Anwar Sadat Square in Haifa

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

I just read now about the planned naming of a square in Haifa after Anwar Sadat. I think this is a nice gesture on Israel's part. I'm not sure if all Israelis are fine with this happening, but I still think that's a peaceful move on their part. I wonder if Egypt will ever have a square named after Menachem Begin in any of its cities. I doubt it's gonna happen.

I personally like Sadat. I didn't live in his time, but from what I've read, heard, and seen about him, I do respect his courage as the first president in the region to sign a peace agreement with Israel.

Links: here and here.

posted by the egypt guy at 12/22/2009 10:01:00 PM 0 comments

EGYPT: Defend a blogger’s right to freedom of expression


Source: Amnesty International

Karim Amer is a 25-year-old law student — but you will not find him at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University. On 6 November 2006, he began a four-year jail term. His “crime” was to publish material on the internet that was critical of both Islam and of Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak.

Amnesty International considers Karim Amer a prisoner of conscience, jailed only for applying his right to express himself, peacefully, through his blogging activity. The United Nations Human Rights Council agrees. Its experts concluded that Egyptian authorities have detained him unlawfully for his online criticisms.

Some Muslims might take offense at Karim’s views on Islam. However, this does not justify prosecution and imprisonment under Egypt’s Penal Code. The offenses in the Code that relate to insulting the President of Egypt and to publishing greatly limit freedom of expression and freedom of the press. The Code provides for jail time for anyone who publishes materials that provoke attacks against a community or “disturbs national peace.”

Amnesty International is further worried that the persecution of Karim Amer threatens other Egyptian bloggers. The internet has emerged as a major forum for expressing views critical of Egyptian authorities and exposing human rights abuses such as illtreatment in police stations.

Karim told his lawyers that on 24 October 2007, a prisoner and a guard punched and kicked him, resulting in bruises and a broken tooth. They took him to a disciplinary cell, bound his arms and legs and beat him. He existed in solitary confinement with little water and one daily meal until 7 November 2007 when they moved him back to the section where they hold petty criminals. No one conducted an investigation.

One year ago, they moved Karim to the political prisoners’ section. He is allowed TV, radio, newspapers, and exercise time. He is also allowed longer visits from his lawyers but in fact authorities have denied them access to Karim since March 2009.

“I oppose everything that can restrain anyone’s freedom of expression… Terrorizing me, ousting me from university, imprisoning me, none of that will affect my spirit. ”
- Extract of letter from Karim Amer, 4 September 2007

Please write to Egypt’s president.

  1. Describe who you are.
  2. Acknowledge that Karim Amer’s blogs offended him and some Muslims but that the peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression demands his release.
  3. Ask him to launch an independent and exhaustive investigation into Karim’s claims of ill-treatment. Provide a detail or two about them in your letter.
President Hosni Mubarak
‘Abedine Palace
Cairo, Egypt

Start your letter: Dear President Mubarak

Postage: $1.65
Fax: +20 2 2390 1998 or +20 2 2795 8016
Email: webmaster@presidency.gov.eg

Send a greeting to Karim!

Please use his full name when you address the envelope.

Abdel Karim Nabil Soliman Amer
Bog Al-Arab Prison
Alexandria, Egypt
  • Use any type of card or paper except religious cards/greetings.
  • Write in Arabic, English, or your own language.
  • You may mention Amnesty International and include your return address.
Sample letter in Arabic:

عزيزي كريم،
أتمنى أن تسترد حريتك قريباً و نحن نعمل من أجل إطلاق سراحك.
لقد أرسلت خطاب إلى الرئيس المصري أحثه على إطلاق سراحك. و قد طلبت أيضاً التحقيق في سوء المعاملة التي تعرضت لها بالسجن.

Dear Karim,
I hope that you will soon be free. We are working towards your release.
I have sent a letter to the Egyptian President asking him to release you. I have also asked for an investigation of the way you have been ill-treated in prison.

posted by the egypt guy at 12/22/2009 04:29:00 AM 0 comments

Fi Balad El Welad

في بلد الولاد

Saturday, July 11, 2009


Fi Balad El Welad (In the Country of Boys), by Mustapha Fat'hee, is a book that tells the story of one young Egyptian gay man's everyday life with all its ups and its many downs in this conservative Muslim country that rejects homosexuality. This is the first ever book that tells of the misery of being gay in Egypt and that speaks for respecting and accepting the oppressed Egyptian gay community on a human level.

