Corbyn and Rabaa Salute misinformation : The sign's true story

On Tuesday, London-Telegraph published a news article under the title “Jeremy Corbyn condemned after image emerges of him making Muslim Brotherhood Salute” which claims that the leader of Labor in the UK was photographed with a man in an old photo making the famous four-finger Rabaa sign.

Jeremy Corbyn doing the famous Rabaa sign in 2017 "Telegraph" 

The Telegraph says in the report that Corbyn is under fire because he was doing the Salute of the Muslim Brotherhood, the group linked to terrorism in Egypt and the Middle East.
The news article is currently viral on main news websites and newspapers that can’t stomach the Labour leader like The Sun and The Metro.
That photo is making rounds on alt-rights and Islamophobia fanatics on social media.

Now there is a little misinformation here that needs to be corrected.

Jeremy Corbyn was doing Rabaa the sign which is not an MB salute.
The four-finger sign of Rabaa was made in 2014 by a Turkish graphic designer to commemorate the victims of Pro-Islamist president Mohamed Morsi’s sit-in's forcible dispersal in Rabaa and Nahda squares in Egypt on 13 August 2013.

According to the different human rights organizations, whether Egyptian or international, at least 600 human beings were killed on that day.
The numbers of the victims are still disputed but at least 600 victims have been officially confirmed by the semi-official National Council For Human Rights.
The Rabaa sign is associated with the Muslim Brotherhood because its members began to do it in their trials, rallies and protests in Egypt and around the world to commemorate the victims. The group indeed adopted it but it is not *their salute*

That sign is banned in Egypt and some have paid a heavy price because of doing it publicly even accidentally.

Filmed in Cairo : The return of a state-owned Press corporation CEO

A post shared by Zeinobia (@zeinobia) on Aug 13, 2018 at 4:14am PDT

Akhbar Al Youm press corporation is celebrating the return of its CEO and Journalist Yasser Rizk from abroad after having some surgery. Rizk is known to be among the very close journalists to the Egyptian Presidency and current President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi himself as well the army.

The state-owned press corporation had banners with his face with the cheesiest slogans ever all over its buildings in Downtown Cairo and even hired a DJ blasting songs since early morning.

When famous Journalist and Akhbar Al Youm founder Mostafa Amin was exonerated of espionage charges and was released from jail in 1974, he was not received like that !!!!!

Why does the Evangelical Right Wing in the United States support Israel so blindly ?

Why does the US Bible belt support the State of Israel ??
Why does the US right-wing support Israel as the Jewish nation when many of its followers believe that Jewish people control the world media and harass Jewish journalists online who do not have their same beliefs ??

Why do the US right wing’s super racists who support Neo-Nazis like Steven Bannon and Sebastian Gorka support Israel and consider themselves as “Christian Zionists” ?? 
The answer goes simply back to their understanding of their Evangelical Church’s beliefs.
Yes, religion plays a role here just like everything else related to the Middle East and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, unfortunately.

A Christian Zionist parade in Jerusalem in March 2012
"Activestills.org"

Originated in the 17th century as part of the Puritan movement, Christian Zionism believes that Jews “regardless of their nationality” should return to Palestine as their homeland to restore their kingdom.

Since the 1980s some Evangelical Churches began to adopt that theory based on the Book of the Revelation that when Jews restore their kingdom in Jerusalem, a huge battle aka Armageddon will erupt between them and their Muslim neighbors speeding up the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Now here is a short documentary by Vice presented by Thomas Morton who went on a tour with a group of Christian Zionists to the Holy Land in Palestine explaining all this in a simple way.
It is very important because many people ignore those simple fact whether in the West or the East.

International Cat Day : Meet an Egyptian Museum Cat

That cat is among the famous cats of the Egyptian Museum of Cairo 

One more photo to celebrate the International Cat day and a throwback to my visits to the Egyptian Museum of Cairo.

This was one of its famous cats wondering freely in its corridors and garden. 

Despite many will dislike having cats like that wondering freely in Egypt’s most important museum yet I can’t keep thinking that those cats were once worshiped by our Ancient Egyptian ancestors and the museum got tons of cat statues and mummified cats there.

Catching Mars from Cairo

Last week, Planet Mars was in its closest position to our planet earth for the first time since 2003.
If you had looked to the sky at night then, you may have seen a shining red dot appearing amazingly.
That’s our neighbor Mars and I could not resist the opportunity to capture it in a photo.

I do not have a telescope right now “ I am thinking of getting one” and I do not have a telephoto zoom lens “Lenses’ prices reach Planet Pluto since the Egyptian pound flotation ” so I tried to do it using my zoom lens “55-210mm” despite I know in advance.

The results are not great but let’s remember that I got a 210mm lens trying to capture a planet that is 225 million kilometers away from me or actually from earth.

Planet Mars

A little small red sparkling ball Mars appeared in the skies of Cairo and Giza that night. At first, I thought it was an airplane passing by at night but it did not move and I know that I was looking at that red planet.

Small red dot 

Al-Assad’s death lists : Over 7000 victims killed in his prisons and the world is still silent "Updated"

In the past two weeks, news came from Syria that the people in the cities Al-Assad regime regained control on recently began to receive official death certificates of their relatives who were forcibly disappeared or arrested by Al-Assad security forces in the past seven years as the Assad regime updates its civil registries.

"Updated": In an Interview with the Pro-Assad regime newspaper Al-Watan {owned by Al-Assad cousin} on Thursday 9/8/2018, the head of the Civil registry directorate in Syria Ahmed Rahal stated that his directorate managed to document 32,000 death cases in 2018 so far and 68,000 death cases in 2017 without clarifying the cause of death. Some Syrian activists say that those 100,000 death cases are actually the cases of Syrian political detainees. I have not found anything supports this assumption but it is interesting by all measures. 

Syrian News website Zaman Al-Wsl received at the end of July a huge list of nearly 7953 deceased Syrian political prisoners arrested from Syria’s 14 governorates from 2011 till 2018
Yes, at least 7953 human beings were killed in Syrian regime’s prisons in those seven years.
The list is confirmed by other news websites, local activists and Syrian human rights organizations.

A photo snapped from a Syrian town last by AFP 

Syria’s Rif Dimashq governorate top the list with 1856 victim followed by the cradle of the Syrian revolution Daraa governorate with 1283 victim and Homs governorate with 1253 victim according to Zaman Al-Wsl database which you can browse if you know Arabic.

The Syrian capital Damascus got alone 870 victims followed by Hama which got 762 victims while Idlib got 585 victims.
Aleppo has got so far 473 victims while Deir ez-Zor has got 450 victims.
The numbers then decline to 154 victims in Latakia and 110 victims in Quneitra to 50 victims in Raqqa and 44 victims in Al-Hasakah governorate.
Tartus governorate got only 28 victims while As-Suwayda which was rocked last week by Daesh attack has got 23 victims in the list.
There are two Syrian victims whose origin could not be identified and there are 10 names from different countries.
There is one Egyptian in the list who was called Youssef Abdel Samad.
I tried to search for more info using his name but I got nothing.
Abdel Samad was executed on 27 September 2016. It is unclear where he was arrested or when or whether he stood a trial at all or not.