11 Apr 14 | Egypt, News and features, Politics and Society, Religion and Culture
The trial of three journalists working for the Al Jazeera English Channel (AJE) was adjourned on Thursday until April 22.
For award-winning Australian journalist Peter Greste, AJE ‘s Cairo Bureau Chief Mohamed Fadel Fahmy (a Canadian-Egyptian) and producer Baher Mohamed who have been locked up behind bars in a Cairo prison for more than 100 days, this means spending twelve more days in a dark, cramped cell with only an hour a day of exercise, fresh air and sunlight.
The AJE journalists are among 20 defendants accused by prosecutors of spreading false news that harms Egypt’s national security and aiding a terrorist organisation–charges the jailed journalists have repeatedly denied.
“There is not a shred of evidence incriminating us,” Mohamed Fahmy shouted out to a group of foreign journalists covering Thursday’s hearing. ” The case is political and we are scapegoats caught up in the middle of the Egypt-Qatar political rift.”
The patience of the three journalists is clearly wearing thin. While they had smiled and joked with family members and journalists attending the previous court sessions, signs of fatigue and frustration were evident on their faces Thursday as they appeared in the makeshift court at the Torah Police Institute, south of Cairo, for a fifth time. After 103 days in detention, their nerves were clearly frayed and Fahmy made no attempt to hide his anger. After the judge rejected his pleas to dismiss the charges against them and release him and his colleagues on bail, Fahmy shouted out from his cage , “Our acquittal won’t be enough! We shall seek compensation from prosecutors for the months we have spent here.”
Fahmy also vowed to expose what he said were ” crimes against humanity” being committed inside the prison walls. He however, refrained from disclosing the details of those crimes, telling journalists that what he and the other defendants say in court “is often taken against us” and results in the maltreatment and abuse of the defendants at the hands of investigators and prison guards .
Thursday’s hearing was briefly interrupted when Khaled Abdel Raouf , one of the defendants, fainted inside his cage and had to be carried away by prison guards. Fahmy later explained that Abdel Raouf’s ailing health was the result of the poor conditions at the Scorpion high security prison where he is being held. “The conditions there are inhumane; the prison is not fit for an animal,” Fahmy complained bitterly.
Fahmy himself had spent a month in solitary confinement at the high security prison before being transferred to Torah Prison where he now shares a cell with Greste and Baher and where conditions are slightly better. Some of the other defendants in the case– including Abdel Raouf and Anas El Beltagy– however, remain at the high security prison where hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood leaders also languish. Unlike the Al Jazeera team, the “Scorpion” defendants are being denied family visits and reading materials and have also complained (in a previous court session ) of torture at a detention camp where they were held immediately after their arrest.
Thursday’s court session opened with the screening of video footage that the prosecution had claimed supported the case against the Al Jazeera news team. The video material that was shown however, clearly had nothing to do with the case. It consisted of content from Sky News Arabia’s coverage of the political crisis in Egypt, a press briefing by a Keyan government official on the September terror attack at a Nairobi shopping mall, and part of a news report on Somali refugees in Nairobi that had earned Greste a Peabody Award. Asked by a journalist how he had felt watching his report in the courtroom, Greste replied, ” If they had played more of it, they would realize this is the type of work we do.”
A defence lawyer in the case told the judge that the charges were not against a terrorist news network that was inciting violence but against well-educated, patriotic young Egyptians .”The case is tarnishing Egypt’s image in the eyes of the world and must come to an end soon,” he insisted.
While the judge could not but dismiss the videos as “unrelated to the case”, he however, ordered another hearing later this month to allow a team of experts more time to review the videos in the presence of the Defence lawyers. His decision drew angry condemnation on social media networks from fellow journalists and internet activists around the world who for weeks had expressed their solidarity with the detained Al Jazeera staff via the Twitter hashtag: #FreeAJStaff .
”What a mockery of justice, Egypt!” retorted Australian broadcaster Mark Colvin (who works for ABC Radio) via his Twitter account. In a news report broadcast on CNN after the session, the on-air reporter sarcastically called it “ a trial by error” , saying that justice had been delayed in Egypt not once but five times.
In a statement released on Wednesday (a day before the court hearing), Amnesty International described the AJE detainees as “prisoners of conscience” and called for their immediate release.
Infuriated by the result of the hearing, Greste said he and the other members of his team were “fed up”, describing the evidence presented against them as “a joke.”
“ We have had enough,” he said. “I am unbelievably frustrated. But we still believe that in the end , justice will prevail.”
