In celebrating the day, Zeinobia decided to jot down the pros and cons and pay due tribute to the Egypt's first President Mohamed Naguib.

In her blog, she posts rare photos for Naguib, and writes:

This is the real spirit I want to celebrate on that day , Mohamed Naguib believed in the coup and its principles for real

She then continues:

President Naguib has not yet received what he really deserves from his country , already I wonder if his family receives the same pension that the El-Sadat Family receives as the former president’s pension !!! Mubarak recognizes Mohamed Naguib as the first president of Egypt which makes him equal to Nasser and Sadat and thus his family should have all the privileges of other former first families have.

She concludes her post saying:

We must acknowledge the rights of President Naguib and his family who suffered a lot because of his decision to jeopardize himself and lead those young officers.

Ahmed El Miligy felt perplexed and wasn’t able to form an opinion on whether the revolution has effected Egypt positively or negatively. In his post he says:

Desert Cat writes a post against Gamal Abdel Naser and the Free Officers. She address the main objective of the revolution and demonstrates how altered it got:

Mohaly kicked off the discussion with a broad question: “Why is it hard to be clean?” In this post he says:

I realized that all the precautions to avoid Swine Flu are simply about “BEING CLEAN” and I also realized that the danger in Egypt is not because of the flu itself as much as not having the “being clean” culture.. I kept on thinking and I wondered Why aren't the majority of the Egyptian people in the 21st century clean? what have led to this? If the religions tell us to be clean, and all creatures care about being clean, so why aren't we?

In an attempt to raise awareness among the public, pharmacies have started putting out signs calling upon people to take all the required precautions, reports Abul Ma3aly Fa2ek in his blog:

Swine Flu mania has gripped Egypt, which is still suffering from an increasing death toll from the avian or bird flu, which is considered by health authorities even more dangerous than swine flu. And just as you would think that we have had our fill of diseases, the deadly Plague has been reported in neighbouring Libya, poising a valid threat to the Egyptian western borders.

On the Pandemic Information News blog, blogger Common Ground describes a “Triangle of Death” poised by “triple catastrophic diseases.”

On the plague threat in nearby Libya, the blogger reports:

He then notes:

Writing at Egyptian Chronicles, Zeinobia too discusses the plague threat on her country:

Forget about H1N1 and H5N1 ,now we are having in Egypt even much more dangerous deadly catastrophe knocking on our Western doors : The Plague , the black death that can't be comprised.

Egyptian prolific blogger Zeinobia broke the news:

On May 21, Judge Muhammadi Qunsuwa announced the case will be referred to Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, the nation's highest religious official, who will rule on Moustafa's death sentence on June 25.

Shocking as it is to everyone, the verdict left the convicted in awe. Journalist Ahmed El Desouky was among the first who reported the reactions from the court to the Egyptian online community saying:

Reactions fluctuated, between approval and support to the verdict to sympathy and sadness. In her post, Desert Cat was surprised that both Moustafa and El Sokary received the same verdict:

Ahmed Shokeir answered her question in the comments section of this post saying:

The Egyptian real-estate tycoon’s supporters on Facebook, reacted to the verdict on “Free Hesham Talaat Moustafa’ group as well.

Ashraf Elmanwaty said:

I still have hope HTM will be free… This is an over reaction judgment

While Miral El Ramlawy wrote:

90% of Egyptians do NOT believe he did it and the court owes it to the Egyptians to announce what they based the verdict upon!! Phone calls that don't have any explicit message is NO PROOF…we are waiting for justification!

After the shock, analysis took place. Zeinobia explains:

• when the judge says that that the papers of the convicted will be sent to the grand Mufti for consulting means in most situations that that convicted will face the death penalty. The death penalty needs the opinion of the grand Mufti to support it from the religious point of view ,the Sharia point of view to fulfill justice.It is not everyday that you order the death of someone.
• In most cases if not all of them the grand Mufti approves and supports the judge’s verdict.

She then continues:

• Second in case of Hisham and Sokary,the judge will announce the final verdict on the next 25th of June 2009 ,which is nearly about month and 5 days ,I believe it is a long period to stand in the death row.
• Third when the judge announces the final verdict , the lawyers of the convicted will have the right to [appeal].

