Your Power Color Is Red-Orange |
 At Your Highest: You are warm, sensitive, and focused on your personal growth. At Your Lowest: You become defensive and critical if you feel attacked. In Love: You are loyal – but you demand the respect you deserve. How You're Attractive: You are very affectionate and inspire trust. Your Eternal Question: "Am I Respected?" |
You tend to charm strangers easily. And you usually can get what you want from them.Verbally talented, you tend to persuade people with your speaking and writing.You are affectionate and loving, but it's hard for you to commit to any one relationship.Your strength: Your charmYour weakness: Your extreme manipulation tacticsYour power color: IndigoYour power symbol: Four leaf cloverYour power month: December
Your Birth date: July 12 |
 You're a dynamic, charismatic person who's possibly headed for fame. |
Defend Abdel Monem.. Defend Your Freedom
by Samuel Tadros
May 14, 2007
Abdel Monem Mahmoud, a young Egyptian remains in an Egyptian prison cell for no reason but his strong belief in his freedom. That freedom that is God’s greatest gift to man and that the Egyptian authorities, like all oppressive regimes in the world, insist on taking away from him. Abdel Monem was a firm believer in freedom. He cherished his freedom and like all human beings tried to break those walls that oppression puts around them. He expressed himself in the best way that he could, through his pen. He wrote about his dreams for his country, he wrote about his torture experience, but most importantly he wrote about his freedom. His belief in freedom was strong enough that it included the freedom of others. He defended those who differed with him in belief and ideology and here lays the greatest threat to dictatorship.
Any oppressive regime gains its strength from the weakness of those it rules, from the fear that its tyranny installs in the hearts of man. Tyranny, like darkness, fears the light more than anything else and Abdel Monem represented this light. He was not afraid. He knew that he was living in a closed room with walls surrounding him from all sides. He did not accept such fate. He rose above his own weaknesses and fears and pushed-back the wall. He took a hammer and banged on the wall making a small window for himself. It was not a big opening. He could not escape the room, yet he breathed and with his breath his hopes were strengthened. He saw light and it filled his heart with …..Freedom.
That was his sin. Here lays his mistake. He dreamt of a better future for himself and his country and his dream was so strong that it included the dreams of others.
Thus Abdel Monem was a threat to the system.
Thus he was an enemy that had to be killed.
How dare he think of Freedom?
How dare he believe in Freedom?
I am not a member of the Muslim Brotherhood nor do I share their ideology or point of view, but that matters little. I believe in my freedom of expression and I know that my freedom will not be complete if others do not have the same freedom. I know that my freedom can only be strong when others enjoy that same freedom. I know that every broken pen is my pen, and that every imprisoned soul is my soul, and every killed dream is my dream.
I can not stay silent when my freedom is taken and Abdel Monem is part of my freedom. I do not know Abdel Monem personally, but I know that in many ways our fates are linked. His freedom of expression is part of my freedom of expression. The Egyptian government would love nothing more than do divide us and thus win.
Abdel Karim is against Islam and we shouldn’t defend him.
Abdel Monem is Ikhwan and we shouldn’t defend him.
We can not continue to buy into their game. History has taught us that lesson time after time. If we do not defend the rights of others our own rights will be taken away and no one will rise to defend them. The lessons from Hitler’s Germany are very clear as someone truly said: First they took the Jews, and I was not a Jew so I did nothing, then they took the Catholics and I was not A Catholic so I did nothing, then they took the Gypsies and I was not a Gypsy so I did nothing, then they took the Communists and I was not a Communist so I did nothing, and then they took me, and there was no one left to do anything.
By defending Abdel Monem I am neither defending him nor the Muslim Brotherhood. I am defending Myself. I am defending my own freedom. Whether you are Muslim, Christian or Jew, weather you are a Liberal, a Communist or an Islamist I call on every human being to rise above his own stereotypes, differences and beliefs and defend the freedom of Abdel Monem. Defend him or you will be next.
This one is real
Ambition, fighting, war, courage. Destruction, danger, fall, ruin.
The Tower represents war, destruction, but also spiritual renewal. Plans are disrupted. Your views and ideas will change as a result.
