#28June : A rehearsal For #30June #egypt

#28June : A rehearsal For #30June 

 

And people went to protest today. Egyptians vs. Egyptians , civilians Vs. Civilians or Non Islamists Vs. Islamists to be accurate.

Hundreds of thousands protests against Muslim brotherhood and Mohamed Morsi in rehearsal today across the country for the big day on the 30th. Also hundreds of thousands were there in Cairo protesting in solidarity with Muslim brotherhood and Mohamed Morsi.

The scene of Islamists was repetitive but the scene of angry citizens including first time protesters and NDPians in the protests along with the revolutionaries was rare.

Of course it was not that peaceful because clashes happened and we got over 500 injured. Ministry of health says that 3 have been killed including a US citizen who was stabbed in Alexandria unfortunately.  The death toll of the Muslim brotherhood is 5 up till now while 2 for the protesters as well 1 US citizen.

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Today several MB headquarters and branches have been torched and vandalized by angry protesters in Alexandria and Mansoura.

Here is a quick Storify report from photos and videos about the day. I am still updating it after the break.

Now leaks I knew earlier this week that things will be bloody in North Delta and the old NDPian leading figures will make it bloody in all possible ways so the army would intervene. I think I said it before. If you speak about peacefulness than you are either weak coward who lives in lala land or secret MB agent Online.

I do not underestimate the anger of the people nor the fact that everybody is denying that we are fully armed society now.

Tahrir square is full again but …

I can not be so happy that Tahrir square is full now , it has been full before by revolutionaries alone without MB or Mubarak loyalists or military loyalists. I can not be so happy because I see too much hate and anger blinding everybody.

Today I found a tweep comparing the Muslim brotherhood as the Jews in Germany before WWII reaching to the conclusion that a holocaust would be great for the Muslim brotherhood.

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I can not be so happy when I see that bearded men are being attacked in the streets and there are threats to butcher the Muslim brotherhood and their families like sheep.

I can not be so happy that Tahrir square is full when I see faces from those who called the martyrs of Tahrir and Mohamed Mahmoud street every possible name and accusing revolution of being a foreign plot bragging on how they are protesting in the square. Yes the square is for everybody but emotionally speaking I remember what everybody said in the past two years , it is curse. For God those people are still attacking the January 25 Revolution calling it a defeat , a setback and a foreign conspiracy.

Politically and realistically speaking I believe that we can not win the battle when we have different goals. This is the dilemma , the revolutionaries want their revolution back on track once again for democracy and freedom while the Mubarak loyalists want the military back and to end democracy.They got higher voice in the media now despite they need the revolutionary cover in front of the world.

Of course if anyone dares to speak about this matter online in Arabic he or she will be accused of being a secret MB cell spreading lies who is trying to split the unity of the great people’s revolution. I have had my share already for being called all sort of insults for saying this.

Anyhow to be realistic you do not need to be an expert to know that sooner or later the army will do something considering how the armed forces troops are deployed throughout the country. Whether it is going to be a full scale coup or soft coup I do not know.

Nevertheless I have to admit that greed and stupidity of the Muslim brotherhood will be studied and that the deep state in Egypt knew how to use that greed in order to return back to the scene just like knowing the weakness points of the 25 January revolutionaries. Unfortunately the revolutionaries and the people do not want to understand or learn from their mistakes like others.

#Egypt’s countdown to #June30 #Tamarod

What began as a humble attempt to translate countrywide discontent with the way President Mohamed Morsi has governed Egypt, the Tamarod -- or "Rebel" campaign -- has mobilized millions of Egyptians for a protest that promises to be epic on the anniversary of Morsi's inauguration. Although opposition forces initially kept the signature drive that demands Morsi's removal from office and early elections at arms length, nearly all of the relevant players in Egypt's transitional drama now recognize the campaign's significance and potential to affect change. Movement within the political opposition, including coordination meetings with the campaign and youth groups for a post-Morsi transition plan, suggests a fundamental belief that the June 30 protests could realize Tamarod's goal of replacing the president.

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Islamists who support Morsi's government, primarily from the Muslim Brotherhood, responded with a counter-signature drive of their own called Tagarrod -- or "Impartiality" -- to reiterate their faith (no pun intended) in the political system and the elections that brought him to power. Supportive Islamist groups have also called for a June 21 protest against violence. However, the counter-campaign's attempt to balance the scales only seems to accentuate the country's deeply divided polity. The Muslim Brotherhood and other pro-Morsi supporters have repeatedly vilified the Tamarod movement and some have gone as far as labeling those who turn out to protest on June 30 as traitors or unbelievers. Calmer heads within the Islamist movement have taken a more centrist position. The ultraconservative Salafi al-Nour Party has surprisingly demonstrated one of the most level headed attitudes with its promise to refrain from participating in protests, but urging the Muslim Brotherhood and the government to make concessions to opposition forces to diffuse the volatile situation. Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh's Strong Egypt Party fell on the side of peaceful protests but stood firm against calls for a military coup to replace Morsi.

The revolutionary fervor and scathing vitriol between the two groups has gone beyond talking heads exchanging barbs in the Egyptian media. A number of violent incidents, not the least of which involved an arson attack by unknown assailants on one of the Tamarod offices in Cairo on June 7, and hours of clashes between Muslim Brotherhood and Tamarod campaigners in Alexandria on June 12, have heightened tensions between opposing ideologies in the days leading up to the planned mass demonstration and worried government security forces. The clashes involving attacks on Tamarod have prompted Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim to publicize its security plans for June 30, but interestingly confusing messages have come out of the ministry. Initial statements indicated a police withdrawal from demonstration areas but Ibrahim subsequently announced his commitment to protecting all citizens on June 30. Outraged Islamists called for Ibrahim to be held accountable for his initial refusal to protect Muslim Brotherhood headquarters and private property.