This article was published on 11 April 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
09 Apr 14 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa, News and features
Since Mohamed Morsi’s ouster in July 2013, backed by the army and General Abdel Fattah al-Sis, there has been a rise in the number of arrests of people based on their sexual orientation (Image: Adham Khorshed/Demotix)
A Cairo misdemeanour court on Monday sentenced three men to eight years in prison “for committing homosexual acts”. A fourth defendant in the case was sentenced to three years in prison with hard labour.
The men were allegedly found dressed in women’s clothes and wearing make-up when they were arrested last month, following a police raid on a private apartment in Cairo’s northern residential suburb of Nasr city. The apartment had been a meeting place for some members of Egypt’s gay community, who had been attending a party there when the raid occurred.
During Monday’s court session, prosecutors said one of the defendants had rented the apartment to receive “sexual deviants” in his home and host parties for them. While there are no laws banning homosexuality in Egypt, “debauchery” or breaking the country’s law of public morals is outlawed. Egyptian courts use legislation on debauchery to prosecute gay people on charges of “contempt of religion” and “sexual immorality”.
The severe sentences the four men received on Monday have raised concerns among rights campaigners of a widening crackdown on Egypt’s long-oppressed and marginalised gay community. Youth-activists expressed their dismay and disappointment at the verdicts on social media networks. In a message posted on her Twitter account on Tuesday, Shadi Rahimi, a journalist and photographer working for Al Monitor described the verdicts as “outrageous”. Blogger Nervana Mahmoud meanwhile said: “The verdicts demonstrate that the current regime is as conservative as their Islamist predecessors.”
In Egypt’s conservative, predominantly Muslim society, homophobia is deeply embedded, with 95% of Egyptians sharing the conviction that “homosexuality should not be accepted”, according to a 2013 poll conducted by the Pew Research Centre.
The recent crackdown on Egypt’s gay community is highly reminiscent of the security clampdown in the spring/summer of 2001 when authoritarian president Hosni Mubarak was still in power. In May 2001, 52 people suspected of being gay were arrested on charges of immorality during a raid on a tourist boat moored on the Nile in Cairo. Twenty three of the men were sentenced to up to five years in prison with hard labour. The highly-publicised “Queen Boat case”, named after the discotheque-boat that for long had been a known meeting place for Egypt’s gay community, signalled what rights campaigners feared might be an end to long years of discreet and quietly tolerated public activity by the country’s threatened LGBT population. Some analysts said at the time that the sudden crackdown was a means of diverting attention away from the regime’s failures, including a political crisis and a looming economic recession. Critics of the 2001 crackdown also believed it was an attempt by the then-autocratic regime to present an image as “the guardian of public virtue so as to deflate an Islamist opposition movement that appeared to be gaining support every day”.
Not surprisingly, many of Egypt’s gay men and women were at the heart of the January 2011 protests demanding democracy, freedom and social justice. They had hoped that the revolution would usher in a new era of change including greater freedoms and tolerance, allowing them to better integrate into mainstream society. Karim, who requested that only his first name be used out of concern for his safety, told Index: “We had a lot of hope then but the last three years have only brought disappointment. There has been no change in people’s attitudes. In fact, we get insulted more often now, as people feel emboldened knowing that the authorities are siding with them.”
Rights campaigners agree that life has gotten worse for Egypt’s gay citizens since the Arab Spring. Adel Ramadan, a legal officer at the Cairo-based Egypt Initiative for Personal Rights told NBC News last year that “after the fall of Mubarak, the criticism of revolutionary groups has always contained a sexual element. Women who participate in protests are often called prostitutes or ‘loose’ women, while male revolutionary activists are called homosexuals”.
Meanwhile, the rise of Islamists to power in Egypt in the post-revolution era fuelled fears among rights groups and Egyptian gay citizens over greater restrictions on the gay community. They anticipated an even harder crackdown under Islamist rule and worried that the Islamist-dominated parliament would pass anti-gay legislation. Whether or not their fears were justified is uncertain, for Islamist rule in Egypt was short lived, lasting only one year. President Morsi was toppled by military-backed protests on July 3, 2013 and the People’s Assembly (the lower house of Parliament responsible for issuing legislation) was disbanded by a Supreme Constitutional Court ruling in June 2012, only a few months after its members were elected. However, in their time in power, there were signs indicating a potential tightening of restrictions on Egypt’s gays. In August 2012, a man was arrested for allegedly leading a “gay sex network” while later that year, vigilantes beat four men suspected of being gay before handing them over to the police.
