4 May 2012 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa
Violent clashes between protesters staging a sit-in outside the Defence Ministry Headquarters in Cairo’s Abbasseya district and unknown assailants killed at least 20 people on Wednesday and left scores of others injured.
The violence began in the early hours of Wednesday when unidentified men in plain clothes attacked the peaceful sit-in —apparently with the aim of dispersing the protesters who had camped out there for several days.
Supporters of Salafist former presidential candidate Hafez Abou Ismail had marched to Abbasseya on Friday evening to protest his exclusion from the presidential race. They were later joined by other activists: mainly liberals and members of the 6 April Movement. They all demanded an end to military rule and a swift handover to a civilian government.
“What started as a peaceful demonstration has turned into a bloodbath,” cried Iman Mohamed, an activist who had joined the sit-in a couple of days earlier. She added that the assailants had fired gun shots and used Molotov cocktails and tear gas. Some of the protesters responded by hurling rocks and stones at the assailants, others engaged in fist fights.
“I saw several men wielding batons and another carrying a sword,” said Haytham Sallam, another protester who had arrived at the scene Wednesday morning.
“People dropped dead right in front of our eyes,” he added.
There was a brief lull in the early morning hours before clashes erupted again at 9am and continued for several hours. Most of the dead had sustained fatal head injuries or had been shot in the head. The attackers had also used bird shots and dozens of injured protesters were receiving treatment at a makeshift field hospital set up at the scene or in the nearby Demerdash Hospital.
Some protesters suspected that the assailants were security force members disguised in plainclothes. “How else would you explain the use of tear gas and bird shots?” quizzed Sallam. Others said the use of “thugs” to break up protests had become “an all-too- familiar tactic “ adopted by some elements in the government so that they would not directly take the blame for the violence themselves.
Military soldiers and riot police set up barricades around the area but most protesters said they had done little to break up the clashes or calm the situation. Seven political parties boycotted a meeting that had been called for Wednesday by the military council as rumours spread that the ruling SCAF was planning to postpone the presidential election scheduled for 23 and 24 May.
To allay concerns the Deputy Head of SCAF, General Sami Annan was quoted by Egyptian state television as saying the military was looking into transferring power to an elected president on 24 May (after the first round of elections) instead of at the end of June as had earlier been planned.
The announcement did little to quell public anger, as several protest marches to Abbasseya were organised later in the day by political parties and activists. Another million-person march has also been called for Friday by the Freedom and Justice Party to express outrage at the authorities’ response to the violence and pile pressure on SCAF to sack the government of Prime Minister Kamal el Ganzouri.
In another development, three presidential candidates have suspended their campaigns in honour of those who died in the latest wave of unrest.
Meanwhile back in Abbasseya, protesters issued fiery warnings to SCAF against any delay in the presidential election. ” If there’s any postponement, it will set off more unrest that would be difficult to contain,” warned activist Dina Nasr.
Journalist Shahira Amin resigned from her post as deputy head of state-run Nile TV in February 2011. Read why she resigned from the “propaganda machine” here.
4 May 2012 | Middle East and North Africa
Members of the IFEX-TMG gathered in Tunis for World Press Freedom Day to mark the launch of four new initiatives to support Tunisian rights to freedom of expression, which remains under threat despite the gains of the past year.
The new work includes a literary anthology edited by the president of PEN Tunisia Naziha Rejiba, a training manual on online advocacy, a workshop for cartoonists, and a national newspaper and billboard campaign championing free expression rights as Tunisia’ Constituent Assembly continues to negotiate a new national constitution.
With hundreds of press freedom campaigners in Tunis alongside the IFEX-TMG to attend UNESCO’s annual World Press Freedom Day conference, the timeliness of these events was underlined by the sentencing of two young Facebook users to lengthy prison sentences and the fining of the head of a TV station for broadcasting the award-winning film Persepolis.
“Things have improved since the fall of the old regime, but there’s no question that the right to freedom of expression in Tunisia is not yet secure or safe,” said Rohan Jayasekera from IFEX-TMG member Index on Censorship.
The anthology, Fleeting Words, edited by Rejiba, the veteran dissident best known as ‘Om Ziad’, is published in partnership between IFEX-TMG, PEN Tunisia and Atlas Publications. Now available in Arabic, French and English editions will be published in June.
The IFEX-TMG also launched a training manual on online free expression campaign strategy developed by the IFEX-TMG member, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), with local partner, the Tunisian Centre for Freedom of the Press (CTPJ). This follows a series of training workshops, with the two most recent held in Sidi Bouzid and Tunis.