The Tower is a card about war, a war between the structures of lies and the lightning flash of truth. The Tower stands for "false concepts and institutions that we take for real." You have been shaken up; blinded by a shocking revelation. It sometimes takes that to see a truth that one refuses to see. Or to bring down beliefs that are so well constructed. What's most important to remember is that the tearing down of this structure, however painful, makes room for something new to be built.
What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.
Change, change, change. All good Egyptians need change, want to change things. The ultimate question is how.
There is a problem within certain people, like political analysts that they want to perform some pre-done political series of actions for the sake of prediction or to explain what is going in this county. I'm not talking mainly about history, I'm talking more about politics as a science.
Egypt is facing a grave future, prices are going high in a tremendous scale, consequently some kind of social crisis appear in a lot of families due to the destruction of the important middle-class. Still, corruption is everywhere. NDP is controlling everything, while waiting if GM was going to make a new party or something, it is a trend in Egyptian post-1952 history.
I want freedom, democracy, clean and optimized government power, the power which is use for the sole benefit of the people.
The only positive factor in the development in any nation is justice. When justice is applied correctly, nothing can be positive. Even freedom of speech can't be applied with justice doesn't prevail. This is what we suffer in Egypt, justice is destroyed with power in the hands of corruption.
While analysts try to ideologize present Egyptian state (if ideologize is a correct expression), some are trying to compare the labour activism to left wing activism. Some say that Egyptians will not make a civil revolution. I do know that the term civil revolution is a very hard expression, to imagine and to perform. But I also know that western democracies, early (right wing usually) and last (left wing usually) ones suffered much easier circumstances that the Arab World. The problem with the Arab World is that they are the center of political goals. Petrol on top. While late democracies in Europe were supported usually from non-national forces, or in other words the earlier democracies, the late democracies in Latin America faced the dangers of the Military throw-outs.
But what I think, we can never receive support from European countries, let alone the US. Chirac for example always supported the governments against the will of the majority, while the new Sarkozy is supposed to be the French example of Tony Blair. We will never get external support. And we have enough of military interference since 1952, all the goals planned now returned to their zero-positions, even worse. We never faced this amount of debts before 1952.
I mentioned France because it is supposed to the most Arab supporting country (the Iraq example).
People are facing economical catastrophes in ALL labour activities, and with labour here I mean not only factory workers (though they are the most active), but I mean doctors, engineers, normal employees. People are starting to imagine how they will continue living like this. Let alone having enough money to marry for example. (Savings).
So if the financial curve went down in this rate, I guess the 1977 food riots will happen again in a way larger scale, with more violence, and chaos.
On May 8, Free Monem campaign member Mary Joyce was interviewed by Mark Fonseca Rendeiro, an activist-blogger, podjournalist, vlogger, and citizen reporter living in Amsterdam (pictured above). You can listen to the resulting podcast here.
Topics discussed include: Monem and his work, the Muslim Brotherhood, other jailed bloggers in Egypt, how much expression is too much expression, and tools for freeing Monem. The podcast was originally posted here on Mark’s Citizen Reporter website.
One note: The podcast’s musical intro is 2min 50sec long, so just hang in there.
Second note: Although Mary says in the podcast that Egypt had elections in 2004, elections were actually held in 2005.
More Updates: Murad updated his list to 50 sites. The man lost his mind already.
Nora Younis Analysis on the whole thing.
You can find it here
Blogger and journalist Abdel Monem Mahmoud and 23 other detained students from the
In a statement released by Monem and other political detainees on Monday, they demanded their immediate release and dropping all the trumped up charges against them, accusing the prison administration of adopting a new strategy of psychological torture by allowing and encouraging criminal prisoners to intimidate and harass them.
Among the list of other inhumane imprisonment conditions the statement cited are,
1-Confinment for 23 hours a day in overcrowded cells where an average of 22 inmates are kept in 10×22 feet cells infested with bugs with only one extremely filthy bathroom to share.
2-Numerous assaults by criminal prisoners and thugs, including sexual harassment and verbal abuse.