“Many of my gay friends fled the country when the Islamists came to power; they were terrified of what would happen to them under Islamist rule. They knew they would not be able to live freely so they emigrated,” said Karim. “Those who stayed behind, participated in the 30 June mass protests demanding Morsi’s downfall. We were overjoyed when he was toppled and hoped there would be fewer restrictions on us from then on,” he added.
Paradoxically, since Morsi’s ouster in July 2013, there has been a rise in the number of arrests of people based on their sexual orientation, according to the US-based Human Rights First group. The group says the surge in arrests and prosecution of gay men and women is part of the military-backed regime’s efforts to reassure Egyptians that the current regime is as conservative as any Islamist party.
In October 2013, state-owned Akhbar el Youm reported that at least 14 men were arrested for “practicing homosexuality” after a raid on a health club in El Marg district in northeastern Cairo. According to the weekly newspaper, police found the men “in positions that were against religious precepts”. Less than three weeks later, police arrested ten more people on “homosexual-related charges”. The arrests occurred during a police raid on a private party held to celebrate Love Day (Egypt’s equivalent of Valentine’s Day) in Cairo’s western suburb of 6 October. The men were subjected to humiliating anal examinations before being convicted of prostitution and sentenced to between three and nine years in prison. Mohamed Bakier, one of the defence lawyers in the case, said the charges against them were “political rather than criminal”. He added that the harsh sentences they received were meant to deliver a message that the society is still conservative.
Similarly, the severe sentences handed down to the four men on Monday may be an attempt by the military-backed authorities to appease a sceptical public and win over conservatives in the deeply polarised society ahead of upcoming presidential elections in which the former defence minister Abdel Fattah El Sisi is the lead contender.
The verdicts, meanwhile, coincided with another court ruling upholding three-year jail terms imposed on three secular revolutionary activists convicted of organising or participating in unauthorised protests, prompting rights campaigners to concur in opinion that this is all part of the wider, ongoing crackdown on personal freedoms.
Whatever the motives are behind the harsh sentences, one thing is certain: The verdicts have increased anxiety over the insecurity of Egypt’s vulnerable gay community. “We no longer feel safe,” said Karim. “We know we are being targeted by the police and sooner or later, they will come after us.”
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the 52 Egyptians were arrested in May 2010. The incident took place in May 2001.
This article was posted on 9 April 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
21 Mar 14 | Egypt, News and features, Politics and Society, Religion and Culture
Singer Nancy Ajram is among those whose videos have been banned by Egypt’s censorship committee.
In a move that has sparked concern among Egyptian secularists, the country’s censorship committee this week banned 20 music videos allegedly containing “heavy sexual connotations” and featuring “scantily-dressed female singers and models.”
The decision to ban the video clips deemed “inappropriate” and “indecent” by members of the state censorship committee, comes two months after a new constitution guaranteeing freedom of expression and opinion was approved by 98 per cent of voters in a national referendum. The new charter replaced the 2012 constitution, widely criticized by rights organizations and revolutionary activists as an “Islamist-tinged” document.
The majority of Egypt’s secularists who celebrated the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in Tahrir Square in July had feared that the Muslim Brotherhood –the Islamist group from which he hails –was seeking to alter Egypt’s ‘moderate’ identity. The Islamist group has since been outlawed and designated a terrorist organization by the military-backed authorities that replaced the toppled president.
The banning of the video clips comes amid heated debate on “raunchy” music videos broadcast on some of the Arab satellite channels. In recent years, an increasing number of popular Arab female singing-stars have challenged social norms and broken cultural taboos by revealing more flesh in their video clips. The trend has stirred controversy in Egypt’s deeply conservative Muslim society with many Egyptians rejecting what they describe as “the pornification of pop music”. They insist that the “graphic, semi-porn sexual scenes featured in some of the music videos are not in line with Islamic tradition and culture”.
“Some of these video clips are more porn than music. We can hardly understand the lyrics; They are an insult to Arabic music and culture,” said Amina Mansour , a Western educated 30 year- old Egyptian freelance photographer.
