4/29/16

When Egypt supported Syria before the military coup

These images are from early 2013 in Cairo, the year the military coup happened in Egypt. Egyptians called for rallies in support of the Syrian revolution since day one. Relief campaigns were sent from Egypt to Syria. Friday speeches and educational campaigns were taking place in mosques and on campuses all over Egypt.

Both the Egyptian revolutionaries and the ordinary Egyptians were supportive of the Syrian revolution and their Syrian brothers and sisters, except those who're brainwashed by the Egyptian media.

Since the military took over in July 2013 and right now the people in Egypt were forced to be silent about the Syrian crisis. Please know that this isn't the will of the Egyptian people, Syria is in our prayers even while we can't show this right now.










Español:

Estas imágenes son de principios del 2013 en ‪#‎El_Cairo‬, el año en que el golpe de estado moilitar ocurrió en ‪#‎Egipto‬. Los Egipcios llamaron a manifestaciones en apoyo de la ‪#‎RevoluciónSiria‬ desde el primer día. Campañas de ayuda fueron enviadas desde Egipto a ‪#‎Siria‬.

Los discursos de los Viernes y campañas educativas se llevaban a cabo en mezquitas y campus en todo Egipto.
Ambos los Egipcios Revolucionarios y los Egipcios comunes apoyaron la Revolución Siria, así como a sus hermanos (as), excepto aquéllos que fueron lavados del cerebro por los medios Egipcios.

Desde que el ejército se hizo cargo en Julio del 2013 y en este momento la gente en Egipto fueron obligados a guardar silencio sobre la crisis siria. Por favor sepan que esta NO es la voluntad del pueblo egipcio, Siria está en nuestras oraciones incluso cuando no podemos mostrarlo en este momento.
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4/25/16

Sinai: The price of Camp David and the illusion of Liberation


April 25th is "Sinai Liberation Day" in Egypt. We are reminding you of the real Sinai today with some realities from on the ground.

The western media and international activists even those with good intentions can't get over the discourse sold by the Egyptian state as well as the western so-called War on terror news and literature regarding “The Jihadi militants in Sinai”.

While drones and F-16s are flying over and killing Egyptians in the cities of Rafah, El Arish, El Sheikh Zweid and others in Sinai, Sinai news stories are merely on “The Rafah crossing border”, or the "Militants in Sinai".

Most recently you might see coverage on "ISIS in Egypt". Media commentators only know that there's an Egyptian group inside Sinai that's affiliated with the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Sahm (ISIS) now and as a result they don't want to try to understand anything else about the dynamics in the peninsula or the humanitarian tragedy.

Something even most of the Palestine advocacy groups and individuals seem to overlook when they talk about Gaza is the relevance of the Sinai Peninsula and the Egyptian side of Rafah to the cause they are in support of.

Consequently, the Egyptians who are residents of the Sinai peninsula have became victims to the following:

1- The Egyptian military's diplomatic and military collaboration with the IDF and the US, and most recently European governments fighting ISIS.

2- The US/Israeli/Egyptian counter-terrorism measures and policies in the peninsula since Camp David.

3- The elite Egyptian and media perspective which overlooked Sinai for a very long time.

4- The biased and/or ignorant international media and rights groups.

Sinai: A history with suffering:
The Sinai Peninsula has fallen a victim to the Camp David treaty for decades due to its geographical proximity to the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Since the military coup in 2013 especially the price paid by the Sinai peninsula and its Egyptian residents escalated, the coup made it even more isolated from Egypt and the world geographically, culturally, and also communications wise.

Sinai is directly affected by the US/Egypt agreed upon "War on terrorism", which lead to more destruction of infrastructure, homes, and personal property of the people of Sinai. The Egyptian civilian population there has suffered the injustices of random arrests, indefinite detentions, and ongoing human rights violations.

The continuity of the oppression of the Egyptian population by the Egyptian state since signing Camp David and most recently after the military coup welcomed and applauded by the US and Israel is essential to neutralizing and sidelining the role of the Egyptian resistance in the conflict.

