Recently in Egypt Category

A woman waves the Egyptian flag during a protest in Egypt

Photograph: Lilian Wagdy

 

In the initial months of 2011, the Facebook Revolution was the hottest headline around the world - modern, relevant and easily digestible for a western audience. But what role did social media really play in bringing down Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak?

• Update: Egyptian police beat protesters demanding constitutional reforms
• Police confiscate media cameras
• Ayman Noor calls it "an insulting image" that soldiers deny freedom of expression

In Cairo yesterday armed police cracked down on a few dozen protesters demanding reforms to Egypt's arcane constitution. In Washington meanwhile, well-heeled Egyptian diplomats  turn up with worrying regularity at events to discuss internet censorship and citizen journalists. 

  Obituary Sheikh Tantawi, 1928-2010                     
By AuthorIssandr El Amrani

Sheikh Muhammad Tantawi This morning, Muhammad Tantawi, Sheikh of al-Azhar, passed away in Riyadh from a heart attack. He was one of what may be, symbolically at least, the three most important men in Egypt, along with President Hosni Mubarak and Coptic Pope Shenouda III. All three were about the same age, and ill. Tantawi leaves a mixed legacy behind him: overall, the immediate verdict may be that he was too liberal for conservatives, too conservative for liberals, too compliant with the regime for those who want al-Azhar to be independent, and too independent for those in the regime who needed Azharite support to enact policy changes on issues as varied as Palestine, banking and TV game shows. The overall image is of a man besieged on all sides, but adept at fighting bureaucratic battles in the bloated, clerical civil service that al-Azhar has become.
 Read the full obituary at The Arabist

A young blogger in Egypt is facing up to nine and a half years in prison after he published a post alleging nepotism within the armed forces. Ahmad Mostafa, 20, a blogger and prisoner of conscience is set to face a military trial in Cairo on Sunday 7 March in relation to a post published on his Matha Assabaka ya Watan (What happened to you, oh nation?) blog in March 2009. He is the first Egyptian blogger to face a military trial for his alleged activities. Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa Director Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui said: "Ahmed Mostafa has been prosecuted solely for exercising peacefully his right to freedom of expression on his blog.