Tag: egypt

Democracy Now! Reports Live from Downtown Cairo:

Reporting that “Violent clashes continue in Egypt. The most recent reports out of Cairo show that seven demonstrators have been killed and more than a thousand injured. Many of the pro-Mubarak agitators have been shown to be undercover security forces. In Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the uprising, thousands of Egyptians remain peaceful and defiant. We get a live report from Democracy Now! senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who is on a rooftop near the 6th October Bridge, and from Mona El Seif, an activist who has remained in Tahrir Square since yesterday.“, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez of DemocracyNow.org talk today by telephone with Democracy Now! Senior Producer reporting from Cairo Sharif Abdel Kouddous, and with Egyptian pro-democracy activist Mona El Seif, live from Cairo, Egypt, who describe violent attacks on “a couple of hundred thousand” peaceful protesters in Tahrir Square by Mubarak faction thugs on camels and on horses, using knives and guns.

Amy also talks with “Sandmonkey” – Egypt’s most well known English-language blogger – who calls downtown Cairo a “war zone”, and who said in his last blog post:

The End is near. I have no illusions about this regime or its leader, and how he will pluck us and hunt us down one by one till we are over and done with and 8 months from now will pay people to stage fake protests urging him not to leave power, and he will stay “because he has to acquiesce to the voice of the people”. This is a losing battle and they have all the weapons, but we will continue fighting until we can’t.

This is a Live Blog and will be updated as the news is available. You can follow the latest reports from AL Jazeera English and though Mishima’s live blog, our news editor.

The Guardian has a Live Blog that refreshes automatically every minute.

Al Jazeera has a Live Blog for Feb 3

As you can see we now have the live feed from Al Jazeera English and I am posting this at early so everyone can watch the events in Egypt as they happen.

Violence erupted yesterday in Cairo and continued through the night on the ninth day of anti-government protests. There are reports of five deaths and countless injuries, some burned by thrown molotov cocktails. The Egyptian army has mostly stood by watching doing little to stop the violence that was begun by the pro-Mubarak supporters. The anti-government protesters stood strong against the “thugs” as they were labeled by most of the news media. They formed a line of protection around the Egyptian Antiquities Museum using sheet metal shields to push back the mob that was intent on getting inside to do more damage.

Sharif Kouddous: Live From Egypt: The True Face of the Mubarak Regime

February 2, Cairo, Egypt-The Mubarak regime launched a brutal and coordinated campaign of violence today to take back the streets of Cairo from Egypt’s mass pro-democracy movement.

Pro-Mubarak mobs began gathering near Tahrir Square shortly after Mubarak’s speech on Tuesday night and held a rally in front of the state TV building on Corniche El Nile Street. In the morning, they began marching around the downtown area in packs of fifty to 100.

These were not the same kinds of protesters that have occupied Tahrir for the last few days. These crowds were made up mostly of men, in between 20 and 45 years old. Many wore thick leather jackets with sweaters underneath. They chanted angrily in support of Mubarak and against the pro-democracy movement. They were hostile and intimidating.

AP:

In a bid to pre-empt popular uprisings from far-flung regions of the imploding empire over which he presides, President Barack Obama has fired his entire cabinet and promised not to run again for President in 2012.  

Srsly!

In reality, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning President Care Bear has decided to test the Ghandi-an peace dividends of Egyptian blood-letting, in order to, as usual, preserve the status quo.  Gomer Pyle was reported as saying, “Surprise, surprise, surprise!”  I suppose Cairo is the New Gaza Annex.

Fuck the U.S., Israeli, and Egyptian governments.  May they get in their asses what they give.  God bless the inevitability of history, and amen.

In related news, today’s quote of the day comes from monsieur IOZ:

Growing up Is Hard to Do

Obviously, Islam needs to make its peace with modernity and democracy.

