In Solidarity with Mohammed Al-Maskati: Appeal for his freedom and personal safety

"Solidarity is no longer a question of altruism but of survival." - Rosa María Payá Acevedo

Human rights defender Mohammed Al-Maskati (Frontline Defenders)

Yesterday, received a shock while looking for a report on Cuban human rights defenders on the website Frontline Defenders a familiar face appeared on their website. It said that Mohammed Al-Maskati was facing an upcoming verdict on December 22, 2015 for illegal assembly.

 I'd met Mohammed, then President of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights, in Egypt during the parliamentary elections back in January of 2012 and recorded two statements: one in solidarity with free Cubans and another outlining the situation in Bahrain at the time. Frontline Defenders provided the following background information on Mohammed's current plight:

Mohammed Al-Maskati has been repeatedly subjected to harassment and intimidation in relation to his human rights activism and Front Line Defenders has previously issued a number of urgent appeals on behalf of him. The human rights defender received death threats in 2011 and 2012. On 22 October 2013, the Ministry of Interior accused him of “inciting hatred against the regime” in relation to a speech he made on 8 September 2013 in the city of Jidhafs in which he discussed human rights and international legal mechanisms. He was released on the condition that he sign a declaration stating that he will present himself before the public prosecutor at any time.

In his message to Cubans Mohammed expressed his solidarity for Cubans and a revolution that would do away with the Castros and usher in democracy, freedom and justice.

Below he described the situation in Bahrain which included that the regime was killing and torturing the opposition and he made a call for concrete action by people of good will around the world.


Recalling Jan Patočka's observation that "the solidarity of the shaken can say ‘no’ to the measures of mobilization that make the state of war permanent" I strongly condemning the upcoming sentencing of Mohammed Al-Maskati, whose conviction is solely in retaliation to his nonviolent human rights activism and defense of human rights in Bahrain. and expresses its deep concerns at the systematic intimidation and harassment against human rights defenders in Bahrain. 

Technology's double-edge sword in a democratic struggle

In a conversation over twitter on February 8, 2015 expressed the following controversial and perhaps counter-intuitive idea: "Experience with activists in Egypt left me skeptical of the technology panacea." Below is the case for my skepticism. Today, a version of this essay was published in The Canal, the Panam Post Blog 

Raul Castro, Hosni Mubarak, and Ban Ki-Moon at Non-Aligned Movement

Listening to U.S. officials discussing Cuba one is struck by the simultaneous discourse of expanding support for civil society using high technology while appearing to deemphasize the role of political opposition activists. This policy is not unique to Cuba. It has also been seen elsewhere, Egypt being a recent high profile example. Furthermore the emphasis on internet technology overlooks the role that companies such as Yahoo and Google have played in China to censor information and target dissidents for the dictatorship there in order to conduct business.

The United States in 2012 initiated Civil Society 2.0 which promotes blogging, texting, building a website, and operating in social networks as "capacity building." However in countries such as Egypt and even more so in Cuba where the vast majority of Cubans do not have access to cell phones (only 15% out of 11 million), much less internet (only 5% out of 11 million) how does this initiative build up the capacity of civil society to mobilize democrats?

Prior to the uprising in Egypt in 2010 I had blogged to raise awareness on the plight of bloggers, activists and journalists who had been arbitrarily detained. In late 2011 and early 2012 over the course of a month in Egypt, observing the first and third round of parliamentary elections, meeting with different stake holders ranging from: academics, human rights defenders, and bloggers to opposition political figures, revolutionaries in Tahrir Square, and the military the picture that emerged was not the popular narrative circulating in the press at the time.

Activists on twitter and bloggers were successful in generating attention internationally on what was taking place in Egypt, but in conversations with activists on the ground the role of cell phones and Facebook were not as advertised by some. Egyptian state security monitored the cell phones and communications over social media. These patterns of espionage utilizing high technology to target activists is not unique to Egypt. Activists understanding this provided disinformation via these channels while using low tech means to reach out and mobilize Egyptians that were not as susceptible to monitoring. 

However this was not the greatest oversight by policy makers and activists on the ground, but the failure to provide capacity training to democrats on how to mobilize effectively and the training on how to conduct an effective political campaign. This failure to work with the democratic political opposition in Egypt left a vacuum that was filled quickly by the well financed Muslim Brotherhood and the Nour Party ( an even more extreme Islamist party backed by Gulf Arab states) that dominated in the parliamentary elections. The Egyptian military stepped back and allowed the Muslim Brotherhood to rule in an increasingly undemocratic manner alienating vast sectors of Egyptian society leading to another round of mass protests in June of 2013 that ended in the restoration of military rule in a coup and the outlawing of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Technology is neutral, and repressive regimes have contracted Western companies to place draconian controls on the internet that are used to target activists. Amnesty International identified "Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Nortel Networks, Websense and Sun Microsystems" as having "provided technology which has been used to censor and control the use of the Internet in China." These repressive applications of new technologies have been transferred to other dictatorships.

Many experts, like the ones apparently operating in the State Department, argue of the importance of conditions such as: a large middle class, internet penetration or some minimum annual level of income.

However, Srdja Popovic, a cofounder and key figure in the Serbian resistance movement “Otpor!” that toppled Slobodan Milosevic nonviolently in 2000 disagrees with the above line of argument and makes the case that the most important thing that you can do is to build up the skills of activists because they are the ones who make the change. Conditions are important to take into consideration when activists are formulating their strategy but they do not define success.

