From Havana to Cairo
While we're on the subject of crackdowns by authoritarian governments on emailers and bloggers, let me join in on the budding web campaign to Free Alaa. Alaa Abd El-Fatah is a prominent Egyptian blogger who was arrested last weekend by Hosni Mubarak's friendly security forces after he participated in a demo protesting the corrupted national judiciary.
Over at the Belmont Club, Wretchard makes the call to Internet arms. And via Sandmonkey he has some details on Alaa's arrest:
As you may have heard by now, Egyptian Blogger Alaa Abdel Fatah has been arrested alongside 10 others while demonstrating in support of the independence of the Judiciary in Egypt and the release of previous demonstrators who were detained 2 weeks earlier. The Police entrapped them, cordoning off their peaceful protest and then proceeded to handpick the demonstrators that they wanted to detain, beat them, and then arrested them. ... This is by no means a co-incidence. Government agents handpicked people to arrest from amongst the protesters. They have been wanting to get Alaa for a long time now, precisely because he is high profile, and because he helps organizes the protests and spread the information through the blog aggregator he runs (www.manalaa.net).
Now I know some of you check your voter reg card before you decide who you think is or is not worth your solidarity when imprisoned by a dictatorial state. I don't. I've no idea what Alaa's politics are. But I do know the politics of Mubarak's regime and that's good enough for me. No one should ever be locked up anywhere for peacefully standing on a street corner with a placard -- or for sending political information over the Internet.
For some reason unrevealed to me, this campaign seems to be percolating mostly on the right side of the blogosphere. Odd, because I thought Egypt qualified as a bona fide American puppet regime and lefties, then, would be opposed to whatever Mubarak is for.
Anyway, I like Wretchard's idea of using Internet warfare against a bloody regime like that ensconced in Cairo. Seems to me a more useful deployment of bytes and bandwidth than the usual spamming of some poor columnist or pundit who has violated the sensibilties of either half of the 'sphere. So take a moment and follow some of the pointers above to let the Egyptian government hear from you.
P.S. I spent 20 years in Egyptian custody one weekend in 1973 so I have an extra dollop of sympathy for Alaa. I was in Cairo -- as a 22 year old public radio reporter-- covering the Yom Kippur War.
Anwar Sadat was still in power and his regime threw down a heavy blanket of censorship and security over the country. Even after the cease-fire went into effect, movement of people and information was highly restricted. As radio reporters we had to file every report back home through government-controlled links. And our copy had to be pre-approved by what were clearly illiterate censors.
It was a Kafkaesque situation. We also had to clear every interview through the Egyptian Army Press Office. One day I went out on my own to interview a dissident whose name I had been given in New York. As soon as I got back to the Cairo Hilton that afternoon, I was pinched by undercover security agents who had followed me all day long, it turns out. After some negotiations, they let me go in return for watching me destroy the tape recording I had made of the interview. Two nights later, while making the rounds of Cairo in taxi, and though armed with a government-approved "media safe-conduct pass" I was arrested again, this time for curfew violation (war-time curfew was dusk to dawn). I tried to show the uniformed cops who busted me my media pass -- but it seems they couldn't read either. Or were not very interested in doing so. They took me to a small police station which lived right up to the stereotype -- something right out of Midnight Express. I was held there until nearly dawn, until some higher ranking official came in and made sense of my credentials. Profuse apologies, a warm cup of tea and a ride back to the hotel. No damage done -- except the fear that iced over my soul.
The next day I went out with the Egyptian Army for a press tour of the "recaptured Sinai." The convoy drivers got lost and drove us right into the Israeli frontline, not a place you want to be while sitting in an Egyptian Army jeep... but that's another story for another time.
May 11th, 2006 at 3:00 am
“I spent 20 years in Egyptian custody one weekend…”
May want to proof-read your drinking stories, cowboy.
May 11th, 2006 at 6:39 am
My “reg” card check tells me this guy is a liberal - the Egyptian right-wing, like most of our own, wants more anti-secular influence among the judiciary, not more independence and civil liberties. To be honest, I’ve got mixed feelings about Mubarak’s repression of the far-right crazies among the extreme theocrats. Totally taking the lid off of Egyptian society next weekend could quite possibly result in the hegemony of Islamists within a year and Alaa would find himself facing even worse repression. Of course, that’s one reason Mubarak should be supportive of the liberal elements of civil society, rather than treat everything on the horizon in terms of his personal power. Just thought I’d step into the fray and take my licks based on a more realistic assessment of what the reality of secular vs. theocratic politics are in much of the Middle East. Of course, Islamists “hate the Mubaraks for their corruption”, but that doesn’t make them any less of a threat to authentic liberals in those regions. It’s a goddammed mess with no easy answers, simplistic solutions or alliances that don’t border on the reprehensible.
