Egypt anti-government protests grow

[dylans]

Have you link that shows this is from today?

http://www.elwatannews.com/gallery/details/2575

 

[butchersapron]

Ta.

 

[elbows]

If early signs & propaganda is anything to go by its going to get uglier.

@evanchill
Brotherhood-affiliated FB pages were posting signed and stamped vote counts hours before polls closed http://ow.ly/g88Fx

@evanchill
National Front: Results 66% "no" on referendum so far.

@evanchill
National Front operatives tell me there were discussions at level of party leaders over whether to pull out as response to alleged fraud.

@Ikhwanweb
UPDATE: results from 1385/6376 Polling Stations counted: YES 65% NO 35 %

 

[dylans]

Yeah its going to get nasty. Widespread claims of fraud. Reports of demonstrations by women denied the vote because of their dress. Reports of Christian's being denied the right to vote. Reports of polling stations closing early. Reports of violence including an Salafi attack on the Wafd Party headquarters.

A group of Egypt’s Christian women voters were banned on Saturday in Cairo’s Nasr City from casting their ballot in a disputed constitutional referendum, an Al Arabiya correspondent and AFP reported.

Nasr City was the scene of mass rallies last night as Islamists who support President Mohammed Mursi took to the streets.

Details of banning Coptic Christians from voting are not immediately available, but earlier the opposition National Salvation Front was quoted by AFP as saying that a judge in Nasr City forbade Christians from casting their vote.

 

[elbows]

Not that I necessarily trust the NSF either.

Anyway there will be a week for everyone to go crazy since the referendum has been split in two due to a lack of judges.

 

[dylans]

Looks like the "yes" vote has won the first round. Second round on the 22nd.

 

[teqniq]

Sarahcarr: "@cairocitylimits: A litany of election violations, now with English subtitles!

 

[dennisr]

A view on the voting results:
Referendum vote shows fall in support for President Mursi
http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/6092

"What was striking was that barely one in three turned out to vote. 52% voted in the second round of the presidential election in June when Mursi was elected. The numbers not voting were increased by new measures requiring residents to go to their registered district to vote. This is estimated to have deprived ten million of their right to vote ... The vote is being taken over two days (with the rest of the country voting on 22nd December) ... Voting analysis of the first round shows major cities, where the concentration of the working class is highest, opposed the constitution. Cairo governorate voted 43.1% for the constitution, and 56.9% against. Gharbiya governorate in the Nile delta, including the industrial cities of Mahalla Al-Kubra and Tanta, voted 47.9% for and 52.1% against. A narrow majority voted against in Alexandria. Meanwhile, in more rural Assiut 76.1% voted for"

A fall in support for Mursi and right-wing political Islam?

 

[elbows]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/21/egyptians-held-back-neoliberalism-not-religion

Egyptians are being held back by neoliberalism, not religion
President Morsi claims the opposition is an anti-Islamist elite. In fact, he is losing support because of his economic policies

But if Egyptians are, as results indicate, losing faith in the Brotherhood, it isn't because the organisation is Islamist, but because it has so far been rubbish at ruling. Many believe the Brotherhood has kept its promises to power, but not to the people. Crucially, President Morsi's economic policy has deepened the neo-liberalism that brought so much misery during the Mubarak era and was a key component of the uprising against him.

This economic stamp is all over Morsi's policies, both before and as a part of the proposed constitution – which was completed in a one-day marathon, by an Islamist-dominated assembly, after Christian, liberal and female members walked out. In early December he announced an end to fuel subsidies – so household bills for gas cylinders and electricity, for example, are set to spike.

Meanwhile, an IMF loan of $4.8bn currently being negotiated is conditioned on what has been described as the biggest wave of austerity cuts since 1977 – when subsidies on staple foods were removed in one crippling hit, prompting the "bread riots". Today the plan is to reduce public spending, cut subsidies, increase tax on basic goods, and devalue the Egyptian pound. This package was delayed because of the current turmoil. But why should Egyptians swallow such a Shock Doctrine-style deal, when one of the key tenets of the revolution was a call for social justice?

