Posts Tagged ‘egypt’

Egypt Today

Posted: December 24, 2019 by chrisharper in Uncomfortable Truths
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By Christopher Harper

Ahmed, a middle-aged tour guide, didn’t work for almost six years as Egypt’s economy fell into a downward spiral as a result of government instability, terrorism, and crime.

His health suffered, leading to two heart operations. His children’s plans to attend college had to be put on hold until recently.

Today, however, he’s optimistic about the future because the government of strongman Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has brought stability to the largest country in the Arab world.

I first visited Egypt more than 40 years ago, and it’s been eight years since I last traveled there—a time of great hope after the 2011 revolution.

That hope became despair in only a few months after the Muslim Brotherhood took control of the government for two years until the military seized power in 2013.

My wife and I just started a two-week stay that will allow us to travel throughout Egypt.

The people I’ve spoken with share Ahmed’s optimism. For example, Mina, who is Coptic Christian, said the greater attention to terrorism and street crime has made Egypt far better than under the Muslim Brotherhood. Although the hope of the Arab revolution of 2001 failed to be achieved, Mina is content that times are better than in recent years.

The Coptic Christians, who make up about 20 percent of Egypt’s population of 100 million, came under intense harassment at the hands of Muslim extremists for several years. Copts were killed because of their religion. Their churches were burned. Most lived in fear of what would happen next.

Although security remains relatively tight around Coptic churches, my wife and I visited the center of the Christian population. The streets bustled with local residents and tourists, with little concern about possible attacks during the Christmas holidays.

After a visit to a Coptic monastery in the western desert, however, military police accompanied our tour bus until we made it to more populated areas.

Tourism seems to have picked up after the problems of the past decade, although my wife and I didn’t see too many Americans. Many of our friends thought we were crazy to make such a trip, so Egypt will have to convince people from the United States to return there.

El-Sisi and his team have rolled out a variety of economic programs, including a major building project at the Suez Canal to increase traffic. Also, the government has devalued the currency, making foreign investment far more appealing.

But Egyptian skeptics remain. One of my friends whom I visited during the 2011 uprising left the country for Central America. When I asked him if any of my acquaintances remained in Egypt, he responded, “They’re dead, in prison, or they left the country.”

El-Sisi and his supporters still have to convince some of their fellow countrymen that the economic and political situation will get even better.

One final note: A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you from Egypt!

Still nothing to see here, just dead Christians

Posted: March 6, 2011 by datechguy in internet/free speech
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Let’s pretend that Romeo and Juliet was not a story of Capulet and Montague but was instead the story was of an Egyptian Muslim and an Egyptian Christian. It might have gone something like this:

This incident was triggered by a relationship between 40-year-old Copt Ashraf Iskander and a Muslim woman. Yesterday a “reconciliation” meeting was arranged between the relevant Coptic and Muslim families and together with the Muslim elders it was decided that Ashraf Iskander would have to leave the village because Muslims torched his house.

The father of the Muslim woman was killed by his cousin because he did not kill his daughter to preserve the family’s honor, which led the woman’s brother to avenge the death of his father by killing the cousin. The village Muslims blamed the Christians. (emphasis mine)

The Muslim mob attacked the church, exploding 5-6 gas cylinders inside the church, pulled down the cross and the domes and burnt everything inside.

So let’s get this sequence straight:

1. There is a relationship between a Christian and a Muslim.
2. Muslims torch the Christian’s house for it.
3. In order to achieve “reconciliation” the now homeless Christian leaves.
4. The Muslims promptly start killing each other.
5. The Muslims decide it’s not their fault they are killing each other, it’s the fault of the Christian community.
6. Muslims start attacking Christians and torching churches.

Am I the only one who is willing to say aloud that this is insane and barbaric?

But Egyptian’s Christians shouldn’t worry after all the new Egypt recognizes that every in an Egyptian first.

The Church of St. Mina and St. George was torched, and its clergy are unaccounted for. The fire department and security forces failed to respond to Coptic pleas for help during the arson attack.

