Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Amelia Smith
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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. Adding that the “bigger” construction companies – like his – were charged with developing government buildings, hotels and malls. Torture rooms and prisons were projects given to small companies…
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Mohamed Ali: ‘Constructing prisons is a very lucrative business’
Egyptian whilstleblower Mohamed Ali has told MEMO that building prisons in Egypt is a very lucrative business. Since Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s rise to power in 2014 human rights activists estimate roughly 20 new prisons have been built in Egypt to house the increasing number of journalists, activists and politicians who…
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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 and…
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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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Under the war on terror Egypt is ethnically cleansing the Sinai Bedouin
Last month the Egyptian government demolished Bedouin-owned houses in Tarabin village in South Sinai on the grounds that they were not “legally” owned. Tarabin is located in Nuweiba, along the northwest bank of the Gulf of Aqaba, where the dramatic mountain range and ramshackle huts on the water’s edge have…
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North Sinai: Creating a new Egypt in Sisi’s image
In the heart of Al-Arish, the capital of the North Sinai Governorate, Metito is building a desalination plant at the cost of $96 million. The water group, which is headquartered in the UAE, says the plant will provide enough water for 750,000 people. But as construction rolls ahead, local residents…
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Sink Without a Trace: ‘Balancing politics and aesthetics’
On one wall of the exhibition hangs a pink flip flop, the base curling up at the sides, dark patches of dirt spotted across it. To the right is a pair of twisted jeans next to an orange life jacket. They’re objects you wouldn’t necessarily expect to find in a…
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International bodies condemn the Libya air strike, but they have failed the country
Late last night the UN failed to agree on a statement condemning an air strike which killed 44 refugees in a detention centre in Libya because the US ambassador said he needed Washington’s approval. The UN-recognised GNA Prime Minister Fayez Al-Sarraj has blamed the commander Khalifa Haftar, who controls the…
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Egypt ‘ambassador of poor’ released, rearrested and denied family visits
Before she was arrested Somaya Nasef spent her time walking the streets of Cairo looking for medicine to administer to street children. Essential drugs like insulin and penicillin have been disappearing from pharmacy shelves for years due to the turbulent economy, a crisis exacerbated when Egypt floated the pound in…
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UK arms deals gave Egypt the legitimacy it needed to kill Morsi
In 2018 a cross-party group of British MPs asked the Egyptian government for access to Mohamed Morsi amid fears that the former President’s death was imminent. The answer that came back was a firm “no.” Authorities insisted he was receiving adequate treatment, though no evidence was given to quell growing…
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Obituary: Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first, democratic president
Before he died on 17 June 2019 deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi faced a raft of charges from the state he once ruled over, from espionage to killing protesters, prison escape, judiciary insult, jailbreak and spying for Qatar. It was at a retrial for colluding with Hamas yesterday that the…
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As Egypt starves, Sisi stirs horror in Libya and Sudan
In a recent Foreign Policy article Brotherhood member Yehia Hamed forecast that Egypt will soon be bankrupt if it continues in the same vein. External debt has increased fivefold in the last half decade whilst public debt has more than doubled. With the bulk of resources being funnelled away from…
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Far-right terror is on the rise. So why is Trump in the UK?
The UK’s first female Prime Minister in 26 years – only the second in our history – has chosen as her farewell performance to welcome the right-wing President of the United States, Donald Trump, on a state visit. This is a man who has multiple sexual misconduct cases to his…
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‘I know where her father is,’ said manager of Egypt nursery before expelling two-year-old daughter of political prisoner
On Wednesday afternoon the nursery where Rana Greash’s daughter was enrolled called her and invited her for a meeting. “My partner knows who Laila’s father is,” said the manager when Rana arrived. “He knows where her father is and has refused to allow Laila to continue at the nursery.” The…
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Yusuf Qaradawi’s granddaughter: ‘It never crossed our mind they would detain my mother because of my grandfather’
It was one in the morning in Seattle, Washington, when Aayah’s brother called her to say their parents had been taken. Ola Al-Qaradawi and Hosam Khalaf had been moving furniture around their summer house on the north coast of Egypt, a villa frequented by the family for breaks away from…
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‘I am steadfast,’ says Egyptian preacher on death row
Sheikh Fadl Al-Mawla Hassan was at work at the Engineer’s Syndicate in Alexandria when Egyptian forces raided the building. Everyone, including the security guards and officials working for the company, were arrested. Once they had everyone in custody police started to investigate their background – were they active in politics,…
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‘Abdulrahman confessed when security forces threatened to rape his mother’
On 6 March 2014 Mahmoud Wahba and his friend Khaled Askar were in the car making their way to meet Khaled’s mother to break their fast together. It was a Thursday, one of two days in the week on which the Sunnah recommends Muslims fast. As they drove towards Khaled’s…
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Remembering the Rabaa massacre
In mid-August 2013, the Egyptian army stormed a sit-in at Cairo’s Rabaa square and slaughtered 1,000 people who were protesting against the removal of the country’s first democratically elected President, Mohamed Morsi. People were shot, burnt alive and suffocated with tear gas. Security forces blocked the entrances so that ambulances…
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Rabaa field doctor: ‘They burned them dead and alive’
Dr. Hanan Al-Amin was in a makeshift operating room in the Rabaa field hospital when security forces burst into the room and ordered her and another doctor to leave. A patient was on the table with his abdomen open – they had found six bullets in his liver, his spleen…
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‘Refugee detention centres cause terrible mental consequences’
In September 2015 three-year-old Alan Kurdi was photographed lying face down on a beach wearing a bright red t-shirt and blue shorts. The young Syrian boy had been washed ashore close to the fashionable Turkish resort town of Bodrum after his family attempted to reach the Greek island of Kos.…
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Remembering the Republican Guard shooting in Egypt
Shortly after dawn prayers on 8 July 2013 Egyptian security forces shot dead 51 protesters who had camped out at the Republican Guard headquarters in Cairo to call for the reinstatement of deposed President Mohammed Morsi. Four hundred and thirty-five were injured. What: Republican Guard shooting When: 8 July 2013 Where: Egypt What…
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Remembering Egypt’s bloody military coup
In 2013, the Egyptian army overthrew the country’s first democratically elected leader, Mohammed Morsi. In the aftermath of the coup Egypt’s armed forces suspended the constitution and appointed the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court, Adly Mansour, as interim head of state. Morsi and his presidential team were detained in…
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In the aftermath of Syria’s ceasefire the war on children resumes
In a recent interview with Channel 4 News one of President Assad’s key advisors said reports of chlorine attacks on children are “irrelevant to reality”. She was referring to the offensive earlier in the month when barrels suspected of containing chlorine gas were dropped from a helicopter onto a market…