So there might be a second round which is what we will figure out on June 25th.

Meanwhile, there are questions and doubts about Hisham’s high profile real estate business. The Mideast Institute Editor's blog reports:

The Talaat Mustafa Group (TMG), a huge real estate conglomerate through which Mustafa made his billions, doesn't want any stockholders to worry just because the company's founder and namesake is under a death sentence. A TMG official reassures investors:
Sawaftah said that TMG’s corporate structure prevents “the absence of one individual” from affecting its activity

Entertainment and cultural activities are the order of the day, when peace and diversity meet in one place.

In her blog post on the festival, Fattractive says:

Korba is one of the oldest districts in Heliopolis. All these gorgeous old buildings. Sadly, it’s become extremely crowded and annoying, but on one day every year, it becomes a pedestrian street, and it’s true beauty shines through

She then continues:

All the cafes set their tables outside, bands entertain us up on a stage, kids draw on the street with chalks, and companies fall all over themselves to market their products in the most innovative ways. Entertainment is varied: the traditional tanoura/ oriental dances, and then guitar/ jazz bands. It got way crowded at night, but still very fun

After the event people came back with lovely picture perfect moments and shared them on the event's Facebook Group.

The group describes the day as:

For Heliopolis residents and admirers and guests from across Cairo, this is the day we celebrate peace in Cairo's oldest and vintage quarter “korba Heliopolis”.

And here are some more pictures from the festival:

Photo credit: Photos 1 and 2 by Nermeen Edrees

Egyptian cinema-goers will finally be able to watch Ibrahim El Batout’s film Ein Shams [Ar] (Eye of the Sun) as an Egyptian movie at the end of this month - after a long drama with censorship.

El Batout, considered among the most distinguished Egyptian independent directors and filmmakers, struggled with the censor back when he first started working on his second feature film. The director decided to swim against the tide and start filming without acquiring the required permits. He explains his reasons in an interview with the Art Review Magazine as follows:

The film was made in a different way. Without the censors' Permission. I filmed it and am asking them now to see it so that I'd screen it. They don't want this. They want you to inform them of the film from the point of just thinking about it

As demonstrated in the film’s Facebook group Ein Shams has acquired many reputable awards. They include:

Winner of The Golden Tauro Best film Award in Taormina Film Festival.
Winner of Best First Film Award in Roterdam Arab Film Festival.
Winner of Special Jury Mention in Carthage Film Festival.

Nevertheless, the censors decided to allow the film into Egypt under the condition of having it screened as a foreign film - a compromise the director objected to.

In a article posted in the film’s blog, Joseph Fahim exclaimed:

But apparently that won’t happen now. The film's trailer has already been aired on Egyptian TV channels and cinema lovers in Egypt, who are thirsty and looking forward to El Batout’s next thought provoking film, will be able to watch it in a cinema near them soon.

A new online campaign is in the making.
Maadi is one of Egypt’s most distinguished districts, known for its exquisite greenery and serenity - not to mention the exceptional Nile Corniche, which attracts many nature lovers and felucca passengers. Last year, Maadi's governance was moved to the Helwan governorate instead of Cairo - a decision which upset many of the district’s residents. Yet they soon figured that nothing could be done about it.

A few days ago, Maadi residents woke up to find glimpses of hideousness have already crept on to their surroundings.

In his blog Soberhigh Mohamed M. Radwan tells us the story:

Overnight, and while the residents of Maadi were sleeping unaware, the first of the symptoms of the Helwan take over appeared so grotesquely all over Maadi’s urban landscape. At all the districts’ entrances, which are considered the urban gateways of Maadi; suddenly and out of the blue, these humongous billboards sprung out, as if made overnight by some evil work of demons

Mohamed then decided to place his anger against ugliness in the right channel and created a Facebook group named: Maadi: Helwan Governer, please bring these billboards down

According to Mohamed, the group:

Advocates for bringing these outrageous monstrosities down and the implementation of strict outdoor advertising regulations. And going further in calling on the banning of the construction of new billboards in all Cairo suburbs and regulating the use of the billboards that already exist in a way that would protect the visual environment of Cairo

We request that the government would issue a more strict building code regulating billboards all over the capital and form a Legislative and Regulatory Center to control outdoor advertising

In the Facebook group, Mohamed and many of Maadi residents, lovers, and enthusiasts carried out the campaign aggressively to appeal to the head of district of Maadi as well as the governor of Helwan, to bring down the billboards.