(As for the right-wing blogosphere, they are so intellectually, morally and analytically incompetent that anything they do that rises above Bush-worship, gross disinformation about the reality of Iraq, vile accusations against liberals and “blather wars” over cartoons is a step in the right direction.)
May 11th, 2006 at 6:54 am
Of course, when the swamp critters of the right-wing blogosphere check their “reg” cards, they come up in support of stuff like this here at home:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
May 11th, 2006 at 7:59 am
Marc, your adverntures in Sinai reminded me of something I recently read on a military website:
“I’ve worked with soldiers from probably 40 or so countries. Without a doubt, the Egyptians were the worst. I’ve only worked with Egyptian officers, so maybe regular Egyptian grunts are OK, but the officers were just like you describe. Elitist and lazy, unwilling to perform mere soldier tasks beneath their station. Maybe the roots go deeper to Ottoman times, but they seem to have picked up the worst of the British and Soviet systems. All the class consciousness of British officers with none of the noblesse oblige, and all of rigidity in planning and lack of initiative of Soviet officers.”
May 11th, 2006 at 8:01 am
>“I spent 20 years in Egyptian custody one weekend…â€
>May want to proof-read your drinking stories, cowboy.
You seem to be missing the point, Zed.
May 11th, 2006 at 8:13 am
They sure gave you a bunch of foreign beats right off the bat. I doubt that would happen these days.
May 11th, 2006 at 8:26 am
Marc,
Human Rights Watch is also on the story.
One could make a compelling argument that egypt has been led by one man since the overthrow of Farouk: Nasser, Sadat (who ws called Nasser’s Poodle and Mubarak who was sadat’s protege. All cut from the same oppressive cloth.
May 11th, 2006 at 9:09 am
Times have at least changed a little. I’ve got a buddy who recently spent a few months in Cairo with no troubles, but had one of those 20 year weekends in Syria. His Syrian vacation sounded a lot like your time in Egypt and he wasn’t with any outfit so subversive as public radio.
Reg, preventing free speech of Islamists? I understand your point, but preventing speech is never beneficial in the long run.
May 11th, 2006 at 11:19 am
“They sure gave you a bunch of foreign beats right off the bat. I doubt that would happen these days.”
Some of our best reporters are the young and the brave. Think Jill Carroll.
May 11th, 2006 at 11:20 am
“Reg, preventing free speech of Islamists? I understand your point, but preventing speech is never beneficial in the long run.”
Have to agree. Remember Algeria. The government annulled the Islamic victory and the result was thousands killed in years of bloodshed.
May 11th, 2006 at 11:48 am
I’m still thinking 22-year-olds don’t get those jobs. Carroll is 28.
May 11th, 2006 at 11:51 am
“For some reason unrevealed to me, this campaign seems to be percolating mostly on the right side of the blogosphere.”
What’s not to understand? To most on the hard-right the Arabs are primarily villains (with a few victims like Alaa yearning to be free). To most on the hard-left they’re primarily victims with a few villains, mostly external, who keep them from breathing free. Both views are caricatures and dehumanizing, but it’s pretty clear why the right sounds off more in this case. Which is not to excuse the left from doing likewise.
May 11th, 2006 at 11:53 am
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/73D0E080-B6DB-4D0C-BB63-4BD64E433A78.htm
“Egyptian police briefly detained six journalists covering a protest on Thursday in support of judges who are facing a disciplinary committee for criticising election abuses.
Plainclothes police officers dragged away cameramen from news organisations, including Reuters and Al Jazeera television, and confiscated their cameras.
Two of the Al Jazeera team were beaten - Yasir Suleiman, a cameraman, and Nasri Yousif, a soundman.”
May 11th, 2006 at 2:30 pm
Praktike, at American Footprints, has been covering this issue (not just Alaa, but the wider resistance to the Mubarak dictatorship)for a while, and is in Egypt now.
May 11th, 2006 at 2:37 pm
marc -
I know it belongs to a now-dead thread but I thought you might appreciate Michael Tomaskey’s take on Nacy Pelosi and her Russert appearance
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=11474
May 11th, 2006 at 5:58 pm
reg, you are a certified dip s**t. I’ve had a Free Alaa post up a full day before Marc did and so have any number of my conservative blogger friends. Stick your oppobrium up your a**.