-Robert Kagan, quoted by Maureen Dowd

This is a standard variant on a common observation in the West, that Islam is effectively unmodern, that it is mired in a sort of pre-Reformation dark age, as opposed to what used to be called Christendom, which through religious reformation paved the way for modern nations and Enlightenment and democracy and all that. Leaving aside the weirdness of this characterization of Islam, as a normative history of the Christian West, it is totally crackpot, an attention-deficient skipping stone leaping from the Henry’s first divorce to the Peace of Westphalia to Jean Monet and leaving out everything else in between. In this history, the wars of religion never occurred, there was no Terror, no Napoleon, no Somme, and no Holocaust. The modern western mind is mostly notable in civilizational history for its colossal contribution of violence and destruction. I mean, I guess it’s true that the occasional stoning-to-death of an adulterer is indicative of a somewhat atavistic mind, but by that light, the principal characteristic of modernity is its commitment to the slaughter of millions through the advent of mechanized warfare. Wait, oh, uh, whut? Hang on guys, there’s a transmission coming through. It’s a little fuzzy. You say . . . you say that is the principal characteristic of modernity. Oh, shit. Europe “made peace with democracy” by slaughtering two generations its youth.

“People here are not afraid anymore – and it just may be that a woman helped break that barrier of fear”, writes Mona El-Naggar in her February 01 NYT article Equal Rights Takes to the Barricades: “Asmaa Mahfouz was celebrating her 26th birthday on Tuesday among tens of thousands of Egyptians as they took to the streets, parting with old fears in a bid to end President Hosni Mubarak’s three decades of authoritarian, single-party rule.”

“As long as you say there is no hope, then there will be no hope, but if you go down and take a stance, then there will be hope”, Ms. Mahfouz said bluntly in an impassioned video posted on YouTube January 18. She spoke straight to the camera and held a sign saying she would go out and protest to try to bring down Mr. Mubarak’s regime, noted El-Naggar.

Asmaa “is a member of the April 6 Youth Movement, which has been using the Internet to organize protests against Egypt’s authoritarian government since 2008. As protests against President Mubarak continued to grow, the group called Monday for a ‘march of millions’ and an indefinite general strike. The next day, Mubarak announced he would not seek reelection at the end of his term in September.”, writes Eric Dolan at RawStory Feb 02, who also notes that “Mahfouz made the video after four Egyptian men set themselves on fire. The men were apparently inspired by the example of Tunisia, where a self-immolation triggered protests that eventually led to the ouster of the nation’s president.”

Although Asmaa spoke in her native Egyptian language in her video, an English subtitled version was later posted to YouTube Feb. 02, 2011 by Iyad El-Baghdadi, subbed by Ammara Alavi:

In Cairo, Egypt today hundreds if not thousands of thugs suspected to be on the payroll of either the police or Egypt’s internal security, on behalf of the embattled Hosni Mubarek, in some form or another attacked peaceful protesters in Tahrir Square and other parts of Cairo.

Paul Jay of The Real News Networks talks here with Khaled Fahmy, professor and chair of American University in Cairo’s Department of History about the unfolding events in Cairo and plans for more massive anti-Mubarek demonstrations  this Friday. Fahmy describes in graphic detail the current events on the street in Cairo, as he marched with the protesters.

“A revolution is coming – a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough – but a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its inevitability.” — Robert F. Kennedy

CLASHES HAVE BROKEN OUT BETWEEN PRO AND ANTI GOVERNMENT FORCES IN TAHRIR SAQUARE

This is a Live Blog and will be updated as the news is available. You can follow the latest reports from AL Jazeera English and though Mishima’s live blog, our news editor.

The Guardian has a Live Blog that refreshes automatically every minute.

Al Jazeera has a Live Blog for Feb 2

As you can see we now have the live feed from Al Jazeera English and I am posting this at very early so everyone can watch the events in Egypt as they happen.

This is day eight of the protest in Egypt demanding that President Hosni Mubarak step down. Late last night on Egyptian state television, Mubarak said that he would not run for reelection on September but would not step down. His tone and words at times were aggressive and confrontational condemning the demonstrators, echoing the speech given by former Tunisian President Zine el Abidine ben Ali the day before he fled by private jet to Saudi Arabia.

