Photo
April 26, 2012
57 notes
womensenews: Young Moroccans Keep Arab-Spring Spirit Alive via Womens eNewsBy Juhie Bhatia The youth-led Feb. 20 Movement in Morocco has simmered down to a core group that includes many female activists. They’re keeping an eye on constitutional reforms enacted last year that some say didn’t go far enough. “We want real, radical change,” says one. “My grandma, every time I meet her, she says don’t protest, you will go to jail, they will beat you,” said Raouyane, an intern at the Moroccan Association of Human Rights. “But I’m not afraid. I really believe in it. If I don’t do this, no one will do this for me.” Read more Being “lawyer of gays” would be a pretty sweet job.

womensenews:

Young Moroccans Keep Arab-Spring Spirit Alive

via Womens eNews
By Juhie Bhatia

The youth-led Feb. 20 Movement in Morocco has simmered down to a core group that includes many female activists. They’re keeping an eye on constitutional reforms enacted last year that some say didn’t go far enough. “We want real, radical change,” says one.

“My grandma, every time I meet her, she says don’t protest, you will go to jail, they will beat you,” said Raouyane, an intern at the Moroccan Association of Human Rights. “But I’m not afraid. I really believe in it. If I don’t do this, no one will do this for me.”

Read more

Being “lawyer of gays” would be a pretty sweet job.

(via choongcommunist-deactivated2012)

Tags: Morocco sexism feminism protest MENA uprising Arab spring feb20 newsblogging

Link
April 07, 2012
Analysis: a revolution is taking place in Syria's Palestinian camps

disappointing that the PFLP is still supporting the Syrian regime - didn’t realise that

Tags: Palestine Syria PFLP uprising intifada refugee MENA middle east politics

Video
March 27, 2012

Syria: Songs of Defiance

Great (and not too long) first-person account from an Al Jazeera journalist that secretly embedded themselves with rebels in Syria.

With Al Jazeera cameras banned inside Syria, it was too difficult and dangerous to openly use a video camera, but he was able to use his mobile phone. With its tiny camera, filming secretly on street corners, through car windows and behind closed doors, he was able to gather images that reveal ordinary people showing extraordinary courage. 

He says: “I was walking through Homs and sniper fire started and I was the only one in the crowd that actually flinched. And a father with his kids was standing by the door and they were sort of laughing at me and pointing, saying ‘why don’t you fall on the floor while you are at it?’ It’s amazing how Syrians, who never heard gunfire because they lived in a very peaceful country, have gotten used so quickly to living in a state of war, how to respond to it. They’ve very quickly become a mobilised revolutionary society, whereas before they had no experience of doing this.

“Despite all this violence and attacks every night there are demonstrations. People come out in defiance. It has become something that they have to do … like they have freedom for just that moment of time. And people will say that they feel depressed if they don’t go out. There’s a phenomenon: late at night, people will yell ‘Allahu Akbar’. Mostly it has become a statement of defiance: ‘We’re still here.’

“And then you’ll hear the gunfire in response … as if to remind them that ‘we’re still here, too’.”

Read more

Tags: Syria Homs Idlib al jazeera rebellion uprising journalism embedded reporting

Photo
January 06, 2012
25 notes
fotojournalismus: A man ran as tear gas enveloped Sitra, Bahrain, Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012. Clashes between antigovernment protesters and police erupted during a procession marking the third day of mourning for a teenage boy who was killed during earlier clashes. [Credit : Hasan Jamali/Associated Press]

fotojournalismus:

A man ran as tear gas enveloped Sitra, Bahrain, Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012. Clashes between antigovernment protesters and police erupted during a procession marking the third day of mourning for a teenage boy who was killed during earlier clashes.