In addition, there hasn't been any developmental efforts for the social and economical conditions of the Egyptians in Sinai. On the other hand, Israel has worked hard on developing the parts of Sinai it still occupies. 

Unlike how most of the media likes to portray it, Sinai is a real humanitarian tragedy in Egypt. It is not just a militant breeding peninsula, the US, Egypt, and Israel are destroying this place for so-called security purposes and to protect colonial interests.

We will leave you with some photos taken by local news collectives from 2014 and until recently:


These photos are from 2016. Sinai residents in El Arish city after they were forced to evacuate their homes and after their homes were destroyed by the Egyptian military. This continuous operation is part of the Egyptian coup regime's so-called "war on terror" aided and supported directly by the United States. 
Up until today these demolitions and violations against basic rights continue with the silence of the international community. 


Ismail Al Iskandarani: A researcher in prison for writing on Sinai:

It's worth mentioning that researcher and investigative journalist Ismail Al Iskandarani is in prison since October 2015 because of his research and activism around Sinai.

According to the page dedicated for Ismail's campaign: Ismail Alexandrani is a sociopolitical researcher, investigative journalist and expert in Egypt's extremities and Sinai affairs. He studies social and youth mobility, Islamist movements and the state-religion relation in Muslim societies, in parallel with his Human Rights activism.

In addition to the classical false accusation of "Belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist organization according the Egyptian law", the Egyptian state is accusing Ismail of literally "holding a position/opinion on Sinai different from the position of the state". 

This is exactly what we are criticizing here, the Egyptian state doesn't want anything said about Egypt that's not the official position of the state. 

Ironically, the international community is holding the same view of the Egyptian state. In the meantime, the Egyptian journalists and researchers who are trying to expose the truth on what's really going on in Sinai are getting thrown into prisons. Think twice the next time you read a headline on Sinai. 
Ismail with Egyptian children  
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4/8/16

Mostafa Farnisa: A young Egyptian from the Delta



Mostafa Gamal Farnisa is a recent graduate from the medical school in Al Azhar university. He was very involved in charity work all over Egypt helping people stand on their feet and connecting those who have donations with those who need help through social media networks. Mostafa was busy doing these social activities but he was also vocal against the oppression of the military regime in Egypt. He is a survivor of the Rabaa massacre (August 2013) where he volunteered as a field doctor and came to witness horrific killings and crimes against humanity in the worst massacre in Egypt's modern history. His younger brother was also a survivor of the same event and did get shot in the brain which resulted in a long a coma. They come from a village in the Nile Delta known for its revolutionary stances. 

In October 2015, after returning from his shift in the hospital where he started working after graduating last year, Mostafa was kidnapped by the Egyptian security forces from his apartment in Cairo at 1 am in the morning. 

At the same time, his 60 year old father was also kidnapped from their home which is located in a different governorate outside of Cairo. Both of them were accused of being in an anti-government march at that night and they have been in prison without any trials. Every week they postpone their court date and most recently they haven't even allowed visits. The mother and her children are left alone without the oldest son and the father. 

Mostafa was also recently married and he's very loved and admired by everyone he met. He's paying the price of speaking out continuously and for being a field hospital doctor during the protests and sit ins in 2013. 

Mostafa doesn't speak any English and isn't a media personality, but he deserves recognition and shouldn't be in prison. He turned 26 in April 2016. 
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3/30/16

Al Aqrab: On the political prisoners on hunger strike in Egypt 2016

Prepared by: The Unheard Egypt team
March 2016
Easy to share link:

Women relatives of Al aqrab inmates waiting over night for the impossible less than 10 minutes long visit
Women relatives of Al aqrab inmates protesting the horrible conditions of the prison and how they are treated while trying to visit

On September 25, 2015, Emad Hassan Ali died of colon cancer while in the prison hospital after prison authorities refused to provide him with adequate health care and medication. There are more than 40,000 political prisoners in Egypt facing the same fate. Al Aqrab prison has received attention recently after the Egyptian authorities started to make things really difficult for the prisoners and their families.

