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Ed Webb

The Media Line - 0 views

www.themedialine.org/...news_detail.asp

hamas gaza telephones

shared by Ed Webb on 28 Dec 09 - Cached
  • accused
  • The project is reportedly an emulation of the independent telephone network Hezbollah set up in South Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut in 2007. The alternative phone system was dubbed illegal by Lebanon’s government and a violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty. Revelation of the network sparked street riots as many Lebanese saw it as evidence of Hezbollah creating a ‘state within a state.’
  • “Anything Hamas does now is illegal,”
Ed Webb

By the numbers: Mobile phones on the road to unrest | ZDNet - 0 views

www.zdnet.com/...-the-road-to-unrest-7000004691

mobile telephones telephony mobilephones revolution uprisings data

shared by Ed Webb on 26 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Ed Webb on 26 Sep 12
     
    One factor. Not the factor.
Ed Webb

BBC News - Dubai jails Indian pair for 'sexy texts' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8573565.stm

UAE dubai telephony mobile telephones texting

shared by Ed Webb on 17 Mar 10 - Cached
  • a British couple said they would appeal a one-month jail sentence for exchanging a passionate kiss in a restaurant
Ed Webb

The end of Skype in Egypt | Bikya Masr - 1 views

bikyamasr.com/?p=10025

Egypt telephony skype censorship mobile telephones India UAE

shared by Ed Webb on 17 Mar 10 - Cached
  • the lobbying of the three Egyptian mobile operators, Vodafone, Mobinil and Etisalat have won the most recent battle with regulators to ban the Internet phone service
  • “Now, I don’t think I will be able to talk to my brother in Virginia because it is too expensive. I don’t make enough money to buy a computer and get the Internet at home,”
  • In September, Indian agencies recommended a ban on international internet telephony until a system to trace the calls was put in place.
Ed Webb

BBC News - Israel 'using Facebook to recruit Gaza collaborators' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8585775.stm

Israel gaza israelpalestine Palestine Palestinians facebook social networking intelligence

shared by Ed Webb on 05 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Facebook "is a big, big thing that the Israelis use", says Ehab al-Hussein, a spokesman for the Hamas-run interior ministry. "Many people don't have security sense. They go on the internet and talk about all their personal problems such as with their wives or girlfriends," he says. Israel's intelligence services can then contact people by telephone, e-mail or using existing Israeli agents in Gaza, and use the information to pressure people to become spies.
  • the intelligence community's current thinking is that using personal information gleaned from the internet to pressure or even blackmail potential informants is not considered effective in recruiting long-term informants
  • Even Mr Hussein admits he has a Facebook page, "but I'm careful about the information I put on," he says. "I only say I am a Hamas spokesman."
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  • "They say that they know everything about you, but actually it's information you have already published on Facebook," he says. "It's not safe to publish such information - I believe it allows Israel to keep watching our movements."
Ed Webb

How Businesses Have Responded in Egypt - IHRB Staff Blogs - 0 views

www.institutehrb.org/...s_have_responded_in_egypt.html

business ethics rights Egypt #jan25 socialmedia google twitter telephones

shared by Ed Webb on 08 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Ed Webb on 08 Feb 11
     
    Important questions raised on ethics of media companies in revolutionary circumstances.
Ed Webb

Blogger becomes latest victim of Turkish Internet bans - Hurriyet Daily News and Econom... - 0 views

www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php

Turkey censorship Blogger blogs

shared by Ed Webb on 03 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • A spat over rights to broadcast Turkish football matches has led a local court to issue a blanket ban on the popular blogging platform Blogger, angering Turkish Internet users with what experts said was a disproportionate response.
  • There are more than 600,000 Turkish bloggers actively using Blogger and some 18 million users from Turkey visited pages hosted by the site last month
  • “If two people plan a criminal activity on the phone, should we ban the use of telephones all over the country?” asked Deniz Ergürel, the secretary-general of the Media Association.
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  • Bloggers and their readers reacted angrily and quickly to the court decision, with nearly 9,000 users of the social-networking website Facebook joining a group called “Do not touch my blog” in less than two days after the decision was announced. Similar campaigns have also been created on other websites, such as Twitter
  • No company’s copyrights should come before me expressing my thoughts
  • “We would not see such a phenomenon [like this court decision] in more developed democracies, such as in the EU countries,”
Ed Webb

