Hossam el-Hamalawy
From the Huffington Post:
If only the American press would give factory strikes in Egypt, a real mark of social unrest and popular, often secular self-determination in the Middle East, as much attention as democracy-by-occupation in Iraq and the Fatah-Hamas schism in Palestine.
Mubarak’s crackdown on the free press continues:
A Egyptian court has sentenced three journalists to two years in jail for “damaging the image of justice”.
Anwar al-Hawari, the editor of Al-Wafd, a newspaper for the opposition party of the same name, was jailed for publishing “untrue information which damaged the reputation of the justice system and the justice ministry”, the court ruled.
The two other journalists were Mahmud Ghallab and Amir Othman.
The three did not attend the hearing and remain free on bail, pending an appeal.
A judicial source has said that they were also ordered to pay small fines.
The judge had accepted the case filed by several Egyptian lawyers after Al-Wafd had quoted Mamduh Mari, the justice minister, as saying that 90 per cent of Egyptian judges were incompetent.
The AP editors still insist on inserting “moderate” whenever they refer to Abu Mazen or Fatah!
Egypt is trying to arrange passage to the West Bank for more than 300 Palestinians from the moderate Fatah group who fled the Hamas takeover in Gaza, Palestinian and Egyptian security officials said Monday.
Egyptians and Palestinians have agreed to “ease the trip back to the West Bank” for some 340 security officials close to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ moderate Fatah party, said a Palestinian official at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Read the rest of the report here.
I have another suggestion, instead of “moderate” why don’t you write the “progressive” Abu Mazen? Or Fatah “which believes in women rights” or any similar lie to make Dahlan’s thugs more polished up in front of the Western readers?
SHAME ON AP! Their editors also took the same approach re Mubarak’s regime in the 1990s (and up till 2004; now they don’t do it as frequently, except when Condi is in town) by insisting to describe Mubarak as a “moderate” while his security was kidnapping demonstrators, and rounding suspects in the thousands together with their families and children, torturing and sexually abusing detainees, and shooting at strikers and student demos.. That did not matter for AP. All what mattered to its editors was how our president was in dealing with America, and how lovely he was by fighting those terrorists. Now AP is repeating the same approach re Abu Mazen.
What’s even more hilarious, are those (like the Christian Science Monitor), who like to present the current conflict as one between “Islamist” Hamas and “Secular” Fatah!
First, it is NOT true Fatah is a “secular nationalist” movement anymore unlike what the CSM editors might have learned from Wikipedia or Memri. Guys, that was in the past. Fatah’s thugs now are as “Islamized” I can assure, moreover the fight in Palestine is not over implementing Shariaa or veiling women, so why the fuck is this Islamist/Secular dichotomy. But hey, if there’s anything we can smear Hamas with, and polish up Abu Mazen, then do it, even if it’s a lie.