Free Alaa! - Update Alaa released

UPDATE: Alaa has been released and is on his way home.

One is always very ambivalent about this,one is of course happy, but also extremely frustrated, it shouldn´t be happening in the first place... Welcome home Alaa!

Epilogue

This is Alaa´s own words on what happend at Cairo airport, hopefully the end of the story.

Original post - Free Alaa!

Alaa Seif of manalaa.net , blogger extraordinaire and one of the kindest people around in the blogosphere has been detained at cairo Airport, upon arrival from his current home in South Africa.

"Blogger Alaa seif was detained at the airport, & is being transferred to a police station, on charges of evading a sentence over a bad check" (Sandmonkey)

The latest is that he´s still being held at the airport, and not yet transfered to a police station.

Alaa tweeted upon arrival at Cairo Airport and you can follow those tweets, and hopefully he´s tweeting upon release... here

Of course this is not the first time for Alaa to have to deal with this nonsense, the banner used in this blog post, is recycled, it was first used in a campaign to release Alaa and a group of 47 other activists in the early summer of 2006, then he was released after 45 days in Tora prison.

Alaa & Manal and many other bloggers and Human Rights organizations was involved in a marathon case feauturing judge Abdel Fattah Mourad,were the judge tried to block 50 websites after he had been caught with plaugerism of one of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) publications. A case that was more kafkaesque than any other case involving bloggers, perhaps apart from Kareem´s four year prison sentence, and ANHRI opens up for the possibility that this current case might be related to that in some way. If that´s the case i´m not the least surprised.

Here´s an old profile on Youth for Change in the form of an interview with Alaa and Manal.

Free Alaa!

Wael Abbas on BBC´s Hardtalk

The Egyptan blogger Wael Abbas was interviewed by Zeinab Badawi on BBC´s flagship show Hardtalk , for those who wants to see the full 23 minutes interview, it can be found here.

Threatened Voices

One of the core issues on Fustat during it´s 50 something months has been Egyptian bloggers, their rights and violations against them. During the same period, Global Voices among many others has been a true friend of the Egyptian bloggers,taking over the torch from the Committee to Protect Bloggers if i remember correctly, in trying to track and provide help in form of a platform, being one of the hubs in fighting censorship, protect the written word online, and those bloggers/online journalists whom constitutes 45 per cent of all media workers in prison worldwide.

Those of you who follow my twitter account, might have noticed that my interest for free speech online, and bloggers rights is stretched around the globe, and not only to Egypt and the Arab World, so it will really be interesting to follow the new Global Voices advocacy project that is being launched today - Threatened Voices - described on it´s website as:

A collaborative mapping project to build a database of bloggers who have been threatened, arrested or killed for speaking out online and to draw attention to the campaigns to free them.

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I´m looking forward to follow how this progress, and want to wish Sami Ben Gharbia and all at Global Voices involved in this ,as well as their network of partners the very best of luck!

This will be cross posted at Diwan of Democracy.

Muhammed Adel ordered released

Word is out that Egyptian blogger and journalist for the English website of the Muslim Brotherhood, Muhammed Adel is to - or rather has been ordered released by the State Security Prosecuction.

He was originally arrested on November 20th, and held in incommunicado , his house searched without a warrant the day after, in what now seems to be a pattern, when dealing with the activists in the opposition movement in solidarity with Gaza. Both Philip Rizk and Diaa Eddin Gad has been subject to the same treatment.

Mabrouk!

More on this later.

UPDATE: Muhammed Adel was released today, Tuesday March 10th.

Gouwa al Shabaka at the Press Syndicate tonight

The documentary film about bloggers and freedom of expression on the internet in Egypt, Gouwa al Shabaka is screened at the Press Syndicate at 6:30 P.M this evening(Feb 12th). For those of you who haven´t seen it yet, i strongly recommend it.

It was first shown at the Human Rights film festival in Cairo last November, and you can read more about the 18 minutes film in my blog post on the festival,where you can also view Gouwa al Shabaka.

Tamer Mabrouk arrested, trial postponed until Oct 13th

According to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information(AHNRI), Tamer Mabrouk was arrested on the 17th of July by police in Port Said. Mabrouk is currently involved in a libel lawsuit by the Trust company in Port Said, a company that he has dealt with extensively in his blog, al Haqeqa and done some really good investigative citizen journalism on workers rights and environmental impacts and responsebilities of the factory on the water nearby, and how it effects the fish in the lake.


UPDATE: 22 July : The trial has been postponed to October 13th in order to provide documentation substantiating Tamer Mabrouk´s ownership of the blog Haqeqa Masriyya at the request of the lawyers of Trust Chemicals, something Tamer Mabrouk has already claimed ownership of. This is seen by Mabrouk´s defense team as a way of prolonging delaying the trial.

Wael Abbas recieves the Hellman-Hamlett Award

The Egyptian blogger/journalist Wael Abbas has recieved the Hellman-Hamlett Award from the Human Rights Watch. Here some more information on the award(no press release yet on the current award winner).