Johann Hari: You Are Being Lied to About Pirates - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...eing-lied-to-abo_b_155147.html

Somalia pirates piracy imperialism crime

shared by Ed Webb on 12 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world. They mutinied against their tyrannical captains - and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls "one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century." They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. The pirates showed "quite clearly - and subversively - that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal navy." This is why they were popular, despite being unproductive thieves.
  • In 1991, the government of Somalia - in the Horn of Africa - collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since - and many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.
  • Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury - you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."
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  • They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia - and it's not hard to see why. In a surreal telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali, said their motive was "to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters... We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas."
  • During the revolutionary war in America, George Washington and America's founding fathers paid pirates to protect America's territorial waters, because they had no navy or coastguard of their own. Most Americans supported them. Is this so different?
  • The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarised by another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know "what he meant by keeping possession of the sea." The pirate smiled, and responded: "What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor." Once again, our great imperial fleets sail in today - but who is the robber?
  • Ed Webb on 12 Apr 09
     
    Via @3arabawy and @cburrell
Ed Webb

Mysterious 'Saddam Channel' hits Iraq TV - Yahoo! News - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/...ml_iraq_saddam_channel

satellite TV Arab Iraq Baath Saddam

shared by Ed Webb on 30 Nov 09 - Cached
  • The late Iraqi dictator is lauded on a mysterious satellite channel that began broadcasting on the Islamic calendar's anniversary of his 2006 execution.
  • The Associated Press tracked down a man in Damascus, Syria named Mohammed Jarboua, who claimed to be its chairman. The Saddam channel, he said, "didn't receive a penny from the Baathists" and is for Iraqis and other Arabs who "long for his rule." Jarboua has clearly made considerable efforts to hide where it's aired from and refuses to say who is funding it besides "people who love us."
  • Saddam's hanging three years ago was on the first day of Eid al-Adha, the most important holiday of the Islamic calendar. His execution — and the day it was done — remains a sore point for Saddam sympathizers still smarting over images of the defiant leader in his final moments as Shiites in the death chamber shouted curses.
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  • broadcast across the Arab world
  • One prominently displayed image is that of a man burning an American flag. Another shows graves covered with Iraqi flags
  • audio recordings of Saddam making speeches and reciting poetry. Patriotic songs urge listeners to "liberate our country." None of the pictures appear to be recent, and no announcers or commentators appear or speak.
  • In a telephone interview Sunday from Damascus, Jarboua said he is Algerian and that the Saddam Channel is based in Europe but refused to say where, citing safety concerns for its employees.
  • Ziad Khassawneh, a Jordanian Baathist who once headed Saddam's defense team, said wealthy Iraqis living in Lebanon, Syria and other Arab countries are funding the channel. He declined to give names.
  • A Mideast satellite expert said al-Lafeta's operators tried to hide any clues to their identities and broadcast sites by using a variety of satellite services and frequencies. The channel airs via Noorsat, a Bahrain-based satellite service. It also has purchased a frequency on Egypt-owned NileSat, which is run by Eutelsat, a European consortium.
Ed Webb