President Obama said he spoke to Hosni Mubarak after the Egyptian president’s announcement to serve out his remaining term, and told Mubarak an orderly transition of power in Egypt ‘must begin now’.While the meaning of the last phrase was deliberately vague, it appeared to be a signal that Mr. Mubarak might not be able to delay the shift to a new leadership.

Mubarak’s speech did little to quell the demands for his immediate departure. The opposition leaders have vowed to keep up the protests and said they would get bigger until Mubarak is gone. Angry Chants of “Erhal! Erhal!”, or “Leave! Leave!” could be heard and scenes of protesters waving their shoes and using them to beat pictures of Mubarak were common.

Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is a Live Blog and will be updated as the news is available. You can follow the latest reports from AL Jazeera English and though Mishima’s live blog, our news editor.

The Guardian has a Live Blog that refreshes automatically every minute.

FireDogLake now has a direct link to all their coverage.

This is day eight of the protest in Egypt demanding that President Hosni Mubarak step down.

After a day of protest that drew more than a million peaceful demonstrators to Tahrir Square in Cairo and around other cities in Egypt, there are still tens of thousands of protesters in the streets, many having vowed to remain until Pres. Hosni Mubarak leaves office. News agencies are reporting that Mubarak will make a televised address possibly announcing that he will not run for office in September. Whether that will satisfy the protesters and the opposition parties is in doubt. President Obama is also urging Mubarak not to run:

The message was conveyed to Mr. Mubarak by Frank G. Wisner, a seasoned former diplomat with deep ties to Egypt, these officials said. Mr. Wisner’s message, they said, was not a blunt demand for Mr. Mubarak to step aside now, but firm counsel that he should make way for a reform process that would culminate in free and fair elections in September to elect a new Egyptian leader.

This back channel message, authorized directly by Mr. Obama, would appear to tip the administration beyond the delicate balancing act it has performed in the last week – resisting calls for Mr. Mubarak to step down, even as it has called for an “orderly transition” to a more politically open Egypt.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is a Live Blog and will be updated as the news is available. You can follow the latest reports from AL Jazeera English and though Mishima’s live blog, our news editor.

The Guardian has a Live Blog that refreshes automatically every minute.

FireDogLake now has a direct link to all their coverage

This is the seventh day of protests in Egypt against the repressive Mubarak government. The police have returned to the streets after having been absent for three days leaving only a military presence that did little to stop the protesters.

Excellent interview from Fareed Zakaria GPS. Fareed’s entire program on CNN was devoted to the situation in Egypt.

(I will post the transcript as soon as it is available)

It’s now late evening, in Egypt. Al Jazeera’s live blog reports that many protesters slept in the streets and in Tahrir Square, some shared their food with the soldiers.

This first hand account by Sharif Kouddous, a journalist and senior producer with Democracy Now! who lives in Egypt, was posted at The Nation and Democracy Now!:

Live From Egypt: The Rebellion Grows Stronger

January 30, Cairo, Egypt-In the second day of defiance of a military curfew, more than 150,000 protesters packed into Tahrir Square Sunday to call on President Hosni Mubarak to step down. The mood was celebratory and victorious. For most, it was not a question of if, but when, Mubarak would leave.

Military tanks have been stationed at entrance points around the square with soldiers forming barricades across streets and alleyways. In another departure from ordinary Cairo life, people quickly formed orderly queues to get through the army checkpoints. Soldiers frisked people and checked their identification cards. One soldier said they were making sure no one with police or state security credentials could enter.

Reports are widespread that many of the looters in Cairo are, in fact, remnants of the police and state security forces that were forced into a full retreat during Friday’s mass street revolt. In addition, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of prisoners were released from prisons in Fayyoum and Tora. Many believe it’s all part of an organized campaign by the regime to create lawlessness in the city in a last gasp attempt to maintain its grip on power. The headline of Al-Masry Al-Youm today blared: “Conspiracy by Interior Ministry to Foment Chaos.”

Just when you need a laugh category: Somebody at Fox News failed Geography.