Other rumblings within the Morsi administration also indicate some fear within the government that impending protests may shake the foundations of the current system. Morsi reached out to the National Salvation Front for yet another national dialogue in an effort to subdue the rising tide but without suitable guarantees that any negotiations would lead to binding decisions, opposition leaders declined. Instead, Morsi met with the Islamic Legitimate Body of Rights and Reformation, an independent multi-party coalition of Muslim scholars that includes Salafi and Muslim scholars whose deputy chief threatened the opposition with counter-rallies on June 30. Tamarod members have taken a similar hardline stance, demanding nothing short of the formation of a presidential council and a technocratic government with an eye toward Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) President Manar al-Beheiry to replace Morsi.

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The scene is certainly set for what could possibly be a game-changing display of popular outrage. To hear either side of the political chasm talk of June 30, one might think an Egyptian Armageddon is right around the corner, with both sides bracing for an outbreak of violence. It is distinctly possible -- even probable -- that protests could come to blows. In past confrontations, it took little to provoke competing political forces into a street battle. Today, not only are the Ultras (the hardcore soccer fans who regularly clash with police) a factor, Black Bloc anarchists are also planning to join the protests adding to an already volatile mix, despite promises of nonviolent protests. "Popular committees" formed to prevent violence are just as likely to instigate as they are to prevent fights from breaking out. Even ordinary citizens, fed up with the dire economic conditions and a deteriorating quality of life, may have little patience for Islamists who may goad them into throwing the first punch. Some Egyptians who see no political or legal avenue through which to channel their disapproval have even admitted hopes of a confrontation to spark the army's intervention and another round of revolutionary change. In this highly charged political climate, all it takes is one angry reaction to ensnare an entire country.

Hopes of such clashes ousting Morsi, however, run into some heady challenges. The Tamarod campaign managed to surpass its goal of 15 million signatures calling for Morsi's resignation and snap elections. It rekindled the revolutionary flame sparked by its cross-party and youthful energy and captured the imagination of the silent majority in Egypt, but falls short of a legal avenue to realize a change in leadership. Currently, the constitution allows only a few ways by which to remove the president (articles 150 through 152): if the president falls ill or can no longer perform his duty; if he is charged with high treason and is subsequently impeached by at least two-thirds of the House of Representatives: if he puts his own presidency up to popular referendum: or if he voluntarily resigns. Anti-Islamist activists who argue that the constitution -- by virtue of the highly flawed process of its formation -- lacks the legitimacy to set appropriate standards for a post-revolution Egypt may be right, but neither opposition forces nor the judiciary have yet blatantly crossed the ambiguous legal boundaries that have guided (or misguided) it through its transition. The irony of Tamarod's support for the SCC's president to unconstitutionally lead the country is not lost on those paying attention. The judiciary, in particular, has remained conspicuously silent on the issue. However, judging by the SCC decision to allow the Shura Council to continue operating until a new parliament is elected, despite the court's ruling to invalidate the council, suggests its unwillingness to rock the boat.

With all of Egypt's dramatic twists and turns over the past two years, those who claim to know what will happen on June 30 will find themselves either wrong or lucky. The number of variables that factor into any one event outstrip the imagination every time. The truth is, no one can claim with any degree of certainty what might change after June 30, but Tamarod has certainly revealed how the deep polarization affecting Egyptian society at large might run deeper than previously imagined. It has tapped into a disaffected population that lost all faith in Morsi or that elections under his leadership could be free and fair. It has garnered the support of millions of Egyptians by avoiding the partisan politics that many citizens have come to abhor. Lastly, it has called on the aid of the army and the judiciary, the two institutions with the most support in Egypt, to lead the country to a new beginning. June 30 may amount to nothing more than a mass protest, but Morsi would be wise to take the advice of fellow Islamists, abandon the confrontational stance toward his detractors, and build the consensus that Egypt desperately lacks sooner rather than later. The countdown begins.

Tarek Radwan is the associate director for research at the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center. He previously reported on the Middle East with Human Rights Watch's MENA division and served as a Human Rights Officer for the United Nations/African Union Hybrid Operation in Darfur. Mr. Radwan specializes in Egypt, with a focus on civil society, human rights, the constitution, and judicial issue

We wish to inform you that tomorrow you will be executed

Muhammad Haza’a is one of some 180 people facing death in Yemeni prisons for crimes they allegedly committed when they were under 18.

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He is due to be taken out of his crowded prison cell tomorrow morning and shot.

Those who supported our call last week to save him from execution appear to have bought him a precious extra week of life, but would have hoped that his case be reopened and dealt with justly, according to the law, not that he would be subjected to a cold-blooded killing.

We were shocked when we first received the phone call that Muhammad Haza’a was going to be executed within 24 hours.

Capital punishment is unfortunately common enough in Yemen, but the authorities would normally at least grant the prisoner a couple of days between formally telling them and ending their life.

Equally shocking was the fact that Muhammad had “proof” that he was under 18 at the time of his alleged crime.

We only had a few hours to do something. We had lists of alleged juvenile offenders on death row in Yemen, but Muhammad’s name was not on them. We knew nothing about him or his case. Yet we trusted our source and knew that the information he had provided us was highly likely to be correct.

Our source had himself been about to be executed a few years ago as a juvenile offender, when Amnesty International, with the help of other organizations, intervened; he felt that Amnesty International saved his life and regularly supports our work.

After we received the call, we urgently sent emails, made calls and issued appeals. At first we only received automated messages by email and were confronted with piped musical recordings by phone.

But one breakthrough here and another there soon created momentum. International and local organizations jumped in and phone calls to the Yemeni President and the General Prosecutor’s office brought the promise that the execution would be postponed and the case reviewed.

That was on Tuesday, 26 February. Less than a week later, the following Monday, two parallel events occurred.

