Who's barbaric now?

When scores of armed forces and Jewish settlers attack the holy mosque as part of a religious celebration (!!), who is acting barbaric? The people defending their mosque or the ones with live ammunition? And when 16 Palestinians are wounded in the attack...what does it tell you about who the terrorists are?

The Man Who Sold the World

And invented other forms of resistance.

علاء الأسواني رئيساً للجمهورية

في الأول فكرت إننا لازم نعمل له تمثال لكن بانكسي علمنا إننا لو عايزين نخلي شخصية تتنسي نعمل لها تمثال في ميدان عام
:)))))))))
عشان كده أنا بقول لعلاء الأسواني رشح نفسك رئيس وارحمنا من اللى احنا فيه
مقال الأسواني الأخير
ماذا أضاف الوهابيون إلى مصر؟

اليوم السابع: التعذيب والاحتجاجات العمالية ومحاكمات الإخوان..ملفات أغفلها تقرير الحكومة حول حقوق الإنسان.
هو المجلس الدولي للحقوق الإنسان ممكن يبلع الهطل ده؟

Translation of Alaa Al-Aswany's article on torture in Egypt

Four videos to entertain Mr. President!

President Hosny Mubarak and Barack Obama met recently in Washington to discuss issues of mutual interest to Egypt and the US. Their discussions were fruitful as they tackled the Iranian nuclear weapons file, the peace process and the situation in Darfur. Both presidents expressed their deep concern about the deterioration of human rights in Iran, the Iranian protestors, forging the elections, torturing innocent Iranian people...and all of the unspeakable crimes committed by the Iranian government. They discussed how the international community and the Egyptian government are doing their best to expose and stop such practices. Finally, Obama felt confident that democratic reform in Egypt is a long and complex process, yet it is ongoing and will not stop, God willing, as Mubarak assured. Obama reiterated his profound appreciation of Mubarak's wisdom, justice and bravery. All of this is anticipated and understood. However, I thought of something else: the journey from Washington to Cairo takes more than ten hours...how is Mubarak going to spend it?
Undoubtedly, Mubarak's airplane is fully equipped. Still. the journey is too long, how is the president going to kill time? Is he going to seize the chance of a comfortable nap, to rest his fatigue-ridden body? Is he going to have a conversation with the editors-in-chief of the local newspapers whom he summons every journey? They will, as usual, compete in praising the president's achievements, momentous decisions and historical leadership. The repeated praises will shure bore him, is he going to enjoy some book on the way? Did he take Mahmoud Samy Al-Baroudy's anthology of poems, since he is his favourite poet? I am not exactly sure what the president prefers to do, so I suggest he watches some good videos. They are not long at all; just short documentaries starring not professional actors, not even amateurs, but ordinary citizens. There is nothing particularly special about them. They are among millions of Egyptians who go through hell just to feed their kids and lead dignified lives. The nominated videos are:

1- The first video...we see a young Egyptian man from Port Said being brutally tortured in a police station. In the first scene, the young man appears to have sustained severe cuts and injuries on his back and torso as a result of beating. He has been hung by the hands. He is pleading the police officer for mercy: "Enough...please...Mr. Mohammad...for the sake of the Prophet...enough...I'm dying...Mr. Mohammad."
In the second scene, he is blindfolded and totally devastated. He is crying and begging for sympathy in half-broken sentences: Mr. Mohammad, please have mercy on me, we are human, not animals.
We do not see officer Mohammad, but we can clearly hear him angrily telling the young man to stop and calling him names. Why does Mr. Mohammad sound angry? It's because the young man is screaming while being tortured...which is of course and offense to Mr. Mohammad. It is inappropriate, so the officer believes, that anyone raises their voice to a police officer, even if he is beating and torturing him.
2- The second video...stars an Egyptian woman in her thrities. She is unveiled and dressed in blue jeans and a black t-shirt. An officer beats her severely everywhere with all his might: on her feet, her arms, her head. She screams until her voice fades. In the following scene, we see her hanging horizontally by her hands and feet on an iron bar. Viewers have stated that this position is used in police stations and state security headquarters and called the 'chicken position'. It causes severe pain and tears the muscles apart. It could also lead to breaking body bones and even snapping the spine. The officer continued beating her using a thick stick until she screams: "Please "Pasha" enough...I'm the one who killed him...I'm the one who killed him..."
We can thus infer that the officer is investigating murder and that using this effective method, he caught the murderer and so justice has been done.
3- The third video...we see a man in his fourties trembling as a police officer is hurling abuse at him, raising his hand and beating the man severely. In the moment the man closes his eyes to brace the slap, the officer stops and gives him the finger. He then breaks into a fit of laughter and roams the room proudly. The officer then gets down to business, approaching the man while smoking a cigarette and using his hands to slap the man repeatedly. When the man reacts by covering his face, the officer calls his mother names, tells him to keep his hands down and continues slapping him.
4- The fourth video...the officer sits behind the camera, so we only see an old thin man over sixty years of age. He appears to be poor and ill-nourished. He is held by a muscular detective and we can hear the officer telling the detective: "Beat him, Abdul Rasoul!"
Abdul Rasoul obeys and starts beating the old man harshly, but the officer, who sounds to be in an elated mood, comments: "Too faint, too faint, Abdul Rasoul! Beat him severely!"
Abdul Rasoul beats the old man with more force, whereas the officer directs him to where he should strike the blows: "Beat the back of his neck, now beat him on the head."
Abdul Rasoul betas the old man to satisfy the officer, still the officer muses: "Too faint, too faint Abdul Rasoul."
Another detective joins in and both detectives start beating the old man savagely, proving to the officer how efficient they are. The old man is extremely weakened that he can no longer raise his hand or scream. He wears an empty look and seems completely lifeless.
Mr. President...
I have selected these videos among many available on Wael Abbas' blog Misr Digital and on many other blogs. All the videos are real, showing horrible acts of torture inflicted upon Egyptians on a daily basis...In many cases te names of the officers and the places where they work are shown in the video. Their faces are also clearly visible and can easily be identified. All of the videos have been recorded via mobile phones and have somehow found their ways to the blogs. They have been recorded by people who happen to witness the massacre. Sometimes the police officer videotapes himself while torturing people, then ciculates the tape among his colleagues, or uses it to humiliate and extort the victim. People usually record videos of happy occasions, such as wedding and graduation ceremonies. But videotaping themselves while torturing people is a bizarre behaviour which psychiatrists might help us understand.
Mr. President...
I am not asking you to intervene to stop the humiliation faced by many Egyptians daily in police stations and state security headquarters...I am not imploring you to investigate in the torture suffered by innocent people at the hands of brutal criminals who represent your regime...no...I am, just like all Egyptians, well-aware of the extent of actions that can be taken in Egypt...I just wanted to suggest some videos to entertain you on your long journey back home...welcome home, Mr. President!

N.B. I was not aware of the translation published in The Independent newspaper, so any similarities in style or choice of words are purely coincidental!

مقال علاء الأسواني في جريدة الشروق

أربعة أفلام لتسلية الرئيس!

تحذير: لا تقرأ هذا المقال إذا كنت انهزامياً وستعود لمدونتي لتقول لي كلام من عينة "مفيش فايدة"

Obama contradicting himself

Perhaps the only difference between Obama and Bush is the first's eloquence and intelligence; intelligence, however, but not fairness or justice in any way.

I believe any discussion of a conflict should begin and end when it comes to human life. Obama has been so kind-hearted as to bring to light the torture and genocide that Jews have faced in the Holocaust and, to reduce us to tears, he spoke in numbers: We have been bereaved by losing 6 million innocent Jews who had been persecuted for many years...three thousand American men women and children who did nothing, nothing, were killed in 9/11.

