At least one killed and 373 wounded during fighting near Egyptian ministry of Defense in Abbasiya

 Military police in action in Abbasiya. (Egypt Independent)

Update: Egypt's military officials moved swiftly Saturday to prosecute protesters they blamed for an attack on the Defense Ministry on Friday. Military prosecutors interrogated hundreds of demonstrators, referring some 300 of them to 15 days detention pending investigation into accusations of attacking troops and disrupting public order. At least two detainees face accusations of killing a soldier in the Friday violence, a prosecution official said.

Clashes between protesters and military police outside of the Ministry of Defence in the eastern Cairo district of Abbasiya left at least one dead and 373 wounded on Friday. Egyptian army soldier Samir Anwar Samir died Friday from a gunshot wound to the stomach.Tahrir Doctors, a group of medical doctors who voluntarily aid those injured at protests, stated on their official site that at least two had died at the Zahara Hospital in the Abbasiya area, Cairo, due to gunshot wounds. Two more at the same hospital, according to the statement, are in critical condition after being shot too.
The ruling supreme council of the military (SCAF) said groups attacked the army outside of their headquarters earlier that afternoon.Egypt's military police fired water cannons at protesters 3:30pm Friday, shortly after thousands-strong marches reached the army headquarters, in protest of the ruling military council. Protesters responded with stones as clashes broke out.
How the fighting started is still unclear.  The military Council (SCAF) announced a curfew on Friday from 23 p.m till 7 a.m on Saturday. The military prosecution started to interrogated over 170 people who were detained during the clashes.
The marches had been organized by 15 political groups including the April 6 Youth Movement, the Revolution Youth Coalition, the National Front for Justice and Democracy and the Youth for Justice and Freedom, in solidarity with the week-long sit-in at the military headquarters.

Friday also a protest was held  at Tahrir Square, called for by the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) under the somewhat strange name 'Final Friday'. This demonstration was supported by the liberal Ghad Al-Thawra party and the Islamist Reform and Development Party, as well as Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya. The FJP called for the immediate cessation of the use of force against the demonstrators in Abbasiya. In a six point list of demands it furthermore called for an end of the military regime, and the repeal of Article 28 of the March 2011 Constitutional Declaration which gives the Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission immunity from appeal and for the removal of the current government. Moreover the FJP demanded that the SCAF ends its interference in the drafting of the constitution, that the presidential elections will be held on time and under supervision of a body of judges, and that SCAF hands over power to a civilian authority by 30 June 2012.

Libya lifts ban on religious parties

Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) has lifted a ban on religious parties taking part in June's election.

At the same time the NTC announced a clampdown on Libyans loyal to the country's former leader, Muammar Gaddafi. Public praise of Gaddafi or his regime will now be an offence.
The NTC had announced a ban on parties organised along religious, regional, tribal or ethnic lines on 24 April.
in order to 'preserve national unity'. But it published a new version of the law on 2 May that made no mention of the controversial measure. Islamists and parties campaigning for a greater degree of regional autonomy in Libya will now be able to contest the elections.
The election will choose members of a new General National Congress.Registration centres opened throughout the country on 1 May, and voters have two weeks in which to register. The NTC has promised to hold elections by the end of June, but Western diplomats say this may slip until later in the summer.

Human Rights Watch: Syrian regime committed war crimes just before cease fire

Mass grave in Taftanaz, Idlib, 5 April 2012

Syrian government forces carried out war crimes during a two-week offensive in the northern province of Idlib shortly before an April 12 cease-fire came into effect, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday. According to HRW Syrian troops killed at least 95 civilians and burned or destroyed hundreds of houses as U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan was negotiating with the Syrian government to end the fighting. In a 38-page report, the group documented summary executions, killings of civilians and arbitrary detentions and torture that it says qualify as war crimes.
"While diplomats argued over details of Annan's peace plan, Syrian tanks and helicopters attacked one town in Idlib after another," said Anna Neistat, associate director for program and emergencies at Human Rights Watch.
 Human Rights Watch documented large-scale military operations that government forces conducted between March 22 and April 6, 2012, in opposition strongholds in Idlib governorate, causing the death of at least 95 civilians. In each attack, government security forces used numerous tanks and helicopters.
In nine separate incidents documented by HRW, government forces executed 35 civilians in their custody. The majority of executions took place during the attack on Taftanaz, a town of about 15,000 inhabitants northeast of Idlib city on April 3 and 4.
 In several other cases documented by HRW, government forces opened fire and killed or injured civilians trying to flee the attacks.Upon entering the towns, government forces and shabeeha (pro-government militias) also burned and destroyed a large number of houses, stores, cars, tractors, and other property.

