Journalists detained, barred from polling stations: Syndicate - Politics - Egypt - Ahra... - 0 views
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several journalists have been detained, arrested or obstructed from reporting at polling stations in several governorates.
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On the first day of voting, the syndicate reported as many as 19 similar violations, most of which were identified in the last hours of the polling day, Al-Ahram's Arabic news website reported.
Egyptian Chronicles: And Cartoonist Islam Gawish is released after wrongfully detention... - 0 views
From journalists to generals, Algeria cracks down on dissent | Middle East Eye - 0 views
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While the economic crisis related to the fall of oil revenues has caused political and social tensions, the Algerian authorities are showing increasing intolerance towards criticism, already under attack since the start of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s fourth term in April 2014.
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Hassina Oussedik, director of Amnesty International’s chapter in Algeria, says the attacks on freedom of expression have been "constant". "In 2015, not a month has passed without witnessing cases of people being oppressed as they try to express themselves peacefully. The authorities rely on poorly formulated or ambiguous laws to arrest people," she told Middle East Eye. "They use provisions of the penal code that criminalise 'contempt', 'insult' or 'defamation' aimed against representatives of the state and other institutions in order to restrict freedom of expression, including humour, expression on the internet and on the street."
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But an Algerian police officer, in charge of monitoring public demonstrations, said claims of repression were excessive and defended his activities."Repression? Dictatorship? Censorship? All of this is much exaggerated and is far from the truth," he told MEE. "If we did not do our job of monitoring and surveillance, Islamists and terrorists would feel omnipotent. In the 90s, this led us to chaos! Is it normal to insult the state, the president, the police or the army with impunity?"
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Egypt calls for BBC boycott over 'biased coverage' - Middle East Monitor - 0 views
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Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS) has called on Egyptian academics and intellectuals to boycott the BBC until the global broadcaster apologises for “biased coverage” against President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. “The BBC promotes the lies of the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group,” claimed the SIS
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Officials at the SIS also claimed that the article was biased against the President of the Republic, citing the fact that details of the protests against him took up 16 lines of the article, while statements by his supporters were covered in only six lines.
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In March 2018, the Egyptian authorities slammed the BBC for another damning report entitled “The Shadow Over Egypt” which included interviews with families of alleged victims of torture and enforced disappearances. The report highlighted the case of a young woman, Zubeida, whose mother told of her repeated abduction and rape by security forces.
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Picking up the pieces - 0 views
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Syrians have shown relentless ingenuity in adapting to every stage of a horrendous conflict, salvaging remnants of dignity, solidarity and vitality amid nightmarish circumstances
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The decimation of Syria’s male population represents, arguably, the most fundamental shift in the country’s social fabric. As a generation of men has been pared down by death, disability, forced displacement and disappearance, those who remain have largely been sucked into a violent and corrupting system centered around armed factions
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80 of the village’s men have been killed and 130 wounded—amounting to a third of the male population aged 18-50. The remaining two-thirds have overwhelmingly been absorbed into the army or militias
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Briton held in UAE 'after wearing Qatar football shirt' - BBC News - 0 views
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A British football fan has been arrested and detained in the United Arab Emirates after reportedly wearing a Qatar team shirt to a match.
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said to have been unaware of a law against "showing sympathy" for Qatar
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The UAE and other countries in the region are currently engaged in a political and diplomatic stand-off with Qatar after they accused the state of supporting radical and Islamist groups. On its website, the Foreign Office warns travellers to the UAE of a June 2017 announcement "that showing sympathy for Qatar on social media or by any other means of communication is an offence. Offenders could be imprisoned and subject to a substantial fine".
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Gaza: Journalist facing prison term for exposing corruption in Hamas-controll... - 0 views
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An investigative journalist who published a report revealing corruption within the ministry of health in Gaza is facing up to six months in jail, said Amnesty International, ahead of her appeal hearing tomorrow.
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Hajar Harb, a Palestinian journalist from Gaza, released an investigative report on al-Araby TV on 25 June 2016 highlighting that the ministry, which is run by the Hamas de-facto administration, was profiting by arranging illegal medical transfers out of the Gaza Strip for people who did not need treatment.
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“I was cursed with bad words, threatened with physical harm and even accused of being a collaborator with Israel by spreading rumours on Facebook by some doctors in Gaza,” she told Amnesty International.