The Obama administration's Cuba policy focused on credits, micro-enterprises, travel and internet will not lead to a democratic opening in Cuba either in the short, medium or long term. Instead it will serve as a distraction that will prolong the life of the dictatorship in Cuba and the Castro regime's power and influence abroad. At the same time democratic opposition leaders who are a threat to the dictatorship will continue to be targeted and eliminated. When the day arrives and the Castro regime enters an existential crisis the lack of support for political opposition activists will guarantee the failure of the stated policy goal of the United States: a nonviolent transition to democracy.

Furthermore, If democratic US leaders continue the example set by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi - who led a Congressional delegation last month and met with high-level officials of the dictatorship, but did not meet with Cuban democrats or human-rights defenders - then they will be undermining democrats and legitimizing autocrats. As was the case in Egypt, under-trained democrats with few resources will be no match for the anti-democratic, authoritarian, or totalitarian alternatives that present themselves with the backing of outside powers such as Russia or China that have strategic interests in Cuba.

Needless to say, that will not serve the just interests of the United States, nor of any other democracies in the region.

Gene Sharp: "Dictators will not negotiate themselves out of power."

“I was a believer in the politics of petitions, deputations, and friendly negotiations. But all these have gone to dogs. I know that these are not the ways to bring this Government round. Sedition has become my religion. Ours is a nonviolent war.” - Mohandas Gandhi

Excerpt from BBC Hardtalk from February 1, 2012:

"Gene Sharp is a political thinker whose influence is now spoken of in same breath as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. But he is no platform speaker or figurehead at a demonstration. Rather, a quietly spoken political philosopher who's been writing about non-violent struggle for 50 years. What's changed is that his most celebrated pamphlet - 'From Dictatorship to Democracy' - is now grabbing attention around the world. He's been hailed as having helped mould protest movements from Burma to Serbia to Egypt. What is it that Gene Sharp has been able to unlock?"
 ...

Hardtalk: You are very dismissive, about as you see it, the dangers of negotiation. Is there no place for negotiation with a dictatorship?

Gene Sharp: Sometimes, when the regime is falling apart and the dictator wants to go to the airport to go to another country then negotiate how he can get there, fine, but to be tricked into bargaining with that regime you don’t want half of that dictatorship to survive.

Hardtalk: But, what about a dictatorship that can negotiate itself out of existence. Some sort of half way house.

Gene Sharp: Where has that happened? Where has that happened? Give me one instance…

Hardtalk: In order perhaps to ensure that it cannot be run out of the country or end up in the international criminal court

Gene Sharp: Dictators will not negotiate themselves out of power.

Hardtalk: There is no historical example?

Gene Sharp: Not that I know of, you may know of one.

Hardtalk: Do you think that in that case that if it is all or nothing when it comes to the situation in Egypt a lot of people are very unhappy about the influence the army still has in Egypt.

Gene Sharp: Yes, Yes

Hardtalk: Do you think that in that case people should have, for example, boycotted the recent parliamentary elections?

Gene Sharp: No, the parliamentary elections, I don’t know. But, there was a major mistake made by the opposition to negotiate with the Mubarak regime. They thought Mubarak had to resign. Mubarak said I’ll resign if you put the military in control after I step out. The same military that had been supporting Mubarak for decades which was how Mubarak and his regime came into power and control of the government in the first place. They agreed to turn over power to the military and the military control. They are very reluctant to step out of the political picture completely.

Hardtalk: You see Egypt as a missed opportunity?
 
Gene Sharp: An incomplete opportunity; the first half has been done. They now face the institution that really helped Mubarak and which gave Mubarak controlling power. They put that in place and have a problem now.  ...

Dublin: Human rights defenders from Malawi, Cuba, Syria, Egypt and Vietnam shortlisted for 2012 Front Line Defenders Award

JURY OF IRISH PARLIAMENTARIANS ANNOUNCES SHORTLIST OF 5 NOMINEES FOR 2012 FRONT LINE DEFENDERS AWARD SELECTED FROM LIST OF 107 NOMINEES FROM 46 COUNTRIES

Every year the Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk is awarded to one individual, or group of individuals, who has made an outstanding contribution to the cause of human rights. This year the Front Line Defenders Award received a total of 107 nominations from 46 countries.

The jury consisting of: Mr Pat Breen TD, Senator Averil Power, Minister for Education Mr Ruairi Quinn TD, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Mr Simon Coveney TD and Ms Noeline Blackwell Director, FLAC (Free Legal Aid Centres) today announced the list of the five human rights defenders who have been shortlisted for this year's Award. The overall winner of the Front Line Defenders Award 2012 will be announced at a ceremony in Dublin's City Hall on 08 June.

The shortlisted nominees for the 2012 Front Line Defenders Award are:

Cuba: Ms. Ivonne Mallezo Galano

Malawi: Mr. Rafiq Hazat

Vietnam: Dr Cu Huy Ha Vu

Egypt: Ms. Mona Seif

Syria: Ms. Razan Ghazzawi

”The stories of individual courage and the utter dedication of these brave and determined human rights defenders who risk their freedom, their livelihoods and even their lives in defence of the rights of others challenge us to live up to their example”, said Mary Lawlor Executive Director of Front Line Defenders in Dublin.

The winner will receive €15,000 to enable them to continue their vital work for human rights. It is also hoped that winning the Front Line Defenders Award will act as an additional form of security and help them to develop their network of media and advocacy contacts.