To give people some background, this is a very good documentary that was produced in 2015 by Al Jazeera English and it's one of very few English video evidence on the political prisoners' crisis in Egypt. 
Al Aqrab prison hunger strike: The story
(For constant updates on the prison, check out the prisoners' families FB page):
For more than forty days, at least 32 men incarcerated inside of Egypt's al Aqrab Prison - "The Scorpion" - have been on a mass hunger strike demanding basic human rights, including visitation and medical care. Egypt's Al Aqrab prison, wherein Egypt is currently holding up to 1000 political prisoners, has long been decried for the cruel conditions and routine torture carried out there.
According to Al Jazeera, "a series of violations took place this year inside al Aqrab, including several assaults by prison guards on inmates - as well as against their family members.
The alleged beatings triggered a few prisoners to go on a hunger strike on February 17 who were later joined by more than two dozen other inmates. They say they will continue refusing food until their demands to improve conditions are met. "

The protests have garnered wide public support in Egypt, online and in protests in the streets, but there has been limited coverage in English-speaking media.

The protests have highlighted the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners' families. Videos and photographs show family members waiting outside of al Aqrab and sleeping on the cold pavement, in order to visit their family members. The Egyptian prison authorities have repeatedly cancelled all visits to al Aqrab, and when they do allow visits, the visits last between one and three minutes.

A statement released by reputable Egyptian human rights organizations on March 23 called for the closure of al Aqrab prison until the prison complies with international law, among other demands.

The entire statement reads as follows: "Human rights violations against detainees in the high security Tora Prison No. 992, known in the media as Al-Aqrab (Scorpion) Prison, has surpassed all boundaries - in which detainees are not in a prison anymore, they are in a cemetery where they cannot exercise their most basic rights including their right to live, their rights to treatment and medication, their right to bodily integrity, their right to have visitations, and much more; not to mention the suffering the detainees must endure from extreme torture and the suffering their families go through in order to see them. Al-Aqrab Prison lacks the basic components of constitutional and legal standards for any prison according to the constitution and international laws/ agreements. The signatories of this statement declare their full support of the demands of the Al-Aqrab Prisons' Families Association to close Al-Aqrab Prison for its complete violation of all International Standards for prisons and laws and standards provided for in the Egyptian constitution, until there is proof that no violations will occur, and mechanisms are put in place to monitor this.

The undersigned organizations assert their full support and solidarity with the families' demands for moving their detained family members from Al-Aqrab prison and to another prison that abides by and implements the local and international legal specifications and requirements for prisons; to a prison that allows detainees at least their most basic human and legal rights to receive medication, exercise, communicate (through writing and telephones) with their family members, have family visitations, have books and newspapers, and much more, and one that abides by all the rights enshrined and set forth by prison regulations which were founded by the prison services of the Ministry of Interior Affairs.

Furthermore, the undersigned organizations demand that all appropriate procedures be followed for the release of all detainees who have completed their conditional/temporary incarceration and all those who have been detained without any judicial orders or decisions from the prosecutor.

We also call for all the undersigned organizations to be allowed entry into Al-Aqrab Prison in order to investigate on whether International prison laws and regulations are actually being implemented or not in Al-Aqrab, and also to investigate on the extent of the prison's administration's commitment to implementing the prison regulations. Furthermore, we call for the undersigned organizations to communicate directly with Al-Aqrab prisoners in order to ascertain the credibility of the allegations of the Ministry of Interior affairs and the prison of their commitment to the implementation of proper laws."

