Year: 2008

Blog-blocking court hearing adjourned

Posted on 18/06/200801/04/2015 By 3arabawy

The Supreme Administrative Court on Monday adjourned hearing the appeal of a case brought by judge Abdel Fattah Murad seeking the blocking of 51 websites.
Lawyer Rawda Ahmad from the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) — whose website is included on the list of 51 — told Daily News Egypt that the case was adjourned pending the court’s receipt and examination of a specialist report.
Ahmad said that the court is scheduled to announce the date of the next hearing Tuesday.
Murad, the head of the Alexandria Appeals Court, initiated the case against the list of 51 human rights organizations and bloggers last year. He accused the websites of “tarnishing Egypt’s reputation,” and demanded that they be blocked.
Earlier in 2007, ANHRI director Gamal Eid brought a case against Murad accusing him of plagiarizing more than 50 pages of an ANHRI report on the internet in the Arab world.
“Dr Abdel Fattah Murad, judge and head of Alexandria Appeal Court, recently published a book entitled ‘Scientific and Legal Principles of Blogs,’ which includes more than 50 pages copied from HRinfo’s [now known as ANHRI] report entitled ‘Implacable Adversaries: Arab Governments and the Internet,’ without reference to sources, as dictated by Intellectual Property Protection Act no. 82/2002,” HRInfo stated in a press release issued last year.
Murad’s case against the 51 websites was thrown out by the Administrative Court at the end of December 2007.

Rashad

Posted on 18/06/200807/02/2021 By 3arabawy

My father Muhammad Rashad el-Hamalawy (1942-2000) in Moscow, praising Lenin’s anti-Zionist stands and his support for national liberation movements, in a gathering of local and foreign students, part of the centennial celebrations of Lenin’s birth, 1970.

Mahalla testimony

Posted on 17/06/200807/02/2021 By 3arabawy

A Mahalla labor organizer involved in the April 6 Uprising…

None of us expected the events to explode in such manner on 6 April. What we were hoping for at best was to repeat what happened on 17 February on a larger scale. May be instead of 20,000, we’ll get double that.

After the round up of the (Textile Workers’ League) leaders and the occupation of the factory, all of us thought the day was over. But the citizens outside the factory were waiting. They were the real heroes of the day. They all saw what we did on 17 February. They felt what we were talking about. They were our families at the end of the day, not strangers. From the early morning many were roaming outside the company gates and waiting for us to do something. They were waiting for the strike. When the strike was aborted, they took the initiative.

It’s wrong to ignore the direct link between 17 February ‘organized’ demonstration and the April 6 ‘spontaneous’ uprising. The first was a dress rehearsal for the latter, and helped hype up the morale of the citizens in the town. If the factory had gone on strike, the events would have taken a different direction of course.

There’s anger towards the Muslim Brotherhood parliamentarian for not doing anything for the people in Mahalla. The group itself refused to support the strike and did not mobilize its supporters on that day to the streets… But at the same time, some young Muslim Brotherhood students from Mahalla and Tanta disobeyed their organizational orders the joined the protests on occasions… Yes, I assure you, they were acting without the consent of their leadership.