Archive: egypt

29th January 2015
By: Brian Whitaker
Earlier this week the Sisi regime announced that it had approved five international NGOs to monitor Egypt's parliamentary elections in March.  It has now emerged that this is not strictly true, because two of the five NGOs are appear to be the same organisation operating under different names. In a… Read more
28th January 2015
By: Brian Whitaker
Loai Deeb, president of GNRD A controversial NGO headed by a man who once ran a fake university from his home has been appointed to monitor Egypt's forthcoming parliamentary elections. The Global Network for Rights and Development (GNRD), which has strong links with the UAE, is one of only five… Read more
15th December 2014
By: Brian Whitaker
Hot on the heels of the "gay bath-house" raid in Cairo just over a week ago, there was news yesterday that Egyptian authorities have forcibly closed an "atheist cafe". Besides atheists who were allegedly "spreading misconceptions about heavenly religions" in the cafe, it is also said to have been a… Read more
12th December 2014
By: Brian Whitaker
An advisor to Egypt's Grand Mufti caused a good deal of amusement this week by announcing, apparently in all seriousness, that there are 866 atheists in Egypt (out of a population of around 90 million). This extremely precise information is said to have come from international research by an "… Read more
9th December 2014
By: Brian Whitaker
The Queen Boat in Cairo – scene of the 2001 police raid The massive police raid on a hammam in Cairo – instigated by a pro-regime TV channel – is the latest and most dramatic development in a crackdown against gay men that has been going on for months, even though homosexuality is not actually… Read more
24th September 2014
By: Brian Whitaker
Egypt's growing moral panic Campaigners in Egypt have called for two days of action through social media to protest at the latest wave of repression directed against LGBT people there. Readers can support it by signing up to the Facebook event, Stop Homophobia and Transphobia in Egypt. There is… Read more
15th July 2014
By: Brian Whitaker
In an alarming new development Egypt's Sisi regime has announced plans to drastically restrict the activities of civil society organisations, effectively bringing them all under government control. A draft law proposed by the Ministry of Social Solidarity would allow the government and security… Read more
3rd July 2014
By: Brian Whitaker
Tony Blair's unofficial activities in the Middle East are looking increasingly dodgy – and increasingly incompatible with his official role as the Quartet's peace envoy. Yesterday, the Guardian caused a stir with a story that Blair is to advise Egypt's Sisi regime on economic reform "in… Read more
19th June 2014
By: Brian Whitaker
Following Saudi Arabia's absurd decision to outlaw "calling for atheist thought" on the grounds that it is a form of terrorism, Egypt is trying a different approach. Labelling Egyptian atheists as terrorists might be just a bit too confusing because the Sisi regime has already allocated the Muslim… Read more
14th June 2014
By: Brian Whitaker
Egypt's much-abused law against "insults" to religion has claimed another victim with the jailing of a 23-year-old schoolteacher in Luxor governorate. Demiana Emad, a Coptic Christian, was arrested more than a year ago following a complaint from the head of the parents' association at her school.… Read more