It is no surprise that some liberal, westernised Egyptians agree with ultra-conservative Muslims in their society that the videos should be banned. Egyptian society–once a melting pot of different cultures has grown more conservative in the last 30 years. In his book Whatever Happened to the Egyptians, Economist Galal Amin blames the growing conservatism in the country on the introduction of Wahhabism –a more rigid form of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia and adopted by the millions of Egyptian migrants who travelled to Gulf countries after the oil boom in the seventies, seeking higher-paid jobs. The gradual transformation from a diverse, open and tolerant society into today’s conservative and far less tolerant Egypt is evident in the style of dress, behaviour and speech of many Egyptians. An estimated 90 per cent of women wear the hijab-the head covering worn by Muslim women -while the niqab, a veil covering the face , has become more prevalent in recent years.
Some analysts believe the trend of conservatism, which had steadily grown in Egypt recent decades, now appears to be regressing. A growing number of women and girls are removing their Islamic headscarf —once adopted as a political statement against the authoritarian regime of Hosni Mubarak and against Western-style values imposed on the society. Leila el Shentenawy, a 31 year old lawyer told Index she removed her veil after Morsi’s ouster to express her disappointment with Islamist rule.
“Morsi failed to deliver on promised reforms,” she said, adding that she and other liberal Egyptians were alarmed by the calls made by some hardline Islamists to bring back female genital mutilation and lower the age of marriage for girls.
“We were becoming a backward society instead of moving forward,” she said.
Shentenawi however, supports the ban on the video clips, arguing that such videos are “commercialization of women’s bodies and a downright insult to women.”
Other Egyptians have meanwhile expressed disappointment over the banning of the video clips, perceiving the move as “a reversal of the democratic gains of the January 25, 2011 Revolution” that toppled autocratic president Hosni Mubarak and the subsequent uprising against Islamist rule in June 2013.
“We had two uprisings for freedom and a modern, democratic society,” lamented 26 year-old graphic designer Amr El Sherif. “The video clips are popular with young Egyptians and the latest ban can only be considered as a means of stifling free artistic expression.”
In January, Egyptian TV imposed a ban on several video clips reportedly containing “seductive scenes”, deciding they were”inappropriate for viewers”. The ban on the music videos featuring Middle Eastern pop idols Haifa Wahby, Alissa, Nancy Agram and Ruby among others, came in response to complaints by some viewers that the “hot scenes” depicted in the videos were “provocative” and “went against the morals of Muslim society.”
While modest by Western standards, “the gyrations and revealing costumes featured in the videos were too sexy for Arab audiences”, the censors decided. The ban is a continuation of the ultra-conservative trend started by Islamists during their one year rule when some of their lawmakers had complained to Parliament (then dominated by Islamists) that “Egyptian performer Ruby’s pelvic thrust dance moves and bare midriff were too much,” warning that the “obscene scenes” depicted in the music videos would “trash the taste of Egyptians.”
The ban of the videos meanwhile, coincided with the sexual assault of a female student by a mob on Cairo University’s main campus on Monday–the first violence of its kind on an Egyptian university campus. While condemning the assault incident in a telephone interview broadcast on the private ONTV channel later that evening, University President Gaber Nassar implied the victim was to blame, saying her “immodest attire” had invited the assault. He urged students to dress modestly, adding that those who do not follow the university’s regulation would be barred from entering the university campus by security guards.
Some Egyptians believe that the “suggestive” and “explicit” music videos are partly to blame for a surge in incidents of sexual harassment and violence against women in the country since the January 2011 uprising.
“Sexual frustrations of youth –many of whom are unemployed and unable to afford the cost of marriage– are being fuelled in part by sexy music videos and other pornograhic material on the internet, causing unruly behaviour by some youth,” Said Sadek, a Cairo-based Political Sociologist and activist, told Index.
The recent ban on the video clips also comes hot on the heels of an International Women’s Day protest-rally staged by nude Arab and Iranian women in the Louvre Art Museum’s Square in Paris, calling for “equal rights” and “secularism” in their respective countries. Egyptian internet activist Alia Al Mahdi was among the participants in the Paris nudist rally which organizers said, was held to “highlight the many legal and cultural restrictions imposed on women in the Arab World”. El Mahdi had also protested naked outside the Egyptian Embassy in the Swedish capital Stockholm in December 2012 to express her opposition to what she called Morsi’s “Sharia Constitution.” Raising the Egyptian flag, she had the words ” No to Sharia” written in bold print on her naked body.
Many of the revolutionary youth-activists who led the uprisings in Tahrir Square in January 2011 and June 2013 had hoped the downfall of two authoritarian regimes would usher in a new era of greater freedoms including freedom of expression and opinion.But their hopes are fading fast amid increased restrictions and a climate of growing repression.Despite the challenges, they vow to continue to push for “reforms” and “a more liberal Egypt”. While many of the revolutionaries say they oppose Alia Al Mahdi’s method of protest, perceiving it as ” extreme”, they insist ” there is no going back to repression and censorship by the authorities.”