In the city of Tai’zz, where Muhammad has been held, the head of the Appeal Court there filled in a form no longer than four lines and sent it to the prison authorities. It probably took him or his assistant less than a minute to fill in the blanks. The execution date is set for Saturday, 9 March 2013, it read. He added a line underneath: “We advise that security measures are taken on the above mentioned date of the execution.”

That last line was added in anticipation of protests. There were rumours that other death row inmates were planning to prevent the prison authorities from taking Muhammad to his execution.

Rumours were also emerging that a demonstration in front of the prison was being planned.

Local and international activists were making calls and noise about the unfairness and illegality of the sentence besides the inhumane nature of the execution itself. The head of the court apparently considered that all these calls warranted by way of response was a single sentence of warning at the bottom of an execution order.

In the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, meanwhile, the General Prosecutor signed a form ordering the prosecution in Ta’izz to refer Muhammad’s case to the relevant courts for review on the basis that there remained a dispute about his age at the time of the alleged offence.

Muhammad’s lawyer decided to personally take the form signed by the General Prosecutor to the relevant authorities in Ta’izz because he knew that if the document was faxed or sent by post, it would probably either arrive too late or mysteriously disappear.

It took him around four hours to drive the 260km south from Sana’a to Ta’izz. The lawyer was met, but the form was not accepted. Apparently the Ta’izz authorities were too unhappy with the attention Muhammad’s case had brought and so have simply refused to follow the laws of their own country and forward a case to the relevant courts when being ordered to do so by their superior.

It would surely be unconscionable for an execution to go ahead essentially because some officials had felt emboldened to flout instructions, but that seems to be the situation as things stand.

We continue to call on the Yemeni President, the General Prosecutor and the relevant authorities in Ta’izz to immediately suspend the execution of Muhammad Haza’a and to order a retrial that is fair and does not resort to the death penalty.

#Egypt: Time to address violence against women in all its forms

Violence against women in Egypt gained national and international attention following a series of well-publicized sexual assaults on women in the vicinity of Tahrir Square earlier this year during protests commemorating the second anniversary of the “25 January Revolution”.

Unfortunately, these instances of violence against women were neither isolated nor unique.

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Whether in the public or private spheres, at the hands of state or non-state actors, violence against women in Egypt continues to go mostly unpunished.

Most cases go unreported for a plethora of reasons that stem from discriminatory gender stereotypes, the lack of women’s awareness of their rights, social and family pressures to remain silent, discriminatory legislation and women’s economic dependence. Even when women do surmount these obstacles and turn to state institutions for protection, justice and reparation, they are often confronted with dismissive or abusive officials who fail to refer cases to prosecution or trial, and lengthy and expensive court proceedings if they want to get divorced. Women who do manage to obtain a divorce then face the likelihood that court orders for child support or spousal maintenance will not be enforced.

In recent weeks during an Amnesty International mission to Egypt, I met several women and girls who were assaulted by their husbands and other relatives. Many suffer in silence for years while they are subjected to beatings, severe physical and verbal abuse and rape.

Om Ahmed (mother of Ahmed) told me that her husband began drinking and beating her after three years of marriage. She recounted daily abuse, punctuated with particularly vicious attacks. In one instance, her ex-husband smashed a full glass bottle on her face, leaving her without her front teeth. She stayed with him for another 17 years, partially, she explained, because she had nowhere else to go, and partially because she did not want to bring “shame” on her family. She never considered approaching the police, shrugging:

“The police don’t care, they don’t think it is a problem if a husband beats his wife. If you are a poor woman, they treat you like you don’t even exist and send you back home to him after hurling a few insults.”

Eventually, Om Ahmed’s husband kicked her out of their home, and for the next year she lived with her three children in an unfinished building in an informal settlement without running water and electricity. After two years in family court, she was awarded a meagre 150 Egyptian pounds (approx. US$21) per month for her daughter’s child support (her other two children don’t qualify for it as they over 18). Her own spousal maintenance decision is still pending.

Unlike Egyptian Muslim men who can divorce their wives unilaterally – and without giving any reason – women who wish to divorce their abusive husbands have to go to court and prove “fault” or that their marriage caused them “harm”. To prove physical harm, they have to present evidence, such as medical reports or eyewitness testimony, in proceedings that are drawn out and expensive. Many women’s rights lawyers and lawyers working in family court cases told me that this is a very difficult task for many women because they don’t always report the abuse to the police, and neighbours, who are usually the only witnesses other than household members, are reluctant to get involved.

I met one woman who had a particularly striking case. She told me:

“We [my ex-husband and I] only lived together for a few months, but it took me six years to get a divorce, and I am still in court to get my full [financial] rights back. Problems started soon after we got married, and he would beat me. His mother and sisters were also abusive… After a particularly bad beating, I went to the police station to lodge a complaint, but I withdrew it under pressure [from my husband who threatened me]. The case took so long because he had good lawyers who knew all the loopholes in the law.”

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In 2000, a second option for women seeking divorce was introduced, whereby women can obtain khul’ (no-fault divorce) from the courts without having to prove harm, but only if they forego their right to spousal maintenance and other financial rights. These court proceedings can still take up to a year and put women who are financially dependent on their husbands at a severe disadvantage. Despite this, several divorcees told Amnesty International that they opted for khul’ after waiting for a court fault-based divorce for years.

Twenty-four-year-old Om Mohamed (mother of Mohamed) told Amnesty International:

“We have been separated for over four years, but I am still neither married nor divorced… I was trying to prove all this time in court that he didn’t spend any money on me or our son, and that [my husband] used to beat me with whatever he could find under his hands, including belts and wires. Every time I go to court, the hearing is postponed, and I need this or that paper. I spent a lot of money on lawyers, and got nowhere… Eventually, I gave up and in January [2013] I raised a khul’ case.”