“Front Line Defenders is proud to recognise these brave and dedicated individuals all of whom remain at grave risk today because of their legitimate human rights work” added Ms Lawlor.

The winner of the 2012 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk will be announced on June 8th in Dublin. Stay up to date on the work of these and other human rights defenders around the world at www.frontlinedefenders.org

BIOGRAPHIES OF NOMINEES SHORTLISTED FOR 2012 FRONT LINE DEFENDERS AWARD FOR HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS AT RISK

Rafiq Hajat, Director of the Institute for Policy Interaction (IPI), is one of the leading human rights defenders in Malawi where the Government has been seeking to repress protests and silence all critical voices. On 3 September 2011, at 1 am approximately, a petrol bomb was thrown through the window of the IPI office in the Chichiri area of Blantyre, following which the front room of the building caught fire resulting in extensive damage. Rafiq Hajat has been publicly accused by former President Bingu wa Mutharika of being an enemy of the state and he has been forced to go into hiding. However, in spite of the threats against him he has continued to speak out about human rights violations in Malawi.

In Cuba, Ivonne Mallezo Galano has been repeatedly detained by the authorities for promoting human rights and democracy. On 30th November 2011 following a peaceful protest in the Fraternidad Park in Havana where she was part of a group that displayed a white sheet that read: “Down with Hunger, Misery, and Poverty”. She was subjected to 51 days of cruel and degrading treatment in prison before her release on January 20, 2012. Two days after her release in January she was back together with the Ladies in White (Damas de Blanca) participating in their regular Sunday march on 22nd January in the streets of Havana. During the recent visit of the Pope to Cuba, Ivonne was one of the human rights defenders rounded up and detained throughout the pontiff’s visit.

Dr Cu Huy Ha Vu was sentenced to seven years in prison in April 2011 following an unfair trial on charges of “propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam." He had been arrested on 4 November 2010 and held incommunicado following his involvement in a number of high profile legal cases including two cases against the Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in relation to bauxite mining in Vietnam’s Central Highlands as well as a case relating to the arrest of a number of Catholic church members who were participating in a funeral procession on disputed land. Both lawsuits against the Prime Minister were posted on the Bauxite Vietnam website and reposted on several others.

When former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down after weeks of mass public protest, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces of Egypt (known as SCAF) assumed power. After being part of the Tahrir protests, Mona Seif, normally cancer research lab worker, started a movement taking on the SCAF and its widespread use of military trials of civilians. The 'No Military Trials' movement has been a galvanising force among Egyptian revolutionaries, but has also taken on the challenge of exposing the SCAF regime’s crimes against detainees. Through written and video testimonies, her Tahrir Diaries blog seeks to reveal the military’s abuses against the revolution they once claimed to be saving.

Razan Ghazzawi is a tireless defender of human rights, not only in her native Syria but throughout the Arab world and beyond. She is an active blogger who also works for the Syrian Centre for Media and Free Expression advocating for journalists and bloggers under threat in Syria and the rest of the region. For this she has been detained and is currently facing trial. She has stood up for minority rights, including equal rights for Palestinians. Most recenty she has worked documenting abuses by the Syrian Government. She was first arrested in December, when she was on her way to a regional meeting on media in the Arab world hosted in Amman.  Following a grassroots social media campaign, she was released shortly afterwards.  In February, the Syrian authorities raided the offices of the SCM and arrested Razan and her colleagues.  They currently face a military trial in an attempt to crackdown on free speech activists and restrict the flow of information out of Syria.

Original post at http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/node/18327

February 11: Day of Symbolism for South Africa and Egypt

A friend from Zimbabwe spoke about the importance of symbols and symbolic dates pointing out the importance of today, February 11. 22 years ago today in 1990 a decrepit old man was released from prison after 27 years of incarceration. An entire country celebrated with joy and hope for the future. Just four years later this old man would be elected president of South Africa. His name is Nelson Mandela. At the same time one year ago today another old decrepit man was driven out of power by mass demonstrations and a disgruntled military. Egypt celebrated with joy and hope for the future. Today that same old man faces trial for the murder of hundreds of demonstrators. His name is Hosni Mubarak.

The main difference between the two men? One was freely elected and left power voluntarily respecting the country's constitution and the other made himself president for life and tried to set up his son as a successor. Nelson Mandela understood that "To be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others." South Africans have deep gratitude for the example he set in the presidency.

Mandela has his faults. His loyalty to past supporters of the African National Congress such as Charles Taylor, Muammar Gaddafi, and Fidel Castro are shadows on the otherwise bright legacy of his presidency. Unfortunately, even great leaders do not always live up to their own principles. At the same time unlike the dictators he has legitimized Nelson Mandela left office after five years in power.

Two old men are similar images but how they dealt with power makes them profoundly different symbols. Hosni Mubarak for all his political talents is another African despot who tried to be president for life while Nelson Mandela is the man who defended democracy in South Africa and left office after serving a five year term in office.

Tahrir Square: One Year Later

Tahrir Square, January 25, 2012

As an International Witness to the first and third round of the Egyptian Parliamentary elections I had an opportunity to visit Tahrir Square in later November 2o11 and again in early January 2012.


Walking into Tahrir Square on November 25, 2011

Walking amongst the protesters and meeting with them in the tents at the heart of the square to listen to their desires for the future of Egypt. Seeing their defiance in the face of the heavy military and police presence and the real danger they faced in clashes that ended with unarmed demonstrators shot to death one could admire their courage.