This week also sees the launch of a major multi-media campaign in support of free expression rights developed in partnership with the Tunisian online media group Nawaat.org. Using 75 street billboards and adverts in national print and broadcast media, it will be seen by hundreds of thousands of Tunisians across the country.
Also this month, ANHRI and fellow IFEX-TMG member the Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI) organised a two-day workshop in the coastal Tunisian city of Sousse.
Sixteen digital and ink cartoonists from across Tunisia and the region, as CRNI Executive Director Dr Robert Russell put it, “all on the cutting edge of free speech,” gathered to exchange techniques and experiences.
The initiatives are part of the IFEX-TMG project Monitoring & Advocacy in Support of Independent Human Rights Defenders in Tunisia (2010-2012), managed by Index on Censorship and supported by the European Commission and Oxfam Novib.
The need for continuing work in the sector was underlined by the prosecution of Nabil Karoui, director of privately-owned Nessma TV for blasphemy and disturbing public order. The charges followed the station’s screening of the animated film Persepolis in October 2011. Karoui was fined 2,400 Tunisian dinars (961 GBP) on the charge of disturbing the public order, after protesters stormed Nessma TV.
“That Nabil Karoui avoided jail is not cause for celebration, the case should not have been brought to a court of law to begin with,” said Virginie Jouan, IFEX-TMG Chair.
The IFEX-TMG also expressed concern about the sentencing of Ghazi Ben Mohamed Beji and Jabeur Ben Abdallah Majri to over seven years in prison after Beji posted an online manuscript said to be critical of the Prophet, and Mejri reposted some of it.
4 May 2012 | Americas, Mexico
The bodies of three photographers from the city of Veracruz — Gabriel Huge, Gabriel Luna Varela, Guillermo Rodriguez— were found dismembered and dumped in local waterway as Mexicans celebrated World Press Freedom Day yesterday. The bodies showed signs of torture.
The Attorney General’s Office for the State of Veracruz reported that both Huge and Varela, who were freelance photographers, had been reported missing by their families yesterday. According to Laura Angelina Borbolla Moreno, Special Attorney General for crimes against freedom of expression, both Huge and Varela were among a list of eight journalists who had been identified as under threat from organised crime in Veracruz.
Just last weekend, neighbours discovered the body of Regina Martinez, a reporter for the political weekly magazine Proceso, in the Veracruz city of Xalapa. Martinez had been killed with heavy blows and strangulation. Days after her murder, the Mexican Congress passed a law protecting human rights workers and journalists.
An ongoing battle between the Zetas drug cartel and members of the Chapo Guzman Sinaloa Cartel has contributed to a spiral of violence and corruption: with the last three murders, eight reporters have been killed in the southern state of Veracruz since December 2010.
3 May 2012 | Bahrain, Bahrain News
The Bahraini government has a funny definition of transparency. Despite flowery invitations made during my last visit to the troubled country, an IFEX-affiliated delegation following up on our trip has been denied entry. Not entirely promising for a country that insists it is committed to “reform”.
Last time we went, we were there for the presentation of report by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI).
Officials highlighted the importance of international cooperation, but I’m guessing they felt that a Grand Prix or Air Show is the only way to secure that one.
In meetings with officials, our delegation was promised transparency as long as we followed the rules.
Technically, we didn’t follow them this time around: it’s a hard thing to do when “new rules” are introduced with only days left to your mission. On 12 April, the Ministry of Human Rights wrote to the delegation approving our planned mission:
[W]e look forward to your delegations visit between 6th and 10th of May inclusive. The Ministry will also arrange any meetings with government officials if you so require.
Current regulations in the Kingdom of Bahrain for non-tourist visas issued to delegations of international organisations such as yours are granted five working day visas to the Kingdom. Also I will be requiring scanned copies of the details page of the passports of persons who are applying to visit the Kingdom in order to put forward their names to the special committee for revision and approval.
We sent in the information as requested, but now the Kingdom has now introduced a new rule that says that only one organisation can be in the country at a time — odd, as this hasn’t been a problem in the past. But this time, it was suggested that our delegation —consisting of Index, Freedom House, the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, CPJ, PEN International and Reporters without Borders — might want to come one-by-one!
The sad part? This isn’t really shocking. Journalists, politicians and countless human rights workers have been kept out of the country. All of this from a country that allegedly values both press freedom and human rights.
We carefully followed what we were told by the Bahrani government were the rules, so Bahrain should hold up their end of the bargain. A nebulous visa process and sketchy attempts to whitewash human rights violations only makes me ask one question: what BICI report?
Sara Yasin is an Editorial Assistant at Index. She tweets at @missyasin
Bahrain-Letter to Courtney Radsch-30Apr2012
