairo, and children on the street and the people were celebrating, trucks were driving up and down the street with people on top of them, there were fireworks…

The demonstration that I was a part of was quite small. Like in many moments in the past three or four years, it took a lot of time for the opposition to gain momentum. A lot of people who had been on the streets protesting were of course for the MB, but many others simply took a stance of: »Let’s give them a chance, let’s wait and see what happens«. However, while not remaining exactly the same, a lot of political and economic policies followed the same logic of governance, for example as far as the authority of the police and opposition to protests was concerned. It was during Morsi rule that, again, there was an attempt to pass a law against protests. And in November 2012 the Morsi cabinet tried to pass an increase of taxes, which would have affected the broader population. When the initially small protest movements were harshly suppressed people realized that something similar to the early days of the revolution was happening. We would have a commemoration of significant battles that took place in earlier phases of the revolution, for example those in Mohamed Mahmud Street. Clashes emerged, and a similar kind of logic ensued, where you would have street battles for days, and especially nights, on end. So people started going back to the streets more.

There was something very important in this phase which leads up to the mass demonstrations on June 30th 2013 and the following days: The media played an extremely different role than they did in early 2011 and then again after the military coup on July 3rd. Priot to June 30th, They actually covered these events very clearly and showed the police suppression on the streets. The media in Egypt is heavily controlled.

Censorship begins with direct issues of the Ministry of Interior calling editors and people in senior positions in TV channels telling them what should and should not be covered – for example, military violence has never really been shown –, it continues within the media hierarchy and finally there is self-censorship of journalists. However, during MB rule there was much less censorship. Just to give a little anecdote: Our group Mosireen, that in the past had filmed things that were for us the perspective of the street, almost did not have a role any longer because so much of this repression was being covered by television and news outlets. Especially within the media apparatus there are many people from a liberal middle class milieu who have the tendency to criticize a party with an Islamist background. One could almost say that the media was actually doing the role that they are supposed to play, but they did so only for a twelve months period, during the rule of the MB.

To rephrase the question in more concrete terms: Were these mass protests a response to continuing repression and social misery or did the specific nature of the MB as an Islamic party, slowly trying to “islamicise” society, play a role?

Initially opposition was growing because repression was maintained and especially because it was covered more than in any other period. As far as religion is concerned, it is very difficult to explain its role in public life in Egypt. Egyptian society is probably more religious than Tunisia or Libya and even Palestine, Syria or Iraq. One of the strengths of the military regimes up until the present one (excluding the period of the MB, because they are different) is that they have managed very successfully to portray themselves as being significantly religious without actually following a religious platform. At no point has the government in Egypt tried to change the constitution, for example the claim that it is inspired by the Holy Islamic Scriptures. The Azhar University has always played a very significant role as a religious mouthpiece for the government, in all phases. So they know how to appease this kind of religiosity of the population without actually having a religiously inspired political program.

The media succeeded in playing on this by portraying that what Egyptians want is by no means a kind of »secular« society, or state, but they don’t want religious extremists either. And the discourse leading up to the summer of 2013 was increasingly pointing out the extremism of the MB.

In religious terms?

Yes. And this shift was massive. For example, when there were protests in early 2013 at the headquarters of the MB, rumors started spreading of Palestinian and Syrian militants protecting them and especially the media took up these rumors. It is hard to tell how it started, because there is no evidence or proof of any kind as far as I’m aware. Why would the MB have armed foreigners guarding their political headquarters?

It doesn’t make any sense to me. But when these kind of stories spread, very quickly for a lot of the population which is religious, but has a tendency to be critical of religious extremism, of the kind you might hear from Syria or Palestine, they quickly started identifying the MB as a kind of increasingly militant group. Similarly, the armed militants in Sinai fighting the military were quickly identified with the MB although again there is no proof of this connection. The situation there is very difficult to assess and I have serious doubts about a lot of media stories, especially if they are based on statements by the Ministry of Interior or the military. They use these kinds of situations to spread rumors and fear. So, all this is happening in the background leading up to the summer of 2013.

But to what extent did this motivate the protests? Secondly, did the MB in your view have a hardcore Islamist agenda which they merely couldn’t realize or were they more moderate types anyway?