3-Use of illegal drugs inside prison cells by criminals and drug dealers, and the produced smoke which makes it very difficult to even breath an already polluted air, in addition to extremely foul language and screaming all night by intoxicated thugs which became a source of psychological agony.
4-Poor medical care in handling life threatening and contagious medical conditions, including skin diseases and HIV. Four cases of chicken pox and measles were denied appropriate care and hospital admission.
The statement also complained that the students who were mostly preparing for their final exams, surrendered their school books to the prison administration in protest, since it became impossible for them to study in such awful environment
The statement concluded by calling on the Attorney General, the National Council on Human Rights and all human rights groups to intervene to protect the life and dignity of the students.
Attorney Islam Lotfy stated to Ikhwanweb that the "Al Mahkom" prison where Monem and his fellow political prisoners are kept is designated for the most vicious criminals and known for its inhumane conditions. He added that several cases of TB and HIV have been detected among prisoners and the government apparent lack of action and poor medical care inside the prison put his clients' life in danger.
According to Lotfy, several complaints have been filed to the prison administration and government officials to keep political detainees separate from criminal prisoners but nothing was done. The government seems to be adopting a new strategy by letting others do their dirty work by inflicting psychological torture on its political opponents who have been detained only for their views and opinions.
Monem was arrested on April 15 along group of students from the Institute of Agricultural Engineering and charged with belonging to an illegal organization [MB] and by reporting information that defame the regime and threaten national security.
For more information, please contact,
-Islam Lotfy, Kawakby Foundation For Democracy and Development at 002-010-7717450 (mobile)
-Mohammad Ghozlan, at 002-010-2040116 (mobile)
Other coverages:
1. Wa7da Masreya
__________
This round was hilarious really. For the history for the case you can read this for more information.
I arrived at the court-house at exactly 9 am. This is the first time I attend this case, I didn't know they will consume so much time for nothing. Then some bloggers came one by one. I was really pleased to meet them.
Anyway the cases roll began from like 10:30, then we were informed that Murad case will be in the end of the roll. This was so annoying really. In the beginning Murad made a long speech about his books and how they are so much and famous, blah blah blah. He mentioned how these books are famous worldwide and they are the textbooks for several university abroad and all this non-sense. And I really want to mention that his voice was high, but not the highest, I will mentioned why later.
Then came the government's lawyer who again repeated the talk about the difficulty of monitoring (I really wanted to mention the word surveillance) the sites and then blocking the non-appropriate material in it.
Then came the two lawyers who attended the Kareem law-suit and attacked the bloggers in general, claiming that all bloggers attacked Islam and they are "garatheem" (germs in Arabic). He was really funny. Even of the Judge's assistances in the court room was about to laugh, he was hardly stopping himself from laughing. The bearded lawyer voice was really high, reminding me of War scenes in Arabic movies, I was expecting something like KILL the BLOGGERS or something.
Murad entered the show again mentioning that these sites and blogs were a threat to National Security and to ethnic stability blah blah blah. I want to mention that Judge repeatedly asked Murad and the two Islamic lawyers to focus on the case and stop scattering into other unrelated issues, more than five times. (God they have the guts).
While the case was paused for consultation, Malek talked with the bearded Islamic lawyer about another incident which is also connected to Murad, a law-suit of verbal assault accusing Alaa and Manal from www.manalaa.net and Gamal Eid. In the testimony of that lawyer, Manal was in the the court house verbally assaulting Murad, but ironically, she was not in the court house in the first place.
Anyway the case was postponed to June 9, will be waiting for what is happening.
When I read this I was really pissed off.
SCREW GADDAFI
Reporters Without Borders / Internet Freedom desk
EGYPT: PETITION FOR RELEASE OF BLOGGERS KAREEM AMER AND ABDUL-MONEIM MAHMUD
Six months after the arrest of Kareem Amer, Reporters Without Borders has started a petition calling for the blogger's release and that of his colleague Abdul-Moneim Mahmud.
Internet-users are being asked to sign online, in which the worldwide press freedom organisation calls on the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), a conference organised under the UN mantle, to block Egypt from hosting the event in 2008 unless the two bloggers are freed.