Giulio Regeni: Scattered Facts - 0 views

www.jadaliyya.com/...giulio-regeni_scattered-facts

Egypt academia torture police policing crime labor labour workers unions

shared by Ed Webb on 11 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Giulio’s first stay in Egypt in 2012 ended after the hysteria about foreign spies. Government television aired public service announcements warning of foreign spies, and as news spread of citizens detaining foreigners they suspected of being spies, “leaving Egypt seemed the most logical next step,”
  • the first time he became nervous during his second stay in Egypt was after his photo was taken at the independent union meeting on 11 December 2015
  • A week before the anniversary of the revolution, he told me he would not leave his house for a week starting on January 18, except for necessities…He understood that the security situation on the anniversary of the revolution was not good
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  • “From the first moment, I knew that his disappearance was not voluntary,”
  • “Everything pointed to that—the state’s hysteria about everything it does not know, the forced disappearances, the anniversary of the revolution with all the regime’s panic, his turned-off telephone. They were all clear signs. The disappearance was not an accident. We had to move fast.”
  • nside the morgue, confusion reigned. Two doctors with the Forensic Medicine Authority were about to begin the autopsy after conducting a half-hour preliminary examination. But then they received orders to stop, according to a source inside the morgue who preferred to remain anonymous. They were told to wait for Dr. Hisham Adel-Hamid, the head of the authority, to supervise the drafting of the final report.
  • “The young man was tortured for five separate, not continuous days…The torture was not ongoing. On some days of his 10-day disappearance, he was not assaulted.”
Ed Webb

Turkish newspaper with policemen 'playing editor' - 1 views

www.middleeasteye.net/...emen-playing-editor-1291836031

Turkey censorship media newspaper Gulen AKP Erdogan authoritarianism

shared by Ed Webb on 13 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Mustafa Edib has been working as a journalist for years and prides himself on fighting for the rights of the marginalized.In 2009, he publicly defended President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) when it faced a closure trial for alleged violation of the state’s secular principles. He has no regrets about helping to preserve a political force that would one day snub out his own voice, “because back then, AKP was being oppressed, and we stand against all types of tyranny”.
  • the closure of numerous other media outlets has raised concerns about a wider political crackdown on media freedoms
  • When Edib, the newspaper’s foreign editor, showed up to work on the morning after the seizure, his office resembled a police barracks. He told Middle East Eye that the Internet connection had been disabled and the paper was already prepared, but that he “didn't know where or by whom, quite frankly”.
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  • Reporter Zeynep Karatas said she was shocked when her story about police brutality during Women's Day demonstrations was replaced with an article about the inauguration of a new steel bridge.
  • Zaman’s circulation numbers fell from 600,000 to 18. This has been a bittersweet victory for Edib, who views the boycott by readers as a show of solidarity and passive resistance. Yet the newspaper he loves is being strangled before his eyes.Employees wonder why they are putting together a newspaper that is never going to print and is expected to be read by only 18 people. In spite of this, many of them are refusing to abandon ship.
  • Zaman's journalists are working under heavy police surveillance.“There must be at least 30 to 40 policemen inside our headquarters in Istanbul who are playing 'editor',”
  •  “I was giving an interview to a Singapore-based TV channel in a public park next to the building and a policeman approached me, took my name and told his superiors I was talking to foreign media,”
  • On Thursday, the new administration deleted the paper's digital archives, removing thousands of articles, including those of Haaretz reporter Louis Fishman.
  • "It is out of the question for either me or any of my colleagues to interfere in this process," Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.Edib disagrees. He said the deletion of Zaman’s archives was a political move to damage the paper's legacy and remove all traces of critical opinion from its records. “Every day there has been a new Zaman on the shelves, but I feel no part in it, nor do any of my colleagues, since we have nothing to do with the editorial line, story choice or layout,” he said.Those were his last words before our telephone conversation was interrupted by a police officer.
  • According to Aykan Erdemir, a former member of Turkish Parliament now serving as a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the evolution of Erdogan's “disciplinary technologies” paints a startling picture of media control in Turkey.
  • “Erdogan's control over the media cannot be explained just by the fight between him and Fethullah Gulen. This is a bigger issue,” Gul said. He has concerns about how far Erdogan might go in order to silence opposition in the run-up to a referendum on the presidential system.  “Voices, that express discomfort (regarding Erdogan's presidential model), even within his own party, are being smeared and silenced.”
  • In this climate, Aykan said he wouldn’t be surprised if the remaining independent media outlets begin to “willingly” promote the virtues of Erdogan’s executive presidential system.
  • he feels a lack of solidarity from Turkish journalists and the international community
  • Two days after the newspaper takeover, the Turkish government was greeted in Brussels with billions in aid and renewed prospects of joining the EU for their help in resolving Europe’s migrant crisis, which critics say indicates the relative weakness of the EU's negotiating power.Edib and Akarcesme said they felt disappointed, if not betrayed, by the EU appeasing Turkey in exchange for cooperation in curbing Syrian refugees. Brussels is only validating Erdogan's image, power and popularity at home, they said.
Ed Webb