Meanwhile, the proposed constitution reveals more of the Brotherhood's conservative economics. It has a clause that pegs wages to productivity. It stipulates that only "peaceful" strikes (whatever that means) are allowed. It keeps military interests intact and invisible to public scrutiny – in a country where the army is thought to own anything from 10% to 45% of the national economy (nobody knows for sure because it's all so secret). It is all more evidence that Morsi is not, as he claims, trying to "protect the revolution", but wants to protect the interests of an entrenched elite at the expense of everyone else. Indeed, this year a Bloomberg report referred to the wealthy, controlling echelons of this Islamist group as the "Brothers of the 1%".

Small wonder, then, that the factory-dense city of Mahalla declared itself an independent state, in protest at Morsi's anti-union laws. Since he came to power there has been a wave of strikes; not just factory stoppages but also health worker strikes and consumer protests at eroding public services. And Egypt's rapidly growing independent unions have been mobilising nationally against the constitution, using its trampling of social justices as the hook.

 

[elbows]

"The coming days will witness, God willing, the launch of new projects ... and a package of incentives for investors to support the Egyptian market and the economy," he said in a televised speech.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/12/20121226135833376919.html

 

[elbows]

Tourism remains one of the few economic activities in Egypt that the western media ever bother mentioning. All the same some of the numbers are a bit scary.

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_268777/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=xpXDtgzY

Scared off by the upheaval, the number of tourists fell to 9.8 million in 2011 from 14.7 million the year before, and revenues plunged 30 percent to $8.8 billion.
This year, the industry struggled back. By the end of September, 8.1 million tourists had come, injecting $10 billion into the economy. The number for the full year is likely to surpass 2011 but is still considerably down from 2010.

For the public, it has meant a drying up of income, given that tourism provided direct or indirect employment to one in eight Egyptians in 2010, according to government figures.

Poverty swelled at the country's fastest rate in Luxor province, highly dependent on visitors to its monumental temples and the tombs of King Tutankamun and other pharaohs. In 2011, 39 percent of its population lived on less than $1 a day, compared to 18 percent in 2009, according to government figures.

And...

At the Giza Pyramids, police seem indifferent to the touts. Camel-riding police even join in, pushing tourists to take rides.

Gomaa al-Gabri, an antiquities employee, was infuriated at the sight, shouting, "You sons of dogs" and a slew of other insults at a policeman trying to get money off a tourist.

"They're trying to take away my income," said the father of 11. "In Mubarak's time we wouldn't dare talk to them like this. Now I can hit him with a shoe on his head and he can't speak."

 

[butchersapron]

Sabahi seems to be trying to cobble together some sort of informal coalition on the specific terrain of opposition to the neo-liberalism mentioned above.

 

[butchersapron]

I reckon this might be of interest to those still following this thread as well:

Aktham Suliman’s farewell to Al Jazeera

I took the liberty of translating this excellent piece by Akhtham Suliman, Al-Jazeera’s longtime Germany correspondent, in which he details the reasons for his recent resignation from the station. There are interviews with Suliman circulating in English, but this piece, published in the FAZ, includes a number of poignant anecdotes, which paint a disturbing picture of Al-Jazeera’s decline.

 

[teqniq]

Yes I've been seeing a few comments on Twitter (including a link to the above) from activists and like-minded people lamenting the demise of Al Jazeera.

 

[elbows]

Sabahi seems to be trying to cobble together some sort of informal coalition on the specific terrain of opposition to the neo-liberalism mentioned above.

Nice one, interesting. I'm not sure the existing opposition grouping (NSF) can stay united if he sticks with that message though. In the past he seemed more prepared to begrudgingly hold his nose and accept the role of markets than he was in that article, so I wonder if he has actually changed tack now or whether the main thrust of the opposition election campaign will be different, if they stay somewhat united. Last time I saw ElBlahBlah tweeting it was about the incompatibility of the new constitution with certain 'international legal norms' but that battle might be over already and the economic issues do seem like a central issues thats unavoidable even for the liberal wankers. I guess for the sake of speaking honestly about the economic options and giving people meaningful choice, it would be better if they did not stay united.

