Today Egypt’s Journalists syndicate in Cairo organized a small protest or rather a stand in solidarity with France and the journalists of Charlie Hebdo. It was a small protest where tens of journalists showed up about them the head of the Syndicate Diaa Rashwan. Despite there were big banners in French hanged over the syndicate’s wall saying “Long live the Freedom of expression” , Diaa Rashwan was concerned more about “the right to live in the first place” when he was asked about the State of Freedom of expression in Egypt.
When I remember tens and tens of Arab journalists killed by regimes and militants groups including terrorist organizations and yet the syndicate did not care or move a muscle. In fact in the past two years 11 journalists are currently in jail and the syndicate did not organize stands or protests attended by Diaa Rashan as far as I remember to support them. Their colleagues and the Freedoms committee in the syndicate alone as usual are doing their best to help their imprisoned colleagues.
Anyhow here is a small slideshow for the small protest.
This is an insult to Freedom of expression and Freedom of journalism. It is like a sick joke , one of the many sick jokes we saw today during those marches and protests in solidarity with France and Charlie Hebdo.
One of the other sick jokes is how the Saudi Ambassadors attended in Paris and Beirut the Pro-Charlie Hebdo protests when there is no Freedom of expression in the Kingdom at all.
Of course the biggest sick joke of all is how the historical Paris March was headed by a group of world leaders and representatives of presidents and kings who are actually enemies of freedom of expression and free press in their own countries. For God sake just from few months ago 17 journalists were killed in Gaza during the Israeli offensive and we find Benjamin Netanyahu in the first row proudly.
The list is too long but honestly it was so annoying and disrespect to freedom of expression to see all those hypocrites. I think Charlie Hebdo cartoonists would have mocked those hypocrites enough. Here is an interesting list by Daniel Wickham shows you how those who led the march in Paris were actually from the press’ worst enemies.
Asked about the state of press freedom in Egypt, Press Syndicate head Diaa Rashwan told CNN that the right to life is more important.
— Sarah El Sirgany (@Ssirgany) January 11, 2015
I think this answer means a lot about freedom of expression in Egypt When I remember tens and tens of Arab journalists killed by regimes and militants groups including terrorist organizations and yet the syndicate did not care or move a muscle. In fact in the past two years 11 journalists are currently in jail and the syndicate did not organize stands or protests attended by Diaa Rashan as far as I remember to support them. Their colleagues and the Freedoms committee in the syndicate alone as usual are doing their best to help their imprisoned colleagues.
Anyhow here is a small slideshow for the small protest.
One of the other sick jokes is how the Saudi Ambassadors attended in Paris and Beirut the Pro-Charlie Hebdo protests when there is no Freedom of expression in the Kingdom at all.
Of course the biggest sick joke of all is how the historical Paris March was headed by a group of world leaders and representatives of presidents and kings who are actually enemies of freedom of expression and free press in their own countries. For God sake just from few months ago 17 journalists were killed in Gaza during the Israeli offensive and we find Benjamin Netanyahu in the first row proudly.
The list is too long but honestly it was so annoying and disrespect to freedom of expression to see all those hypocrites. I think Charlie Hebdo cartoonists would have mocked those hypocrites enough. Here is an interesting list by Daniel Wickham shows you how those who led the march in Paris were actually from the press’ worst enemies.
Many people have been incarcerated for insulting Sisi, the judiciary, and the military, all of which deserve to be called out harshly. There is absolutely no way in which Sisi and his cult can be considered advocates of any sort of liberty. The Egyptian military is not a potential source of revolution, be it religious or political.
ReplyDeleteThe Egyptian media has been peddling hysterical denunciations of free speech for quite some time, equating freedom of expression with terrorism and claiming citing bs delusions like a war on terrorism as reasons to reject liberty.
The military ideology of the Egyptian ruling class that not only recommends and espouses, but even mandates, torture, rape as a tool of intimidation, and mental suppression is a stern adversary of any kind of liberty. The ruling class's purpose is to keep the population suppressed and readily exploitable. Bring religious bodies under its control is one component of this strategy.
Is this really the death of the Free Press or someone else with an agenda? Meaning, the story about King Abdullah in particular.
ReplyDeleteDaniel Wickham's tweet about Israel/Netanyahu doesn't link to a proof of the purported claim of 7 journos killed, so it's hard to say whether it's true. I don't see it anyway, YMMV.
ReplyDeleteBut his tweet about the supposed arrest of a Wash Post reporter in Ferguson is flat-out false. A WaPo and a HuffPo journalist were briefly detained as is often done in dangerous situations esp. when the reporters (or anyone) act cocky to the cops who have a job to do. There was no arrest and no arrest report, just a couple of panty-waist reporters with a self-important attitude.
I didn't bother to check any of the others.
The freedom of the press thing is a sideshow. If it was not the Charlie killings it would have been someone else and a different reason, for example an 'apostate' or a group of women for indecency. The important fact is to recognize terrorism and the cult of hate.
ReplyDeleteHamas is to be blamed for the killing of journalists in Gaza, not Netanyahu. They initiated the war with Israel, shot missiles from civilian neighborhoods, their sole intention was to create civilian casualties from both sides so they can create the same pavlovian response we see from you and others in the muslim world. They know they cannt win the IDF on military grounds, so they try to win on the media front, and for that they need "colorful" pictures of dead people.
ReplyDeleteBoth Al-Jazeera and the Iranian national TV keep representatives in Israel, although they are very critical and hateful of Israel. Nobody arrests them or harasses them.
All western foreign journalists prefer to stay in Israel as a base for covering the middle east. Nobody arrests them or harasses them. I think Israel has more foreign reporters than the entire middle-east combined.
Once I see Muslim/Arab person blaming his own culture instead of the "Zionists" or the "West", I'll know there is a change. Once people will stop killing their daughters because they behave in an "immoral" way, I know there is a change. Until then, you're still in the same shit.
Where is Aliaa Magda Elmahdy ? Escaped to Sweden? what wrong have she done? Nobody wants his daughter to do it, but does it justify death threats?
I wish you and rest of the good people in the middle-east (muslim, jews, christians) all the best in the world, but I am not optimistic.
Well, there is probably not a government in the world that has a perfect record in this area. Governments don't generally appreciate the work of journalists pointing out inconvenient facts. I think Netanyahu was there mainly because of the Jewish angle of the terror attacks. Not only at the bakery but also at the magazine. As far as he being an opponent of the principle of freedom of speech because among the dead in Gaza were jounalists, I don't think thats true. Modern warfare with extremely destructive weaponry doesn't discriminate between journalists and non-journalists. Now, criticising him for launching strikes in Gaza thats a much bigger and different argument. I guess the problem is noone wants to be wounded and helpless as 2 gunmen calmly walk over and shoot you in the head. They would rather use any weapon available to avoid that fate. Noone (even Hamas) wants to be helpless, defenceless and would use anything at their disposal to avoid that situation. Its the cruel logic behind most wars.
ReplyDeleteAs to Saudi, they have never claimed to be a liberal democracy and I don't think have any concept of freedom of expression but the regime has been countering terrorism ever since 1979 when the Grand mosque in Mecca was seized by fundamentalists and the King used Pakistani and French special forces to break the siege (though they had to keep the presence of 'infidels' in the holy place hush-hush).
As to Jordan, again they have struggled with terrorism since the days when the King turned his Bedouin army on thousands of Palestinians in the massacre that gave a name to a virulent early terror group -"Black September".
None of this is by way of excuse only by way of explanation of why a wide variety of countries were represented in Paris, including Egypt. If the standards were too strict
it might have been a rather smaller affair.