Dinner with the enemy: How Egyptian drama El-Daif sparked a row over Islam and the hija... - 0 views

www.middleeasteye.net/...brahim-eissa-khalid-el-bagoury

Egypt film media religion Islam censorship hijab

shared by Ed Webb on 21 Feb 19 - Cached
  • El-Daif (The Guest), a new drama written by journalist Ibrahim Eissa and directed by Khalid El-Bagoury that has become both a box office and a critical hit in Egypt, while at the same time attracting controversy.
  • a heated discussion about religious discourse between the younger and older man. The suitor, who appears to be highly influenced by Islamic fundamentalists, keeps engaging in arguments with Yahia, which are mostly won by the wit of the latter.
  • El-Daif is set mainly in the house of Yahia, who in many ways echoes the character of writer Eissa, a journalist and intellectual known for his outspoken writings on religion.
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  • Eissa is no stranger to controversy. Before El-Daif, he caused a stir with his first screenplay, for Mawlana (Our Grand Sheikh), about modern Muslim televangelists as well as the relationship between religion and the state.
  • "El-Daif has very well depicted taboos never discussed before in Egyptian cinema, showing how Islam is misinterpreted as a religion that forces a woman to cover herself from head to toe," said Nagwa Ali, 40, an accountant, as she was leaving a Cairo cinema.
  • other critics say the film is long-winded and static, although praising it for tackling taboo subjects otherwise ignored in Egyptian cinema
  • In the film, Yahia faces blasphemy charges due to his views about his interpretation of Islam and its teachings that have appeared in his books and articles. His life is at risk, which leads the government to assign policemen to protect him and his family against extremists. Ironically, the fierce debates and controversy portrayed in El-Daif are mirrored in real-life arguments around the film, leading to calls for it to be banned.
  • it also angered Islamic scholars, including Khalid El-Gindi, a prominent preacher and member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs. "Six religious institutions including Al-Azhar [the highest Islamic authority in Egypt and the region] have stipulated that hijab is a heavenly order. Nevertheless, Eissa comes with his film to simply try to convince people otherwise," El-Gindi said angrily in a telephone interview with TV host Sayed Ali broadcast on Egyptian Al-Hadath Al-Youm satellite channel.
  • El Gindi also upbraided the Egyptian censorship authority which, although it took a few months to approve the film, surprisingly did not cut any scenes.
  • El-Daif avoids the stereotypical image of a religious fanatic, introducing a handsome light-bearded young man dressed in an elegant outfit who comes from a well-bred family and who has studied engineering in the USA.  He has managed to influence the intellectual's daughter to the extent that she agrees to wear the hijab despite her liberal upbringing. Many women in Egypt wear the hijab for social rather than religious reasons, submitting to social and family pressures while also seeking to avoid sexual harassment. However, the attire does not protect women from unwanted attention and abuse, as women who have spoken to MEE confirm.
  • Egyptian feminists and liberal thinkers have their own explanation of the hijab as being often associated with the rise of the conservative Saudi Wahhabi doctrine that emerged in Egyptian society in the mid-1970s.
  • In the first six weeks of screening, El Daif took around seven million Egyptian pounds (about $400,000) and remained in third place at the Egyptian box office. It is still showing at most Egyptian cinemas. "Deals are underway to screen the film in a number of Arab and European countries," said an official at the film's production company, iProduction.
Ed Webb

