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Police State is the Wrong Venue for Obama's Speech
The sad truth is that so far did the US descend in moral power under George W Bush that Obama would probably have to deliver his lecture in the occupied West Bank, even Gaza, to change the deep resentment and fury that has built up among Muslims over the past eight years. This, of course, Obama will not do. So Egypt, sadly, it has to be, though he will see nothing of the squalor and fear in which Egyptians live.
Only a week ago, for example, the leader of the opposition Ghad party, Ayman Nour - only released from prison by President Hosni Mubarak's regime in February - complained that he was assaulted in a Cairo street by a man with a make-shift flamethrower, suffering first degree burns to his face. Mr Nour spent three years in jail and is outraged by Obama's visit. "It seems to have been intended to bolster the power of the regimes, not of the people," he said. "We are absolutely astonished that our Egyptian political and civil society are ignored. It gives the impression that American interests are more important than American principles." The investigations of human rights groups show Mr Nour has every reason to be angry.
The latest Cairo Institute for Human Rights (CIHR) report on government abuses in the Arab world is packed with examples of state brutality, including 29 cases of torture and ill-treatment in Egyptian police stations in just six months. The Egyptian Organisation of Human Rights, a separate group, discovered that 10 of the 29 died after torture. In one case, rights groups acquired a videotape of a prisoner being anally raped with a stick by a police officer. Other videos show one of Mubarak's political opponents - a woman - being sexually molested by a plain-clothes police officer in a Cairo street. In 2007 alone, the Egyptian syndicate of journalists reported that 1,000 journalists were summoned to appear before government investigative officials.
A prominent case, the CIHR said, was that of Ibrahim Eissa, editor of Al-Dastour newspaper, who received two months in prison for allegedly publishing "false news" about Mubarak's health, thus "undermining public security". Interestingly, Egyptian state television no longer shows news film of Mubarak climbing aircraft steps or conference podiums; Egyptians, of course, wonder why. When Sa'ad eddin Ibrahim, of the Ibn Khaldun Centre for Development Studies, called upon the US to make its billions of dollars of aid to Egypt provisional upon the country's progress in democratic reform, he was condemned in absentia to two years' hard labour. Several bloggers were detained for calling for a public strike on Mubarak's 80th birthday last year. Al-Jazeera's Howeida Taha was fined 16 months ago for "damaging Egypt's reputation" by shooting a film on torture in police stations.
Human rights workers have been physically assaulted as well as arrested. When Dr Magda Adly, of the Al-Nadeem Centre for the rehabilitation of torture victims, left a police station in Kafr el-Dawa after interviewing four detainees who said they had been tortured, she was knocked unconscious and her arm was broken.
Why does Mubarak allow these obscenities to continue? Does he truly believe the extraordinary presidential election figures - he won the 1999 poll with 93.79 per cent, and an earlier 1993 election with 96.3 per cent - or, in his 81st year, is he afraid of his political opponents, however powerless they may be? Will he discuss all this with Obama? It is unlikely.
In fairness, the CIHR also records a series of shameful attacks on journalists by so-called Islamic courts leading, inevitably, to fines. It also recounts a vast litany of torture and executions by other Arab regimes from Tunisia to Syria, including the occupied West Bank and Gaza. So perhaps Obama should stay clear of the lot.
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9 Comments so far
Show Allwell you dance with them that brung ya
its getting so that most regimes supported by the united states are right wing militaristic torture states
there is the saying that you can tell a lot about someone by the company they keep
if you look at south america - there is a rebirth going on in that continent that should be very encouraging and wonderful for the world to watch
countries in that continent are coming together - of there own free will - sharing resources and working together to build better lives for their citizens
venezuela, peru, bolivia, brazil...
they are shirking off several hundred years of european and american dominance that involved murder, torture, political assassination, and the raping of all kinds of natural resources
it involved killing democratically elected leaders and replacing them with bought and paid for stooges of the lowly ilk
it involved strangling their economies with insupportable debt resulting from nwo/world bank loans that never seem to do anything for the respective countries other than line the pockets of the propped up stooges
egypt, of course, is another case in point
brutal regime propped up by american loans and american weapons and american torture training
same is true of our other "friend" in the region - saudi arabia
add dubai
afghanistan has possibly the most obvious stooge - the man they call the mayor of kabul - ex-unocal employee mohammed karzai
pakistan has just thrown out the american stooge - the hapless general musharaff
this is the pax americana protocol
kill the best, buy the rest, send in the corporations to rape, rob and pillage
i won't even mention israel as the obvious there needs no mention
pax american doesn't give one sweet fuck about democracy, human rights, the environment, human dignity
our "friends" are dictators (propped up by the us), torturers, and right wing killing machines that murder their peasants with impunity
recently chevron admitted that they have been flying in nigerian government troops to remote villages in the nigerian delta where the indigenous peoples live - to massacre and murder the locals - then chevron flew them back to their bases
oil - gas - corporations - murder - torture - fascism - dictatorships
in the case of the united states one can truly tell a lot about the company they keep
yes indeed
Didn't Obama say that Mubarak is a force for stability and security? The hypocrisy and doublestandards are as flagrant as ever. The Emperor will give some lip service, but as Fisk noted in the article yesterday, Arabs will see through the BS. This has happened so many times before. Just another cheap PR stunt for domestic consumption.
I guess we should be grateful that the rhetoric is more sophisticated less abrasive. That is about the only change we can expect
In above piece, Mr Ayman Nour mentions American principles versus American interests. Hahahaha. What principles?
As I understand Obama's Middle East itinery, he's stopping first in Saudi Arabia, then giving the big speech in Cairo, and ending with a visit to Jordan (maybe with unannounced secret stops in Israel and/or Iraq too, but who among us commoners can know).
The pecking order of the Arab League states pretty much mirrors the historical priorities of the United States in the region. Saudis first, because they have the oil, Mecca, and the connection back to FDR and WWII. Next Egypt, the most populous and the first Arab state to break ranks and make a peace deal with Israel (which, of course, cost Anwar Sadat his life and triggered a huge repressive crackdown inside Egypt, radicalizing Zwahiri among many others). Then finally Jordan, where there has always been a behind the scenes connection to British intelligence, the CIA, and other American interests linked to ending Israel's status as a pariah state in the Middle East.
Anyway, it seems to me that Barack Obama is following quite traditional State Department precedent. The Cairo visit is drawing heat from human rights groups of course, but nary a peep from anybody else. It would be a big surprise if anything concrete comes about as a result in terms of the peace process or US disengagement from Iraq.
Bill from Saginaw
"It seems to have been intended to bolster the power of the regimes, not of the people," he said. "We are absolutely astonished that our Egyptian political and civil society are ignored."
Regime abuse is everywhere. The money "cartels" control everything. Be aware - not astonished!
Have we examined the possibility that Obama went to Egypt because it is "one of the region's most repressed, undemocratic and ruthless police states"?
The tenuously representative nature of American government gives little to people slaughtered by the minions who imagine themselves so represented
-- not that this would be new to Robert Fisk, of all people.
Egypt is also of special interest to members of the African diaspora.
Maybe a visit to this birthplace of culture was symbolically important to Obama? It is a (very) subtle comment on racism in the U.S.
We rarely acknowledge the scientific and artistic accomplishments of ancient Egypt as rightfully belonging to Black people.
"We are absolutely astonished that our Egyptian political and civil society are ignored."
Who told him that godzilla has ears?