Palestine’s Great March of Return : Why Have Not I seen this image in mainstream media ?“+18”

I am sorry for the extremely graphic photos in that post.
Since 30 March 2018, Palestinians launched a-six-weekend protests at the Palestinian-Israeli borders in Gaza.
This series of protests which is named “Great March of Return” was organized by an independent group of activists originally to represent the plea of Palestinian refugees who were forced to leave their homes in 1948 and live in Gaza or in another words to commemorate the anniversary of the Palestinians’ forced displacement in 1948 on the hands of the Zionist terrorist gangs.

The Palestinian protesters at the Great March of Return "AFP" 

The aim of the Great March of Return is to remind the world especially those leaders in the Middle East who are advocating the so-called ambiguous “The deal of the century” to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that there is a Palestinian right called “Right of Return”.
Jerusalem is not the only the obstacle in the Mideast peace process as there are 7 million Palestinian refugees worldwide according to Al-Awda, the Palestinian right to return coalition.
Those refugees want to return home, they do not want any more displacement. Their home is currently Israel.
The protests were later supported and endorsed by Hamas of Gaza as well Fatah of West Bank because they simply could not say no to the Palestinian public especially youth in the besieged sector.
Other Palestinian political and militant groups have endorsed and supported the movement, which is the biggest so far.

The great March of return attacked by tear gases

Despite the protests have been peaceful so far as we are speaking about stone-throwing youth whom cannot be categorized as militant, Israel met those protests with its usual deadly brutality.
The Israeli IDF has killed so far 45 people since the start of protests on 30 March.
Among the victims, there are teenagers and journalists who wore their protective vast with the word “Press” inscribed on them crystal clear.
There are 2 journalists who have been killed in the protests along with 4 children. According to statistics released by Palestinian NGOs and centers, there have been 35 protesters that were killed while protesting in marches and not standing at the borders.

Among those 45 people, a Palestinian young man who was shot down by a tear gas canister into his face.

Hisham Geneina Saga goes on : Former Egypt’s top auditor sentenced 5 years in prison

Egypt’s former top auditor Hisham Geneina was sentenced on Tuesday to 5 years in jail in a Cairo military trial in a sad twist in his tale.

Hisham Geneina in a file photo from a previous trial at
State Council 

The former top auditor was found guilty of spreading false news about the Egyptian armed forces and the country in his Huffington Post Arabic edition interview following his attack. “The website has closed down as Arianne Huffington decided to lease as it seems to some Saudi affiliated company as I have heard”

Moataz Wadnan, the journalist who conducted the interview with him is also detained pending investigation.
Geneina is able to appeal the verdict before a military appeals court. Nevertheless, I believe no civilian should stand a military trial like this for charges like these.
I think he has one chance to appeal.

The Geneinas hired the devil advocate Farid El-Deeb, the infamous attorney who defended Mubarak and his cronies in front of courts in the past years.
Hisham Geneina himself did not know about his family’s decision except when he asked what the infamous lawyer was doing in court.
El-Deeb is an infamous lawyer but he is also a good lawyer. Geneina’s family thought that hiring could help the former top auditor but little did they know !!

And Shawkan makes press history in Egypt for real

Earlier Monday, the UNESCO announced it awarded detained Egyptian photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid aka Shawkan its UNESCO /Guillermo Cano Press Freedom prize for 2018.
“The choice of Mahmoud Abu Zeid pays tribute to his courage, resistance and commitment to freedom of expression,” said Filipino veteran journalist and head jury of the prize Maria Ressa.

Shawkan in court behind bars "AFP"

Shawkan has been detained for four years since his arrest during Rabaa sit-in while doing his job as a freelance journalist working for Demotix agency.
He was accompanied by two foreign journalists who were arrested as well by security forces. Those two foreign journalists were released and left the country leaving Shawkan behind facing hell because he does not have a foreign passport.
Shawkan has been behind bars for two years without any charges till he was charged officially with six charges in March 2016.
He is facing the death penalty for a number of charges above them the incitement to murder

This is the first time an Egyptian journalist or photojournalist wins this important award. He is third Arab to win it after May Chidiac of Lebanon "2006" and Mazen Darwich of Syria "2015"

Earlier Sunday, Egyptian foreign ministry’s official spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid issued a statement saying that the ministry expressed its regret on how the UNESCO nominated “an accused charged with murder and vandalism”.