May 11th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
Ah yes wisdom from the beyond…
May 11th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
Roper…I have no idea what your point is in that ad hominem response - other than to confirm that even stopped clocks are right twice a day.
May 11th, 2006 at 7:45 pm
Mavis & Michael…I said I’m conflicted, not that I think Mubarak’s repression is good policy over the long term. On the matter of Pakistan, I’m less conflicted and, frankly, more concerned that the pro-bin Laden elements be held in check. And, of course, I’m reacting out of impressions, not expertise. I’m willing to contextualize my opinions with an admission of relative ignorance - as opposed to some of those who show up here and wallow shamelessly in theirs and expect to be taken seriously.
May 11th, 2006 at 7:50 pm
Oh…Roper…any comment on the NSA story? Or are you still jerking off over the Danish cartoons ?
May 11th, 2006 at 7:55 pm
From Havana to Cairo…to Tehran.
(Courtesy of Juan Cole)
http://tinyurl.com/q3×7m
May 11th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
Certified Dipshit Alert !
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2006/05/11/bushs-approval-ratings/
May 11th, 2006 at 11:30 pm
reg Says:
“My “reg†card check tells me this guy is a liberal - the Egyptian right-wing, like most of our own, wants more anti-secular influence among the judiciary, not more independence and civil liberties.”
Awesome post! How do I get my own psuedonymousness “card check” so that I can pronounce from on high, straight out of my butt, while preserving my anonymity (because, after all, I’m a rich American psuedo-radical coward who needs to hide behind a psuedonym) even as I impugn the motives and understanding of a brave Egyptian man who is sitting in jail for posting under his own name.
Let’s keep it straight: Reg has consulted his “reg” “card” “check” and has concluded that liberals in Egypt are stooges for the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Queda, presumably because “liberals” of any stripe are insufficiently reg-like.
So let’s keep it reg-like. Going to jail for posting in Egypt under your own name is liberal and thus reactionary. Posting anonymously from America is really, really progressive, revolutionary, or what have you.
Reg, whoever you are, hiding behind either your psuedonym or your partial name. Do you have any sense of shame? Do you have any sense of human decency?
May 12th, 2006 at 4:54 am
reg: “the Egyptian right-wing, like most of our own, wants more anti-secular influence among the judiciary, not more independence and civil liberties.”
me: “reg, you are a certified dip s**t. I’ve had a Free Alaa post up a full day before Marc did and so have any number of my conservative blogger friends. Stick your oppobrium up your a**.”
reg, you are not only a “certified dip s**t” you are an idiot who can’t put two and two together. Are YOU still masturbating over Abu Ghraib photos? Jerk!
May 12th, 2006 at 4:57 am
reg: “Certified Dipshit Alert !
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2006/05/11/bushs-approval-ratings/”
I think this is called a non sequitur but, then, reg is famous for that.
May 12th, 2006 at 5:07 am
reg: I have no idea what your point is in that ad hominem response”
That is because dear reg you don’t understand anything at all beyond your pointy little head. Conservatives, such as myself, are often absolutists when it comes to free speech and believe that it should be available world wide. We believe that you have the right to say anything you want to say (and boy do you ever exercise that right… ad hominem indeed - pot and kettle and all that) which includes political speech as say perhaps contributions to political parties and candidates. Your position on McCain-Feingold? Oh, I’m sure it is to support M-F because rich cats shouldn’t have the same free speech rights that you do. Gotta limit them. Hmmm, just like you think you should limit the speech of Alaa because it “might” help the Muslim Brotherhood somewhere down the line. Well, got news for you buddy, you are flat out wrong. Freedom expands when ever it is given the chance.
Oh, and Jake Elmore, how come you aren’t posting in your Mark York disguise?
May 12th, 2006 at 6:03 am
Your comrades on the right hate a secular, independent judiciary. That’s a fact. Contempt for liberal judges who is an article of faith for the far right. You don’t even know what planet you live on, but of course you love what former GOP strategist Kevin Phillips, an authentic conservative, as opposed to Bushite, reactionary asshole, has dubbed the American theocracy. You’re knee deep in this shit - and pushing a party so beholden to crackpot fundamentalists that no member can run for national office without making a pilgrmage to their Holy Shrines - so you can take your own “opprobrium” and put it back where it generally comes from.
Anything comment from your corner on the NSA ? Of course not. My point was, of course, that you clowns praise Bush lavishly every time he pisses on the Constitution. And, of course, your equation of the import of the Abu Ghraib photos with a bunch of cartoons from Denmark proves my point.