Sign the petition : http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=21993
Text of the petition:
"We call for the release of Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman (Kareem Amer) and of Abdul-Moneim Mahmud, who have been imprisoned for expressing their opinion online. We urge the organisers of the Internet Governance Forum to intervene with the Egyptian authorities on behalf of these two bloggers. It would be intolerable for a UN summit on the future of the Internet to be held in a country which imprisons bloggers".
The petition will be sent, on 6 November 2007, exactly one year after the arrest of Kareem Amer, to Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, to Executive Coordinator of the IGF, Markus Kumar, as well as to the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon.
"Kareem Amer"
Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, better known by the pen name Kareem Amer, was arrested on 6 November 2006, for articles published on his blog (www.karam903.blogspot.com). He frequently attacked the authoritarian excesses of the government of Hosni Mubarak and criticised the country's top religious authorities, particularly the Sunni University Al-Azhar, where he was studying law. The blogger was sentenced on 22 February 2007, to three years in prison for "inciting hatred of Islam" and one year for "insulting" the Egyptian president. The sentence was upheld on appeal on 12 March.
Abdul-Moneim MahmudAbdul-Moneim Mahmud, who runs the blog Ana Ikhwan (www.ana-ikhwan.blogspot.com), was arrested on 14 April 2007. He has been officially accused of membership of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, but his detention appears most likely linked to articles and photos he has posted online and at his work exposing torture committed by the security services.
First organisations and bloggers who signed the petition:
– The Free Kareem campaign (www.FreeKareem.org)
– Free Monem (http://freemonem.cybversion.org/)
– Alaa & Manal (http://www.manalaa.net)
– HAMSA initiative of the American Islamic Congress (www.hamsaweb.org)
– Dalia Ziada (http://daliaziada.blogspot.com)
– Milton Mueller, partner, "Internet Governance Project"(www.internetgovernance.org/)
– Ethan Zuckerman – My Heart's in Accra, http://ethanzuckerman.com/blog
– Soci of Singabloodypore at http://singabloodypore.rsfblog.org
– Christophe Grébert (www.monputeaux.com, webcitoyen.com)
– Olivier Grobet (Humanitaire.ws)
– Christophe Ginisty (http://www.ginisty.com)
– Cristiano de S' Fagundes (www.e-squina.blogspot.com)
– Nicolas Vanbremeersch (www.versac.fr)
– Pierre Catalan (http://pierrecatalan.hautetfort.com)
– Sami Ben Gharbia (http://www.kitab.nl/)
– Solana Larsen (http://www.solanasaurus.com)
– Dan Larsen (http://www.blogbyblog.dk)
– Hervé Resse (http://blog-hrc.typepad.com/ressepire)
– Florentine (http://www.Florentine.typepad.com)
– Andriy Ignatov,Maidan International (www.activist.org.ua/eng/)
– Fred de Mai (www.fdmai.com)
Worried about the future…listening to some words from here and there, plus depressing signs from my family. Things like these never help, they just put me in the usual circle of doom.
Listening to the beautiful instrumental played by Era, Flowers of the Sea. This is all what I want from life. Tranquility…
Wandering about a usual thought of mine, words give meaning to meanings. People always complain about that there are so much words with no actions. Do they really talk right?
Remembering the time I wrote my poetry to my imaginary love in my early and middle teen years. How I laughed in my sleeves when my mates asked me who is she. And I realize how am I now, though still I don't write poetry. Is it the fake stronger than the true? Or is it the hell of depressants I'm living in?
I want to run, I want to live my free decisions, I want to be with my family, I want to be with her, I want all of this in the same time
Still, dear friends of mine had most of these, but…when the moment of losing someone comes…it just adds to my misery.
I admit that I like people when they say good words about me, whether they were right or wrong. Is this wrong or right? At those moments I really don't care, what I care is about my satisfaction. Selfishness I know, but who is not?
I regret my giving up when I was faced by the change of my career, but there was so little time, so little resistance to the so huge force from them, the point is…they will not pay the price, I'm the one who will pay the price, and they will just live happily that they did what they were supposed to do in their own perspective, and after that complain that I didn't do my planned part.
And after all, they say, you chose it.
Dreaming…
