The US Embassy Attacks, Explained
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“The last thing I remember before the riot police surrounded me was punching a man who had groped me. Who the hell thinks of copping a feel as you’re taking shelter from bullets?”
Bruised but defiant: Mona Eltahawy on her assault by Egyptian security forces
Mona Eltahawy’s tweets about her assault in Cairo made global headlines. Here she tells her full, extraordinary story for the first time
Read it.
Source: nickturse
Burnt and damaged books at the Institute of Egypt in central Cairo on December 19, 2011 after the world-famous centre caught fire during deadly clashes between security forces and protesters. The heavily damaged historic centre for the advancement of scientific research, housing priceless national archives, was founded in 1798 during Napoleon Bonaparte’s expedition to Egypt, and contained more than 20,000 precious documents and manuscripts. MOHAMMED ABED/AFP/Getty Images READ MORE
(via newsweek)
Source: news.nationalpost.com
Could This Woman Be Egypt’s Next President?
In early April, Bothaina Kamel, a female television presenter and media figure, announced that she would run for the office of the presidency. In a society where the idea of a woman leading a country, the judiciary, or serving any similar role is discouraged by both culture and religion (indeed, it is often outright banned), the presence of a woman in elections stirs up strong reactions from the public. A cursory glance at the news articles that have mentioned her after she declared her candidacy feature such statements as: “Are we so out of men that we would be run by a woman?”, “The forces of Masonic liberal secular atheism are at work again!”, “we don’t want her deviously inciting our women to forget their role as mother and wife!”, and many more of the sort. In fact, quite a few hardline Islamic websites that adopt a strict interpretation of the Hadith that says: “People led by a woman will never succeed,” feature commentators calling for mutinies and civil disobedience if Kamel, or any other woman for that matter, wins the presidency or even the office of vice president or prime minister.
But unlike every single time an unknown activist or some adjunct professor decides to make a “symbolic run” in some Arab country, Kamel’s candidacy carries more weight than many observe, even though she has no realistic chance of winning.
Read more at The Atlantic
Yasmine El Rashidi: Why Are the Churches Burning?
In a busy downtown Cairo street, armed men exchanged gunfire, threw rocks and Molotov cocktails, and freely wielded knives in broad daylight. In the new Egypt, incidents like this are becoming commonplace.
The New York Review of Books || May 17, 2011
In the week leading up to the referendum, pro-democracy activists and supporters had accused the military of cutting a power-sharing deal with the Brotherhood to preserve its hold on power. The armed forces had not explicitly taken a position on the amendments, but they sent text messages telling people that participation in the referendum was a vote for “democracy.” And while they left Brotherhood members to freely campaign for Yes, they harassed youth activists who were calling on people to reject the proposed amendments, arresting several the day before the vote.
a protest by hundreds of Egyptian women demanding equal rights and an end to sexual harassment turned violent Tuesday when crowds of men heckled and shoved the demonstrators, telling them to go home where they belong.
Source: NPR
Egypt’s popular revolution was the work of men and women, bringing together housewives and fruit sellers, businesswomen and students. At its height, roughly one quarter of the million protesters who poured into the square each day were women. Veiled and unveiled women shouted, fought and slept in the streets alongside men, upending traditional expectations of their behavior. The challenge now, activists here say, is to make sure that women maintain their involvement as the nation lurches forward, so that their contribution to the revolution is not forgotten.
‘Volcano of Rage’ by Max Rodenbeck | The New York Review of Books
Despite wide variations in the nominal forms of government in all these countries, as well as contrasting levels of wealth and education and urbanization, the pattern and shape of the unrest, and the grievances that provoked it, looked everywhere much the same. Arab rulers had grown too isolated, too inflated with pretense and hypocrisy, and too complacently confident in the power of their police. Their overwhelmingly youthful populations suffered perpetual humiliation at the hands of government officials, faced dim work prospects, and had little means of influencing politics. They felt, in the famous words of the Syrian playwright Saadallah Wannous, that they were “sentenced to hope.” More sophisticated and exposed to the world than the generation that ruled them, they had lost faith in the whole patriarchal construct that seemed to hem in their lives.
FRONTLINE: Revolution in Cairo | PBS
Hey, y’all, don’t forget to watch Frontline tonight!
FRONTLINE dispatches teams to Cairo, going inside the youth movement that helped light the fire on the streets. We follow the “April 6” group, which two years ago began making a bold use of the Internet for their underground resistance — tactics that led to jail and torture for many of their leaders. Now, starting with the “Day of Rage,” we witness those same leaders plot strategy and head into “Liberation Square” to try to bring down President Mubarak. Also in this hour, veteran Middle East correspondent Charles Sennott of GlobalPost lands in Cairo for FRONTLINE to take a hard look at Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood — the most well-organized and powerful of the country’s opposition groups — as a new fight for power in Egypt begins to takes shape.
On Friday February 11, the day Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak stepped down, CBS correspondent Lara Logan was covering the jubilation in Tahrir Square for a 60 MINUTES story when she and her team and their security were surrounded by a dangerous element amidst the celebration… In the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew. She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers. She reconnected with the CBS team, returned to her hotel and returned to the United States on the first flight the next morning. She is currently in the hospital recovering.
CBS News’ Lara Logan Assaulted During Egypt Protests - 60 Minutes - CBS News. Surprised this is just coming out now … very sad news.
Source: cbsnews.com
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