May 12th, 2006 at 6:08 am
“Cerified Dipshit Alert” = “Bush dips into the 20s” (link headline)
That’s may be a redundancy, but it’s hardly a non sequiter.
May 12th, 2006 at 6:11 am
Also, your version of the link is screwed up by addition of a quote mark.
May 12th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
reg: “That’s [sic] may be a redundancy,…”
non sequitur: A statement that does not follow logically from what preceded it. …
Moving from a Discussion of Alaa and conservative commentingon that to bush’s approval rating qualifies in spades as a non sequitur.
regattempts (reg + attempts) to reframe the conversation fails again.
May 12th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
Yawn….
May 12th, 2006 at 6:41 pm
“non sequitur: A statement that does not follow logically from what preceded it. …”
What preceded my “Certified Dipstick Alert” was some asshole calling me a “certifed dipstick”. I guess you missed that…
May 13th, 2006 at 1:02 am
Reg,
What a shameful, preening, loggorhiac, narcassistic, partisan, ideological ass you are. This is a post about a man who has gone to jail for for writing posts far less inflammatory than the ones you fart on this blog, every 5 to 10 minutes. You can’t even be bothered to defend him and the principle of free speech before you start adducing articles from USA Today about low Bush approval ratings.
As though the choice is between you and W!. As though an intramural American political battle proves anything about Egypt!
G. M. Roper is absolutely correct. Free speech is non-negotiable. Free speech is is an absolute value.
Reg, you have probably cut the widest swath of ad hominem in the history of the blogosphere. Listening to you object to ad hominem as a tactic deployed against You, even as you continue to cower behind your psuedonym, is a priceless joke.
Meanwhile, let’s not forget what this post is about.
Alaa Abd El-Fatah is in jail for the crime of speaking his mind.
One either supports the right of anyone, anywhere, anytime, to speak his or her mind or one does not. Reg, you shit-heel, you don’t.
May 13th, 2006 at 7:49 am
Ah yes…the fellow who can spot preening, ad hominem, shameful, ideological shitheels shows up with some more wisdom. Could you post a third spot of vomit, Mr Stott. I’m so goddammed narcissistic, I crave the attention from you…and since I’m a shit-heel, I need the opportunity to dip my heel in the shit you spew.
May 13th, 2006 at 7:57 am
Somehow the link I posted above to the case of the scholar arrested in Tehran got changed. Here it is again. (No comment on this from the two outraged sleazebags who found it more urgent to call me names.)
http://tinyurl.com/q3×7m
May 13th, 2006 at 8:01 am
This is bizarre. This link posts to an article about Ramin Jahanbegloo, who was imprisoned in Tehran for criticizing the Iranian government, but when I post it here - rather than access it directly - it comes up as some Amazon page.
Here’s the original:
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=7356c7db-2933-46ba-bd82-dd0d9f3ec6de&k=82106
May 13th, 2006 at 9:39 pm
“Reg,”
(TM, I am a coward, who hides behind a psuedonym says):
“Ah yes…the fellow who can spot preening, ad hominem, shameful, ideological shitheels shows up with some more wisdom. Could you post a third spot of vomit, Mr Stott. I’m so goddammed narcissistic, I crave the attention from you…and since I’m a shit-heel, I need the opportunity to dip my heel in the shit you spew.”
“Reg,”:
(TM, I am a coward, who spews his invective, ad hominem and non-arguments behind a psuedonym):
Congratulations on not having ADD. You have accurately recorded most though not all of my ad hominem against “Reg.” .
“Reg,”:
Will you now make the argument that you have made an argument?
Anyone who is coming late to this sad brouhaha, please note that the above quote from “Reg” (TM, I am a coward, who depends upon complete anonymity to spew my venomous non-arguments) is “Reg’s” complete and entire answer to my two posts, in which I argue that Alaa Abd El-Fatah is ten million times the man “Reg” is.
Let’s compare and contrast:
Alaa Abd El-Fatah is an Egytiptian who sits in an Egyptian jail for speaking his mind. “Reg” is the psuedonym of an American coward and crazed ideolouge who has posted at least 15 times on this blog and thread, without once expressing solidarity with Alaa Abd El-Fatah.
My name is Samuel Travis Stott. I live at 943 North Ashland Avenue, Chicago, IL. I don’t know what Alaa Abd El-Fatah’s politics is and I don’t care. I unreservedly support the right of any fellow human being to say whatever they will, absent incitement to violence.
“Reg,” you lying coward, you are a disgrace to the human race.
May 14th, 2006 at 12:28 pm
That was another pearl.
