Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Amelia Smith
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The regime is determined to rewrite history. Egyptians are giving their lives to prevent it
On 23 June Sanaa Seif, along with her sister Mona, arrived at the Egyptian attorney general’s office to file a complaint. The night before, a group of government thugs, known as Baltagiya, had beaten them up outside Tora Prison where they were waiting to receive a letter from their...
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‘We will be victims of an honour killing,’ say Saudi sisters at risk of deportation from Turkey
On February 8 2017, Areej and Ashwaq Hamoud packed their belongings and left the house where they grew up in Saudi Arabia to board a plane to what they hoped would be a better life. That night they left behind their family home and at the same time overrode the...
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In Egypt a murdered woman means nothing but a policeman means everything
In 2008 Mohsen Al-Sukkari held up a card which identified him as block management and stepped inside the apartment of Lebanese pop sensation Suzanne Tamim. The next morning, she was found sprawled out across the floor of her home with multiple stab wounds to her face and throat. Just a...
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As a month of mercy begins across the world, no respite for Egyptians
Egypt is facing a catastrophe of epic proportions in the form of coronavirus. Hospitals are closing across the country, doctors are being hooked up to mechanical ventilators, and patients are escaping from quarantine in fear of social stigma, with some likening it to prison. WHO has said that 13 per cent...
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COVID-19 is exacerbating neo-colonialism, including in Egypt
As the number of medical staff testing positive for COVID-19 continues to climb, hospitals have closed their doors across the country...
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Um Ibrahim: ‘My son should be playing with his friends, not in an Egyptian prison’
When Ibrahim was arrested it was a summer’s day in Arish, the capital of North Sinai, and he was wearing a light t-shirt and a pair of jeans. Two winters on his mother is worrying if he has enough warm clothes to wear. On 25 July 2018 security forces broke...
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In Egypt, only Asian tourists get tested for coronavirus
When Bill Jones* and his partner arrived at Luxor Airport to prepare to fly back to Cairo at the end of February, it was the end of a two-week tour around the main sites of Egypt, an excursion that passed through Abu Simbel Temple, Lake Nasser, the pyramids and...
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Mubarak dies at 91 but his legacy lives on: Corruption, impunity, brutality
When former President Hosni Mubarak was acquitted of corruption in January 2015, analysts had already predicted it as a foregone conclusion. For many it was evidence that the deep state existed. The deep state is a phrase that would regularly become associated with Egyptian politics after the 2011 revolution. Sadat,...
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Operation Sinai: Egypt’s ethnic cleansing of the Bedouin
Everything you need to know about Egypt’s ethnic cleansing of the Bedouin...
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The US bought Sisi for $9bn, but the Egyptian people cannot be swayed
When Trump announced Jerusalem was Israel’s undivided capital under his so-called “deal of the century”, the Egyptian public questioned whether Al-Sisi had a hand in preparing the plan. His support, after all, came just half an hour after the announcement. Officially, Egypt supports the establishment of a Palestinian state on...
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The host of Sisi’s ‘peace award’ has withdrawn. With the right pressure others may follow
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi received the German Order of St. George in recognition of his peace-making efforts in North Africa...
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Egypt’s sex attacks on women are revenge for the 2011 revolution
The first time Sara Mohani was arrested security forces lined her up against a wall and described her body in intimate detail. “If we find any photo of the demonstration on your phone, we will rape you,” they told her. It was 2017 and Sara had been taken to Dokki Police...
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Egypt’s military exercise is a warning to protesters ahead of the January 25 Revolution anniversary
Last week Egypt launched “Qader 2020”, a military display of ground, naval and air units choreographed to demonstrate the strength of the country’s armed forces...
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Céline Lebrun-Shaath: ‘Ramy’s arrest is an attack on solidarity with Palestine’
When former Egyptian MP Ziad Al-Alimi was arrested by security forces, Ramy Shaath told his wife that of the coalition of activists that organised the 2011 protests against Hosni Mubarak, he was one of the last remaining. Ten days later it was his turn. At 12.45am on 5 July 2019, Céline...
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No need to look to the Middle East, we have a dictator in the making here in the UK
In the midst of the 2011 uprising then newly appointed Vice President Omar Suleiman said that Egyptians were not ready for democracy. Such comments were to be expected from a remnant of the ancien regime who had obvious vested interests in keeping the mechanisms of the deep state in place...
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Mohamed Ali: ‘No shop can compete with the army because they don’t pay tax’
The Egyptian army did not have to pay tax or customs on products entering the country which made it impossible for other businesses to compete ...
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Egypt whistleblower: Torture chambers were small projects I didn’t work on
Egyptian whistleblower Mohamed Ali told MEMO that he built the part of the intelligence headquarters where the cyber army was housed...
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Mohamed Ali: ‘Constructing prisons is a very lucrative business’
MEMO exclusive interview with Mohamed Ali ...
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‘I haven’t seen them in over seven months’, says mother of 3 children abducted to Lebanon
On the weekend of Khawla Khalifa’s birthday it was her ex-husband’s turn with their three kids. He picked them up after school on Friday and she was expecting them back two days later. Sunday at seven o’clock came around and there was a knock on the door. She answered...
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Palestinian Cinema in the Days of the Revolution
From the late sixties up until the early eighties Palestinians formed a resistance movement to liberate their homeland and ensure the return of their refugees. A vital part of this shared goal was the establishment of institutions from Amman to Beirut; one of these was the Palestinian cinema institution. It...
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Egypt-Lebanon artist: ‘Mahmoud Darwish would have been inspired by the Arab Spring’
During the 2011 Egyptian revolution Bahia Shehab sprayed “no” in Arabic 1,000 times on the walls of downtown Cairo. No to dictators, no to military rule, no to violence. One of her stencil drawings is a blue bra, it stands for no to stripping people, in memory of the protester...
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Massaad Abu Fager: ‘I call on Egyptians to continue to demonstrate’
Shortly after the profile of a well-known Sinai activist appeared in an Egyptian newspaper, the intelligence services called the journalist who interviewed him: “Why have you published a picture of someone from Sinai reading a book?” they asked him. “The state wants to portray us as illiterate barbarians,” says Massaad...
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At 14 Haitham was one of Egypt’s youngest political prisoners: ‘They forgot I was a child’
Four years on from his arrest one of Egypt’s child political prisoners Haitham Abdel Rahim recalls 50 days of torture....
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Husband and son in prison. Daughter shot in Rabaa. Asmaa Beltagi’s mum speaks on the massacre
Sanaa Abdelgawad and her daughter Asmaa Beltagi were in front of Rabaa’s main stage when security forces advanced on the square. The area was immersed in smoke and Sanaa and Asmaa were struggling to breathe. “I was wiping her face with a towel and trying to calm her down. She...