The book is now available to buy at "El Balad" bookshop opposite the American University campus downtown Cairo, located on the second floor in the building next to Cilantro café. The book costs E£10.

"في بلد الولاد"، من تأليف مصطفى فتحي، هو كتاب يسرد قصة حياة رجل مثلي مصري بحلوها القليل ومرها الكثير في هذا البلد المسلم المحافظ الذي يرفض المثلية الجنسية. هذا الكتاب هو الأول من نوعه بحيث أنها المرة الأولى التي يسرد فيها كتاب مصري مشاكل المثليين ويدعو إلى تقبل واحترام المجتمع المثلي المقموع في مصر.

الكتاب متوفر بمكتبة البلد مقابل الجامعة الأمريكية في وسط البلد بالقاهرة. ثمن الكتاب 10 جنيهات.

posted by the egypt guy at 7/11/2009 02:24:00 PM 9 comments

My first HIV test at a government lab

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

To my amazement, the way I was received by the doctors prior to the actual testing was pretty welcoming. I found that they didn't ask for a name, but rather for a pseudonym and a birthdate to be my identity there. Then, I was sent to a counselor whose job was to give simple information about AIDS and HIV. The guy didn't show any signs of disrespect for the fact that I'm going to check if I have HIV, which was astonishing. I heard that until very recently AIDS was seen as such a tabboo even by doctors. And after the counseling session they gave me a few condoms and lubricants, and three booklets with information about AIDS, and then I went to have the test. I'll go get the results next Sunday, hopefully it'll be negative, wish me luck!! :-)

Oh, I also didn't pay a penny for any of that.

It was a very nice experience that I didn't expect to have at a government lab, and I'm happy my country is having a more liberal approach to sexually transmitted diseases and is actually propagating against the whole stigma that's associated with them, especially HIV and AIDS.

posted by the egypt guy at 6/23/2009 05:10:00 PM 6 comments

Egypt moving forward?

Sunday, June 21, 2009

I've been hearing from people who work with UNAIDS in Egypt that we're moving forward as far as AIDS patients are concerned. As I mentioned years ago, there's now free AIDS medication and testing. There's also been talk that we're getting one step closer to gay rights here. A new book about to be published on July 1 discusses the dilemmas that the gay community faces in Egypt, so it seems that things are not as much of a tabboo as they used to be, following the openly gay characters in recent Egyptian movies. It seems like Egypt is trying to clean its dirty human/[sexual-]minority rights history now.

posted by the egypt guy at 6/21/2009 07:53:00 AM 2 comments

Another 30 years like these

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Source: Haaretz.com

It's hard to say about the peace between Israel and Egypt that "time flies when you're having fun." This week will mark 30 years since the signing of the peace agreement, and Egypt is still suspect. It never passed the test of "tourist peace"; masses of Egyptians never came to vacation on Tel Aviv's beaches. Israeli authors do not appear at Egyptian book fairs, and the Israeli embassy in Cairo is closely monitored, not only by Egyptian intelligence but also by intellectuals, journalists and reporters ready to pounce on any Egyptian "spy" who penetrates the besieged structure to ask for a visa to Israel. Professional associations forbid their members from visiting Israel, and when an Egyptian parliamentarian wants to insult his colleague he tells him that "even the Israelis would not do what you are doing." 

This is a peace that from the start was based not on love but on the slogan that has remained so important for Israel: "No more war. No more bloodshed." A peace not only free of war but also from the threat of war. Because of this peace, the Arab world's leading country found itself isolated by the Arabs, but maintained its diplomatic ties even when Israel occupied another Arab country, Lebanon, killed and wounded thousands of Palestinians and destroyed hundreds of homes over the past 30 years. And it has kept these ties going even when Israel's current foreign minister-designate, Avigdor Lieberman, called for bombing the Aswan Dam, and when Israel embarked on a war in the Gaza Strip. 

One can only guess Israel's reaction if some country did to the Jewish people even one tenth of what Israel has done to the Palestinians. And after all, Egypt still lauds Anwar Sadat as "the hero of war and peace," and President Hosni Mubarak continues to challenge extremist Arab leaders by saying that anyone who wants to wage war on Israel should do so from his own territory. Egypt took the strategic decision not to play this game. True, the Egyptian ambassador may not participate in the 30-year anniversary celebrations because Lieberman is about to become foreign minister, and Egyptians prefer to celebrate the victory of the October War and not the day that peace was signed. But it is only in Egypt where the head of Israel's Shin Bet security service and the head of the military wing of Hamas have been within touching distance of each other. 

