BugHunt
10-23-2008, 07:18 AM
http://www.wired.com/images/article/magazine/1611/ff_facebook3_f.jpg (http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/magazine/16-11/ff_facebookegypt?currentPage=1#) http://www.wired.com/images/zoom.gif (http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/magazine/16-11/ff_facebookegypt?currentPage=1#)
Ahmed Maher is using Facebook to try to topple the government of Egypt.
Photo: Joerg Klaus
July 23, 2008. Under the scorching sun on a beach in Alexandria, Egypt, a few dozen political activists snap digital pictures and chatter nervously. Many of them wear matchingwhite T-shirts emblazoned with the image of a fist raised in solidarity and the words "April 6 Youth" splashed across the back. A few of them get to work constructing a giant kite out of bamboo poles and a sheet of plastic painted to look like the Egyptian flag. Most are in their twenties, some younger; one teenage girl wears a teddy bear backpack.
Before the group can get the kite aloft, and well before they have a chance to distribute their pro-democracy leaflets, state security agents swarm across the sand. The cops shout threats to break up what is, by Western standards, a tiny demonstration.
The activists disperse from the beach, feeling hot and frustrated; they didn't even get a chance to fly their kite. Joining up with other friends, they walk together toward the neighborhood of Loran, singing patriotic songs.
Then, as they turn down another street, a group of security agents jump out of nowhere. It's a coordinated assault that explodes into a frenzy of punches and shoves. There are screams and grunts as about a dozen kids fall or are knocked to the ground. The other 30 or so scatter, sprinting for blocks in all directions before slowing enough to send each other hurried text messages: Where are you? What happened?
Those who didn't get away are hustled into a van and two cars. The security men are shouting at them: "Where is Ahmed Maher?"
Three hours before the scuffle and arrests, Ahmed Maher walks briskly toward a dilapidated office building on Alexandria's Abu-Qir Street. Messenger bag draped over a shoulder of his white short-sleeved, collared shirt, he tosses a cigarette into the street before climbing the marble steps.
He speaks softly to fellow activists standing outside an office doorway, but his arrival has an electrifying effect: He's here. Back in March, Maher and a friend launched a Facebook group to promote a protest planned for April 6. It became an Internet phenomenon, quickly attracting more than 70,000 members. The April 6 youth movement — amorphous, lacking a clear mission, and yet a bull's-eye to the zeitgeist — blossomed within days into something influential enough to arouse the ire of Egypt's internal security forces. Maher is part of a new generation in the Middle East that, through blogs, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, and now Facebook, is using virtual reality to combat corrupt and oppressive governments. Their nascent, tech-fired rebellion has triggered a government backlash and captured the world's attention.
Two ceiling fans do little to relieve the stifling summer heat. Forty people are squeezed into the offices of the El-Ghad Party, one of Egypt's more established opposition groups. Three years ago, El-Ghad's leader, Ayman Nour, won 7 percent of the vote in the presidential election. Soon after, he was slapped with forgery charges that are widely viewed as trumped up. Today, despite deteriorating health and a plea for his release from President Bush, Nour remains imprisoned (http://www.freeaymannour.org/).
But this afternoon, the El-Ghad office is on loan to another upstart political group, the April 6 youth movement. Many of the attendees are connecting for the first time — in the real world, that is. Most know each other only through Facebook, and they're finally matching names and aliases to actual faces. Taped to the wall at the front of the room is a yellow piece of construction paper. The makeshift sign, written in Arabic lettering, reads: welcome to the first dialog meeting of the april 6 youth movement. Young women, some with head scarves and some without, sit in green plastic chairs, while guys in their twenties stand in silence.
Outside, two uniformed cops and a plainclothes officer lean against a shiny sedan with their arms folded, waiting. Another agent is planted in the corner store across the street, eyes fixed on the meeting-place windows. In Egypt today, a gathering of five people or more without a permit is illegal and can result in arrests, beatings, or both. Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak (http://www.presidency.gov.eg/html/the_president.html), has been in power for nearly three decades and has governed under emergency rule since 1981. The regime is occasionally rebuked by the US and Europe for its abysmal human-rights record. But because Mubarak is considered a valuable US ally on matters concerning Israel and terrorism, Egypt receives nearly $2 billion in US aid every year, second only to Israel. (four more pages in link)http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/magazine/16-11/ff_facebookegypt?currentPage=1
Ossama is probably a symptom of the problem which makes us support regiemes which use rape and torture to keep there populaces in check...