During my visit to Egypt in May and June this year, I also met women and girls who suffered violence and sexual abuse at the hands of other relatives. A 17-year-old girl told me that she ran away from home after a particularly brutal beating by her brother, who stabbed her in the nose with a kitchen knife, and burned her with a hot iron. Her scars corroborated her story. She was too scared to report the incident at the hospital where she sought treatment, as her brother had accompanied her and threatened to kill her if she spoke out. She spent months wandering the streets before being admitted into a private shelter for children.

Another woman who fled home after her brother sexually assaulted her found temporary protection in a shelter run by an association under the Ministry of Insurances and Social Affairs. She fled from the shelter after the administration insisted that she give them her brother’s contact details, to try to set up a “reconciliation meeting”.

There are only nine official shelters across Egypt, which are severely under-resourced and in need of capacity-building and training. Most survivors of domestic violence don’t even know they exist. The idea of shelters is not widely accepted, because of the stigma attached for women living outside their family or marital homes.

A staff member at a shelter recounted to me how, after an awareness-raising session in a village in Upper Egypt, a village leader got up and – in front of all those gathered – threatened to “stab to death” any woman who dared to leave an abusive household and run to a shelter. In another instance, the husband of a woman living in a shelter threatened to set it on fire.

In May, the authorities announced the establishment of a special female police unit to combat sexual violence and harassment. While this may be a welcome step, the Egyptian authorities need to do much more to prevent and punish gender-based violence and harassment, starting by unequivocally condemning it. They also need to amend legislation to ensure that survivors receive effective remedies. They must also show political will and tackle the culture of denial, inaction and, in some cases complicity, of law enforcement officials who not only fail to protect women from violence but also to investigate properly all allegations and bring perpetrators to trial.

Egyptian women were at the forefront of the popular protests that brought down Hosni Mubarak’s presidency some two and a half years ago. Today, they continue to challenge the prevailing social attitudes and gender biases that facilitate violence against women, in all its forms, to continue with impunity – while they continue their fight against marginalization and exclusion from the political processes shaping the country’s future.

Meanwhile, with the help of human and women’s rights organizations, seven women who were sexually assaulted around Tahrir Square lodged a complaint with the prosecution in March 2013 calling for accountability and redress. Investigations were started, but have since stalled.

One of the lawyers for the women was told by a prosecutor that the case was not that “important” compared to other cases on his desk. But the plaintiffs are not giving up. As one of them told Amnesty International: “Even as I was being abused, I felt that I will not stay quiet, I will not back down. They have to be punished.”

By Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s Egypt researcher

A Shameful Neglect

 Afghanistan's iniquities are grotesque. At Kabul University last week, zealots -- all men -- protested a law that would abolish child marriage, forced marriage, marital rape, and the odious practice, called ba'ad, of giving girls away to settle offenses or debts. Meanwhile, in jails all over the country, 600 women, the highest number since the fall of the Taliban, await trial on charges of such moral transgressions as having been raped or running away from abusive homes. 

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It is tempting to wring our hands at such obscene bigotry, to pity Afghanistan's women and vilify its men. Instead, we must look squarely at our own complicity in the shameful circumstances of Afghan women, billions of international aid dollars and 12 years after U.S. warplanes first bombed their ill-starred land.

I have been traveling to Afghanistan since 2001, mostly to its hardscrabble hinterland, where the majority of Afghans live. Over the years, I have cooked rice and traded jewelry with Afghan women, cradled their anemic children, and fallen asleep under communal blankets in their cramped mud-brick homes. I have seen firsthand that the aid we give ostensibly to improve their lives almost never makes it to these women. Today, just as 12 years ago, most of them still have no clean drinking water, sanitation, or electricity; the nearest clinic is still often a half day's walk away, and the only readily available palliative is opium. Afghan mothers still watch their infants die at the highest rate in the world, mostly of waterborne diseases such as bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis, and typhoid.

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Instead of fixing women's lives, our humanitarian aid subsidizes Afghanistan's kleptocrats, erects miniature Versailles in Kabul and Dubai for the families of the elite, and buys the loyalty of sectarian warlords-turned-politicians, some of whom are implicated in sectarian war crimes that include rape. Yet, for the most part, the U.S. taxpayers look the other way as the country's amoral government steals or hands out as political kickbacks the money that was meant to help Afghan women -- all in the name of containing what we consider the greater evil, the Taliban insurgency. In other words, we have made a trade-off. We have joined a kind of a collective ba'ad, a political deal for which the Afghan women are the price.

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To be sure, a lot of well-meaning Westerners and courageous Afghans have worked very hard to improve women's conditions, and there has been some headway as far as women's rights are concerned. The number of girls signed up for school rose from just 5,000 before the U.S.-led invasion to 2.2 million. In Kabul and a handful of other cities, some women have swapped their polyester burqas for headscarves. Some even have taken jobs outside their homes. But here, too, progress has been uneven. A fifth of the girls enrolled in school never attend classes, and most of the rest drop out after fourth grade. Few Afghan parents prioritize education for their daughters because few Afghan women participate in the country's feudal economy, and because Afghan society, by and large, does not welcome education for girls or emancipation of women. To get an idea about what the general Afghan public thinks of emancipation, consider this: the post-2001 neologism "khanum free" -- "free woman," with the adjective transliterated from the English -- means "a loose woman," "a prostitute." In villages, women almost never appear barefaced in front of strangers.

Doffing their burqas is the least of these women's worry. Their real problem is the intangible and seemingly irremovable shroud of endless violence. It stunts infrastructure and perpetuates insecurity and fear. It deprives women of the basic human rights we take for granted: to have enough food and drinking water that doesn't fester with disease; to see all of their children live past the age of five. The absence of basic necessities and the violence that has concussed Afghanistan almost continuously since the beginning of recorded history are the main reasons the country has the fifth-lowest life expectancy in the world. The war Westerners often claim to be fighting in the name of Afghan women instead helps prolong their hardship -- with little or no compensation. And now, as the deadline for the international troop pullout approaches, the country is spinning toward a full-blown civil war. A handful of hardline men shouting slogans at Kabul University fades in comparison.