Or not.

But that was just a family thing, it’s not like the Muslim Brotherhood is going after Christians too:

…this week members of the Muslim Brotherhood, shouting “Allahu Akbar,” stormed a Christian school on Thabit Street in downtown Asyut and attempted to take it over. Egyptian security forces, including an army unit, intervened and routed out the Brotherhood members. The school had been built by Presbyterian missionaries in the early 1900s, and is now directed by Presbyterian Pastor Naji. Christian leaders from this southern area expressed a deepening sense of insecurity as the Muslim Brotherhood emerges from the underground.

At least in this case the army (which doesn’t have a great love of the Muslim Brotherhood) stepped in.

Expect to see a lot more of this and expect it to be ignored by the MSM, at least as long as the dead are Christians.

I’m sure these stories are totally unconnected

Posted: February 25, 2011 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news
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Following up on my previous post on Islam uncoverage.net finds an interesting story on at Gates of Vienna,

When civil order vanished from Egypt a few weeks ago, the Copts appealed to the army for protection. They were told that the military could not protect them, that they must protect themselves. And so they did, building protective fences around the monastery.

Unfortunately, it seems the army prefers that the monasteries remain unprotected: on Sunday soldiers with bulldozers arrived and began destroying the fences. Any Copts who attempted to interfere are being shot at by troops.

Apparently it’s not only the government that in Egypt that came down. It’s the facade that Egyptians are Egyptians first. As Assyrian International agency reported:

Father Hemanot Ava Bishoy said the army fired live ammunition and RPGs continuously for 30 minutes, which hit part of the ancient fence inside the monastery. “The army was shocked to see the monks standing there praying ‘Lord have mercy’ without running away. This is what really upset them,” he said. “As the soldiers were demolishing the gate and the fence they were chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’ and ‘Victory, Victory’.”

He also added that the army prevented the monastery’s car from taking the injured to hospital.

The army also attacked the Monastery of St. Makarios of Alexandria in Wady el-Rayan, Fayoum, 100 km from Cairo. It stormed the monastery and fired live ammunition on the monks. Father Mina said that one monk was shot and more than ten have injuries caused by being beaten with batons. The army demolished the newly erected fence and one room from the actual monastery and confiscated building materials. The monastery had also built a fence to protect itself after January 25 and after being attacked by armed Arabs and robbers leading to the injury of six monks, including one monk in critical condition who is still hospitalized.

And its spreading:
Thousands of demonstrators protested in the city of Assiut following the murder of Father Daoud Boutros. The priest was stabbed several times by Islamists who shouted “Allahu Akbar” as they fled from the scene.

Nope nothing to worry about, nothing to see here.

Hey you know that revolution that the Wisconsin folk are cheering…

Posted: February 21, 2011 by datechguy in middle east
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…here are a few related stories:

A second female reporter on being luckier than Lara Logan

It comes down to luck. Sheer luck. And when it runs dry, that’s it. I don’t know the details of what happened to Lara Logan at the square. I can imagine it all too well, though. And when I heard the news on Tuesday I was heartsick: My God. That could’ve been me.

I’d rather be lucky than smart. And unfortunately there is a third not so lucky:

Now I can say what I have only told a few friends since my return: That I too was subjected to several sexual harassment attacks at the scene.

Although they cannot be compared to the trauma Lara suffered, they were deeply upsetting.

Meanwhile more details have come out about the Logan story and they are not pretty as Howard Kurtz explains:

“We were detained by the Egyptian army,” Logan told Esquire. “Arrested, detained, and interrogated. Blindfolded, handcuffed, taken at gunpoint, our driver beaten. It’s the regime that arrested us. They arrested [our producer] just outside of his hotel, and they took him off the road at gunpoint, threw him against the wall, handcuffed him, blindfolded him. Took him into custody like that.”