The statement is signed by the Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms, the Agency to Defend the Oppressed, El Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture, and others.
Inline image 1
From Social Media:

The strike received some attention in English but unfortunately not as much as it should have. We wanted to bring some of it here for the historical record, so that people know that this is going on. You can always go to Twitter and search for #Egypt and #DyingToLive at the same time, and you will get some results. These are some examples:




What was written on Al Aqrab hunger strike in the English media:

*Middle East Eye:
"One hundred and fifty of the Aqrab detainees, who families say are all being held on political grounds, have begun full or partial hunger strikes. “This is a rough estimate,” said Aya Alaa Hosny, whose husband is one of about 1,000 detainees who have been charged with what she claims are political crimes, and are held in the Aqrab.
And from the article below:
"In its latest report, Human Rights Monitor (HRM) said it had received complaints from families of Aqrab Prison political detainees expressing deep concern for 19 Egyptian detainees now suffering slow extrajudicial killing, amid a total ban on visits and medicines by the prison administration who also stripped detainees of all cell contents."
*Aljazeera English:
Mass hunger strike at Egypt's infamous Scorpion prison
More than 30 inmates held at "Egypt's Guantanamo" refusing food to highlight inhumane conditions, including beatings.
*Middle East Monitor:
Deadly conditions of Egyptian hunger striking prisoners
*The New Arab
Inmates at al-Aqrab prison, one of the most notorious jails in the Arab world began a hunger strike 12 days ago protesting inhumane conditions and treatment.
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3/9/16

International Women Day: Egyptian women under military rule

International Women Day: Egyptian women under military rule in 2016
Prepared by: The Unheard Egypt team

Egyptian women: The female political prisoners and victims of the military:


Egyptian women and girls have been at the forefront of the movement in Egypt
On International Women Day 56 Egyptian women and girl are still in prisons for crimes they haven't committed. The U.S government and the EU governments continue to remain silent about all these violations. In facts, the numbers and realities show that they support and collaborate with this regime in its oppression against women. 

For the most part, there's been very little on the politically motivated violations of human rights against females in Egypt especially after the military coup. Only a few cases received some attention but for the most part there has been a continuous neglect for the reality of this crisis from international organizations and international media. 

From Twitter: Look at the hashtags: #IWD #IWD2016 #Egypt









Heba Qashta, the first female to receive a military sentence in a military trial who's been in prison since 2014 is an example for young Egyptian women who're arrested after the military coup, and yet don't receive as much media attention or humanitarian support, mostly because of their demographics. Being low income, from outside of the center of attention (Cairo), and not looking very western are among the reasons the bias takes place. 
Heba's family and friends have been trying to raise awareness about her case on their own, where they are in the Nile Delta, and it's a very admirable effort. ‪
Heba is born in 1994 and she was involved in her own campus in a governorate outside of Cairo, these are places the western media and international human rights organizations have continuously avoided and ignored. 

For more information about Egyptian women in prison you can check out these pages:

Save Egyptian women and children!!

Egypt Queens: Imprisoned 

Bent El Thawra (The daughter of the revolution) 

The Unheard Egypt


Egyptian women who're facing military trials
*Egyptian women: The family of the political prisoner:

"My soul is imprisoned with you!" is the slogan of the Egyptian woman who's a mother, a wife, a daughter, or a sister of a political prisoner in Egypt. The families of political prisoners are going through sever hardships and are getting their share of unjust inhumane treatment by the security forces, in addition to the emotional, psychological, and financial burdens they have to go through. 


Wives and family members of political prisoners camp over night in order to be able to see their loved ones the next day!
More details on Al Aqrab prison, and the hunger strike that's ongoing there:

An Egyptian woman protests sentencing her journalist fiance for life right before their wedding, in her never worn before wedding dress:




On March 8th, 2016 a group of Egyptian women protested in several parts of the country and made a strong statement against the imprisonment and forced disappearance of their family members and friends, who are also women and girls.
These events don't get any media coverage outside of Egypt because of the demographics of the women who are participating and organizing. Unfortunately, they are not prominent secular activists from Cairo. Many of them traveled for hours to participate, many of them are regular people.
Protesting is a very courageous act in Egypt right now and has a very high price, especially for women and girls.




