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Ed Webb

Anti-Islam filmmaker in hiding after deadly protests in Egypt, Libya; blames lax securi... - 1 views

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    How, exactly, did he think this would help his 'native land', by which it seems he means Israel, although that is unclear in this story?
Ed Webb

Egyptian Chronicles: #USembassy : And security forces are back to their normal place - 0 views

  • Now we moved from the flag conquest to the US embassy’s battle between protesters and security forces. True Egyptian Pro-Revolution supporters and forces fear that this is a game by the current regime to justify emergency laws using the old regime’s technique of creating security problems like that !!
  • Morsi will be roasted hours later in Brussels and Rome as he will face the Western media in its stronghold, he and his team know it. Already according to analysts the MB is in very critical position. They do not want to lose the States and West as well not to lose their allies form Islamists as well they know that in front of the public opinion that will raise questions about promises of foreign investments and about relations with Jihadists. Of course the Public Opinion is angry from that insulting film which nobody heard about except only yesterday , still the public opinion will ask questions.
  • I do not know how our embassy will sue the filmmakers when Freedom of speech is granted by American constitutio
Ed Webb

Free Speech in the Muslim World? Ask the Egyptian TV Station That First Aired the Anti-... - 1 views

  • Now the new Arab democracies may be forced to consider how to balance speech rights with popular demands for blasphemy restrictions. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has repeated its call for an international convention against giving offense to religion. Tunisian leaders said the crisis underlined the need for a blasphemy law, of the sort that already exists in countries such as Pakistan. We're told of a cultural divide between the West, with its traditional freedoms, and majority-Muslim countries extraordinarily sensitive to insults to Islam.
  • A lesson of Al Nas TV is that maybe this divide is not so great after all. The Egyptian station was broadcasting in a manner that Westerners would recognize -- airing a controversy and discussing its implications -- and its staff has reason to hope for Western-style protection of speech.
  • financed by the Saudi government and associated with the conservative Salafist movement
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  • it wasn't until the TV broadcast that things really blew up
  • If Egyptian prosecutors can accuse a filmmaker in the United States of "threatening national unity" or "assaulting Islam," crimes that carry the death penalty, surely they can actually arrest the men in Cairo who propagated the video
  • In presenting the video, the broadcasters explained that they spread offensive speech because the public needed to be informed of in injustice.
  • Al Nas was using the freedom of speech in the same way it is exercised in other countries, including those in the West. Exposing outrages is a central role of the free media, after all. Informing the public is a vital part of democracy, and will be essential in the Arab world as democracy spreads
  • Some public questioning of Al Nas has begun, and the TV station is on the defensive. "We did not mean... to harm the national unity," insisted Essam Ramy, the editor of the program, in an interview with NPR. He said the program merely "monitors what happens on the Egyptian street," and that if Al Nas really wanted to incite riots, the station would have played even more of the video than it did
  • Film producers who were salivating to smear Muslims must have been thrilled when Al Nas became a distributor for their product. If they're going to have a democracy, Egyptians are stuck with free speech -- and also with the responsibility to use it better than Al Nas did this month
Ed Webb

In Egypt and Saudi Arabia, succession looms -- latimes.com - 0 views

  • King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak are in their 80s, durable U.S. allies whose governments have crushed political dissent at home while playing leading roles across the Middle East. But these days, talk of succession reverberates as Washington, as well as Riyadh and Cairo, plans to navigate an era without two of the region's dominant personalities.
  • Their overall strategies, which complement U.S. interests, are not expected to be significantly altered by their successors, especially since new leaders will almost certainly come from the ranks of the ruling regimes.
  • The oppressed of Egypt and the young of Saudi Arabia are angry and restless. They listened to Obama's June speech in Cairo, and many were disappointed by the lack of criticism of their nations' regimes, which often ignore American principles of democracy. It is these sentiments -- expressed by laborers striking in the Egyptian textile city of El Mahalla el Kubra and by bloggers and filmmakers in Riyadh -- that new leaders will have to calm. "Predicting what will happen in Saudi Arabia is very difficult," said Mohammad Fahad Qahtani, a reformer and assistant economics professor at the Institute of Diplomatic Studies. "You live in an oil bonanza. The country is flush with money, but you have unemployment and 30% of the people living in poverty. Only 22% of families own their own homes."It's a gloomy picture. The regime is losing its credibility."
Ed Webb

Spoiler alert: Saudi television network bans Turkish soap operas | Middle East Eye - 0 views

  • A Saudi-owned television network has announced it will pull hugely popular Turkish dramas from its schedules, in what experts inside Turkey say is an attempt by Saudi Arabia's crown prince to pacify clerics already outraged by his push to modernise the kingdom.
  • the Arab world’s largest private broadcaster, MBC, was ordered to stop broadcasting often racy Turkish television shows. The MBC Group is Dubai-based and controlled by Saudi investors
  • growing tensions between Turkey and the Saudi Arabia-United Arab Emirates axis in the row over Qatar's support for, among other things, the Muslim Brotherhood
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  • there has been pressure for a long time now to block Turkish programmes that often take up prime time slots from both Lebanese and Egyptian producers and filmmakers
  • Before the recent - and most likely politically motivated if not sponsored - spate of Turkish Ottoman history-based dramas, Turkish television programming was still a major hit in the Arab world
  • To many Middle Eastern viewers, drawn-out Turkish soap operas combining love affairs, drama and mystery more than just being quality television productions represented hope that it was possible to harmoniously merge east and west without sacrificing local identity
  • depiction of a lifestyle choice that is not an option in the Gulf
  • “Producers and TV/film firms have their costs covered before they commence filming via the deals they make with domestic broadcasters,” he said.“Other than that Turkish television has never been more popular. It has a market in eastern Europe, Africa and even Latin America.”
  • “There are so many dimensions to this ban. Another one is that Bin Salman has also launched a big drive on restoring historical places in the kingdom. But with their own Saudi interpretation," Hayek said."And then you have these Turkish historical-based programmes being beamed into peoples’ homes who are very keen to learn about their past and heritage. They can’t be happy about that”.
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