May 14th, 2006 at 12:42 pm
Incidentally, regarding the demand for a response to the “argument that Alaa Abd El-Fatah is ten million times the man” that I am, my position is that he is merely several hundred times the man that I am, more than likely fifteen million times the man (if he is a man) “Samuel Stott” is, that he’s perhaps twice the man that Ramin Jahanbegloo is and that Ramin Jahanbegloo would, therefore - do the math - be about 7.5 million times the man that “Stott” appears to be from his hysterical internet raves.
I know it’s bad practice to respond to the feeble-minded and/or deranged in these threads, but I think this guy needs a rest. Maybe now he’ll go take the meds and lie down. I may be a prick, but there is an ounce of mercy in me.
May 15th, 2006 at 12:22 am
Actually, “Reg,”
To summarize, for the third time, you are a coward who employs a psuedonym exactly because your complete stock in trade is ad hominem. You have no discernable principles.
This thread, once again, is about whether Alaa Abd El-Fatah is entitled to enjoy the same rights you demand for yourself. ( the Only difference being, between your two cases, is that you are a rich American coward who hides behind a psuedonym, wheras Alaa Abd El-Fatah is a brave Egyptitian who sits in jail for blogging under his own name.)
You are already on record, within this thread, as saying that you are diffident about free speech rights for Egyptians; you want to know who they are and what side they are on.
Have I missed anything? Feel free to make sense. Feel free to make an argument.
May 15th, 2006 at 6:12 am
There is nothing ad hominem on this thread written by anyone that even begins to match your spew… Not even Roper’s rather pathetic reaction.
You’ve exposed yourself as a disturbed individual.
May 15th, 2006 at 10:54 pm
For the Fourth time “Reg,”
The subject of this thread is Alaa Abd El-Fatah. One either supports Mr. Alaa Abd El-Fatah’s right to speech or one does not. One either supports the right to free speech or one does not.
On numerous occasions (deny this charge, and I will quote you chapter and verse) I have endured your personal insults, abjuring reply in kind. Now that I reply in kind, you charge me with spewing more ad hominem than you have, as though — what?– you object to ad hominem as a tactic, a strategy, a practice?
Is there an threshold of ad hominem you consider beyond the pale, or do you reserve to your anonymous self, exclusively, the right to impugn the intelligence, integrity and motivations of interlocutors with whom you happen to disagree?
I await your grand synthesis. Tie all of this up in a bow and explain why you have the right to personally insult people even as Mr. Alaa Abd El-Fatah lacks the right to offer broad, civilized commentary on politics within his own country.
For the fourth time, “Reg,” fell free to make an argument. Feel free to make sense.
May 16th, 2006 at 7:23 am
“For the fourth time…blah…blah”
My first comment: “Mubarak should be supportive of the liberal elements of civil society, rather than treat everything on the horizon in terms of his personal power.”
I made a plain statement obviously in defense of Alaa’s rights - but in the context of acknowledging a fairly complex political situation in many Middle Eastern countries. If you don’t think the politics and pragmatics of democratizing, say, Pakistan are daunting and defy glib blogosphere one-liners, you’re even dumber than your asinine posts.
May 16th, 2006 at 1:53 pm
Check out this introduction article on Cairo :
http://www.articleworld.org/cairo
Content :
1 Geography
2 Districts
3 Infrastructure
4 Famous Cairenes
May 16th, 2006 at 11:28 pm
Wow “Reg,”
Congratulations, your last post contains like 90 per cent substantive comment over ad hominem and vituperation. Good work!
Try to remember, “Reg,” the world is not about you, anymore than the world is about your bizarre fixation upon the evil of W, American Republicans, American conservatives and those of us American liberals who have — (temporarily, one hopes,) — abandoned the Democratic Party in despair of the fact that stalwarts of the party such as yourself treat Islamic radicalism (in non-pc terms, “Islamo-facism”) as a problem incidental to the lack of their pleasure at the outcome of US elections.
You might also consider the possibility, “Reg,” that you are not particularly intelligent and mean to the bone. You are this blog’s cheap shot artist par excellance. You spew ad hominem like a geyser. You will either cut it out or you won’t.
Not suprisingly, “Reg,” I don’t agree with you about blogging in Egypt. I remain a free speech absolutist. I say that we should promote and support free speech and democracy, anywhere and everywhere, without reserve or qualification, and then deal with the results. Better to have, for instance, an avowed enemy like Hamas over a crypto-enemy-friend like Fatah.
Adios, Reg. Good luck to you.
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