The second edition of the left-leaning daily El-Badeel was censored by the govt, coz of its coverage of the Shura Council fire.
Year: 2008
Imbaba
The Daily News Egypt has a report about the Imbaba neighborhood in Giza:
Imbaba, an elaborate squatter area in Giza, Egypt, records 23,000 newborn babies annually, compared to the least fertile upscale Zamalek area with its 235 yearly births.
According to a recently published report by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAMPAS), Imbaba, which has a population of 1.1 million living on an area of 17,000 square km, contributes 1.1 percent to Egypt’s annual population rise.
Official statistics claim that Egypt’s population grows by 1.9 million every year, denoting a birth rate of 25.8 percent. The number is expected to go down to 1.2 in the next few years. The annual death rate of 6.3 percent (452,000 people) means that the overall natural population increase rate is at 19.5 percent.
Imbaba is also witnessing an anti-gentrification fight. The govt is planning to gentrify Ezbet Matar Imbaba (The neighborhoodof Imbaba’s Airport). The area, where the airport that stopped operating since 2001 exists, is surrounded by more than 35,100 inhabitants according to govt figures (I heard double and triple that estimate from others, but may be the other bigger numbers I heard include the neighboring Bashtil and Madinet el-Amal which are under threat too.). The authorities are working on “developing” the area, without any coordination with the locals, who are accusing the govt of planning in secrecy to demolish the neighborhood and turn it into an upscale housing integrated with Mohandessin. A solidarity committee of activists and local citizens in the neighborhood has been set up, trying to fight back.
Interior ministry to pay LE25 millions in compensation to Islamist detainees
From the Daily News Egypt:
The Ministry of Interior has agreed to pay compensations of up to LE 25 million to approximately 1,000 detainees from Islamist organizations who were convicted and detained in the 1990s, reported the local press.
However, when contacted by Daily News Egypt, the media department at the interior ministry refused to confirm, deny or comment.
“We haven’t released an official statement regarding this issue so we have no comment on it,” said the interior ministry official.
A member of the ministry’s legal affairs department, however, told Al-Masry Al-Youm on condition of anonymity that “the ministry has every intention of paying the compensations,” adding that it had paid thousands in compensation in the past few years.
Each detainee is expected to receive between LE 20,000 and LE 50,000.
Yet the detainees’ lawyers complain that while the ministry has announced it will give out the compensations, it has failed to do so.
There are a couple of errors in the above report, when you read it on the DNE website. The title says “Interior ministry to pay million in compensation to Islamist detainees, say reports” while the article text says LE25 million. Also the report mentions “Islamist terrorism had reached its climax in Egypt in the 1990s mainly targeting political figures, Christians and foreigners. The worst attack came in November 1998 when armed men shot down 71 tourists at the Hatshepsut Temple in Luxor.” Actually, the Luxor massacre happened on 17 November 1997, and those killed as far as I know were 59 tourists and four Egyptians.
To read more about the plight of Islamist detainees, during the 1990s Dirty War, check out those two links.