How to help Afghan women? The road to their wellbeing begins with food security, health care that works, and a government that protects them against sectarian violence. Right now, none of these exist. I wish I could offer an adequate solution to the tragic circumstances of the women of Afghanistan's back-of-beyond. There does not appear to be one. Hurling yet more aid dollars into a intemperate funnel that will never reach their villages is not the answer: there is little reason to believe that we can count that such funding would be spent on creating enough mobile clinics to pay regular visits to remote villages; build roads that would allow the women and their families easy access to market; facilitate sanitation projects that would curb major waterborne diseases. The impending troop withdrawal means that women's security will likely go from bad to worse.

Is it possible to ensure that some of the funding we now hand to Karzai and Co. -- an estimated $15.7 billion in 2010-2011, according to the CIA (and that's not counting the infamous ghost money) -- is distributed among the small non-profits that actually are trying to make life in Afghanistan livable, organizations that create mobile clinics to pay regular visits to remote villages, build roads that allow villagers easier access to market, facilitate sanitation projects that curb major waterborne diseases? This could be a start, but only if these organizations continue to work in Afghanistan after NATO troops leave. That, too, is in question now: this week an attack against the International Committee for Red Cross led the organization to suspend its operations in the country for the first time in almost 30 years. But wringing our hands at Afghan women's abysmal state and shaky social status is not a way out. It is a navel-gazing conversation that avoids looking squarely at our role in perpetuating the very dire condition we condemn

#Anonymous Launches #OpTurkey, Takes Down Turkish Government Websites #Turkey

Hackers belonging to the nebulous Internet collective Anonymous launched #OpTurkey this week in a show of solidarity with fierce anti-government protests that have sent shock waves throughout Turkey.

The cyberattack, which targeted the Turkish government led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, brought down websites belonging to President Abdullah Gul, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), the Istanbul Directorate of Security and the Istanbul Governor’s Office on Sunday.

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According to the Russian website RT, the Anonymous attack came after a series of brutal clashes between police and protesters that arose on Friday after Turkish police conducted a crackdown on a peaceful environmental demonstration in Istanbul’s Taksim Square. The ensuing conflict, during which police fired tear gas at protestors, some of whom fought back by throwing rocks, seemed to take on broader political significance

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We are coming Turkey. Be strong, We will not let you down. Stay in the streets, We will take your government offline. #OpTurkey
— Anonymous(@AnonOpsMob) June 2, 2013

“It’s the first time in Turkey’s democratic history that an unplanned, peaceful protest movement succeeded in changing the government’s approach and policy,” Sinan Ulgen, chairman of the Turkish research group the Center for Economic and Foreign Policy Studies, told the New York Times. “It gave for the first time a strong sense of empowerment to ordinary citizens to demonstrate and further their belief that if they act like they did the last few days they can influence events in Turkey.”

The government’s reaction drew the ire of Anonymous, who slammed the Turkish government for acting like “petty dictators.” In a message posted on YouTube on Sunday, Anonymous announced the launch of Operation Turkey, saying, “We have watched for days with horror as our brothers and sisters in Turkey who are peacefully rising up against their tyrannical government [have been] brutalized, beaten, run over by riot vehicles, shot with water cannons and gassed in the streets."

“Turkey is supposed to be a so-called modern democracy, but the Turkish government behaves like the petty dictators in China or Iran,” the missive’s computer generated voice continued. “Anonymous is outraged by this behavior and we will unite across the globe and bring the Turkish government to its knees."

The collective stated that it planned to “attack every Internet and communications asset of the Turkish government.” In tweets, the group encouraged protesters to “be strong,” promising to lend their support.

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#Egypt Death on the Nile

The River Nile has been a source of life for millions over the centuries. Now Ethiopia is diverting water to build a giant dam pushing those downstream who depend on the river, to wonder when and whether this issue can be resolved peacefully. To discuss this, presenter David Foster, is joined by guests: Bereket Simon, Ethiopian minister of information; Lama El Hatow, co-founder of water institute of the Nile and specialist in water governance and climate change; and Cleo Paskal from Chatham House, specialist in water and food security and writer of 'Global warring.'

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I, Robot Maker: Making robots to interact with humans

Would you be comfortable being surrounded by robots?

A British manufacturing firm is trying to make robots that share more human characteristics, to make interaction with them more natural and intuitive than ever before.

Cornwall's Engineered Arts is in the vanguard of this area of research, which aims to make robots' facial expressions, body language and way of moving more recognisable to real people.

Founder Will Jackson gave a tour of his robot factory to the BBC, and explained how he and his team of a dozen people are looking to expand the frontiers of robot technology.

Video journalist: Dougal Shaw

Yemen plane crash: Pilot dies after mid-air explosion

 

A pilot in Yemen has died after the plane he was flying exploded in mid-air, according to an army official.
The aircraft was reportedly on a military exercise when it crashed in a residential district of the capital
From a few kilometres across town, the blast sounded like a muffled thump - the grim reality of an explosion going off inside a packed crowd.
Sitting under fruit trees in a beautiful garden in Sanaa, my Yemeni companions looked up from their cups of tea and waited for the sound of gunfire to follow.
When they did not, we all settled back into our conversation.
We had no idea from our leafy oasis that the worst single terror attack in Yemen's history had just occurred.
Within 30 minutes, we were driving back to our hotel crammed into the usual chronic traffic. The sound of ambulance sirens screamed past us.
An al-Qaeda suicide bomber had just pulled off a ruthlessly symbolic attack at a rehearsal for Tuesday's National Day military parade.
Menacing group
The parade was supposed to celebrate Yemen's unification since 1990, when a war between the north and south ended in northern victory.
But the southern secessionists have been replaced by a more modern, more menacing group pulling Yemen apart: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
Their local affiliate, known as Anshar Al Shariah, later claimed responsibility for the attack in a message sent across the capital of this less-than-unified Arabian Peninsula nation.
The attack was set against the backdrop of a raging war in the southern provinces of Yemen. Al-Qaeda fighters have taken advantage of almost a year and a half of political chaos to grab swathes of the country there.
To the alarm of Western security concerns, al-Qaeda was taking ground, invading cities and getting close to their dream of their own Caliphate. Yemen, in fact, was looking like the group's biggest success story in recent years.
Since Ali Abdullah Saleh was forced to resign as president and hand power over to his deputy, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, however, the fight against al-Qaeda has been stepped up enormously.
Targeted drone strikes and a fresh offensive have been attributed to US military co-operation.