Despite all of this, and at the same time because of the continuing systematic denial of human rights, today January 25, 2012 tens of thousands of Egyptians took to Tahrir Square to protest continued military rule chanting slogans among them: "Egypt is a state not a barracks"; "Down with military rule!"; "Our demands are the same freedom and justice!;" and "Civilian, civilian we don't want it militaristic!"


Massive march to Tahrir, one of the largest in Egypt's history on January 25, 2012

Since the departure of Mubarak one year ago the human rights situation under the military has deteriorated. Daniel Williams from Human Rights Watch in an oped published today offers an overview of human rights in Egypt over the past year:

...Mubarak's repressive legacy has been preserved and even strengthened. SCAF rules in his place and has indicated it should remain a power behind the scenes, as it has for the 60 years since the overthrow of the country's monarchy.

Egyptians still live under the emergency law –in place since the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981 – that permits bans on public assembly, indefinite detention without charge, prosecution in special courts that allow no appeal process and that are notorious for reliance on confessions obtained under torture. On Tuesday, SCAF's chieftain, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, partially lifted the 30-year state of emergency but said Egypt would continue to apply the emergency law to cases of "thuggery." Tantawi's gesture is far from sufficient. In the last year, military tribunals have convicted hundreds of peaceful protesters on charges of thuggery.

During almost a year in power, SCAF has liberally referred civilians to military courts, another practice of the Mubarak years, though under him it was reserved for so-called exceptional cases. Sometimes the magistrates have announced a verdict before a trial began.

The military has arbitrarily arrested and convicted peaceful protesters, some of whom remain imprisoned. Measures that date from Britain's early 20th century domination of Egypt ban assemblies of more than five people "that threaten the public peace."

Although by international standards, lethal force should be used only when strictly necessary to protect life, under current Egyptian law, police – who are effectively under SCAF control –possess wide scope for shooting at demonstrators. The minister of interior has broad discretion to decide on use of weapons and what warnings need be given demonstrators before firing on them. On Jan. 6, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, an independent human rights organization, denounced a statement by the interior minister that police will get bonuses for shooting "thugs," government shorthand for demonstrators.

Police regulations are bad enough, but the actions of security forces – both police and military – have been abominable. In October, soldiers ran over demonstrators with armored cars and shot them, killing 27 marchers at a Christian rally held to protest the burning of a church. In November, at least 40 demonstrators were killed by anti-riot forces during unrest in and around Tahrir Square, the epicenter of protest. Police routinely beat demonstrators, women included. Human Rights Watch has documented torture and abuse of detainees by soldiers. Military personnel carried out abusive "virginity tests" on women in detention. Servile state media demonize opposition groups and non-governmental organizations as subversive tools of dark foreign forces.

Laws endure that make citizens vulnerable to prosecution for "insulting" speech or words "harmful" to morals or tantamount to changing the existing political order. In March, SCAF added a new wrinkle to restrictions on speech and assembly by criminalizing strikes and demonstrations "that impede public works." In April, a military court sentenced young blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad to three years in prison for "insulting the military establishment" when he criticized army rule on his blog and Facebook page. SCAF said last weekend that Nabil would be pardoned and released along with more than 1,900 other prisoners convicted in military trials. It was a gesture in advance of the Jan. 25 holiday; Nabil shouldn't have been arrested and convicted in the first place.

Harsh repression and raids on human rights organizations in Egypt continue but despite this Egyptians are unafraid. All eyes on Egypt and in solidarity with Egyptian democrats seeking to restore civilian rule after 60 years of military rule.

The Egyptian Parliamentary Elections on the Daily Debate

Rushing back from Port Said following the first round of the 2011 Parliamentary elections in which as a witness to the election in that small but important city now had facts about what had taken place. At the time, was still in the process of formulating an overall opinion of the elections. It was at that moment that Ahmed Samir of the Andalus Institute for Tolerance and anti-Violence Studies called about an invitation to Nile TV's program The Daily Debate that was broadcast live at 10:00 pm.

Below is the video of the broadcast broken up into four parts.


Pt. 1


Pt. 2


Pt. 3


Pt. 4

The optimism of the voters, expressed in the program, was prior to the appearance of huge numbers of discarded ballots days later. Now there is a question of whether or not the discarded ballots were "invalidated" ballots, counted ballots or ballots not counted and raises the question about how a challenge by a candidate demanding a recount would be considered credible.



Ghada Shahbandar, of Egyptian Organization for Human Rights in the video above demonstrates some of the dumped cast ballots and election materials circulating in Cairo. Below is video of a pile of discarded votes.

Scenes and Sounds from Tahrir Square

The Egyptian Revolution 2.0

Tahrir Square

Before walking into the Square you had to pass through a security checkpoint that searched your bags and checked identification. The organizers of the demonstration have set up internal policing mechanisms in an effort to maintain some level of order in Tahrir Square.

Checkpoint prior to entering Tahrir Square

Walking into the square surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Egyptians engaged in discussion and debate about the future of their country.

Walking into Tahrir Square after passing through the checkpoint fireworks overhead

Banners, posters with images of martyrs, prisoners and slogans abound. At the same time merchants selling food, juice, popcorn, gas masks and more. For example, balloons imitating the “I Love NY” campaign replacing NY with Egypt raised the ire of some of the activists who exclaimed: “People are being killed just a few feet away from these guys selling balloons.” Its all a bit surreal.