I like the song about the IMF.

 

[elbows]

In case anyone is still confused about what Morsi and the MB are about, I bored myself senseless last night with this long video of Morsi speaking at a 'Clinton Global Initiative' event. Clinton fed him opportunities to woo the investors who were present but I doubt his pitch was terribly convincing, and he has a charisma deficit. All the same I'd recommend watching at least the first 5 minutes.

 

[elbows]

I wont get overexcited about this story unless its shown to have real teeth but even so its not exactly sending out conciliatory vibes.

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/12/27/257389.html

Egypt’s top prosecutor ordered on Thursday an investigation into several opposition officials over allegations that they planned to overthrow the regime of newly elected Islamist President Mohammed Mursi.

The decree comes after a lawyer filed a complaint against Mohamed ElBaradei, Amr Moussa and Hamdeen Sabahi, the main opposition members of the National Salvation Front.
The order, issued by an appointee of Mursi, is likely to aggravate political tensions that have erupted into street violence, most recently surrounding the newly passed but divisive constitution.

The probe does not necessarily mean charges will be leveled but it is unusual for state prosecutors to investigate such broad claims against high profile figure said one official speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Yara Khallaf, a spokeswoman for Moussa, said there were no official charges or summoning for an investigation. She declined to comment on the accusation.

 

[teqniq]

There has been talk and complaints over the past few days on Twitter that the government has or is just about to sign a deal with Micro$oft for 43m (I am not sure if this is Egyptian pounds or dollars) in software licences. There is a fairly vocal open source movement there who understandably given the parlous state of the economy feel that the money could be much better spent elsewhere.

Just now has been tweeted the image below of pirated copies of an 'Islamic' version of windows 7/xp the crossed swords make it look as if the MB endorse this edition:

 

[elbows]

Not got much time this week so just a quickie to say that the lawyer going after opposition figureheads backed down, and the changes to the currency system in order to slow the haemorrhaging of foreign currency reserves, devalue their own currency and get IMF brownie points has begun.

 

[elbows]

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http://abcnews.go.com/International...ubarak-watched-uprising-18112568#.UORQMKWHf8t

No shit, still at least its being acknowledged now.

A member of an Egyptian fact-finding mission says former President Hosni Mubarak watched the uprising against him unfold through a live TV feed, a fact that could lead to the retrial of the 84-old ousted leader already serving a life sentence.​

In his trial for the deaths of some 900 protesters during the uprising, Mubarak denied knowing the size of the protests or that violence was used against them. Mubarak was convicted in June of failing to prevent the deaths.​

The finding came in a 700-page report on protester deaths the past two years, submitted Wednesday to President Mohammed Morsi, according to commission member Ahmed Ragheb.​

Ragheb said the commission also established that security and military used live ammunition against protesters during and after the uprising, despite their repeated denials.​

​

​

 

[butchersapron]

Mubarak retrial. MERIP special on Egypt.

 

[butchersapron]

An excellent no-bullshit overview from the always excellent Olivier Roy, as as usual, taking the line that he has for two decades now that what we are witnessing is the failure of Political Islam - but this time in different conditions.

 

[elbows]

Ta for the link to a very good article.

I'm kind of disturbed by how quickly Egypt falls off the twitter etc radar as soon as violence or contentious voting subsides.

 

[teqniq]

Well then for anyone who hadn't noticed, earlier today there was another awful train crash:

BADRASHEEN, Egypt (AP) - Packed in a rickety train speeding through the night, the poorly fed, pale-looking Egyptian conscripts were coming from some of Egypt's most dirt-poor villages to serve in one of the most miserable, lowly jobs of the security forces - as grunts in an anti-riot force usually deployed against protesters.

At a station just outside of Cairo before dawn Tuesday, the train's last car jumped the track, slammed into a parked train, and then was dragged for several kilometers. The car was torn to pieces, young recruits were sent flying along the tracks, and others were mangled.

In the end, 19 recruits mostly in their early 20s were killed and more than 100 were injured, some with arms or legs torn off.