The American government has not confirmed it is carrying out the current targeted air strikes against the fighters, or that it has sent military advisers to help Hadi fight AQAP.

Strength or desperation

Monday's attack could be seen as either a sign of strength or desperation by the group.

They have lost hundreds of fighters in recent weeks to the fighting, according to the Yemeni government, and have been pushed back from some of their territories in the south.

So, these attacks are in many ways revenge against the government.

They also clearly show the strength of the group, carrying out an attack right in the centre of the capital, literally metres from a main military base and down the street from the presidential palace.

A few hours after the attack, reports circulated of two other would-be bombers found hiding in a park nearby.

What was a huge blow at the heart of Yemen's new government and military, could have been even bigger.

'Sphinx' in 'orange' to celebrate the coronation of a new king of the #Netherlands

the Ministry of Tourism, a special celebration at the pyramid, marking the culmination of a new king of the Netherlands to succeed his mother, Queen «Beatrice» after 120 years of rule by queens, and the courtyard of sound and light, where lit three pyramids and Sphinx orange, the color of the royal family in the Netherlands.

Arab Spring Time in Saudi Cyberspace

Not more than two years ago, the concept of reform in Saudi Arabia would have been as much an oxymoron as business ethics or airline cuisine. In recent months, however, the Arab Spring’s uncertain winds of change have finally begun to sweep into the world’s last forbidden kingdom. Finding themselves alone in a crowd (of revolution) in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia’s monarchs are quickly realizing that their secret police and petrodollars may be no match for their citizens’ technology-driven empowerment.

On March 1, Saudi security forces cracked down on a woman-led protest in the city of Buraidah, known as the nerve center of Saudi Arabia’s ultraconservative Wahabbist ideology. Over 160 people, mostly women and children, were arrested after erecting a tent camp to pressure the government to free their imprisoned husbands whom they claim have been detained for years without visitation or access to legal counsel. The Saudi government claims that the detainees are part of a “deviant group,” a term given to suspected Al Qaeda sympathizers or Islamist political opposition groups across the Gulf.

News of the arrests spread like wildfire. Protests in support of the Buraidah women were called for by activists from the Shiite minority in the Eastern Province and liberal reformists in Riyadh and Jidda. The mobilization of Saudi conservatives, liberals and minorities against the government’s repressive policies bore a dangerous resemblance to the red-green alliances that toppled governments from Cairo to Tunis. While turnout at the demonstrations was limited due to the government’s ban on political gatherings, the Saudi Twittersphere was teeming with anger.

Two weeks later, the government-sponsored Arab News daily published a cover story condemning what it deemed “abusive” actions by Saudi Twitter users. The story mentioned that the authorities were mulling over a plan to link Twitter accounts with their users’ identification numbers. Soon after, the story was pulled from the online version of the newspaper without explanation.

For one of the most Internet-privy societies on the planet, any move to link Twitter accounts with personal ID numbers would result in a mass exodus to other online forums that are not monitored. Saudi Arabia ranks number one in the world for Twitter users per-capita, with an estimated 51 percent of all Saudi Internet users maintaining an account with the social media network. Analysts suggest that any such move would result in a 60 percent reduction of Twitter usage in the country — a true window onto how many Saudis are voicing dissent against their government.

Still, on March 31, the Saudi Communications and Information Technology Commission instructed Skype, WhatsApp and Viber to comply with local regulations or risk being shut down. These applications are Internet-based communications services that are both free of charge and not subject to the kingdom’s telecommunications regulations.

The Saudi government has a strong interest in limiting social media and online communications services. Protests are being increasingly organized through use of the WhatsApp messaging application. Political dissidents are able to use Skype to communicate with human rights organizations and foreign media networks without fear of government monitoring. Some government employees and those with ties to the royal family have begun to exploit Twitter to disseminate information regarding corruption in the kingdom.

The Saudi government is, however, becoming increasingly hesitant about limiting social media and other communications because of the potential for a political backlash. Freedom of speech and communication were a hallmark demand of popular uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world, with attempts to cut online activity serving to fuel discontent rather than mitigate unrest. Saudi Arabia is already a favorite target for civil rights activists across the globe, and a ban on social media would only add to a long list of reasons for further divestment and isolation campaigns.

As an alternative, the Saudi government has begun encouraging loyalists to condemn and pursue those suspected of online dissent rather than close the outlets altogether. In recent weeks, a Shura Council member filed a lawsuit against a critical Twitter user, while the government-appointed imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca dedicated his Friday sermon on April 5 to condemning the social network, calling it a “threat to national unity.”

As the government remains confounded by its inability to control online dissent, there is no doubt that the rising tide of anger across Saudi cyberspace has begun to spill over into physical reality. Unwillingly, the government has been forced to wrestle with undertaking previously unimaginable reforms with regard to women’s rights and employment opportunities for millions of young, educated citizens. With social media as their vehicle, Saudis are threatening to take control of their country’s destiny for the first time in history, and there may be nothing their government can do about it.