Mohamed addresses the campaigners and says:

If you are concerned for Maadi, and Cairo raise awareness and raise your voice. We are preparing an email template to be sent to all relevant governmental offices and institutions and media outlets. We will email the media, talk about it in talk shows (radio and TV) and voice out our objection

While committed Egyptian bloggers were swamped in the preparations, others were scratching their head trying to come up with new ideas and ways to celebrate the universal love day.

In her post, Super Lili contemplated the possibility of speed dating in Cairo: She said:

“So i was thinking, why is there no speed dating in Cairo? It would be easy to organize, just get a venue, everyone pays 100 L.E., post an open event on Facebook and there you have it.”

She continues:

“Personally, i think it's a great idea! first off the ticket price would control a little who would come, you have 5 minutes to decide, so if you meet Mr. Creepy Creeperson you would only have to spend 5 minutes with them. You could decide to give guys your email account or Facebook account as a test first, or buy a new sim to receive the call(s) which you can throw out if you end up with a stalker.”

On the other hand Appy decided to broaden the context and invited her readers to join in a special event organized by NGO “sohbet khier;” the event will be held in one of Egypt’s most known rural areas “Istabl Antar.”

Mohaly declared valentine blogging week and ended his series with a singles agenda to take him/them through the day.

He says:

”After second thoughts, and instead of escaping, I told myself that it is Valentine's day, and singles have the right to enjoy it too, there is a brightside there for us …Whether you choose to have other single people over to celebrate by playing these one-of-a-kind singles games, or whether you prefer to soak in the glory of being single on your own, the goal is simply to make the Valentine's day on Saturday your day!

He then listed a few tips he came across online, and ended his post with his own pick for the day:

“PURSUE YOUR PASSION (Mohaly's choice): Whatever it is that you are passionate about in life — be it a particular hobby, travel, craft projects, charitable acts, etc. — use this day to make great strides by just doing that today. This is also known as drowning yourself in productivity… or pursuing those things that you are passionate about. As long as it's something you are completely driven to succeed at, then you will still be having FUN while accomplishing great things at the same time.”

Happy Valentine's Day; Hope the day bring each and everyone lots of, happiness, flowers, chocolates, and above all love and warmth.

Also on Global Voices Online:
On Valentine's: Teach Someone You Love to Blog (or Micro-Blog!)

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Another campaign is in the works in Egypt. Inji, an avid blogger and young economist who is distraught by the numerous emails and SMS messages calling for boycotting products decided to “boycott the boycott” and take it to a positive extent. She is proposing to her readers a national driven project which she simply puts as Buying Egypt Back. In her proposal Juka said:

“Let's buy Egypt! Let's buy Arab products. Even better let's produce Arab products. Walk into your local supermarket and tally up what percentage of the products you’ve bought were manufactured locally. Then think to your purchase decision mechanism, did you automatically dismiss the local substitute for the global brand? I know it’s a lot to ask, and that yes you’ll miss your gourmet coffees, teas and meals. Yet for a change. Let's be proactive. Let's BUY EGYPT!”

Inji’s blog readers were all enthusiastic about the project as apparently young Egyptians are aspiring a change, and they still believe in the prosperity of their country.

Jessy who created the Arabic logo for the campaign said:

“*claps really hard* I hate those boycott messages. First of all because I hate being told what to do and nagged to do it. Second of all most of the boycott emails have no basis that these companies are aiding or not aiding the causes.
As for buying Egyptian, this is exactly what we need. Our economy needs it regardless of what is going on in the rest of the world and once we understand that we need to help ourselves before expecting anyone else to help us we will finally be on the road to some improvement.”