And Mo Salah Makes football history for real

Egypt National team and Liverpool footballer Mohamed Salah aka Mo Salah has just made a true football history for real. He has just won England’s Professional Footballers’ Association “PFA” player for the year 2018.
He is the first Egyptian football player ever to win that important title.

Mo Salah with the trophy

He is also the second Arab and African football player to win that important title after Riyad Mehrez of Algeria in 2015/2017 Premier League.
Needless to say, millions of Egyptians included myself were glued and watched that boring PFA 2018 gala “with all my respect to them” only for Salah and that moment.
Salah has become the first Egyptian footballer to achieve that title again; an important and fact that can’t be ignored especially when you see his numbers with Liverpool FC.
Since joining the Reds of Liverpool, Salah scored 40 goals in 46 matches in addition to 11 assists that ended in goals.
Here are his first 30 goals with Liverpool.

How Egypt’s Media Council did not spare the Spring’s song from its censorship

For the first time since starting to blog here, I did not publish the official anthem of Spring or Sham Nassim in Egypt this year.
Busy between work and home, I tried at the same time to take some rest.
I feel sad that I did not publish my Spring Flowers Fair post on time then as I hoped so along with “الدنيا ربيع” or “The world is springy” as a tradition of Egyptian Chronicles in Spring.

Anyhow it is never too late to publish or speak about Soad Hosni’s unofficial Spring anthem because after all, it was the talk of the Egyptian society this Sham Nassim for the wrong reason.

After 43 years of appearing in Soad Hosni’s “Amira, my love”, the cheerful song about the beginning of the spring lost one of its scenes to the censorship because Egypt’s Supreme Council for Media Regulations ”SCM” saw that scene is inappropriate for audience !!!!!

Here is the song

The scene that was censored is in “2:13” minute.

The inappropriate scene !!!

I can not believe it for real.
Some are saying that SCM decided to remove that scene because there was some sort of meme with sexual innuendo.

Kodak Agfa Presents : Spring Flowers Fair 2018 “Elections , Selfies and flowers”

And I am avoiding all that useless debate about Syria currently because I am too angry of that hypocrisy in this world so I will stick to photography and spring.
It is that time of the year where Kodak Agfa studio proudly presents Egypt’s Spring Flowers Fair 2018
I went to my favorite Spring Flowers Fair 2018 to enjoy a good spring weather with a breeze of beautiful flowers’ smell. I went at the beginning of the Fair which was inaugurated on the 10th March.

A beautiful pink rose at the Spring Flowers Fair 2018

I used to go on working days in the past but this year I went on Saturday during the weekend for most Egyptians in Cairo.

Initially, I did not intend to go to the fair on that day. I planned to visit Aisha Fahmy palace in Zamalek to see the Special Fabric exhibit that will end this month. There, I was told by security that I could not use my professional camera inside except after taking a permit from the ministry of culture’s department of something. I can only use my mobile phone camera.
Determinant to use my professional camera on that day, I headed to Orman botanical to spend a couple of hours at the Spring Flowers Fair 2018.

Beautiful purple daisies at the fair 

The ministry of agriculture understood that it can get extra revenue with extra fees and I can’t blame them.
The Spring Flowers Fair 2018 was fully packed that Saturday afternoon to the level that you could not park your car inside Orman botanical part because the parking area inside it was full.

Visitors visiting the fair 

Families from all social backgrounds, university students, Egyptians and foreigners were all there whether to buy nice plants and flowers or enjoy a good spring view or for the sake of selfies.

A family visiting the fair 

Besides the huge crowd, the fair echoed the March of Presidential elections.
There were banners hanged calling the people to vote in the Presidential elections.