1000 Mabrouk ya Wael!

al Jazeera focus on bloggers and Egypt

On wednesday night al Jazeera broadcasted a documentary on bloggers in the Arab World, most of it focused on Egypt, but also on Iraq and Morocco.

Interviews with Nora Younis, Wael Abbas and Hossam al Hamalawy as well as Karim al Beheiri and Khadija Hassan Malek , Karim of course is currently in the Burg al Arab prison after what took place in Mahalla on April 6-7th. Khadija´s father has just been handed a seven-year prison sentence in a military court, were 25 Muslim Brothers got prison sentencences between 2-10 years. Khadija together with the other children of the 40 tried Muslim Brothers created the blog Ensaá to tell the world about the case and the ordeal the families of the detainees, and first and foremost to say that ¨we won´t forget¨

Bouthayna Kamel from Shayfeen.com is also being interviewed, and clips from Shayfeen.com and the very good documentary about the organization is shown in the documentary.

Last but certainly not least, the person who showed so much courage to come forward with his story about how he was tortured inside a police station, Imad al Kabir is also interviewed.

It´s very much a story of how the Egyptian blogosphere has matured and developed during the last three years from 25th of May 2005 to Mahalla and beyond, going from blogging alone to playing a significant role in society as an alternative news provider, giving perspective from a vide spectrum on important issues in society and as proven in cases like the mass assaults on girls in downtown Cairo, Emad al Kabir and Mahalla it has grown to citizen journalism.

al Jazeera English has another documentary on Egypt tonight, Saturday at 19:00 GMT, and re- runs on Sunday 0000, 0500 and 1000GMT, it´s called a Nation in Waiting and takes a look on the major events during President Mubarak´s 26 years and seven months in power, which is almost a third of his life, he is also the longest serving head of state since the father of Modern Egypt ruled between 1805-1848. The President celebrates his 80 birthday tomorrow, presumably in Sharm al Sheikh.

I will post it here as soon as it comes available on the net.

Fouad al Farhan is released

The Saudi blogger Fouad al Farhan has been released, and is now at his home, according to a message that was sent to members of the Free Fouad facebook group:

Fouad Al-Farhan is free now after released from jail and he is at home with his family. Here is his friend and prominent Saudi blogger, Saudi jeans reaction to the news.

تم اليوم إطلاق سراح فؤاد الفرحان وهو الآن في بيته مع أهله

Fouad was arrested on December 10th and his been in custody for 138 days. Hecalled his time in custody ¨a unique experience and stated that he would return to blogging soon in a telephone interview with the Washington Post following his release.

Overall it´s been quite a good week for bloggers in the Arab World this week, in Egypt, Muhammed al Sharqawi was released from al Marg prison, although before he was released he was questioned in another case regarding his publishisng house Malameh , and the publication of the graphic novel, Metro, written by Magdi al Shafi.
Nadia Mabrouk and Esra Abd al Fattah was also released from al Qanater´s women´s prison. In Esra´s case after she had been ordered released, something totaly ignored by the interior ministry , whom stopped the release and issued orders for her to remain in jail according to the Emergency laws. Only after her mother pleaded to President Hosni Mubarak, the First Lady and Minister of Interior Habib al Adly in the press ,she was released.

In a related matter, Cairo University student Bilal Diab was held by the university security for some hours, after he asked Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif to release Esra and the other¨internet-activists¨ of April 6th, while Nazif was holding a speech at the University. You can watch an interview with Bilal made by Mona al Shazly on 10 mazaán here. The interview with Bilal begins about 8 minutes into the show. Before that Minister of commerce Rashid Muhammed Rashid speaks to Mona on a common Arab Market.And Mona looks really interested about the topic...

While i´m happy truly happy by the above mentioned releases, let´s not forget those who are still not freed , like Kareem al Beheiri and Ahmed Badawi for instance, as well as others.

This post will cross-posted at Diwan of democracy.

Egyptian Culture theme in Qantara

The new edition of the German online magazine Qantara is out. Qantara is a magazine that mainly focuses on the cultural aspects of the meeting between the Muslim World and the West. Not the clash, but rather the synergy between the two.

This time they have a bit of an Egyptian cultural theme with an article on Baha Taher, whom recently was awarded the newly established Arabic booker prize for his novel Sunset Oasis. More on the Arab booker can be found here. There is also an article on Alaá al Aswany, who recently went to Germany and the city of Cologne to participate in lit COLOGNE, one of the most prestigious book festivals in Europe, presenting his latest novel Chicago, translated to German recently. On top of that there is a review of the latest film by the doyen of Egyptian film, Yousef Chahine. Ariana Mirza takes a look at Chaos or heya fawda as it´s called in it´s original language.

Another article takes a look at the current Arab blogging scene under the promising headline of Blogging in the Arab World: Lessons in Democracy, written by Alfred Hackensberger