Cold or hot, this is a more successful peace than that between India and Pakistan, Syria and Lebanon or Egypt and Syria. All maintain full diplomatic ties, replete with a deep sense of revulsion for each other. 

This is a strategic peace between states and not between nations. A peace of interests, the kind that suits precisely the threats that Israel has tried to neutralize. 

Its test, like that of the peace with Jordan and the peace Israel aspires to have with Syria, is not in the "quantity" of normalization but in the number of border incidents that are prevented. A peace where the meeting of intelligence chiefs is considered by both sides to be a greater achievement than another meeting in Cairo or Jerusalem between an Israeli and an Egyptian author. 

The expression "cold peace" has carved out a place in Israel's diplomatic and public lexicon. 

But it is interesting to speculate how Israel would respond if a million Egyptian tourists visited Tel Aviv's beaches, hitting on Israeli girls and flooding the hotels, and the Egyptian dialect was heard in every corner of the malls of Rishon Letzion or Ga'ash. 

And what would happen to that same peace if hundreds of thousands of Egyptians tried to take advantage of it to work in Israel, or if Egyptian businessmen bought strategically important Israeli companies? Are you feeling a little nervous already? Yes, we want a warm peace with Egypt, but at a distance. Tourists from Scandinavia? Yes. French apartment buyers? Sure. Just not Egyptians - Arabs, I mean. 

It seems that both sides enjoy the peace's coolness. In Israel it serves as an excuse for lazy diplomacy because, after all, it's not worth giving up territory for a "cold peace" like this. For Egypt, this "cold" grants it the appropriate degree of distance that allows it to enjoy the status of "respectability" in the Middle East. All we want is to have the opportunity to reach another 30 years of this sort of peace.

posted by the egypt guy at 3/28/2009 01:58:00 AM 5 comments

Popping up once more

Thursday, January 29, 2009

I haven't been doing much writing much lately, true. The thing is, well, sometimes I regret having told so many people about this blog that I can't really use it anymore as my own, secret place, if you will. You know, my own dirty place where anything can be thrown in and off my back.. So, other than all these cultured articles, the political talk and the religious talk and the minority talk, not much personal talk can be spat out here, 'cuz it'll probably end up the talk of my surrounding society heheh. There's all sorts of shit in my life that I'd like to share with you here, but don't have the courage to risk it being known by my mom for instance (mom, are you reading this? ;-).

Leave you in peace. Enjoy the winter!

posted by the egypt guy at 1/29/2009 09:39:00 PM 3 comments

What Is It Like to Be HIV Positive in Egypt?

Friday, September 05, 2008

An Interview With Ayman, an HIV-Positive Egyptian

By Terri Wilder (Source: TheBody.com)

August 1, 2008

The XVII International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2008) is a magnet that attracts thousands upon thousands of HIV-positive people, activists and community leaders from all walks of life and all parts of the globe. We were fortunate enough to meet a few of these people and talk to them about their perspectives and their experiences. In this interview, Terri Wilder talks with Ayman, an Egyptian, about what it's like to live with HIV in his home country.

Ayman, what is it like to live with HIV in Egypt?

Living with HIV in Egypt is very tough, because the stigma is very high in Egypt against people who are living with HIV. We are having a very tough fight in our country to do what we have to do. To be able to have a safe living environment, away from stigma, away from many other things, we have to fight. [We have to fight for] support and care -- we do not have it professionally. We have [HIV] medications, [but] only one line. If you get resistance from this line, you will not be able to get another one. I think we have a very tough life with HIV in Egypt, and we have to fight more and more, so we can get our rights.

What do you think the biggest challenge is?

Our biggest challenge is to lessen the stigma, and also to make our leaders and our government [provide us with better] support, care and treatment.

What do you mean by "stigma"? Are people losing their jobs or their housing?

It's there by all its meanings. People avoid you. They don't know how HIV is transferred. They don't know anything about anything, and they treat you very badly. You can be kicked out of your home. If it's not your property, if you are renting it, you would be kicked out. In your job, you cannot say that [you have HIV], because if you said it, you would be fired. They would find many other reasons to fire you. It would not be HIV. I have been working in a place for one and a half years. I didn't say anything, and I couldn't say that.

Where do people get their medical care?