Egypt's Ministry of Religious Endowments boosts its imams' media skills - 0 views

www.al-monitor.com/...ing-media-skills-of-imams.html

Egypt Islam religion politics awqaf Al-Azhar azhar sermons fatwas media rhetoric training

shared by Ed Webb on 02 Nov 19 - No Cached
  • 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.
  • 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. 
  • 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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  • In 2017, the parliamentary Committee on Religious Affairs approved a draft law that banned issuing fatwas through the media unless prior authorization had been obtained from Al-Azhar, the country’s top religious institution. The draft still has to go through the General Assembly to become law.
  • The Ministry of Religious Endowments — known locally as Awqaf — objected that the right of authorizations should rest with Al-Azhar, saying that this bypasses the ministry, which should be the appropriate authority to grant permissions. The ministry argued that as all of its imams are graduates of Al-Azhar, they were fully equipped to give this permission.
  • Parliament has shelved the draft law until an agreement is reached between Al-Azhar and Awqaf, which has so far failed to materialize. 
  • According to Hosni Hassan, media professor at Helwan University, the main purpose of the trainings is to ensure that the Friday sermons — delivered by imams of Awqaf — are efficient tools to spread the Egyptian state’s version of Islam and to persuade the public.
  • The state — represented by the Ministry of Religious Endowments — is paying close attention to Friday sermons and religious lessons in mosques so they can become tools of improving social and religious behavior
  • “The rate of extremist fatwas has declined since 2013 after the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood, after the group was designated as a terrorist organization and its sheikhs were arrested,”
  • The ministry announced in 2014 that only preachers licensed by the ministry were allowed to deliver the Friday sermons or teach religious classes in mosques.The ministry organizes a number of exams every year for those wishing to obtain such licenses. In 2015, a new law stipulated that unlicensed preachers who deliver the Friday sermons or teach religious courses in mosques shall be sentenced to imprisonment from three months to a year or pay a fine of 20,000-50,000 pounds ($1,238-3,097).
  • The Ministry of Religious Endowments also issued in 2016 a decision that the imams in the mosques deliver a unified Friday sermon.
Ed Webb

Tunisia's first LGBTQ play lifts curtain on hidden violence - 0 views

www.france24.com/...fts-curtain-on-hidden-violence

Tunisia media theatre politics rights LGBT LGBTQ

shared by Ed Webb on 26 May 22 - No Cached
  • It's the first queer play to be staged in Tunisia -- director Essia Jaibi's latest work aims to challenge conservative attitudes in a country where same-sex acts are punishable by prison terms.
  • The work, co-produced by LGBTQ rights group Mawjoudin (translating to "we exist"), is played by six mostly amateur actors aged between 23 and 71, reflecting a decades-long struggle for gay rights in the North African country
  • other problems facing all Tunisians: police and judicial corruption, impunity and the brain drain as people leave to seek better economic prospects in Europe and elsewhere.
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  • rights groups say the community is still vulnerable, with as little as a photo on a telephone potentially leading to arrest, physical violence and anal examinations.
  • The NGO also organised Tunisia's first queer cinema festival in 2018.
  • Tunisia is seen as relatively liberal on social issues compared with other Arab countries, but nevertheless imposes sentences of up to three years in prison for "sodomy" for both men and women
  • Rights groups are continuing to campaign for an end to Article 230, first introduced by French colonial administrators in 1913.
  • United Nations Committee Against Torture has condemned Tunisia's use of anal tests
  • The country in 2017 committed to ending the practice, but it has continued nonetheless.In December, two men were found guilty of same-sex acts after they refused to undergo such examinations -- seen by judges as proof of their guilt.
  • The Tunisian president, whose July power grab allowed him to issue laws and seize control of the judiciary, has said he is opposed to jail terms based on sexual orientation -- but also to the full decriminalisation of homosexuality.
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