Monthly Archives: November 2013

Shameful arrests of protesters

Egpyt

Arresting anyone and everyone

A Judge in Alexandria, Egypt has sentenced fourteen women to a eleven year prison sentence for participating in an “Islamist” protest and has also sentences seven girls for joining these protests to an “intermediate term” at a juvenile center. This grandstanding by the Sisi government has gone unnoticed by many of its allies including the US government as it has not spoken out regarding any of these human rights abuses against by Egypt against its own people.

These horrific stories do not stop here, as Riot police have violently ended peaceful protested by beating up, sexually harassing and detaining some of the most prominent human rights activists in the country.

Diplomatic Crisis

Egypt has severed diplomatic ties with turkey after Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan who was also strongly supportive of Mr. Morsi voiced criticisms at the crackdown of the muslim brotherhood and expressed solidarity with the protestors. So this move has angered the Egyptian officials who have expelled Turkey’s ambassador and also have withdrawn their own ambassador from Turkey.

While relationship between Turkey and Egypt have been denigrating the past few months, Egypt has claimed it has only downgraded its relationship with Turkey not severed it. Egypt has sought to form new diplomatic ties with any country who have been supportive of the so called new government and has lashed out at any allies who have voiced any sort of criticisms. The Criticism of the Obama government on Egypt’s alarming actions have prompted to rekindle its diplomatic ties with Russia. This move was largely seen as a retaliatory swipe at the US for its criticisms. This move has prompted the US the soften its stance on Egypt mainly because many of the Obama administration officials have emerged on different ends of the spectrum on its Egypt policy.  So the Issue at hand has largely developed to become an international impasse in diplomatic ties and bid for regional influence.

Growing violence

Despite the peaceful protests and sit-ins, some within the pro-democracy/ Morsi supporters have taken up armed resistance against the military by targeting security forces. Suicide bombers have killed 11 soldiers and wounded 37 by driving an explosive loaded car into an army convoy. This attack has been of the latest form of violence that have affected both sides despite peaceful protests and general unrest.

This latest of round of retaliatory violence will not be the last one as Egypt remains untethered to alter its course back to authoritarian style of government this time led by General Sisi. As the political climate in the middle east has become unstable with the civil war in Syria, to an unstable country in libya and a nuclear Iran, what is going to  happen next is anyone’s guess as these competing issues become murkier day by day with no viable or attainable end in sight. These conflicts have also started international fight for influence in the region with the US steadily losing its power and regional players like Iran and Turkey  looking to gain the upper hand. Surprisingly enough Russia has gained a foothold by its show of power in dealing with the Syrian chemical weapons issue.

 

Immunity for Sisi led military

Uncategorized

In a recorded interview Al-Jazeera aired, Egyptian General and coup leader al-Sisi is quoted as saying that the military have to be immunised from prosecution in relation to the coup and for 5-10 years to come. This implies some sort of guilt on part of the general due to his role in the overthrow of the democratically elected Morsi. al-Sisi is responsible for the death of hunderds of civilians in the coup and violence has persisted for some time after the over throw. Although this is somewhat unsuprising coming from Sisi its his next comment that is quite suprising.

Sign of things to come

In the same context, Sisi frankly told the interviewer “The army will have a significant role for five to ten years in the future. The institution will play this role regardless of the identity of the next president, be him liberal, religious or leftist.” This is somewhat a suprising comment mainly because the whole justification for the military led “revolution” was to recover from the economic disaster the Muslim-brotherhood caused, and to retract some of the “radical” policies the brotherhood put in place and to restore “order. This comment is reflective of things to expect in the future. The Arab Spring might have ignited the passion for a representative democracy in Egypt but this latest story suggests the return of a military style regime similar to the Mubarak ea only this time around only the man in charge is different but everything else is the same.

Free Speech

In other events, the much anticipated return of satirist and TV show host Bassem Youssef also known as Egypt’s “Jon Stewart” has been suspended due to violation of “editorial policy” which is essentially a guise for restricting free speech. Bassem Youssef, popular media personality has often criticized the Brotherhood led government and Sisi’s military government. The move by the CBC station was widely contested by  Bassem Youssef’s fan base and many politicians as a “restricting freedom of expression” but it’s a move to appease the government from legitimate criticism.

Coup: Ideal for Israel

The Egyptian Coup has been widely been beneficial for Israel so much so that they are partnering on certain military missions to combat “terrorism” along the Sinai region. This new move by Egpyt prompted it to shutdown the Gaza border for a short period. This affected those living in the Egpytian border and mainly the Palestinians who regularly receive aid via this route.

As we learned in the last blog post that the US has suspended aid to Egypt, ;Israel and its Lobby, AIPAC have been stepping up efforts to push the US to reconsider restoring aid to Egypt citing Israel’s “security needs” and this concerted effort was pursued long before the United States stopped the aid to Egypt and Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed the same concerns recently  with Presiden Obama.

With the Syrian civil war at a decisive stalemate  and no end in sight and Egypt on a path to dictatorship, Israel has been the sole beneficiary of the turmoil and has maintained that its official position is to remain neutral in terms of the civil war in syria and in terms of the changes in Egypt but  Israel has recently conducted several airstrikes along the Syrian region to “destroy” the transfer of advanced weapons to the  Shiite militant group Hizbollah.