There is no situation where any party coming to power in Egypt will respect civil rights. And I think that the MB, in broad terms, were not significantly different than what came before. They were not planning to give more rights but rather to take many rights away. Looking at Christians, for example, under Sadat and Mubarak, they were lacking a lot of rights that Muslims had. It was not the case that religions were equal just because these figures were not driven by religion. I think that the MB would have maintained that. But they also had an interest in having good relations with their western trading partners. Things would not have gotten better, in some cases we would have had bad situations, where a government with a religious program would definitely turn a blind eye to the suppression of Christians, which especially in upper Egypt happens more frequently. But I personally do not believe that the MB had the agenda of becoming religious extremists. Up until now, all the examples the media, the military and Sisi have used to portray the MB as some kind of terrorist entity, there is zero proof of any of that. That is not to say that it could not ever happen. But I do not believe that it has happened. It wouldn't be in the interest of the MB whatsoever. But this narrative has succeeded and provided the perfect enemy required to increase patriotism and suppress a lot of civil rights.

More at: http://kosmoprolet.org/node/152

[stefano]

Quite a bit of news from Egypt this week, as government gets ready for some serious schmoozing at an investment summit at the weekend. All good news for the rich and foreign investors, and pretty much in line with the Washington Consensus.

Tax: Egypt to introduce reforms under investment drive
By Ehab Farouk in Cairo
Wednesday, 11 March 2015 08:25

Egypt's government is expected to approve on Wednesday a lower tax ceiling for companies and individuals in high income brackets in order to attract investors and boost the economy, the investment minister said.

The step comes days before Egypt holds an investment conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh it hopes will attract billions of dollars and speed up an economic recovery after four years of political turmoil.

The new changes will encourage investment and lead to justice in the tax system for all

Under the planned tax reform, the ceiling on companies and individuals earning more than one million Egyptian pounds ($131,148) a year will be reduced from 25 percent to 22.5 percent for a period of ten years.

"The cabinet will agree today in a meeting on unified taxes," Investment Minister Ashraf Salman told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"The new changes will encourage investment and lead to justice in the tax system for all."

The minister said a temporary 5 percent tax on wealthy individuals earning over one million Egyptian pounds ($131,061) a year will be canceled as part of the news tax regime.

When applied in 2014, the temporary tax was supposed to last for three years.

The new tax regime will be finalised in about three weeks and is expected to be implement in the 2015-2016 fiscal year starting in July, said Salman.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has cut fuel subsidies and enacted other reforms, winning praise from foreign investors and the International Monetary Fund. [also raised cigarette taxes - s]

He has also announced mega-projects such as a second Suez Canal and roadworks designed to create jobs and stimulate economy activity in the most populous Arab country.

The government hopes the new tax structure will boost an economy battered by political upheaval and militant violence since an uprising toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

I got a note about this from EFG-Hermes, an investment bank. They are thrilled.

Dropping the right to free education
Wednesday, March 11, 2015 - 20:31
Mai Shams El-Din

Aya Morsi never wanted to study law, but, like thousands of other Egyptian students, her high school grades left her with no other option. Enrolled in a school she didn’t choose, while also working in a private company to generate some income, she ended up failing her sophomore year exams at Ain Shams University.

Under normal circumstances, this failure wouldn’t undermine her free university place, but the Cabinet’s recent proposal to restrict free tuition to the top percentile of students may get her and thousands of others into trouble, as students at public universities are only permitted to fail the academic year twice.
[...]
A student’s academic record in high school largely determines which public university he or she attends, with the official coordination office assigning students to universities and specific departments according to their high school grades and location. The better a student’s grades, the greater his or her chances are of enrolling in a department like medicine, engineering, media, economics or political science. Living in the capital or neighboring governorates also provides a better chance of getting into a well-established university, which are largely based in Egypt’s main cities.

The system might be oppressive, but at least up until now it has been free of charge — which may no longer be the case soon. An advisory council on education and scientific research, established by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in September, recently authored a policy package to reform the country’s deteriorating education system, leading with limiting free tuition.

The policy proposes a new system for waiving tuition fees, explains council President Tarek Shawky. Currently, students at state universities only pay a nominal fee for their university identification, while the remainder of their tuition is waived, regardless of their performance. But the proposed scholarship system would only cover full tuition for students with an average grade of more than 70 percent. Students who don’t perform to this standard would be required to pay partial tuition, while those with less than a 50 percent average would pay full tuition.

