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December 12th, 2005

Middle East & North Africa

Nora visits the newly reopened border crossing between Rafah and Gaza strip. She takes several photos and writes in Arabic about her experience. She documents the frustrations of people trying to get into Gaza. Notices the excessive video surveillance by Israel. She then explains who can cross the border; Palestinians with a passport who live in the Palestinian territories. In addition to that only people above 40, female, registered as a student in a university across the border or has a document that proves s/he is seeking medical treatment. Egyptians may not cross.

December 8th, 2005

Middle East & North Africa

Abdelrahman was drafted in October. He will be spending one year in the military. He is the first Egyptian soldier with a blog. He is writing about his life in the boot camp.

Middle East & North Africa

Maryanne blogs about a horse show she attended few weeks ago. With pictures of beautiful mares and fillies. She also summarizes the history of the Arabian horse in Egypt and the business of breeding.

December 7th, 2005

Middle East & North Africa

Alaa reports that armed state security forces detained the Egyptian journalist Ahmad Abdollah “Abo Islam”. They broke in to his house on Monday. Five bloggers visited him and knew from his son that state security forces threatened his family at gun point and confiscated computer hard drives, CDs and books. He was a member of the Labour “El A'aml” party, former editor in ASha'ab newspaper and published two other newspapers. Currently he writes on a website called Balady Net. Abo Islam runs the Center for Islamic Enlightenment, which aims at bringing different religions closer together.

December 2nd, 2005

Egyptian bloggers and parliamentary elections

Mostafa Hussein · 13:24 · Middle East & North Africa

Elections This week we had the re-run of the second stage and the first run of the third stage of parliamentary elections. The second stage was the most violent. Although one person died in the first run of the third stage there was less violence but the police and security forces prevented ... 4 comments · read »

November 28th, 2005

Middle East & North Africa

Youssef and Chiara (Italian) took photos and wrote briefly about the protest by Sudanese migrants against the UNHCR in the middle of Cairo. Almost 500 to 1000 (thanks Youssef) protestors are living in a miserable state since September, protesting their state of limbo. They refuse the return to Sudan and refuse local integration in Egypt