Others, however, were skeptic:

Will E who is heartily for the idea still believes we have some issues to consider:

“The idea in theory is great, and I’ve thought of it many times. It’s appealing and I am personally all for it, and am willing to suffer a bit but let me be the voice of reason. Buy Egypt means supporting all those companies who cheat with materials, quality and components and telling them it’s okay you don’t have to learn how to be efficient, you don’t have to learn how to provide good service, we’ll buy your products anyway and you can make some money.
Why do Egyptians raise prices of everything local and imported even when the cost of making it drops? I wish buy egypt were the answer… I really do.”

Dee adds:

“Easier said than done ya Juka, have you seen the quality of the products in question? I wish it were an option, but its not and that allege is based on trial! Will promise you to try again, but I don’t have my hopes up (and you already know that I’m not spoilt brand brat, right?”

Juka then replied practically to skepticism and went through her daily routine, in which she enlisted and came up with many quality local alternatives.

At the end Inji pleaded with her readers to hang on to the positive:

“Let's focus on the bright spots and let's work on identifying pioneers in the dark ones”.

The effort has kicked off and will work as follows, says Juka:

“1) It is an invitation to one and all to start going local (Arab) in all their purchase decisions.
2) On a weekly basis in this outlet I will post either an Egyptian/Arab success story or a customer complaint directed to a local company. Feel free to start e-mailing me those.”

On the way to the border town of Rafah, a Palestinian town in the Gaza Strip, on the Egyptian border, Nora encountered a car accident which involved an Egyptian officer, who didn’t make her optimistic about the upcoming year:

“Turns out he is a high rank 3rd Army officer. I ask him where is our country heading? He says looking to sky pointing a cut finger “its all in god’s hands. It’s a mess”. I ask “even the army?”. He says “We’re approaching another 1967. The army has neither equipment nor human beings. We’re in god’s hands”
“It is now two hours into 2009. Israeli jets have been flying over our heads occasionally bombing Gaza side of the border. I can’t really say or wish for a happy new year. I only wish we come out of it on our feet.”

That being said Nora was also surprised with the New Year cheer among her friends in Palestine:

“As clock was ticking towards midnight 31 December, me on Egypt side of Rafah border, I got this SMS from my friends in Khan Yunis, Jabalia, Rafah…:
Look outside
F-16 SMILING for you
MISSILES dancing for you
ZANNANA singing for you
because I requested them ALL to wish you a *HAPPY NEW YEAR”

Nora, who is still in Rafah, is following up on developments and updating her followers on Jaiku, with constant updates on the number of Palestinians injured and killed since the Israeli bombardment of Gaza started on December 27. She has also posted an 8 page list of medication required for Gaza Hospital:

“I was able to capture this 8 page list of medical needs in Gaza by camera of mobile phone - which explains the quality. The list was with Mr. Khalil Alniss, activist with Justice for Gaza group”

Amid this grim, Egyptian bloggers decided to revolt against the country's current rueful state and bring out some positive energy to the surface through the “Change the Channel” campaign.

The campaign is the brainchild of blogger Tarek Amr, one of Global Voices Online's authors, who describes it as follows:

He then continues:

The initiative is highly encouraged and welcomed around the Egyptian bloo sphere and some bloggers are exhilarated about going pink. In her blog, Jessy decided to change the tone until further notice:

“I am going to limit this negative input and replace it with more positive and healthy messages, at least in my own pink bubble life”

Journalist, blogger and activist Hossam El Hamalawy writes:

“I had noticed that some of my recent pix from Ireland, that included the Palestine and the Republican murals were not viewable to the public unless they were signed in. I emailed the Flickr Gods. They were kind enough to respond back quickly and un-flag some of the pix, putting them on “safe” mode, but without giving me an explanation why they were flagged in the first place.
The only reason I can think of is an editorial anti-Palestinian bias”

After exchanging a couple of mails with Flickr, he is still waiting for a satisfactory answer:

“I still haven’t received a reply from them about why my Ireland photos were censored in the first the place, or about changing the above.
I have to say I’m disgusted and I’m in need of your solidarity to get my flickr account back its “safe” mode, so that search engines can find it”

Hamalawy threatened that he would migrate to another service because he simply is not going to remove the strike and demonstration pictures, some of which have been contributed by other photographers, from his account.