By DANIEL NISMAN

Did We Get the #Muslim_Brotherhood Wrong?

 

Nope. But it's time to revise our assessments. 

 The deterioration of Egyptian politics has spurred an intense, often vitriolic polarization between Islamists and their rivals that has increasingly spilled over into analytical disputes. Some principled liberalswho once supported the Muslim Brotherhood against the Mubarak regime's repression have recanted. Longtime critics of the Islamists view themselves as vindicated and demand that Americans, including me, apologize for getting the Brotherhood wrong. As one prominent Egyptian blogger recently put it, "are you ready to apologize for at least 5 years of promoting the MB as fluffy Democrats to everyone? ARE YOU?"

 

So, should we apologize? Did we get the Brotherhood wrong? Not really. The academic consensus about the Brotherhood got most of the big things right about that organization ... at least as it existed prior to the 2011 Egyptian revolution. U.S. analysists and academics correctly identified the major strands in its ideological development and internal factional struggles, its electoral prowess, its conflicts with al Qaeda and hard-line Salafis, and the tension between its democratic ambitions and its illiberal aspirations. And liberals who defended the Brotherhood against the Mubarak regime's torture and repression were unquestionably right to do so -- indeed, I would regard defending the human rights and political participation of a group with which one disagrees as a litmus test for liberalism.

But getting the pre-2011 period right doesn't let us off the hook for what has come since. How one felt about questions of the Brotherhood's ability to be democratic in the past has nothing to do with the urgency of holding it to those commitments today. Giving the group the chance to participate fully in the democratic process does not mean giving it a pass on bad behavior once it is in power -- or letting it off the hook for abuses of pluralism, tolerance, or universal values.  That's why I would like to see Egypt's electoral process continue, and for the Brotherhood to be punished at the ballot box for their manifest failures.

So what did we say about the Brotherhood, and what did they get wrong or right? I wouldn't presume to speak for a diverse academic community that disagrees about many important things, but some broad themes do emerge from a decade of literature. For one, most academics viewed the Brotherhood of the 2000s as a democratic actor but not a liberal one. That's an important distinction. By the late 2000s, the Brotherhood had a nearly two-decade track record of participation in national, professional, and student elections. It had developed an elaborate ideological justification for not just the acceptability but the necessity of democratic procedure. When it lost elections, such as in the professional associations, it peacefully surrendered power (and, ironically given current debates, it was willing to boycott when it saw the rules stacked against it). By 2007, it seemed to me that there was nothing more the Brotherhood could have done to demonstrate its commitment to democratic procedures in the absence of the actual opportunity to win elections and govern. I think that was right.

And of course it had developed a well-honed electoral machine ready for use whenever the opportunity presented itself.  Nobody in the academic community doubted that the Brotherhood would do well in the first wave of elections. Academics also pegged public support for the Brotherhood at about 20 percent, not far off the 25 percent Mohammed Morsy managed in the first round of the presidential election. They correctly identified the organizational advantages the Brotherhood would have in early elections, which would allow them to significantly overperform that baseline of support against new, less-organized opponents.

The Brotherhood's commitment to democratic procedures never really translated into a commitment to democratic or liberal norms, however. It always struggled with the obvious tension between its commitment to sharia (Islamic law) and its participation in democratic elections. Not being able to win allowed the Brothers to avoid confronting this yawning gap, even if they frequently found themselves enmeshed in public controversies over their true intentions -- for instance, with the release of a draft political party platform in 2007 that hinted at the creation of a state committee to review legislation for compliance with sharia and a rejection of a female or non-Muslim president.  As for liberalism, nobody ever doubted the obvious point that this was an Islamist movement with deeply socially conservative values and priorities. The real question was over their willingness to tolerate different points of view -- and there, deep skepticism remained the rule across the academic community.

Sleeping with the Enemy

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What happened between the Neanderthals and us?

The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Leipzig, is a large, mostly glass building shaped a bit like a banana. The institute sits at the southern edge of the city, in a neighborhood that still very much bears the stamp of its East German past. If you walk down the street in one direction, you come to a block of Soviet-style apartment buildings; in the other, to a huge hall with a golden steeple, which used to be known as the Soviet Pavilion. (The pavilion is now empty.) In the lobby of the institute there’s a cafeteria and an exhibit on great apes. A TV in the cafeteria plays a live feed of the orangutans at the Leipzig Zoo.

Svante Pääbo heads the institute’s department of evolutionary genetics. He is tall and lanky, with a long face, a narrow chin, and bushy eyebrows, which he often raises to emphasize some sort of irony. Pääbo’s office is dominated by a life-size model of a Neanderthal skeleton, propped up so that its feet dangle over the floor, and by a larger-than-life-size portrait that his graduate students presented to him on his fiftieth birthday. Each of the students painted a piece of the portrait, the over-all effect of which is a surprisingly good likeness of Pääbo, but in mismatched colors that make it look as if he had a skin disease.
At any given moment, Pääbo has at least half a dozen research efforts in progress. When I visited him in May, he had one team analyzing DNA that had been obtained from a forty- or fifty-thousand-year-old finger bone found in Siberia, and another trying to extract DNA from a cache of equally ancient bones from China. A third team was slicing open the brains of mice that had been genetically engineered to produce a human protein.
In Pääbo’s mind, at least, these research efforts all hang together. They are attempts to solve a single problem in evolutionary genetics, which might, rather dizzyingly, be posed as: What made us the sort of animal that could create a transgenic mouse?
The question of what defines the human has, of course, been kicking around since Socrates, and probably a lot longer. If it has yet to be satisfactorily resolved, then this, Pääbo suspects, is because it has never been properly framed. “The challenge is to address the questions that are answerable,” he told me.
Pääbo’s most ambitious project to date, which he has assembled an international consortium to assist him with, is an attempt to sequence the entire genome of the Neanderthal. The project is about halfway complete and has already yielded some unsettling results, including the news, announced by Pääbo last year, that modern humans, before doing in the Neanderthals, must have interbred with them.
Once the Neanderthal genome is complete, scientists will be able to lay it gene by gene—indeed, base by base—against the human, and see where they diverge. At that point, Pääbo believes, an answer to the age-old question will finally be at hand. Neanderthals were very closely related to modern humans—so closely that we shared our prehistoric beds with them—and yet clearly they were not humans. Somewhere among the genetic disparities must lie the mutation or, more probably, mutations that define us. Pääbo already has a team scanning the two genomes, drawing up lists of likely candidates.