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Egypt: Forcibly disappeared transgender woman at risk of sexual violence and torture | ... - 0 views
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Fears are growing for the safety and wellbeing of Malak al-Kashef, a transgender woman seized during a police raid from her home in Giza in the early hours of 6 March and who has not been heard from since, Amnesty International said. Malak al-Kashef was taken by police to an undisclosed location. Her lawyers have not been able to locate her and police stations have denied she is in their custody.
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Egyptian authorities have a horrific track record of persecuting people based on their sexual orientation and gender identity
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Amnesty International believes that Malak’s arrest relates to her calls for peaceful protests following a major train crash in Cairo’s central train station on 27 February that killed at least 25 people. “Malak al-Kashef appears to have been detained solely for peacefully exercising her rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly
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Beirut's draq queen scene is starting to flourish, inspired by Ru Paul - The Washington... - 0 views
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Beirut’s drag-queen scene
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The Middle East is known for its conservatism, but with its febrile nightlife and more liberal mores, Beirut has long been hailed as a relative haven for the region’s LGBTQ community, though not without challenges.
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Performers usually turn up in their street clothes, transform into a whole new character, then shed their costumes again before slipping back outside. Anissa, though, will be making an entrance tonight. A car to the venue has been organized, and she wants to enjoy the reactions of her fellow passengers.
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Fewer Germans plan to visit Turkey after minister's threats - Turkish Minute - 0 views
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The number of Germans buying holiday packages in Turkey dropped significantly after Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu vowed to detain and deport tourists at airports if they are suspected of links to terrorism
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in Berlin, the daily number of holiday purchases has fallen from around 1,000 to between 300 and 500.
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Germany on Saturday changed its travel advice for visitors to Turkey, warning its citizens that they risked arrest for expressing opinions that would be tolerated at home but may not be by Turkish authorities.
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Fox: Middle East streaming service launched with Saudi media group - CNN - 0 views
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Fox Networks has struck a deal with a Saudi media group to launch a new TV streaming service in the Middle East and North Africa. The subsidiary of 21st Century Fox (FOX) said in a statement that it was partnering with the region's biggest broadcaster, MBC, to bring Fox Plus to viewers. Fox's streaming service, which is already available in southeast Asia and parts of Latin America, will be offered in 24 countries on MBC's Shahid Plus platform.
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Fox's deal follows a chill in relations between international media companies and Saudi Arabia after Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered by Saudi agents at the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
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The Saudi government took control of MBC earlier this year following a crackdown on corruption that saw the arrest of hundreds of businessmen including MBC Chairman Waleed Al Ibrahim, according to a source familiar with the matter. Al Ibrahim was later released and retains a 40% stake, management control and his title as chairman.
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New Satirical Film's Absurd FBI Stings Draw From Real Cases - 0 views
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To date, more than 300 defendants have been prosecuted following FBI terrorism stings. These stings are often preposterous when examined closely. Derrick Shareef was arrested after buying grenades from an undercover agent; since Shareef didn’t have any money and was living with the government’s informant, the FBI set it up so that the undercover agent, posing as an arms dealer, would accept ratty old stereo speakers as payment. Emanuel L. Lutchman, a mentally ill and broke homeless man, planned to attack a New Year’s Eve celebration with a machete — a weapon he was able to buy only because the FBI gave him $40. The absurdities go on and on and on. Human Rights Watch criticized these types of FBI stings in a 2014 report for having “created terrorists out of law-abiding individuals by conducting sting operations that facilitated or invented the target’s willingness to act.”
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For “The Day Shall Come,” Morris spent years researching FBI stings and talking to terrorism defendants, federal prosecutors, and FBI agents
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Looming over Miami in “The Day Shall Come” is the real-life FBI office building, which is actually in Miramar, just north of Miami. A $194 million structure that opened in 2015, the enormous glass building with sharp lines and curved walls houses the FBI’s South Florida office. Simultaneously assuring and foreboding, the building looks like a police headquarters in a dystopian comic book. Morris delights in using the building as a way of showing how the FBI has benefited financially from, and been changed by, the endless search for terrorists since 9/11.
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Egypt forces Guardian journalist to leave after coronavirus story | Egypt | The Guardian - 0 views
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Egyptian authorities have forced a Guardian journalist to leave the country after she reported on a scientific study that said Egypt was likely to have many more coronavirus cases than have been officially confirmed.
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She cited a study accepted for publication in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal, which had analysed flight records, traveller data and infection rates to estimate that Egypt could have had 19,310 coronavirus cases by early March, with the lower end of the range about 6,000 cases. The Egyptian government’s official count at the time period covered by the data was that three people were infected.