Nora Younes supported Hamalawy and threatened to migrate as well.

She writes:

“If flickr case 982056 is not promptly solved; I - a 3 years FlickrPro user, photojournalist, and internationally recognized human rights activist- will migrate too.”

Nora who has recently been awarded the HRF awardexpressed her disapproval of censoring Hamalawy's account:

“free speech is now struggling several battlefields: Twitter suspended their services in Egypt. In 2007, YouTube suspended Wael Abbas’ channel while his facebook page was recently deleted. And now flickr is censoring Hossam el-Hamalawy. Instead of the growing dependency on those companies we need to develop our own Arab Social Networks”

In another development, Hamalawy reports about the censoring of activist Wael Abbas' Flickr account as well.

Oh great… They first disabled his YouTube channel, and now Facebook deleted Wael’s account..

Dr. Amin's wife tells us the story in the Doctors without Rights blog:

In his first trial Dr. Raouf Amin was sentenced to three years in prison and 700 lashes..however after his appeal, the sentence was doubled up; he will be whipped at the rate of 10-15 lashes a week during a 15-year jail sentence. The verdict was condemned not only by the human rights associations and civil entities, but also the ministry of interiors and the Egyptian Doctors Syndicate; Head of Doctors Syndicate Dr. Hamdy El Sayed stated to the AFP:

“We condemn this verdict in the strongest terms and we are making contact with officials in Cairo and Saudi Arabia, as well as [Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak for them to intervene,” El-Sayyed told AFP.

“He did not have a fair trial; there was not even any adequate medical expert opinion. … This judgment is more about torture than justice and does not correspond with any kind of law, human rights or even Sharia (Islamic law)”
It would have been better to have sentenced him to death than to torture him this way. One thousand five hundred lashings and 15 years in prison is too harsh even for a murderer.”

Needless to mention that the Egyptian public opinion cannot comprehend it. Caricature artist Ashraf Hamdy angrily wonders:

The annual event, spearheaded by Egyptian female bloggers, aims at giving women, identified as Laila, a chance to speak up and have their say.

In the words of the organizers of the We Are All Laila campaign, the event geared at posting podcasts, featuring interviews with women from all walks of life:

“The third year of Laila brings about a wider range of participation to comprise other categories that do not have access to the internet, and still maintain the track line of the first year’s theme. This year’s theme is to gather audio testimonies and stories of elderly women, for instance grandmothers, and women who do not use the internet, due to social or economic reasons. Such authentic audio testimonies give an air of vividness and are rather expressive; they also stand as an audio archive of the experiences of older generations of mothers and grandmothers for generations to come. However, Laila’s main track line is still there: to write or record Laila’s problems and issues and having the speaking up opportunity.”

Not many female bloggers really adhered to this year's main idea, except for Bent Masreya [Ar], who uploaded an interview with an Egyptian girl and discussed with her the obstacles females face in Egypt.

Another blogger, Ma3t [Ar], chose to honor her late grandma by writing about her struggle with education in Egypt from 1944 to 1948.

As for Manal, she hosted her mother who intrigued us with her experience with the new neighborhood she has recently moved to, and how she is being seen as a “foreigner” because she doesn't cover her hair. She writes:

Manal's mother then continues:

The diversity of the posts across the Egyptian blogsphere added to the authenticity of the campaign and enforced it.

Noran el Shamly states clearly that she is no Laila:

Thankfully, the Laila Syndrome was not restricted to Egypt only and reached other Arab countries as well. Saudi Jeans hosted Maha El Faleh who urged women to stand out for themselves and claim their rights.

Al Faleh said:

“My message here is not to my country, and not to the government because their role should be in another chapter, but to the girls and women of my country: get off your high horse, look around you, speak up! Most of the oppression is not made by our country, it’s made by our silence, by our lack of interest, or sometimes because we are too oblivious to our surroundings. Look out for each other, help those who didn’t have the chance to speak, give them hope and guidance, we should stop expecting our county to make decisions for us”

Between supporters and opponents, here are the voices which took part in the Laila campaign.