Inn the meantime fighting is still going on in spite of the cease fire. At least 20 Syrian regime troops and two rebel fighters were killed in violent clashes overnight in the provinces of Aleppo and Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday. Fifteen soldiers, including two colonels, were killed in an ambush by rebels at dawn on Wednesday in northern Aleppo province.The ambush took place near the village of Al-Rai, also two rebel fighters were killed.

Meanwhile, in the Harasta suburb of Damascus, "violent clashes" killed at least six soldiers, the monitoring group added. The eastern province of Deir Ezzor also suffered violence, with shelling by regime forces on Al-Dahla village, the Observatory reported. In Al-Quriya town, regime troops conducted raids and burned down activists' homes. In southern Daraa, a civilian was killed by regime gunfire in the Al-Lajaa area. 

At least 11 dead after thugs attack Salafist protest near Egyptian Defense ministry

Photo AP

Updated:  The Egyptian ministry of  Health has confirmed that at least 11 people were killed and 49  injured in the clashes that took place early Wednesday morning between protesters who have been camping outside the Ministry of defence in Abbasyia, Cairo and plain clothed, unknown thugs.

Unconfirmed reports coming from the field hospitals in the area speaks about a death toll that reached up to 20 and over 60 injured.
Tahrir Doctors, a group of doctors who provide free medical care to protesters, released a statement earlier  Wednesday morning, confirming the death of two people who had been shot in the head with live ammunition. Several demonstrators suffered from birdshots in the eyes and even more of birdshot in other parts of the face. The report added that this was just a preliminary estimate.
The demonstrators had been camping near the headquarters of the defence ministry for the past four days in an protest against the disqualification of Salafist Hazem Salah Abu-Ismail from the presidential race. The
The assailants attacked the protesters in the early hours of Wednesday with cement-based bombs, stones, molotov, birdshot guns and teargas canisters.It was the second attack in less than 72 hours. A similar attack Saturday left one protester dead and tens injured.

El Baradei launches new Egyptian political party

Former presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei announced the birth of sa new party, the Constitution Party, on Saturday in a press conference at the Journalists' Syndicate in downtown Cairo. Co-founders of the party are international law professor Hossam Eissa, Ahmed Harara and Hala Shukrallah. Participating in the initiative is author and activist Alaa Al-Aswany, economist Galal Amin; TV host and activist Gamila Ismail; Kifaya protest movement founder, George Ishaq; film director Khaled Youssef; film producer Mohamed El-Adl; co-founder of the Revolutionary Youth Coalition, Shadi El-Ghazali Harb and Rami Shaath.

ElBaradei

The party, whose name has changed from Revolution Party to Constitution Party, aims to be a broad-based movement that forms "the nucleus of a coalition that will include all secular forces" in Egypt, according to what ElBaradei's said in early April, when he announced that he was in the process of forming the new party.
ElBaradei withdrew from the presidential race in January in protest at the decision to elect a president before drafting a constitution. In 2010 he founded the National Association for Change.

Ex-chief Israeli security service lost confidence in Netanyahu and Barak

The former chief of the Israeli security service Shin Bet, Yuval Diskin, has lost all confidence in the Israeli leaders Netanyahu and Barak, and the way they are handling the 'case against Iran'. In a speech in Kfar Saba he said:

"Believe me, I have observed them from up close... They are not people who I, on a personal level, trust to lead Israel to an event on that scale and carry it off. These are not people who I would want to have holding the wheel in such an event," 

Diskin

"They are misleading the public on the Iran issue. They tell the public that if Israel acts, Iran won't have a nuclear bomb. This is misleading. Actually, many experts say that an Israeli attack would accelerate the Iranian nuclear race," said the former security chief.  