Ahmed Maher is using Facebook to try to topple the government of Egypt.
Photo: Joerg Klaus
July 23, 2008. Under the scorching sun on a beach in Alexandria, Egypt, a few dozen political activists snap digital pictures and chatter nervously. Many of them wear matchingwhite T-shirts emblazoned with the image of a fist raised in solidarity and the words "April 6 Youth" splashed across the back. A few of them get to work constructing a giant kite out of bamboo poles and a sheet of plastic painted to look like the Egyptian flag. Most are in their twenties, some younger; one teenage girl wears a teddy bear backpack.
Before the group can get the kite aloft, and well before they have a chance to distribute their pro-democracy leaflets, state security agents swarm across the sand. The cops shout threats to break up what is, by Western standards, a tiny demonstration.
The activists disperse from the beach, feeling hot and frustrated; they didn't even get a chance to fly their kite. Joining up with other friends, they walk together toward the neighborhood of Loran, singing patriotic songs.
Then, as they turn down another street, a group of security agents jump out of nowhere. It's a coordinated assault that explodes into a frenzy of punches and shoves. There are screams and grunts as about a dozen kids fall or are knocked to the ground. The other 30 or so scatter, sprinting for blocks in all directions before slowing enough to send each other hurried text messages: Where are you? What happened?
Those who didn't get away are hustled into a van and two cars. The security men are shouting at them: "Where is Ahmed Maher?"
Three hours before the scuffle and arrests, Ahmed Maher walks briskly toward a dilapidated office building on Alexandria's Abu-Qir Street. Messenger bag draped over a shoulder of his white short-sleeved, collared shirt, he tosses a cigarette into the street before climbing the marble steps.
He speaks softly to fellow activists standing outside an office doorway, but his arrival has an electrifying effect: He's here. Back in March, Maher and a friend launched a Facebook group to promote a protest planned for April 6. It became an Internet phenomenon, quickly attracting more than 70,000 members. The April 6 youth movement — amorphous, lacking a clear mission, and yet a bull's-eye to the zeitgeist — blossomed within days into something influential enough to arouse the ire of Egypt's internal security forces. Maher is part of a new generation in the Middle East that, through blogs, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, and now Facebook, is using virtual reality to combat corrupt and oppressive governments. Their nascent, tech-fired rebellion has triggered a government backlash and captured the world's attention.
Two ceiling fans do little to relieve the stifling summer heat. Forty people are squeezed into the offices of the El-Ghad Party, one of Egypt's more established opposition groups. Three years ago, El-Ghad's leader, Ayman Nour, won 7 percent of the vote in the presidential election. Soon after, he was slapped with forgery charges that are widely viewed as trumped up. Today, despite deteriorating health and a plea for his release from President Bush, Nour remains imprisoned (http://www.freeaymannour.org/).
But this afternoon, the El-Ghad office is on loan to another upstart political group, the April 6 youth movement. Many of the attendees are connecting for the first time — in the real world, that is. Most know each other only through Facebook, and they're finally matching names and aliases to actual faces. Taped to the wall at the front of the room is a yellow piece of construction paper. The makeshift sign, written in Arabic lettering, reads: welcome to the first dialog meeting of the april 6 youth movement. Young women, some with head scarves and some without, sit in green plastic chairs, while guys in their twenties stand in silence.
Outside, two uniformed cops and a plainclothes officer lean against a shiny sedan with their arms folded, waiting. Another agent is planted in the corner store across the street, eyes fixed on the meeting-place windows. In Egypt today, a gathering of five people or more without a permit is illegal and can result in arrests, beatings, or both. Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak (http://www.presidency.gov.eg/html/the_president.html), has been in power for nearly three decades and has governed under emergency rule since 1981. The regime is occasionally rebuked by the US and Europe for its abysmal human-rights record. But because Mubarak is considered a valuable US ally on matters concerning Israel and terrorism, Egypt receives nearly $2 billion in US aid every year, second only to Israel. (four more pages in link)http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/magazine/16-11/ff_facebookegypt?currentPage=1
Ossama is probably a symptom of the problem which makes us support regiemes which use rape and torture to keep there populaces in check...