International observers inside one of the tents in the center of Tahrir Square listen to an Egyptian activist

Fireworks exploding overhead and families walking through Tahrir Square with their children. There is a festive air in the Square as one approaches the tents at the center.

The nerve center of the Tahrir Square protests were organizers and politicians gather to talk. Food and banana juice are passed around the tent. Introductions are made and international visitors get a briefing on what is going on.

On Friday night between the Parliament building and the Prime Minister's office demonstrators set up their tents and expanded the demonstration. Chanting anti-military slogans and calling for the transfer of military rule to civilian rule.

At any moment shots can ring out and chaos ensues. Usually it happens late at night but on Saturday it happened in the morning, but this time a young demonstrator was run over. Also outside of the Square the situation is also dangerous. During the first phase of the revolution in January, elements in the population seized weapons caches from the police. Now in many parts of Cairo shoot outs can take place at any time over a theft or an argument.



Demonstration and occupation of street between Parliament building and Prime Minister's office

Their is great skepticism among many about the Parliamentary elections beginning on Monday. There have been a lot of last minute changes in electoral rules and procedures and as of Sunday night many questions still remain on how it will be run. At the same time news that supporters of different candidates got into shoot out raises deep concerns about how peaceful the elections will be.

Egypt at a Crossroads

Downtown Cairo on November 24, 2011

Over the next 96 hours the future of Egyptian democracy may very well be decided in the interplay of the main actors in the ongoing conflict. The military that has ruled Egypt since July 23, 1952 when a group of military officers, calling themselves the "Free Officers Movement" overthrew the unpopular King Farouk I ended the constitutional monarchy and founded a republic where the military dominated the country over the next 59 years. The Islamist movement known as the Muslim Brotherhood that participated in the January 25, 2011 revolution (along with liberal and secular Egyptian activists) is not participating in the present round of protests. The departure of both Hosni Mubarak from power and his son no longer the heir apparent is now being looked as only a first step to ending military rule by many Egyptians who are now taking to the streets once again.

Elections for the Egyptian parliament are supposed to be held on Monday, November 28.

In the days approaching the elections mass demonstrations have taken place across Egypt and the military response has been harsh. The level of violence against the demonstrators has escalated and the evidence of the brutality has generated a backlash that has forced the generals to apologize for the violence. At the same time that clashes have been taking place between the government and opposition activists gathered in Tahrir Square in Cairo as well as in Alexandria, Qena, Mansoura, and Damietta demonstrating that it is nationwide movement.

The Guardian reports that prominent US-Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy was brutally sexually and physically assaulted after being arrested by Egyptian riot police during a 12-hour ordeal inside Cairo's interior ministry. She had bones broken in both wrists necessitating two casts.

Nevertheless outside of the protests life goes on much the same in the rest of Egypt. There are complaints from some merchants that the conflict has not been good for tourism and hurt their business.

Downtown Cairo on November 24, 2011

The decision to hold the first main demonstrations at Tahrir (Liberation) Square has deep roots in post-colonial Egypt that stretch back to 1919 and the uprising that formally achieved Egyptian independence from Great Britain. It was a nonviolent movement that used civil disobedience tactics. Brutal repression by the British backfired and they were forced to recognized the independence of Egypt on February 22, 1922. The square got its name informally after the 1919 uprising and was formally changed to Tahrir Square following the 1952 military coup that did away with the last vestiges of British colonial rule. It appears that Egyptian generals are repeating the same mistakes now in Egypt that the British did in 1919.

Tomorrow, Friday, November 25th Egyptian democratic opposition activists have called for massive demonstrations to demand the end of military rule. Over this weekend it can truly be said that Egypt is at a crossroads and the next few hours could chart what course Egyptian politics will take over the next half century.

Civil disobedience achieved independence for Egypt in 1922. Will it now achieve democracy in Egypt in 2011?

Internet Apartheid: Its not just a Cuban thing

Amnesty International has highlighted five countries where your online comments can land you in jail: Azerbaijan, China, Egypt, Syria, and Vietnam. Out of the five countries only Syria (as of April 29, 2011) has sanctions leveled against it.

The other four countries have "normalized" relations with the United States. In the case of Cuba trying to provide Cubans with wireless internet connections is grounds for imprisonment. The lack of internet connectivity in Cuba has nothing to do with economic sanctions but everything to do with Cuban government policy.

In the case of Azerbaijan, China, Egypt, Syria, and Vietnam there are attempts to censor what is on the internet and to imprison those within their national territories that express critical opinions online. The Cubans also have to deal with an intranet but in addition are restricted access to the internet.

Yoani Sanchez over twitter expressed the everyday reality for Cubans on November 15, 2011:

Know why I can't use Twitter from the world wide web or read your messages online? Because I'm not politically correct or a foreigner.

Did you know a foreign resident in Cuba can contract home internet connection and a Cuban cannot? That is why I tweet through sms!

No foreign blogger would lend to a alternative blogger an Internet connection. But Twitter allows publishing by SMS. Long live the smoke signals!

That is why I will not stop tweeting nor of training my countrymen to publish on the web even without an Internet connection.

Internet and life! We will Twitter!

Internet apartheid exists in Cuba. Foreigners and members of the regime elite have internet access in their homes, but not the average Cuban. Whats the difference between Cuba and these other countries? US sanctions limit the role of American companies in Cuba but not in Azerbaijan, China, Egypt, Syria, and Vietnam.

Some internet companies have sold their souls for profits from repressive regimes.