The new system aims to shift the mentality of Egyptians, Shawky claims, so they realize that their absolute right to education has to change.
[...]
An average student’s higher education costs the state between LE7,000 and LE10,000 per year, depending on the university and major, according to Shawky. The new system would affect hundreds of thousands of students and calls into question the right to free education, which has been inherent in Egyptian society since it was introduced by former President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1962 — the heyday of socialist policies.
[...]
Shawky says that the money saved under the new system would allow the government to increase spending elsewhere in the budget, such as improving deteriorating educational facilities and programs. But Abdel Hafez Tayel, head of the Egyptian Center for the Right to Education, believes the proposed merit system has political motivations.

The policy was likely drafted to meet recommendations to limit spending on higher education imposed by major lending institutions, Tayel asserts. The World Bank, for example, has urged the Egyptian government since former President Mubarak’s era to reallocate its education budget toward elementary schools and technical prep schools.

“But these policies haven’t led to improving technical education, nor have they yielded better results in elementary education. Less spending on higher education has meant fewer motives for Egyptians to pursue education,” Tayel asserts.

Egypt has already taken significant strides toward slashing its budget on higher education. Critics say the state started to retreat from its direct role in supporting universities in the 1990s, when Law 101/1992 was introduced to legalize private universities. In 2002, another decree was passed to sanction for-profit private universities.

The government subsequently introduced a new system of privatized education within state universities. Students can pay tens of thousands of pounds to join departments that teach in foreign languages, such as French and English, and that are equipped with better resources, but are housed within the public universities. This dual system has made space for wealthier students to have access to better education while poorer students get the standard free education, all on the same campus.
[...]
Morsi was once part of the Strong Egypt student movement, an offshoot of the reformist Strong Egypt political party, but she abandoned university activism given the current crackdown on campus politics. However, if the merit scholarship policy is implemented, she believes rebelling will be the only solution.

“I won’t quit, and I won’t pay the tuition,” she says firmly. “I will protest, and there will be a huge student movement against it.”

As detailed elsewhere in this thread, everything is in place to expel - if not beat the shit out of - students who get cheeky.

Another story from yesterday on grand corruption and censorship:

Al-Watan report on tax evasion by state institutions censored
Wednesday, March 11, 2015 - 14:37

A picture of the banned first page of today’s edition of the privately owned Al-Watan daily newspaper circulated widely on social media, with reports that the paper was sent back from the Al-Ahram printing houses following security orders.

The controversial headline that was held back from print is of an investigative piece on the tax evasion of state institutions. The headline, as posted on social media, reads: “13 sovereign bodies don’t pay their employees’ taxes: the Presidency, the General Intelligence Services, the Interior Ministry and the Defense Ministry are the primary tax evaders and losses have reached LE7.9 billion.”

The headline is followed by, “Al-Watan unveils the catastrophe with documents: Egypt is looking for a penny and the government is squandering millions.”

In the edition that made it to print, this headline is replaced by one on the upcoming Economic Development Conference, which will be held in Sharm el-Sheikh next Friday.

In an interview with Al-Bedaiah website, the CEO of Al-Ahram said that the institution is not responsible for the headline change and that the newspaper is the one who called back the story, in order to change it after negotiations with an official institution.
[...]

[AlicetheKurious]

It's awe-inspiring to witness how the media can be mobilized to spread lie after lie about a designated target such as Egypt. It operates like a popcorn machine spewing malicious distortions, propaganda fictions, random accusations, from multiple directions. When I read the first post on this page, I had all sorts of responses and corrections ready. Then I read the second, and I began mentally planning what I would write, and listing how it distorts reality. Then, by the third, I was starting to calculate the time and energy it would take to address everything that is flat wrong, and figuring I don't have enough of either. By the fourth, I had given up, and even started giggling a bit.

Ok, so time and energy constraints prevent me from spending the next several days addressing each and every one of the lies and distortions presented above. Instead, I will demonstrate what I mean by taking just one out of countless examples of how it's done. The New York Times is a typical example:

Egypt Executes an Islamist Supporter of Ousted President
By KAREEM FAHIMMARCH 7, 2015

CAIRO — Egypt’s government carried out the death penalty for the first time against an Islamist supporter of the ousted President Mohamed Morsi on Saturday, executing a man convicted of murder during the political violence that followed the military takeover of the government in 2013, the Interior Ministry said.

The man, Mahmoud Ramadan, was seen among the attackers in a well-publicized video that showed teenagers being thrown from a rooftop water tower. Egyptian officials said Mr. Ramadan had confessed to murdering one of the teenagers, Mohamed Badr al-Din, and was executed by hanging after he had exhausted all of his appeals.