Seen in Giza : Egypt's Renaissance statue

Seen in Giza: Egypt’s Renaissance statue stands high in the square named after it in Giza. The statue was made by sculptor Mahmoud Mokhtar in 1928.
This is the most famous statue in Modern Egypt.
The father of modern sculpture in Egypt, Mahmoud Mokhtar wanted to symbolize Egypt after its independence from the UK in 1922. The Sphinx representing the past and besides a young Egyptian peasant lifting up her veil.
The statue was originally placed at Ramsis square but it was moved later to be beside Cairo University and Giza Zoo. 

Seen in Cairo : Tahrir's Cleopatra hotel renovated

Seen in Cairo: Cleopatra Hotel in Cairo’s Tahrir square which is under current renovation according to what I have read today.
Surprisingly and contrary to what I thought, Cleopatra hotel is not closed and is actually operating.It has got a page in booking.com.
Inaugurated in 1962, it has got 82 rooms according to its profile in its mother company EGOTH.
The State-owned tourism company is leasing the hotel to an Egyptian-Saudi company called "Arkan" to operate it.

Egypt’s Presidential elections 2018 in graph : Let the numbers speak facts

On Monday, Egypt’s National Elections Authority announced the final and official results of the March Presidential elections 2018.
Incumbent President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi was elected unsurprisingly in a landslide victory with 97% of the valid votes in a-41.5%-turnout.

His rival, the leader of Ghad Party Moussa Moussa got 2.92%  of the total votes.
For the second presidential elections in a row, the spoilt votes come in the second place right after Sisi with 1,762,231 votes or 7.27% of the total votes.
It is worth to mention that the number of eligible voters increased from 53,909,306 in Presidential elections 2014 to become 59,078,138 normally.

Now the NEA, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Pro-regime media are claiming that there was a huge turnout thanking Egyptians inside and outside for once again proving to the world that they supported the current president.

Inside an Egyptian presidential elections polling station in Giza 

Well numbers, the official numbers released by the NEA says a different story; especially when compared with presidential elections 2014 and presidential elections 2012 which were released by NEA’s predecessor the High Elections committee
Let’s see my dear readers what the official numbers say.

First of all
Here is El-Sisi Vs. Moussa’s graph

Al Masry Al Youm and Masr Al Arabia's fines : Again Journalism is not crime in Egypt "Updated"

In a new escalation for the dramatic events that have been taken place in Egypt’s most famous independent and privately Newspaper since the third day of the presidential election , the editor in chief of Al Masry Al Youm Mohamed El-Siyad Saleh was dismissed from his position by the chairman of the daily paper’s board and its managing director on Thursday.

Saleh was dismissed over a headline published in the front page of the newspaper by none other than Abdel Moneim Saeed and Abdel Latif Al-Manawy ,the two famous Pro-Mubarak/Pro-Sisi’s media figures.

Abdel Moneim Saeed has also ordered the newspaper not to publish anymore any op-eds for writer Abdel Nasser Salama.

The famous Pro-Mubarak writer has been very critical to Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in the past couple of years.

Those orders by Saeed were issued following a sudden slowness in the official website of the newspaper on Wednesday.

People who understand in Networks say that someone lowered its bandwidth. Other are saying that Egypt's biggest independent and privately owned newspaper is on the verge of being blocked in Egypt !!

All of that happened because of a headline some did not like.

Sunday afternoon, Egypt’s High Media Council fined Daily Al Masry Al Youm “AMAY” LE 100,000 for allegedly publishing misleading news as referring its editor in chief and one of the reporters to an investigation at the Journalists Syndicate in Cairo.

The High Media Council which is led by veteran pro-regime journalist Makram Mohamed Ahmed also ordered the newspaper to apologize to the National Elections Authority in the daily newspaper itself.

All that happened because AMAY published on its first page in the edition of Wednesday’s issue a news with the headline saying the following in Arabic ( الدولة تحشد الناخبين اخر ايام الانتخابات) or “The state mobilizes the voters in the last day of the elections”.

The issue with the headline that caused trouble

It seems the headline and the news itself did not like some VIPs did not like the title or the news because the AMAY editorial team decided to change to remove from the first page as well the AMAY’s website and its cache !!