Former chief of the spy agency Meir Dagan has been critical of Israel's attitude towards the Iranian nuclear project as well. In March he said on CBS's 60 minutes that an Israeli strike on Iran would lead to a missile attack on Israel that would have a "devastating impact" on the country.  Also he doubted whether an Israeli attack on Iran would effectively halt Iran's program. It would rather delay it, he said. Both Diskin and Dagan  were the subject of an investigation in November, ordered by Netanyahu, as it was believed that they had been leaking the news that Netanyahu and Barak were trying to obtain a majority in the Israeli cabinet for an attack on Iran.  

In his speech Diskin was also pessimistic about the political climate in Israel:

"Over the past 10-15 years Israel has become more and more racist. All of the studies point to this. This is racism toward Arabs and toward foreigners, and we are also become a more belligerent society."

Diskin also said he believed another political assassination, like that of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 by a Jewish extremist, could occur in the future. "Today there are extremist Jews, not just in the territories but also inside the Green Line, dozens of them who, in a situation in which settlements are evacuated… would be willing to take up arms against their Jewish brothers."

Shakespeare relates quite well to present day Arab revolts and upheavals

Shakespeare provides a contemporary Arab audience nice perspectives of  present day realities. Two examples:

Romeo and Juliet in Baghdad.Picture taken during a rehearsal. (AFP)


 Iraq, Romeo and Juliet
Romeo is Shia, Juliet Sunni, and they must contend not only with warring families but a country torn by conflict and sectarian strife: this is the story of “Romeo and Juliet in Baghdad”.
Pistols have replaced swords and some characters wear traditional dishdashas, abayas and keffiyah scarves, but the changes go far beyond props and costumes. One of the final scenes combines the general horror of suicide bombings in Iraq with a reference to a specific attack on October 31, 2010, in which militants killed 44 worshippers and two priests in Our Lady of Salvation church in Baghdad. Romeo flees to the church after killing the hot-headed Tybalt, and is later joined there by Juliet.
In the play’s biggest departure from Shakespeare’s original story, Juliet’s spurned suitor Paris enters the church wearing a belt of explosives and blows himself up, killing Romeo and Juliet.
Monadhil Daood, 52, who adapted and directed the play, said that Paris is a member of Al-Qaeda and is not an Iraqi – a reference to foreign fighters who came to Iraq after the 2003 US-led invasion.

Richard II by the Palestinian Ashtar Theatre. (Photo Globe Theatre)

Palestine, Richard II
The Ashtar theatre company, based in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, delivered "Richard II" in the open-air courtyard of a ruined 8th-century palace in Jericho. In classical Arabic but attired in the military fatigues and the republican regalia of the Arab dictators ripped from power last year.
"Are you contented to resign the crown?" the rebelling Lord Bolingbroke, leaning impatiently on the already usurped throne, asks the King.
"Yes, no. No, yes," Richard stutters, igniting a roar of laughter from the local audience too familiar with similar jibes aimed at Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh in their waning days.

Organizers said the Palestinian company's production was not about the Arab Spring per se. The original script and staging were left largely untouched, but a few changes rendered its modern references clear, as when a crowd of masked, flag-waving protesters storms the palace and shouts, "the people want Bolingbroke!" a variant of the slogan "the people want the fall of the regime" chanted in public squares from Tunis to Manama.

The troupe is set to perform next month in London's Globe Theatre.

Egyptian court drops cases against popular actor Adel Imam and other artists

Update: Egyptian comedy actor Adel Imam's three-month jail sentence for defaming Islam was dropped by a Cairo court on Thursday. Similar charges against filmmakers Nader Galal, Mohamed Fadel and Sherif Arafa and writers Lenin El-Ramly and Wahid Hamed were also dropped.

