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Egypt anti-government protests grow

Is he the one that got 15 days jail for refusing to deal with a military court, or was that someone else?
 
Big march going on in Cairo atm in protest at the arrest and detainment of activist Alaa Abdel-Fatah.
I was just going to post about this. There are protests planned for Tunisia too

This is the boldest blow yet against the January revolutionaries and is an indication of the growing confidence of the military regime. The charges are as serious as they are absurd. Inciting violence against the military , stealing weapons and assaulting military personnel. They relate to the military massacre of Coptic demonstrators in Maspero on the 9th October and are part of an ongoing attempt by the military to use those events to both strengthen its repression and to blame the victims for the crime. Abdel-Fattah was arrested because he has been pointing the finger of blame for the massacre at the military and condemning their attempts to investigate the massacre themselves. He wrote

When will the SCAF understand that many revolutionaries are afraid of their tender loving mothers more than they fear death or torture

They [the military] committed a massacre, a horrible crime and now they are working on framing someone else for it. This whole situation is distorted.”​
“Instead of launching a proper investigation, they are sending activists to trial for saying the plain truth and that is that the army committed a crime in cold blood,” he said, adding the military was using the “incitement” card to shift the blame away from its own officers.​

It seems his words were prophetic because it is him the military are attempting to blame.​

Since January some 12000 people have been tried by military court and 8000 convicted. 18 people have been sentenced to death. The conviction rate is over 93%

Here is a statement by Egyptian activists concerning his detention.
http://www.enduringamerica.com/home...sts-statement-on-detention-of-alaa-abd-e.html
 
Translation of article by detained Egyptian blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah


I did not expect that the very same experience would be repeated after five years, after a revolution in which we have ousted the tyrant, I go back to jail? The memories of being incarcerated have returned, all the details, from the skills of being able to sleep on the floor with eight colleagues in a small cell (2 x 4 meters) to the songs and discussions of the inmates. But I am completely unable to remember how I secured my glasses while asleep. They was trampled upon three times in one day. I realize suddenly that they are the very same pair I had when I was jailed in 2006, and that I am imprisoned, now, pending investigation under similar flimsy accusations and reasons of that incarceration, the only difference is that we have exchanged State Security prosecution with military prosecution: a change fitting to the military moment we are living.
The previous time, I was joined in detention by 50 colleagues from the Kefaya movement, but on this occasion I am alone, together with eight wrongly accused, the guilty is as wronged as the innocent.
As soon as they realized that I was from the "Youth of the Revolution" they started cursing at the revolution and how it failed in "sorting out" the Interior Ministry. I spent the first two days only listening to stories of torture by the hands of the police that is not only adamant on resisting reform, but is seeking revenge for being defeated by the downtrodden, the guilty and the innocent.
From their stories I discover the truth of the great achievements of the restoration of security. Two of my colleagues are seeing jail for the first time, simple youth without a grain of violence and their accusation is? Forming a gang. Indeed, Abu Malik alone is an armed gang unto himself. Now I understand what the Interior Ministry means when it reports that it has caught armed gangs. I congratulate us for the restoration of security then.
In the following few hours, sunlight will enter our always dim cell, we read creative Arabic engravings of a former colleague, four walls from floor to ceiling covered in Quran, prayers, supplications, thoughts and what appear to be the will of a tyrant to repent.
The next day we discover in the corner the date of the inmate's execution and we are overwhelmed by tears.
The guilty plan on repenting, but the innocent do not know what to do to avoid a similar fate.
I stray from them in the radio, listening to the speech of his Excellency the General inaugurating the tallest flag in the world, one which will certainly enter the record books. And I wonder: Was the inclusion of the name of the martyr Mina Daniel as one of the instigators in my case also a record in audacity? On the basis of it not being sufficient for them to be first to kill the victim and to walk in the funeral but also to spit on the corpse and accuse it of a crime?
Or perhaps this cell can win the record of the number of cockroaches? My thoughts are interrupted by Abu Mailk: "I swear to God Almighty, if the wronged was not absolved, this revolution will not succeed."

Translated by Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi from the Arabic version that appeared in the Egyptian newspaper Shorouk on November 2nd 2011.

http://sultanalqassemi.blogspot.com/2011/11/translation-of-article-by-detained.html
 
From the We are all Khaled Said english Facebook group:

Egyptian Government appointed by the ruling Egyptian Military council has proposed a document called "Guidlines for Egypt's new constitution" that gives the ruling Military council supreme powers in the new consititution including appointing 80% of those responsible for writing the constitution & the Army having the right to interfere in laws made by the parliament. It also includes the army decides on how military budget is allocated without any interference from any elected body...!!! If approved, I can see Egypt going towards a Military Dictatorship...
 
Yesterday heard from an Egyptian activist here that there'll be a big march tomorrow, and it could turn into a bloodbath.
 
There are said to be several hundred thousand people in Tahrir square today, I've not found more details yet.
 
This article suggests that some liberals have teamed up with the Muslim Brotherhood as they lack other opportunities to get elected. And the Muslim Brotherhood have been keen to include them, and put plenty of women on their tickets, to counter the impression that they are 'arm-choppers'.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/11/15/2503752_egypts-islamists-reach-out-to.html#storylink=addthis

Also todays demonstrations, against the document that shows how the army intend to maintain a lot of political power, are said to have been organised by Islamists. And apparently there are some football ultras there too, chanting amusing obscene slogans against the regime, although unfortunately I haven't seen any english translations of these slogans.
 
A graphic showing how many 'list' districts various political parties are contesting in the first round of elections.

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/egypt-nov-18-2011-1646

"List" districts, where only recognized political parties are allowed to run a list of candidates, make up two-thirds of the election, while "individual" districts, where individual candidates can run (and still be members of parties), make up the other one-third.
The graphic shows what many expected, and some feared - that Islamists and alleged "remnants" of the former regime will fight hard for a large representation in the country's first post-revolution parliament.
The three parties contesting the most seats are the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, the moderate Islamist Wasat Party and the hardline Salafi Nour Party. Parties that are alleged to have ties to the former regime, such as Reform and Development, the Conservatives, the Freedom Party and the Egyptian Citizen Party, are all contesting at least half of the 16 list districts.

 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/18/egyptians-return-tahrir-square-protest

Both Islamists and secular forces have been alarmed at recent efforts by the Scaf to impose a set of "supra-constitutional principles" on the process of writing a new constitution next year, a move critics say is designed to permanently entrench military control over civilian politics.
Ramy el-Swissy, a member of the pro-revolutionary April 6th movement, which participated in the rally, said: "The whole of Egyptian society is represented here and is articulating one demand: for the army to go back to its barracks and return our nation to civilian rule.
"People who think that Egyptians are tired of protesting need only look around them to see the reality. We have to come and speak here today because those in power no longer speak for us."
Osama Farag, a Cairo-based engineer, said the upcoming vote would be meaningless if it was not accompanied by a transfer of power away from the armed forces.
"Ten months on [from the original anti-Mubarak rallies in Tahrir] I didn't expect to be here again, but the military has broken its promises," Farag said. "At present the new parliament looks set to be comic or tragic … there is a continuous harassment of the Egyptian people by the military government and it has to stop."
Similar demonstrations were held in the port city of Alexandria as well as other towns in the Nile delta and upper Egypt.
 
Some tweets suggest that there were only 7 tents and dozens of people who stayed in Tahrir overnight, but the actions of the state in attempting to remove them has refilled the place, and lead to protests in multiple other locations in Egypt :D

Also apparently someone on Egyptian state TV said that the US is allowed to use police to breakup protests, so why can't the Egyptians?
 
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