They give out medications only in our Ministry of Health [in Cairo]. This is the only way we can get it, because it's very expensive. We are a third-world country. Many of us cannot buy medications by ourselves, so we can get it only from one place, which is the Ministry of Health. Even if you live far away, you have to come all this way -- from any place in Egypt, any region in Egypt, you have to come to Cairo so you can get your medication.

There is no other support or care. If you go to a doctor for an operation and say that you have HIV, he will not give it to you. Actually, right now, we have HIV-positive pregnant women, and we don't know how and where they are going to give birth. And the places the government does give us are of very, very low standards. The kid, if he does not get HIV, will get another disease.

What kind of support do you get from family and friends?

My family, they are very supportive. When I first knew [that I was positive], I did not have that much information [about HIV]. I was waiting for death. My mother, she was the one who first told me that what has happened has happened, that I had to look ahead. How you are going to live -- what happens to you -- this is decided by God, so you have to try to live your life in a normal, nice way.

I don't have too many friends whom I can tell. One friend is my sponsor in a Narcotics Anonymous program. The other one is an HIV-positive person who is living with me -- not "living with me" [in a romantic sense], but she is the closest one to me. She has been helping me in many things.

You get your medical care from the Ministry of Health. Are you on medications right now?

Yes, I am.

What medications are you on?

I am on Norvir [ritonavir], Invirase [saquinavir] and Combivir [AZT/3TC].

How have you been feeling since you started taking these?

I have been taking medications almost for two years. I'm getting well. I remember that when I started, my CD4 count was about 68. I weighed about 60 kilograms [130 lbs.]. Now my CD4 count is 164, and I'm past 95 kilograms [209 lbs.]. So it's good.

Do you feel good?

Yes. I feel much, much better.

In what year were you diagnosed?

It was 28 June 2006.

Thank you so much for speaking with us today.

Thank you very much, Terri.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

posted by the egypt guy at 9/05/2008 03:09:00 AM 10 comments

Egypt: Court Upholds HIV Sentences, Reinforces Intolerance

Five Convictions in Fear-Driven Crackdown a Blow to Health and Justice

(Cairo, May 29, 2008, Human Rights Watch) – A Cairo appeals court’s decision to uphold the sentences imposed on five men jailed in a crackdown on people living with HIV/AIDS underscores the Egyptian government’s dangerous indifference to public health and justice, Human Rights Watch said today. The May 28 ruling upheld the maximum three-year prison terms for each of the five, following a months-long campaign targeting men with HIV/AIDS. A total of nine men have been sentenced to prison so far.

“To send these men to prison because of their HIV status is inhuman and unjust,” said Joe Amon, director of the HIV/AIDS program at Human Rights Watch. “Police, prosecutors, and doctors have already abused them and violated their most basic rights, and now fear has trumped justice in a court of law.”  
 
On May 7, a court of first instance in Cairo had convicted the five men on charges of “habitual practice of debauchery,” a phrase that in Egyptian law encompasses consensual sexual acts between men.  
 
Before their first trial, a prosecutor told the men’s lawyer that they should not be allowed to “roam the streets freely” because the government considered them “a danger to public health.”  
 
Since October 2007, Cairo police have arrested a dozen men on suspicion of being HIV-positive. The crackdown began when one man, stopped on the street during an altercation, told officers he was HIV-positive. Police arrested him and the man with him, beat and abused them, and interrogated them to name sexual contacts. Police then began picking up others based on information from those interrogations.  
 
On January 14, 2008, a Cairo court sentenced four of those men to one-year prison terms on “debauchery” charges. An appeals court upheld those sentences on February 2. The present five defendants were referred for trial separately in March. Authorities released three other men, who tested negative for HIV, without charge, after months in detention.  
 
While the 12 were in detention, doctors from the Ministry of Health forcibly subjected all of them to HIV tests without their consent. Doctors from Egypt’s Forensic Medical Authority performed abusive anal examinations on the men to “prove” they had had sex with other men. Human Rights Watch has documented that such examinations conducted in detention constitute torture. Police and guards beat several of the men in detention. A prosecutor told one of the men that he had tested positive for HIV by saying, “People like you should be burnt alive. You do not deserve to live.”  
 
The prisoners who tested HIV-positive were chained to their beds in hospitals for months. After a local and international outcry, the Ministry of Health ordered the men unchained on February 25.  
 
“Putting these men in prison serves neither justice nor public health,” Amon said. “The Egyptian government and the country’s medical profession must act to end this campaign of intolerance.”

posted by the egypt guy at 9/05/2008 02:59:00 AM 3 comments