In Egypt the growing influence of political Islam threatens to lead to a clash of civilizations on a national level. Proof of this was delivered on Tuesday when  an Egyptian court sentenced the actor Adel Imam  to three months in prison and a fine of LE 1000 for defaming Islam in his films Morgan Ahmed Morgan, El-Erhaby ('The Terrorist') and El-Erhab Wel-Kabab ('Terrorism and Kebab').

Adel Imam

Adel Imam (72) is Egypt's best known comic actor who has made a long list of films, most of which were huge (cash) successes. At the same time Imam became controversial after he distanced himself last year from the uprising against president Mubarak. At the time he said that the protesters at Tahrir Square did not represent true Egyptians. Also he praised Mubarak for the wisdom with which he had ruled Egypte during 30 years. However, Imam's political stance did not keep colleagues and other members of Egypt's cultural elite to be alarmed by the verdict. This the more because the directors Sherif Arafa, Nader Galal and Mohamed Fadel and the writers Wahid Hamed and Lenin El-Ramly also face charges of "defaming" Islam. They will stand trial on 26 May. The Front for Creativity has organised a protest on 26 May outside the Agouza Court on Cairo's Sudan Street, when their trial begins.

Writer Alaa El-Aswany, whose book 'The Yacoubian Building' was filmed with Imam in one of  the leading roles, wrote on Twitter that he did not agree with Adel Imam politically, but nevertheless appreciated his art. Aswany condemned the sentence, saying Egypt was returning to the dark ages.

Independent filmmaker Ahmad Abdallah described the sentence was an "act of terrorism against artists" and a "slap in the face for serious cinema." And actor Amr Waked said that "the best you could do to an artist you don’t approve of is not watch him, but you don’t have the right to prevent him from working or jailing him."

Ashraf Abdel Ghaffour, the head of the Egyptian Actors Syndicate, said that the syndicate’s lawyers would appeal the conviction.

The case against Imam was filed in February by Asran Mansour, who accused the actor of offending Islam and its symbols, including the Hijab – head scarf  – and beards in his films.

Deployment observers in Syria will take at least another month

 Picture taken in Homs after shelling by government forces. (AP)

International peace envoy Kofi Annan has called for the rapid deployment of 300 ceasefire monitors in Syria, branding violence levels "unacceptable" 12 days into a promised truce, but a top UN official said it will take at least one month to get the first 100 in place. The council was told there are now 11 UN observers in place and the 30-strong advance party of the UN Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) is expected to be on the ground by the end of the week. But UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said it would take a month to get the first 100 of the 300-member full force into Syria.

 Ban's comments came a day after nearly 60 people were killed across the country in violence that continued Tuesday with a car bomb in the Marjeh district of Damascus that injured three.

Syrian state television blamed "terrorists", the government term for rebels, for the blast. It came as Un observers returned to the city of Hama's Arbaeen neighbourhood, which activists said suffered a "massacre" on Monday at the hands of regime troops. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 31 civilians were killed in this city, out of a total of 59 people including five soldiers killed in violence nationwide. Kofi Annan said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has still not fulfilled a promise to end violence and that the situation was "bleak" and "unacceptable". He said he was "particularly alarmed" at reports that government forces had entered Hama after a visit by UN monitors and killed "a significant" number of people.

"If confirmed this is totally unacceptable and reprehensible," he told the Security Council.

The Syrian League for Human Rights said that among those killed in Hama on Monday were nine activists who were "summarily executed" by government forces a day after they met UN observers in the city.

AP reports that the killing of Syrian high military at the hands of rebels continue. At least 10 senior officers, including several generals, have been gunned down in the past three months, many of them as they left their homes in the morning to head to their posts, according to AP.

The latest occurred Tuesday, when attackers shot and killed a retired lieutenant colonel and his brother, a chief warrant officer, at a home supplies store in another suburb of the capital, according to the state news agency. Elsewhere in Damascus, an intelligence officer was killed, opposition activists said.

