delegation meeting DC politicians: a point of view

The event:

The Freedom Initiative, a nonpartisan human rights organization registered in Washington D.C., has organized a two-day conference to discuss the upcoming constitutional amendments and what can be done about human rights abuses committed by the Egyptian regime under General Abdel Fattah El Sisi. It was accompanied by a State Department and Congressional meetings on Day 2, to urge the US to put pressure on the Egyptian regime regarding the betterment of human rights conditions in Egypt.

Among the attendees were the two Egyptian movie mega stars Khaled Abul Naga and Amr Wakid. In addition, satirist Youssef Hussein of the Joe Show was in attendance. The meeting included a combination of liberal secularists, Islamists, Muslim Brotherhood members, Copts and others.

The opening panel included Bahei Eddin Hassan, long time colleague and human rights activist and head of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights; Dahlia Fahmy, associate professor of political science; Amr Darrag, former minister of economics under the Muslim Brotherhood regime; and myself, Marlyn Tadros, human rights activist and associate professor of media arts and communications. At the end of the day there was a live performance of the Joe Show as well as two singers.

On Day 2 a limited delegation visited the State Department to discuss our ‘asks’. Among the members of the delegation were some ordinary Egyptians who had powerful personal testimonials of family members currently incarcerated. The delegation, together with other conference participants, went to Capitol Hill to meet with Congressional members and discuss exerting pressure on Egypt for the release of political prisoners and on putting the brakes on the proposed constitutional amendments which would keep the current regime in power until 2034, among other violations.

The series of meetings ended with a congressional briefing by some of the delegates.

the untimely death of Afrootoo

Jan 5th – There were clashes in Mokattam, Cairo, after a detainee died in police custody. 22 year old Mohamed from Mokattam, otherwise known as Afrootoo, died in police custody the evening he was arrested. The medical examiner’s report stated that he died of torture, from a fractured spleen/liver causing internal abdominal bleeding as a result of a severe blow to the abdomen. El Watan published the examiner’s news and removed it within an hour although the tweet is still there as of the writing of this post. Other papers such as Masrawy and El Fajr also published the report, but Masrawi removed it two hours after publication and replaced it with ‘The Medical Examiner did not yet issue a report”.

why a state of emergency is not the solution

Presidential decree with state of emergency

Not even a week after President Sisi’s ‘successful trip’ to the US in which he met with his biggest fan the new US president, the church bombings occurred. As usual, the Orthodox Church had called on its people in New Jersey and New York to go greet Sisi on the streets with flags as a show of support – which they did.

President Sisi did not make an immediate statement following the Palm Sunday attacks but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued the absurd statement that ‘this is a failed attempt at striking Egypt.’ In addition, the prime minister announced a three-day mourning period. By evening, the president ordered the military to ‘help police’ secure vital infrastructure in the country. The following day, April 10th, at 1pm, the president appeared on TV and declared a state of emergency [martial law]  for three months, contrary to the constitution which stipulates that such a decision must be made after the approval of parliament. He also announced the formation of a ‘high council for combating terrorism.’ He also admonished the media, and made the absurd comment that “the incident happened.. it’s unbelievable that I keep seeing it played over and over on all TV channels!” Included in the declaration is an article that this high council will take control of ‘renewing the religious discourse’ – a demand that he and others had made several times before.

dictators united: turthiness and post-truths

He was an actor of genius. There was no more overwhelming actor on the stage, in the motion pictures, nor even in the pulpit. He would whirl arms, bang tables, glare from mad eyes, vomit Biblical wrath from a gaping mouth; but he would also coo like a nursing mother, beseech like an aching lover, and in between tricks would coldly and almost contemptuously jab his crowds with figures and facts — figures and facts that were inescapable even when, as often happened, they were entirely incorrect.

– SINCLAIR LEWIS, It Can’t Happen Here

The US elections left me shocked and depressed. It was deja vu – a repeat of so many historical errors that were made throughout the world. During the elections the right wing candidate was literally neck-and-neck with Clinton, and there continued to be too much uncertainty until the last moment. As soon as voting started and I saw the results coming in, I turned off the news and went to sleep. It did not bode well. The morning after was still shock and gloom and I do not think I ever saw people on the streets and colleagues looking so stricken. What Sinclair Lewis said in his novel It Can’t Happen Here during the 30s, has just happened here.  The impact, however will be felt for years not only in the United States, but internationally.

clinton emails leak – on syria, regime change & other matters

The Clinton emails published by Wikileaks continue to surprise with its numerous revelations. On July 25, 2012, a significant email entitled Syria, was sent by Jared Cohen of Google’s think-tank to Clinton and others in the State Department. Cohen was a member of the Council on Foreign Affairs and served as a member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff and as a advisor to Condoleezza Rice and later Hillary Clinton, before becoming member of Google’s think-tank Jigsaw, a technology incubator.

Jared Cohen

For two years prior to that email, Google, together with Microsoft and Cisco were trying to open the Syrian market to the internet and its products, stressing freedom from surveillance. Assad seemed to make promises that he would open it. This was shown in other emails. But this particular email sent by Cohen, cable No. C05791561, proves a more active role in the downfall of Assad wit the creation of what Cohen terms a ‘defection tracker’:

Deputy Secretary Burns, Jake, Alec,
Please keep close hold, but my team is planning to launch a tool on Sunday that will publicly track and map the defections in Syria and which parts of the government they are coming from. Our logic behind this is that while many people are tracking the atrocities, nobody is visually representing and mapping the defections, which we believe are important in encouraging more to defect and giving confidence to the opposition. Given how hard it is to get information into Syria right now, we are partnering with Al-Jazeera who will take primary ownership over the tool we have built, track the data, verify it, and broadcast it back into Syria. I’ve attached a few visuals that show what the tool will look like. Please keep this very close hold and let me know if there is anything else you think we need to account for or think about before we launch. We believe this can have an important impact.
Thanks, Jared

The ‘defector tracker’, therefore is a tool that Google has created to map those defecting from his regime and encourage others to do the same.