[Credit : Hasan Jamali/Associated Press]

Tags: Bahrain MENA tear gas protest uprising Arab spring photo journalism

Photo
November 22, 2011
78 notes
occupyonline: Breaking: Egypt cabinet offers to resign as Cairo protests grow BBC’s Lyse Doucet in Tahrir Square: “The anger that has been mounting for many months has now boiled over” Egypt’s cabinet has offered to resign after three days of protests against the country’s military rulers, state media have reported. Cabinet spokesman Mohammed Hegazy said the resignation had not yet been accepted by the military council. As he spoke, thousands of people swelled crowds of protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. More than 20 people have been killed and nearly 1,800 injured in three days of violence in the Egyptian capital. Egyptian activist groups have been demanding the military council hand power to a civilian government. “The government of Prime Minister Essam Sharaf has handed its resignation to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces,” cabinet spokesman Mohammed Hegazy said in a statement carried by the official Mena news agency. “Owing to the difficult circumstances the country is going through, the government will continue working.” The BBC’s Jon Leyne in Cairo says the issue now for the military is whether it is prepared to appoint a new cabinet and give its members greater powers. The biggest criticism in recent days has been that the military has taken too much power for itself, he adds. A military source told Reuters that the council was seeking agreement on a new prime minister before it accepted the resignation. (via wespeakfortheearth) pretty interesting! if an odd way to tackle a military junta

occupyonline:

Breaking: Egypt cabinet offers to resign as Cairo protests grow

BBC’s Lyse Doucet in Tahrir Square: “The anger that has been mounting for many months has now boiled over”

Egypt’s cabinet has offered to resign after three days of protests against the country’s military rulers, state media have reported.

Cabinet spokesman Mohammed Hegazy said the resignation had not yet been accepted by the military council.

As he spoke, thousands of people swelled crowds of protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

More than 20 people have been killed and nearly 1,800 injured in three days of violence in the Egyptian capital.

Egyptian activist groups have been demanding the military council hand power to a civilian government.

“The government of Prime Minister Essam Sharaf has handed its resignation to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces,” cabinet spokesman Mohammed Hegazy said in a statement carried by the official Mena news agency.

“Owing to the difficult circumstances the country is going through, the government will continue working.”

The BBC’s Jon Leyne in Cairo says the issue now for the military is whether it is prepared to appoint a new cabinet and give its members greater powers.

The biggest criticism in recent days has been that the military has taken too much power for itself, he adds.

A military source told Reuters that the council was seeking agreement on a new prime minister before it accepted the resignation.

(via wespeakfortheearth)

pretty interesting! if an odd way to tackle a military junta

(via enlighteningnews)

Tags: Egypt protest government military junta Tahrir Square uprising

Quote
September 23, 2011
4 notes
"My friend Greg Jobin-Leeds likes to remind me that prior to the events of Tahrir Square, there were lots of much smaller, “insignificant,” and high-risk protests. The courageous few, the stubborn few, the relentless few – and then BAM! It happened. And the process continues to unfold."

— Greg Jobin-Leeds on the Occupy Wall Street movement

Tags: Occupy Wall Street anti-capitalism Tahrir Square protest uprising persistence

Link
August 12, 2011
5 notes
UK may disrupt social networks during unrest

Great to know that we’re considering using the same tactics that so many dictators have just employed against “their” people in the recent uprisings.

I’ve heard terrorists write notes to each other, I guess we’ve gotta look into proscribing pens and paper too?

Tags: Social media social networks UK riots uprising Arab spring dictator quasi-fascism freedom of expression news UK reuters

Quote
June 06, 2011
5 notes
"Apparently this tagline inspired people to take the streets,” said prominent blogger Mohamed El-Dahshan in one of many angry and satirical responses that have spread across the web. “I mean, never mind the years of activism, the protests, the decades of cumulated grievances, the terrible economic situation, the trampled political freedoms, the police brutality, the torture, etc. Nah – we just watched a Vodafone ad, and thought: ‘Hey! We’re powerful! Let’s topple the president!’"

—

An Egyptian blogger on Vodaphone’s Our Power advert, where the telecommunications company claimed to have helped instigate the recent uprising in Egypt.

This is from the same company that implemented a communications blackout at the request of the Egyptian military. In short: fuck those guys.

(Source: Guardian)

Tags: Egypt Arab spring vodaphone news snafu advertising uprising mubarak