In Syria where the United Nations reported in November that 3,500 Syrians have been extra-judicially executed by the Assad regime. At the same time American companies have blocked the internet and assisted the Assad regime in the persecution of the Syrian people. US senators want answers about the complicity of US companies.

Its not the first time. American companies such as Microsoft, Nortel, Cisco and Sun-Microsystems collaborated extensively with the Chinese communists to set up an intranet that blocks free access to internet to hundreds of millions of Chinese. In addition, American companies identified and located Chinese dissidents to the regime who were imprisoned and tortured. For example, according to Amnesty International, Chinese journalist Shi Tao is serving 10 years in jail after Internet company Yahoo! gave the authorities his personal email account-holder information.

American companies, such as Narus, aided the Mubarak regime during its brutal crackdown earlier this year tracking Egyptian activists during the Arab Spring and has also been suspected of helping Libya track dissidents.

The difference between Cuba and these other countries is that because of economic sanctions - some US technology corporations were blocked from doing the same sordid business on the communist island. Of course that does not mean that other companies from other countries are not already engaged in those practices. At the time of the 2003 Black Cuban Spring the Italian company, Telecom Italia, provided technology that was used to track activists that used the internet in a "counterrevolutionary manner."

Internet apartheid its not just a Cuban thing but thanks to US sanctions at least US companies do not have carte blanche to do the same thing in Cuba that they are doing in China, Syria, Egypt and in so many other places around the world. Unfortunately, there are other companies in Cuba collaborating and doing it.

The new human right that defends old human rights: internet access

Reflections from the live stream of the Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference

2011 will hopefully be looked back as the year when both the right to internet access and the threat to internet freedom were both recognized and tech companies collaborating with human rights organizations set out standards to address the problem and uphold a fundamental right. Only time will tell if human rights defenders working with tech companies can ensure that the internet be a space where freedom of expression exists along with a right to privacy. Today, both are under serious assault.

On May 16, 2011 Frank LaRue, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, presented a report that recognizes:

While blocking and filtering measures deny users access to specific content on the Internet, states have also taken measures to cut off access to the Internet entirely. The Special Rapporteur considers cutting off users from internet access, regardless of the justification provided, including on the grounds of violating intellectual property rights law, to be disproportionate and thus a violation of article 19, paragraph 3, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

In the map above from AccessNow there is one country in the Western Hemisphere that selectively filters political content that has been identified and that is Cuba. In addition the regime has done everything possible to limit access to the populace.

The first lesson is that technology today is neutral. The same face book page that assists activists in organizing can also assist repressive regimes in both identifying them and where they can put their hands on them. Until now, for the most part, the technologies that human rights defenders have used on the internet were not specifically designed with human rights in the minds of the developers.

Hopefully, that will change. Today there are companies that have and are collaborating both with human rights activists and human rights violators. There are companies that develop software to spy on citizens and censor internet content. Human rights defenders have been identified by some of these companies for repressive regimes leading to their detention, imprisonment, torture and death. Other companies have completely cut off service and sent out threatening messages for the regime in power at a moment of crisis.

For example, in Egypt Vodafone complied with Egyptian government demands to cut off internet access and sent out pro-regime text messages during the uprising there. Anti-virus and filtering software company McAfee (now owned by Intel) worked hand-in-hand with the ben Ali regime in Tunisia to help it block unwanted websites. In China, Yahoo offered information on Chinese dissidents that led to their imprisonment. Cisco provides some of the critical technology behind the Great Firewall of China, the filters that blocks citizens from reaching the uncensored Internet and is in talks to provide the networking equipment that will enable an extensive surveillance system in China that will employ hundreds of thousands of cameras.

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Panel on Visual media technologies, content and human rights at Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference

Over two days on October 25th-26th, 2011 at the Mission Bay Conference Center, San Francisco the Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference was held with both the sponsorship and participation of Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Mozilla, Skype and other technology companies. Summaries and some of the videos of the various workshops are available online and are required viewing both for techies and human rights defenders.

Brett Solomon, executive director of Access Now, the New York nonprofit that organized the Conference was cited in the San Francisco Chronicle laying out whats at stake:

"One of the key things we're trying to do is to put a name on this issue, to recognize that companies' technologies and platforms have human rights implications. ... They have to fully recognize in advance that they can't make decisions without considering how these technologies are going to play out in people's real lives. ...Sometimes it can be a question of life or death."

Over the course of the two days there were a lot of panels that focused on defense: protecting privacy, ethical business practices, informing users of the dangers of having their identities and locations exposed to human rights violators and technologies used to spy on and censor them. However, one panel that caught my attention because it went on the offensive was the one on Visual media technologies, content and human rights. Panelists included: Sam Gregory : Program Director, Witness.org,Thor Halvorssen : Founder, Oslo Freedom Forum, Hans Eriksson : Founder/ Executive Chairman, Bambuser, Sameer Padania : CEO, Macroscope (moderator) and Steve Grove : Head of News and Politics, YouTube.