Please help share this, and be their voice!

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2/14/16

Alternative media resources on Egypt in 2016

Prepared by The Unheard Egypt team
Easy link: http://tinyurl.com/gmc3yq5

 Why is Egypt relevant to you?

Egypt has the largest Arab population in the Arab world, the 2nd largest population in Africa, and the 5th largest Muslim population in the world. 

Egypt is the second largest recipient of foreign aid (mostly military aid) from the United States in the world after Israel. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mexico and other countries receive similar amounts of U.S tax money so that the U.S can further continue to control the fate of these countries and their populations. The United States and other European governments continue to support the Egyptian regime regardless of the internal crisis.

Under the sight and complicity of the international community, human rights violations are committed in Egypt every single day. It helps greatly in so many ways when the outside world learns about these things taking place. 



There were incidents when young Egyptian revolutionaries were executed while the world watched in silence, or without even much media coverage. Hundreds of Egyptians are forcibly disappeared without anybody outside of their little circles knowing. Thousands of Egyptians are serving unjust sentences or remain in prison without any trials for years, without anybody else besides their family members and friends talking about it. That's why it's very important that you learn about this and let others know. 

I collected a few outlets on social media you can follow for updates in English, besides the regular stuff you might come across here and there on the big outlets that I don't have much respect for because of their bias, oversimplification, and selectivity.

1- The Unheard Egypt Media Collective:



Description:
Reporting, amplifying, and voicing the misreported, unrepresented and unheard #Egypt directly from #Egypt to the rest of the world.

Our goals and mission: 
*Amplifying non-mainstream -though important- issues and opinions in post revolution Egypt that are not considered in the current seemingly polarized/heated social and political atmosphere.

*Filling the gap created in the current non-Arabic journalistic/media narrative on post #Jan25 Egypt due to cultural/social/lingual barriers and sometime bias.

Facebook:

Twitter:

Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms

A local organization established in August 2014. They share rare and hard to find reports on human rights violations in Egypt. Their Facebook is very active and they are also cited in international media and reports released by prestigious human rights organizations. 

This is their English Facebook page:


#Occupywallstreet and Egyptian revolutionaries: United for change!


A page that was created in 2011 when some Occupy Wall Street activists became interested in working with young Egyptian revolutionaries to discuss common issues. The page is now run by Egyptian youth and posts updates from Egypt in English. 


*These are public pages run by individual Egyptian female writers from Sweden, Canada, and the United States who are working so hard to get the word out on their on.






*The following are examples for pages on Egyptian prisoners who're not very known to the outside world.



1- Freedom for Omar Ali, a journalist who's been held unjustly since April 2014




2- Freedom for Abdullah Al Fakharany, doctor, journalist, and human rights advocate arrested since August 2013 for doing his job. 


Other outlets that share updates on the revolutionary movement in Egypt and the situation there frequently:

Global Revolution Collective 

Facebook:

Twitter:

These are some Twitter accounts you can follow that I came to trust over the years: 











We will continue to update this list, please send us your suggestions! 
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11/16/15

Asmaa Hamdy: Knitting hope in prison


Young Egyptian women in prison:


Asmaa is a 23 year old political prisoner female student from Al Azhar University, faculty of dentistry who's been in prison in Egypt for the past 2 years. She was given 5 years in prison, her fiance is still waiting for her.
This is an example for young Egyptian women who're arrested after the military coup in 2013, and yet don't receive as much media attention or humanitarian support, mostly because of their demographics.
Since the military coup, thousands of political prisoners have gone into Egyptian prisons, and not much has emerged – apart from testimonies of institutionalized torture.

Asmaa Hamdy started making handbags and bracelets for her friends and family, then fellow prisoners asked her to make some for their relatives.

This is the page calling for Asmaa's freedom. 

And this is an article in English about Asmaa's case:

Some of her work:





 

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