There was more: “They blindfolded me, but they said if I didn’t take it off they wouldn’t tie my hands. They kept us in stress positions—they wouldn’t let me put my head down. It was all through the night. We were pretty exhausted… We were accused of being Israeli spies. We were accused of being agents. We were accused of everything.” In the process, Logan said, she became “violently, violently ill.” The army eventually released Logan and the crew.

Kurtz also underscores something that has been said by others:

the sexual assault and beating that Logan endured underscores that the Middle East remains a particularly dangerous place for women.

I await the denunciation of Kurtz as a right wing misogynist.

Democracy means choices:

Well, no political action has been taken. But even some Egyptian secular liberals are eager to do away with the historic 1978 treaty, which was the foundation for peace between Egypt and Israel — hence the U.S.’s alliance with Egypt — and which was the pretext for Anwar El Sadat’s assassination by Egyptian Islamists. As HotAir notes, Ayman Nour, a liberal Egyptian leader, was recently quoted as saying, “In practice, the Camp David accords have come to an end.”

Part of that deal was the return of the Sinai to Egypt, I’m sure the Israeli will be happy to take it back off their hands. And there are some bad signs for the future:

Now that Mubarek is gone, the western media mostly has moved on to the next revolution, secure in the perception that Egypt is moving in the right direction.

But that is a false comfort. As I posted yesterday, over a million Egyptians turned out in Tahrir Square last Friday to cheer the vile anti-Semitic Sunni cleric Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who had been exiled by Mubarek, and who espouses the fundamentalist Islamic view that Jews must live as Dhimmis under Islamic control.

And guess what faces are being hidden and which ones are coming out in the open:

Ironically, reports indicate that some of that happened on the very stage from which Qaradawi spoke. Wael Ghonim, the young Google executive credited with helping ignite the popular uprising, was blocked from getting on stage by Qaradawi’s guards. According to a news report, “Ghonim left the square with his face hidden by an Egyptian flag.”

As the IPT reported Thursday, there are increasing signs that the Muslim Brotherhood, which deliberately maintained a low profile during the three-week street protests, is flexing its muscles as Egypt tries to build a new government. It is well represented on a committee charged with recommending changes the country’s constitution and has announced plans to form a political party to run for parliamentary seats.

Meanwhile the Egyptian military has been…active:

Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the minister of defense and military production who now leads the council of officers ruling Egypt, has been a strong advocate of government control of prices and production. He has consistently opposed steps to open up the economy, according to diplomatic cables made public by WikiLeaks.

And already there are signs that the military is purging from the cabinet and ruling party advocates of market-oriented economic changes, like selling off state-owned companies and reducing barriers to trade.

Ah socialism, no wonder Wisconsin demonstrators and democrats are waving Egyptian flags.

Let the record show BTW that every single American Egyptian I’ve talked to this month backs the military in Egypt and trusts them more than any other Egyptian institution.

That isn’t surprising as they have been a big contrast to the actions of the military in places like Libya

Brutal totalitarianism on full display as the citizens of Libya rise up to protest against the 41 year reign of Muammar Qaddafi. 25 people were reportedly killed today during protests.

and those 25 were just a start.

And Bahrain:

This video shows a group of Bahrainian protesters marching in the street when all of a sudden you hear gun fire coming from what sounds like multiple people opening fire on the crowd.

and Iran:

Iranian protesters called for the execution of opposition leaders today after Friday prayers.

But not to worry he is under house arrest so I’m sure they can’t get to him, can they?

And in China:

Several top Chinese rights activists have disappeared into police custody as a web campaign urged angry citizens to mark the Middle East’s “Jasmine Revolution” with protests, campaigners said Sunday.

Up to 15 leading Chinese rights lawyers and activists have disappeared since Saturday amid a nationwide police mobilisation, according to activists, while the government appeared to censor Internet postings calling for the demonstrations.

Anybody who thinks non cancer ridden dictator types are going to give up their wealth and privileges without a fight are deluding themselves. Also note that it’s not a coincidence that the US trained and supplied Egyptian army alone did not fire on their own people.

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