An excerpt of the conversation transcribed by Katherine Maher is reproduced below:

Sam Gregory: A lot of video shot on mobile leaks a lot of information about where people are. And there were Egyptian activists who chose to show their locations–Wael Abbas (@waelabbas) wanted people to see his location, so he could demonstrate where there were roadblocks. There is a flip side. You know, if you’re in Syria, you don’t want to be geolocated, you might not want to be visible in the frame, and you might not want to have the background imagery in the frame. We know there are 5 people who want to be seen but a ton of people who do not want to be seen on youtube. And with certain things, like anonymizing your IP address, is easy, but anonymizing video is a big challenge. You have to go into your FinalCut Pro and try to obscure the identities. This is a major challenge. As Alaa (@alaa) highlighted in opening speech, the activist from Egypt said, activists are only 1% of the users, but these issues should be relevant for the other 99%. For those not in Syria, those who might not be out, those who are subject to domestic violence, for example and don't want to have their images shared all over the net.

[...]

Hans Eriksson: We don’t force people to give away information whatsoever when registering and broadcasting. But the challenge is, how do you educate the user? For example, Egypt again - Ramy Raoof (@ramyraoof) did tremendous work creating manuals in Arabic about how to be safe using Bambuser, and distributing this in all possible ways. We want you to be safe using Bambuser. I don’t know if it is relevant to users in North Africa or the Middle East, but we’re a Swedish company, and we have fair legislation, we’re a democracy, and our servers are protected under Swedish law. Its a difficult question you want to get it out and be anonymous at the same time. One request we’ve had from quite a few is that, they have poor connections, or no connections, but we want to use Bambuser. We do live broadcasting, but now, starting next week, we’ve created an offline opportunity for recording and uploading. And really, this is 99% percent in response to our users in North Africa and the Middle East. We are a private company want people to see Bambuser as a full video service, whether you have a data connection or not.

Thor Halvorssen: One of the main problems is a resource problem. Witness puts cameras everywhere, but of course, there are a number of places they cannot put cameras, they can’t fund being everywhere. There are 6 or 7 countries that have no internet whatsoever. A great example of places to have cameras would be Cuba, another great example is North Korea. Sometimes video takes months to travel out, and it become difficult to know who actually took the video, and what you’re really looking at specifically other than a human rights violation. What do we do with this? So one suggestion for what companies can continue to do might be to start assigning by topic–for instance if a general election is going to take place next year in 3 different countries in Africa and 2 countries in Latin America this is something that from a human rights perspective is absolutely essential. To be able to have citizen journalists rather than electoral observers. If it can be put together, rather than curating a whole bunch of news, the elections in such and such a place, just have a place for raw footage from a certain location, like elections. So rather than look at things like armed conflict, which is difficult to look at, video, and Transparency brought by this is far beyond what international observers can do in regards to instantaneous attention. A 5 minute clip from one country, can end up opening a Pandora’s Box questioning about what really happened that puts aside political considerations of international observers. If we declare this election fraudulent we are going to have fighting in the streets. What are we going to do? This were the crowd is much wiser than some appointed political actors.

[...]

Thor Halvorssen: People who go on the streets, and are willing to die, often say, by all means, go put my image out there, I’m willing to to this. And if the Bahraini government goes ahead and persecutes them, it gives us yet another opportunity to highlight that hypocrisy and violence. I’m a believer of the more, the better–when you start using the argument of privacy, that’s the same opportunity that governments user to censor. more information may be messy, but censorship is invariably messier.

Hans Eriksson: Of all the hundreds of thousands of videos from the Arab Spring on Bambuser, we yet to have one take down request. It’s possible many people don’t know they’re on video. But this is where the importance of education comes in. The cameras are all around, they’re closer than you think.

Sam Gregory: People choose to take risks, but at the moment, they don’t really have options about how to take them. It’s important to remember that the Arab Spring is really just the tip of the iceberg on human rights. Sex workers fighting police violence in Macedonia, elderly who face physical abuse, sexual violence in South Africa–these are the other stories. I think people need additional controls of how these images are used. I do agree, in the broader sense, that more cameras are good. And that informed consent and privacy are inversely proportional to power.

This is just one small excerpt there was much more that is worth reviewing and reflecting on over the two days of the conference.

The consequences of recognizing the right to internet access as a fundamental human right and the decision of some members of Silicon Valley to commit to taking human rights into account while developing products can have a huge impact. It wouldn't be the first time. The personal computer pioneered by the likes of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, the founders of Apple Computer, in the mid 1970s took computing power that had been for decades controlled by government and large corporations and turned it over to individuals in their homes. Witness was founded in 1992 by Peter Gabriel with the aim of turning the cameras around on Big Brother and monitoring those in power and the abuses they commit against the individual by empowering individuals with cameras. Both decisions to take action on behalf of the individual by a small group of individuals changed the world for the better. Let us hope that it is now repeated in 2011.

The stakes are high. Although the international community recognizes the right to internet access. It is endangered around the world with governments using the internet to spy on citizens, setting up firewalls to censor what users have access to and using kill switches to turn off internet access in the midst of a political crisis. Will tech companies assist in defending the right to uncensored/unmonitored internet access or continue in business with those who seek to undermine what is now recognized as a human right? The Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference offers hope that a number of technology companies are willing to take human rights into consideration.

An unholy alliance: Cuba,Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Libya and Syria

First the United Nations finally recognizes that statistics provided to it by the regime in Cuba are not reliable and now an Arab Daily recognizes the autocratic and unpopular nature of regimes like Cuba's and Venezuela's.

Editorial: An unholy alliance

ArabNews.com

To say that uprising in Libya and Syria is a foreign plot is an insult to people who are fighting for their freedom

On Tuesday, in a joint statement, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez denounced what they called the West's “imperialist aggression” in Libya and Syria.