What about our numbers? Has no one told you that your troops in this war you did not choose (!!) killed more than a million and a half Iraqis? No mention of them? No mention of the children killed in the Haditha killings? No mention of forcing running water into people's mouths and then ruling it out as torture? Has no one told Obama of the young boy whose brain has been dashed out under US rockets and dead body shown on the 20th of March 2003 on AlJazeera? No equality for him? So as I get it, the equality he spoke of for much of the speech applies to Muslims and other minorities in the US and for Copts in Egypt, but not to our children.

No one expects him to be the saviour, and the poeple incessantly cheering and clapping during his speech are basically dumb to think that just because his middle name is Hussein, he will be fair and just. He wants Palestinians to recognise Israel, though he also said that Palestinians have long suffered from occupation! So, according him, Palestine is occupied by a most bloody state, but who cares, the bond between the US and Israel is unbreakable, so you have to be squeezed in between.

Never in his speech did he mention anything about Muslims being victims of unholy wars and monstrous submission on the part of the rest of the world. Only Bosnians and Sudanese people have suffered, but Palestinians are muderers who fire rockets at the poor Israeli people. Palestinians who are killed, tortured, imprisoned, denied a home, denied clean water and food if any at all, should abandon violence. So when Israel fires rockets and bombs at the densely populated Gaza, when one out of four victims of this war is a child, Palestinians are simply expected to abandon violence, fill their mouths with dust, their hands with soil from their children's graves and their bellies with White Phosphorous, just be quite and take it like a man!

Pictures of the lastest Gaza holocaust are available here:
www.tahyyes.org
www.justicenownetwork.blogspot.com

Emirati Emir catches torture virus!

Apparantly, an Emirati Emir found little better in Egypt, and in many of his neighbouring countries (ok. Not 'all') to imitate other than torturing an Afghani trader and crushing him with his car, thankfully or thanklessly, not to his death. Adding insult to injury, the torture rampage was actually caught on tape...doesn't it ring a bell?
I still cannot assimilate torture-I just can't comprehend it. True, I've beaten my little brother when we were young, which in my book could pass as an abuse, but I regretted it so much later and apologised to him. It never made him a better child or a better man, though, all this beating he got from my parents. He turned out reckless and hopeless, he turned out to do stuff that makes you much more tempted to beat him.
I digress; a man can beat up another or get into a fight because of anger, because of seeing red, but really, planned acts of torture are something else. Those people need to be put behind bars or just strangled for the love of God, for the love of justice.
Crime is understandable, not abnormal anymore, but being acquitted or given a light sentence is. We'll see what that Emir will face, and if he is not properly punished, the last grain of respect I have for the UAE government will be squashed.

Ahmadinejad Circus?

We know that in the dirty world of politics, there isn't much to say, weapons always speak louder, so here are simply a few notes on the Ahmadi Nejad furor:

• Israel is a racist state. It specifically targets Arabs whether in Gaza and the West Bank or within Israel. Arab-Israelis are denied proper housing and healthcare. They are denied proper education and are not allowed to study their own history. The Israeli war machine targets Arabs in particular, and has fought six wars against Arabs since it was planted in the Middle East. A recent study showed how Israelis even take up four times the amount of potable water allowed for the Palestinians. Israeli rabbis have repeatedly described Arabs as insects. If this is not racism, I wonder what is.
• Europeans champion freedom of speech. That is why they snubbed Muslim fury at the Prophet Muhammad cartoons, saying we even attack Jesus in our plays and books, so why are Muslims so angry. Now, when the President of Iran, not an amateur cartoonist, states not only his opinion but also a historical fact, the ambassador of Britain in Geneva sees that he has gone too far! So depicting our Prophet as a terrorist, when he wasn't, is freedom of speech, whereas criticising the discriminatory polices of the state of Israel, which is a documented fact, is not?
• All due respect to the victims of the Holocaust. I don't get why Netanyahu linked between the two events; the anniversary of the Holocaust and Nejad's statements. Israel as a Zionist state was the object of his criticism, not Jews per se, and I don't see why any righteous Jew should see his statements a threat!
• It takes courage, nay, it takes absolute power, to speak the truth in this circus of a world. I bow to Ahmadinejad.