Ahmed Shafiq first disqualified, but lateron as yet admitted as candidate for the Egyptian presidency

 Update: Egypt's Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission (SPEC) Wednesday in a surprise move accepted the appeal of Ahmed Shafiq, allowing him back into the presidential race, according to MENA.
 Shafiq was barred from standing for Egypt's top post on Tuesday under the newly ratified Disenfranchisement Law. On Wednesday, he had announced his intention to appeal the SPEC's decision.
The motivation of the SPEC|is not yet known.

Egypt's Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission (SPEC) on Tuesday evening has officially disqualified Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak's last prime minister, from running in next month's presidential elections.
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) had ratified late Monday the Disenfranchisement Law (officially called the Corrupting of Political Life Law), and sent it for a final vote to Parliament.
An official statement was issued in the state newspaper, Al-Gareeda Al-Rasmeya on Tuesday morning, thus allowing for the immediate implementation of the law.
The law was approved last week by the People's Assembly. The law excludes a number of individuals who served in top positions in the last ten years of Hosni Mubarak’s rule from entering the presidential race or other public posts for the next five years.

Egypt terminates contract for the delivery of natural gas to Israel

 Damage from one of the 14 attacks on the pipeline carrying gas from Egypt to Israel.

The head of the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company said Sunday it has terminated its contract to ship gas to Israel because of violations of contractual obligations, Mohamed Shoeib, chairman of the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS), told Al-Masry Al-Youm.
He said  that EGAS is using its right to terminate the contract due to a breach of the gas supply agreement by the East Mediterranean Gas Company (EMG), which operates the pipeline.A source within the petroleum ministry told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the dispute is purely commercial and has no other connotations.

Israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu downplayed the political significance of the Egyptian measure to cancel the gas deal. He said Monday that it did not stem from any sort of diplomatic developments or decisions, but was rather due to a business dispute between companies.

"The termination of the natural gas supply from Egypt is not motivated by political decisions, but is a business dispute between the Israeli and the Egyptian companies," Netanyahu said in a meeting with the heads of Israel Bonds. In earlier reactions, from minister of Finance Yuval Steinitz among others, Israel hinted at a breach of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.

The gas deal has since long been a source of controversy. Egyptian militants have blown up the gas pipeline to Israel 14 times since the uprising.On the Israeli side, the East Mediterranean Gas Company (EMG), which operates the pipeline, sought international arbitration in October because of the Egyptian side's failure to supply the quantity of gas stipulated in the contract — because of the frequent bombings.  EMG, Ampal-American Israel Corporation, and two other companies have sought $8 billion in damages from Egypt for not safeguarding their investment.
Under the 2005 deal, the Cairo-based East Mediterranean Gas Co. sold 1.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas to the Israeli company under a 15-year fixed price deal15-year fixed price deal between a private Egyptian company, partly owned by the government, and the state-run Israel Electric Corporation.  Critics in Egypt charged that Israel got the gas much too cheap and that Mubarak cronies skimmed millions of dollars off the proceeds. A court of appeal last year overturned a lower court ruling that would have halted gas exports to Israel. The suit had been filed by opposition groups.
For the long term, Israel is developing its own natural gas fields off its Mediterranean coast and is expected to be self-sufficient in natural gas in a few years.

Daily News Egypt closed by the management

Very sad news:  Egypt's first independent English language daily newspaper Daily News Egypt will cease publication after seven years of reporting. The decision was made by the managing company, Egypt Media Services, in goes into effect immediately.
The editorial team published its final message on Sunday under the headline: 'Daily News Egypt: Final Words'. "After seven years of providing hard breaking news and analysis on Egypt, and being the only independent English-language printed daily in the country, we regret to inform our loyal readers that, as far as the current editorial staff was informed, the paper will no longer be published."

My heart goes out to the journalists at the Daily News, most of the enthusiast young women who did a good job and invested a lot of their powers and emotions in what was a newspaper that was in some respect a pioneer, and was always well informed and worth reading. I visited the paper last year and remember with pleasure the conversation I had with several of the people who worked at the Daily News.  I wish the staffers all the strength they need, as well as all the luck in the world in finding alternative jobs. And I do hope that their wish, to be able to keep at least their website even if it will be at their own expenses, will be fulfilled.