It is a wonder they did not try and get Cuba’s retired President Fidel Castro or Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe to endorse their condemnation. They would have certainly obliged. Back in March, Castro’s verdict on the Libyan uprising was that it was an American plot. Just over a week ago Mugabe called NATO “a terrorist group” because of its airstrikes against Qaddafi’s forces.

The notion that the uprisings in Syria and Libya are a Western plot is not merely a gross distortion of the truth; it is a vicious slap in the face of ordinary Syrians and Libyans. They are the authors of the uprisings, not the Americans or the French or the British. The hundreds of thousands of Libyans who rose up against Qaddafi's iron grip on power and the young Libyans fighting, and dying, to free their country did not do so because of a foreign plot. They did so because they wanted to be free and were inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. They took their destiny into their own hands. It has been the same for the hundreds of thousands who have taken to the streets of Syria's cities, willing to die for freedom and, in some cases, doing so. The suggestion that they are agents in a plot devised by NATO and the CIA is an insult to them and the memory of the thousands who have been killed.

In any event, if it were an American plot, it was one for which the Americans should be congratulated for getting their Middle East policies right for a change and doing something that was genuinely in tune with mass public sentiment.

The fact that men like Chavez trot out this lie says everything about them and their politics and nothing about reality. They have a world view that is hopelessly outdated — a world divided into thieving imperialists and, battling against them, anti-colonialist liberation movements led by themselves. That has long gone. The world has moved on. But it is a vision these dictators are desperate to retain. It is their justification for their dead hand on the levers of power.

The same was said by the ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak of the protests in Egypt before he fell; they were organized by outsiders, he said. Qaddafi and Assad have come up with different villains behind the opposition to them — they accuse hard-liners — but the thinking is the same. They need someone to blame for the crisis and refuse to admit they are the problem.

For all their populist rhetoric and their glorification of their “people's struggle” against “imperialism,” it is their own people that the likes of Chavez, Ahmadinejad, Qaddafi and Assad fear their most. So they come up with nonsense about foreign or terrorist plots.

No one is taken in. The Syrians and the Libyans, like the Egyptians and the Tunisians beforehand, know that their uprisings are their alone, not something cooked up in the Pentagon. Others may support them, morally or with money or even arms and air raids, but the Arab Spring is a genuine Arab affair. Those who have to pretend otherwise show how little they understand the momentousness of what is happening.

Editorial

Aug 17, 2011 23:47

http://arabnews.com/opinion/editorial/article490024.ece

Mubarak in the dock in Egypt when will it be the Castros turn?

End of impunity in Egypt. Are Syria and Cuba far behind?


A dictator and his henchmen in power for 29 years have to account for their actions in a court of law. Hosni Mubarak is on trial in Egypt in an iron cage. Meanwhile on the same day in Syria, Bashir Al-Assad (who inherited power from his father) kills at least 45 civilians in a tank assault attempting to crush a popular revolt and the violence is condemned by the United Nations. What of two brothers in power for 52 years and counting on a small Caribbean island whose state security have racked their own body count and continues to brutalize Cubans to this very day? These are questions they might be asking themselves as they see the images of Mubarak, his two sons and the ex-minister of the interior on trial for their crimes in Cairo.

Cuba, Egypt and Syria are part of the Non-aligned movement and Cuba chaired this grouping of countries from 2006-2009 and Raul Castro formally turned over the chairmanship to Hosni Mubarak and Egypt on July 15, 2009 stating:

"I reaffirm our deep friendship and appreciation to each of you, with whom we shared trenches in the fight against colonialism, apartheid, interventionism, the arms race, economic exploitation, disease and illiteracy, and who we have always received solidarity with the just struggle of my people to preserve their sovereignty, independence and overcome illegal barriers unilaterally imposed to its right to development. It only remains for me, and I'm honored to do so, to propose to the plenary to elect by acclamation as the new Chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement, His Excellency Mr. Mohamed Hosni Mubarak, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt. I understand that all agree. My congratulations to the new President and our best wishes for success."

Mubarak in turn offered his praise for Raul Castro and the regime in Havana:

"I especially salute President Raul Castro, and express our appreciation for the great efforts exerted by Cuba during its Presidency of the Non-Aligned Movement, in defense of our positions and interests at international forums, and as a continuation of the constructive role played by this friendly country over the history of the Movement."

Now that Mr. Mubarak finds himself in a difficult situation the Castro regime has distanced itself from their old friend. A former head of state held accountable for his actions in a court of law. An example in which impunity makes way for accountability.

According to Amnesty International the process thus far in Cairo, Egypt is promising but too early to make judgments on whether the trial is fair. This is important because it must be about the pursuit of justice not revenge. Voices are already being heard that accountability will only encourage more brutality and that putting former dictators on trial will only encourage them to hang on even more brutally.

History indicates otherwise. It was the world's silence before Turkish atrocities against the Armenians between 1915 and 1917 that led Adolf Hitler to believe he could get away with the Holocaust stating in 1939: "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" When someone like Augusto Pinochet is held accountable for his past bad acts in a court of law that even his ideological opponents tremble in their boots. Hopefully as this trial unfolds it will not be an exercise in revolutionary revenge but in justice.

It is a process where history will judge not only the accused but if the trial was indeed balanced and fair. Holding dictators and systematic human rights violators accountable before the law is the only way to discourage others in the future and set an important precedent for the rule of law and Egyptian democracy.

That kind of precedent has the Castros and Assads of this world extremely nervous and on the other hand democrats extremely hopeful for the future.