His lawyers, however, said Mr. Ramadan’s trial was tainted by several irregularities, including an improperly recorded confession and the imprisonment of one of his lawyers. The accusations echo longstanding complaints by human rights advocates about Egypt’s judicial system.

The death penalty has been carried out at least nine times since Egypt’s current president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, took power, mostly related to older criminal cases. Mr. Ramadan’s execution, with its context of political violence, focused attention on the cases of hundreds of Islamists who have been sentenced to death since the takeover — often after trials that relied on partial or nonexistent evidence and disregarded proper legal processes.

In case after case, supporters of Mr. Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader, have been “quickly charged and sentenced,” according to Mohamed Elmessiry, a researcher for Amnesty International. Supporters of the military who participated in violent clashes, as well as members of the security services accused of abuses, are rarely, if ever, arrested. Speaking of the capital cases, Mr. Elmessiry added, “We are of course concerned that these sentences are carried out after grossly unfair trials.”

With a black Islamist flag shoved in his back pocket, Mr. Ramadan appeared in a graphic and widely disseminated video that showed violent clashes in the port city of Alexandria on July 5, 2013, two days after the military arrested Mr. Morsi.

Mr. Ramadan and a group of men are seen on the rooftop of a building, apparently participating in an attack on a smaller group of young men huddled on a water tower. The video shows the attackers throwing at least two of the young men off the tower, about 20 feet onto the roof below.

The prosecution of Islamists has done little to tamp down an insurgency that sprang up in the months after Mr. Morsi’s ouster. Lately, the authorities have struggled to contain a campaign of small but deadly bombings around the country, targeting businesses and restaurants. A soldier and a police officer were killed early Saturday in the Nile Delta city of Mahalla el-Kubra when a bomb exploded outside a bank, injuring at least seven civilians, security officials said.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the bombing, or for at least five other minor explosions in different parts of the country on Friday. Security officials and diplomats have said the attacks appear to be the work of obscure militant groups seeking to hurt the government by targeting Egypt’s business infrastructure.

Merna Thomas contributed reporting. Link

I chose this as an example first, because it's hard to imagine a crime more thoroughly documented than this one. It was caught on video from several different angles. It involved a man who murdered at least two unarmed teenage boys in cold blood. He later shaved off his beard and went into hiding. He was found by police, and his arrest was filmed. He confessed in detail, recounting how he was participating in the violent rampage by the Muslim Brotherhood in August 2013, following the removal of Morsi by popular demand, when he saw some boys ridiculing them. Enraged, he said that he chased them into a nearby building where they had escaped. The boys were fleeing up the stairs toward the roof, and the Muslim Brothers were in pursuit. One of the MB asked him if he had a weapon, and he answered that he had a switch-blade, so they went up to the roof. The boys were terrified, trapped on top of a water-tank, pursued by the men. The Brothers climbed onto the tank and began to throw them off, one by one. He personally threw off a 15-year old boy who was begging him, "No, please, sir, please!" Yet he threw the boy off the building, killing him. Then he climbed back down to the roof, where he saw another boy who had been thrown off the water-tank, and was still alive. He stabbed him several times and, finding him still moaning, beat him on the head with a stick until he was dead.

This was his detailed confession, which videotaped and widely broadcast, and was corroborated by the circumstantial evidence and the testimony of eyewitnesses. In the video confession, he seems very calm, and very rational, and describes what he was feeling at the time. He ends by saying, in a determined voice, that he will demand the death penalty because that is what he wants. The man was not convicted of being a Morsi supporter, nor for being an Islamist, but for the crime of killing at least two children.

The left photo shows what he looked like when he was arrested. On the right, this is how he looked during the crime.



The photo below was taken shortly after he killed the two boys, and had gone back down to the street.



Still, it has taken the better part of two years for him to be tried and sentenced. His lawyers have used up all his appeals, until a final verdict was reached. Finally, he was executed. His is the first execution to take place in Egypt for a crime committed since Morsi was ousted, and of a criminal arrested since Sisi was DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED president (not the sleazy, weaselly "took power").

The context of this crime was not "clashes", but a violent, murderous, terrorist rampage by Morsi supporters against Egyptian civilians, police and army soldiers and officers, as I have demonstrated and documented earlier in this thread.

Amnesty International has been exposed for relying exclusively on Muslim Brotherhood sources, and for disregarding or cavalierly dismissing concrete empirical evidence that contradicts the Brotherhood line. These Muslim Brotherhood sure have friends in high places.

Anyway. That's just one example. I have to go get dinner ready.