The accident was the latest example of Egypt's decrepit infrastructure turning lethal for the country's poorest - and a reminder that the revolution two years ago has brought no relief in the lives of a population where poverty is worsening. The crash brought a new wave of anger at Islamist President Mohammed Morsi for failing to carry out reforms or overhaul the country's crumbling public services....

 

[teqniq]

Further to the above, everyone seems to be blaming everyone else:

Brotherhood blames Mubarak corruption for new train disaster; Salvation Front condemns govt

Meanwhile in Alexandria a residential building collapses killing 5 people, apparently it was built without a licence:

Five dead in Alexandria building collapse

The death toll in the above has gone up to 17

http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/62591.aspx

 

[butchersapron]

Appears to be a number of international attempts to connect Mursi and the brotherhood to dodginess over the last day or so - the mursi anti-semetic video and the money laundering thing. Maybe just coincidences.

 

[elbows]

Regarding the timing it may be worth noting that some US Republicans & a lobbying vehicle setup by Pat Robertson have recently started calling for military aid, including an apparently imminent deal for hundreds of tanks and a bunch of F-16's, to be suspended.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...g-on-us-gifts-tanks-f-16-jets-to-egypt-grows/

 

[teqniq]

Oh dear

Angry protesters confront man who looks like Morsy

Protesters at the presidential palace in Heliopolis surrounded and attempted to beat a man Tuesday who they suspected of being President Mohamed Morsy.

Astonished protesters flocked around Gamal Sayed, 56, whose visage reportedly bore an uncanny resemblance to the president's. Thinking they were confronting the president himself, protesters demanded his National Identity Card, while others attempted to pull him into a tent and beat him up....

 

[teqniq]

This does not bode well for press freedom:

SultanAlQassemi: Egypt's MB "retires" prominent independent editor of Al Ahram Online @HaniShukrallah, this is his FB update http://goo.gl/3txac

And from Facebook:

Sharing Hani Shukrallah's status update: "In 2005 State Security had me chucked out as chief editor of Al-Ahram Weekly; on 1 Jan. 2013 new management, under new MB administration, decided to "retire" me as chief editor of Ahram Online, three years too early. Like the last time, I'm supposed to stay on in the Ahram Organisation in some capacity and under new terms, of which I'm yet to be informed. Have written Chairman urging that Ahram Online's fantastic managing editor, Fouad Mansour, take over as chief editor, and that I'll be happy to work with him in any capacity. Told my staff I'd then be Vito Corleone (after he was shot) to Fouad's Michael. No answer as yet! In any event, and just like last time, no regrets, and no bitterness. I've made my choices and am happy to live with the results"

E2A

The struggle over the new Egypt now shifts to the trade unions

Decree 97 of Nov. 25, 2012, went virtually unnoticed in the political upheaval following President Mohammad Mursi’s Nov. 22 constitutional declaration which granted him almost dictatorial powers. Decree 97 amended the law regulating trade unions and removed all office holders of the state-sponsored Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions (ETUF) over 60 years old. They are to be replaced by candidates who received the second-largest vote tally in the 2006 national union elections – widely considered exceptionally corrupt. In August 2011, the Manpower and Immigration Ministry certified their invalidation and dissolved the ETUF’s executive board.

The decree also authorizes Manpower and Immigration Minister Khalid al-Azhari of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party to appoint replacements to vacant trade union offices if no second-place candidate exists. State security officials banned thousands of opposition trade unionists from running in 2006, so hundreds of candidates ran unopposed. Thus, as many as 150 Muslim Brothers could be appointed to posts in ETUF’s 24 national sector unions, while 14 of 24 executive board members will be sacked.

So an ongoing consolidation of power would seem to be the order of the day

 

[elbows]

Al Ahram wasnt free from heavy government influence in the first place. Same with the trade union federation. Its very obvious that the MB's idea of reforming these institutions is just about a changing of the guard rather than opening things up and granting people meaningful new freedoms, but they are likely to find it a bit tricky to put the genie back in the bottle.