“We’ve had our first taste of freedom with the revolution three years ago and once you’ve had that, you can only move forward and never look back, ” said Mohamed Fawaz, an activist and member of the April 6 Movement, one of the two main groups that mobilized protesters for the January 11 mass uprising. Meanwhile, the battle between secularists and conservatives for the soul of the “new Egypt” continues.
This article was posted on 21 March 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
17 Mar 14 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa, News and features
Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt’s ousted President Mohammed Morsi (Image: Nameer Galal/Demotix)
Amid deep polarisation and a widening crackdown on dissent in Egypt, the country’s military-backed authorities have now taken their conflict with the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood to a new front — houses of worship.
Egypt’s mosques have become the new battleground in the country’s political standoff, with the authorities recently introducing a set of measures to control religious discourse and silence pro-Muslim Brotherhood clerics they accuse of “mobilising anti-military protests and inciting violence”.
The latest measures include forbidding prayers in small mosques that are not under state control, and restricting sermons to graduates of Al Azhar University — Sunni Islam’s most prestigious institution. In recent months, no fewer than 55,000 imams lacking such credentials, have been dismissed from their jobs.
Ministry of Religious Endowments officials defend the move, insisting it is “necessary to stop lay preachers from exploiting the pulpits to advance their political interests”. For decades, the country’s mosques and universities have been fertile ground for enrolment of Muslim Brotherhood recruits and the spread of the Islamist group’s ideology. The Muslim Brotherhood , which rose to power following former president Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in February 2011, was designated a terrorist organisation by authorities in December.
In another controversial move tightening the state’s grip on mosques across the country, the Ministry of Religious Endowments has unified the theme of the weekly mosque sermons preceding Friday noon prayers. Previously, Egypt’s imams or preachers were free to choose the topic of their weekly sermons but it is now the ministry that decides what the imams should preach to the millions of worshippers attending Friday prayers.
Since the measure came into effect on 31 January, the ministry has announced a different theme each week on its official website, addressing topics that affect the daily lives of millions of Egyptians. In recent weeks, preachers have tackled a broad range of issues including developing squatter areas, environmental pollution and the role of youth in the society. The ministry has also been handing out guidelines to preachers at mosques under its control, warning that violators “will face dismissal and prosecution”.
Despite the warnings, some preachers remain defiant, refusing to comply with the instruction. They say they are the ones who should decide what to tell their followers.
“I will not be dictated by the state,” said Khalaf Massoud who preaches at the Montazah Mosque in the working class neighbourhood of Imbaba, adding that his duty is to “obey God” not “those in power”.
Other preachers have also denounced the measure as “a restrictive procedure that stifles free speech and religious freedoms”. But not all preachers are against the measure and some have even welcomed it, perceiving it as necessary for unifying the country and defusing current political tensions.
In an interview broadcast on CCTV on Friday, Imam Yasser Khattab who preaches in several mosques, said: ” The Muslim Brotherhood manipulated people and spread Islamist fundamentalism through their mosques. They incited hatred and divided the society in the last three years. There should be a stand.”
Since the toppling of Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi by military-backed protests in July, clashes sparked by heated debate between Muslim Brotherhood supporters and opponents have frequently occurred in and around mosques after Friday noon prayers.
With a limited number of monitors to supervise the religious discourse, it is difficult for the ministry to keep track of rebel preachers refusing to abide by the new rule. Last week, four imams were summoned for interrogation at the ministry after they had allegedly called for anti-government protests during their sermons. The risk of criminal prosecution however, has failed to deter preachers like Massoud who vows to continue “to criticise any wrongdoings as people turn to me for religious guidance”.
The latest move by Egypt’s Ministry of Religious Endowments is part of the widening crackdown on Islamists and comes hot on the heels of other repressive measures taken by the authorities to curb dissent. Since the ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, the regime that replaced him has closed down TV channels and publications with links to the Muslim Brotherhood. It has also arrested and detained thousands of the group’s supporters while security forces have killed at least 1,400 Brotherhood loyalists. But with inadequate funding and insufficient manpower, it will be a daunting task for the ministry to exercise control over the country’s estimated 130,000 mosques — 10,000 of which are already independent of the state. Skeptics say it may be an impossible feat to undertake as the ministry’s resources are already stretched thin.
This article was posted on March 17, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