“I want to know what changed in fully modern humans, compared with Neanderthals, that made a difference,” he said. “What made it possible for us to build up these enormous societies, and spread around the globe, and develop the technology that I think no one can doubt is unique to humans. There has to be a genetic basis for that, and it is hiding somewhere in these lists.”

Pääbo, who is now fifty-six, grew up in Stockholm. His mother, a chemist, was an Estonian refugee. For a time, she worked in the laboratory of a biochemist named Sune Bergström, who later won a Nobel Prize. Pääbo was the product of a lab affair between the two, and, although he knew who his father was, he wasn’t supposed to discuss it. Bergström had a wife and another son; Pääbo’s mother, meanwhile, never married. Every Saturday, Bergström would visit Pääbo and take him for a walk in the woods, or somewhere else where he didn’t think he’d be recognized.

“Officially, at home, he worked on Saturday,” Pääbo told me. “It was really crazy. His wife knew. But they never talked about it. She never tried to call him at work on Saturdays.” As a child, Pääbo wasn’t particularly bothered by the whole arrangement; later, he occasionally threatened to knock on Bergström’s door. “I would say, ‘You have to tell your son—your other son—because he will find out sometime,’ ” he recalled. Bergström would promise to do this, but never followed through. (As a result, Bergström’s other son did not learn that Pääbo existed until shortly before Bergström’s death, in 2004.)
From an early age, Pääbo was interested in old things. He discovered that around fallen trees it was sometimes possible to find bits of pottery made by prehistoric Swedes, and he filled his room with potsherds. When he was a teen-ager, his mother took him to visit the Pyramids, and he was entranced. He enrolled at Uppsala University, planning to become an Egyptologist.

#Burma : Satellite Images Detail Destruction in Meiktila

Burma: Satellite Images Detail Destruction in Meiktila

 

 

 The Burmese government should thoroughly investigate and hold accountable those who incited and committed deadly violence in Meiktila in central Burma from March 20 to 22, 2013. Decisive government action to combat impunity, end discrimination, and promote tolerance among religious groups is needed to end the tide of attacks against Muslim communities.

An estimated 40 people were killed and 61 wounded in the clashes between Muslims and majority Buddhists in Meiktila in the Mandalay Region. Satellite images analysed by Human Rights Watch show the scale of the destruction: an estimated 828 buildings, the vast majority residences, were totally destroyed and at least 35 other buildings were partially destroyed. Areas with near total destruction were concentrated within three locations in Meiktila measuring more than 24 hectares in total area west and northeast of the city’s main market. The destruction appears similar to satellite imagery of towns affected by sectarian violence in Arakan State in 2012, in which arson attacks left large, clearly defined residential areas in ashes.

“The government should investigate responsibility for the violence in Meiktila and the failure of the police to stop wanton killings and the burning of entire neighborhoods,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “Burma’s government should have learned the lessons of recent sectarian clashes in Arakan State and moved quickly to bolster the capacity of the police to contain violence and protect lives and property.”


Meiktila (Main Damage Area 1)
442 likely residential buildings destroyed or severely damaged.
Move the slider to compare images from before and after the violence.

Meiktila (Main Damage Area 2)
345 likely residential and commercial buildings destroyed and severely damaged
Move the slider to compare images from before and after the violence.

According to a needs assessment released by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of HumanitarianAffairs (OCHA), over 12,000 people were displaced by the violence in Meiktila and are in shelters around the town.
Since the Meiktila violence, attacks against Muslims have occurred elsewhere in central Burma, including Okpho, Gyobingauk, and Minhla townships of Pegu region. Soldiers reportedly fired warning shots in the air to disperse protesters in Pegu, and an estimated nine townships in Burma are under emergency provisions or curfew, limiting public assembly.
The spread of anti-Islamic sentiment and religious intolerance is a serious challenge to the rights of Muslims in Burma. Some well-known members of the Buddhist monkhood, or Sangha, have given sermons and distributed anti-Muslim tracts and directives that call on Buddhist residents to boycott Muslim businesses and shun contact with Muslim communities.
Burma’s 2008 Constitution contains provisions that ensure religious freedom and states that the government should “assist and protect the religions it recognizes to its utmost.” President Thein Sein’s office on March 28 called for “earnest effort[s] to control and address all forms of violence including instigations that lead to racial and religious tensions in the interest of the people in accord with the Constitution and existing laws.”
Such efforts need to be accompanied by strong measures, including holding those who planned, organized, and carried out the recent violence accountable, irrespective of the person’s position or the community from which they originate. The government should also make it clear that it will not tolerate incitement to violence, especially by clergy or others in positions of authority.
The government should also take urgent steps to ensure that the police respond impartially to violence. During the violence in Arakan State in June and October, police frequently sided with the majority Buddhist community against the minority Rohingya Muslim population. Frequently the police did nothing to stop the violence against Muslims and in many cases joined with Buddhist mobs to attack predominantly Muslim villages.
“Burma’s government and political, religious, and community leaders should demand an end to the hate speech that has fuelled violence and discrimination against communities in Burma’s fragile multicultural society,” Adams said. “Decisive government action according to the rule of law is critically important to deter extremists and anyone else using violence to further economic, religious, and political agendas.”