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On 17 March, Michaelson’s press accreditation was revoked. The Guardian offered the Egyptian authorities the chance to write a letter for publication rebutting its report or the Canadian study, but received no response to the offer.
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Tunisia: End prosecution of bloggers for criticizing government's response to COVID-19 ... - 0 views
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Last week, two bloggers were detained and are facing several criminal charges of "insulting state officials", "causing disturbances to the public" and defamation. They have been charged for posting videos on social media alleging that the government has failed to provide adequate compensation to people struggling financially and address shortage of basic food supplies in the market amid COVID-19 pandemic.
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Within the region, Tunisia enjoys a relatively high degree of political freedom. However, the past two years have seen a number of criminal prosecutions related to freedom of expression – many of which have used outdated laws from the era of ousted President Ben-Ali to prosecute critics for defamation and insulting state officials and institutions.
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On 13 April, blogger Anis Mabrouki posted a video on his Facebook page showing a crowd of people standing in front of the building of the closed mayor's office in Tebourba (a town 30 km from the capital Tunis), demanding financial aid which had been promised by the government amid the COVID-19 lockdown. The next day he received a summons letter from the authorities after the mayor pressed charges against him.
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Egyptian intelligence services extend control over media | RSF - 0 views
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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is worried about the way Egyptian media outlets are being taken over by businessmen linked to the government and intelligence services. The regime’s domination of the media continues to grow and is even affecting pro-government media.
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Al Hayat was quietly taken over at the end of August. The new owner’s identity has not yet been officially announced but several Egyptian media outlets have reported that it was acquired by Falcon, a successful Egyptian security company whose CEO is a former senior military intelligence officer and a former head of the radio and TV regulatory agency.
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the financial pressure came shortly after Al Wafd’s representatives in parliament expressed their opposition to the government’s controversial plan to hand over two strategic islands, Tiran and Sanafir, to Saudi Arabia
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The Death of the Palestinian Cause Has Been Greatly Exaggerated | Newlines Magazine - 0 views
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For the last 10 years, Western (and even Arab) pundits have repeatedly questioned the place of Palestine in the pan-Arab psyche. They surmised that the Arab Spring had refocused Arab minds on their problems at home. They assumed that battling tyrannical regimes and their security apparatuses, reforming corrupt polities and decrepit health care and education systems, combating terrorism and religious extremism, whittling back the power of the military, and overcoming economic challenges like corruption and unemployment would take precedence over an unsolved and apparently unsolvable cause.
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reforming the Arab world’s political systems and the security and patronage networks that keep them in power and allow them to dominate their populations appears to be just as arduous a task as resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
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The difference now is not that Arab populaces have abandoned Palestine. Western and regional observers say the muted outrage over affronts like American support for the annexation of the Golan Heights or recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, or even the Abraham Accords and the subsequent sycophantic embrace of Israel in the Gulf is an indicator of Arab public opinion, that it signals a loss of interest in the cause.It is not. Arabs are of course not of a single mind on any particular issue, nor is it possible to gauge public opinion under tyrannical regimes. But it is indicative of the fact that these authoritarians no longer see the pan-Arab Palestinian cause and supporting it as vital to their survival. They have discovered that inward-looking, nationalistic pride is the key to enduring in perpetuity. It is the final step in the dismantling of pan-Arabism as a political force, one that will shape the region’s fortunes and its states’ alliances in the years and decades to come.
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Kuwait: Lawyer files lawsuit to block Twitter - Middle East Monitor - 0 views
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A lawyer filed a lawsuit at a Kuwaiti court demanding the closure of the social networking site Twitter.
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Authorities in the Gulf state have repeatedly cracked down on social media users, arresting those deemed to have “insulted” the state or its officials or “harmed” relations with other countries. In May the Kuwaiti Criminal Court sentenced activist Mosaed Al-Moseilem to five years in prison and a fine of 10,000 dinars ($32,856) after finding him guilty of criticising the UAE on Twitter.
Egypt's Ministry of Religious Endowments boosts its imams' media skills - 0 views
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Will a one-week training enable Egypt’s imams to sound more reassuring, more emphatic and appear more camera-friendly on television? The Ministry of Religious Endowments certainly hopes so.
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Courses include teaching the imams how to speak in talk shows, telephone interviews and TV debates. It also teaches them body language for interviews on TV as well as writing sound bites for various types of televised interviews.
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the course aims to develop the media skills of the imams so that they can “dominate the religious discourse,” counter extremist views expressed by the Salafists and efficiently debunk false interpretations on religion in TV programs.
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