Following the death threat to the head of al-Jazeera's bureau in Yemen, sahwa.net (the Islah party's website)
reports that Naif al-Qanis, the spokesman of the Joint Meeting Parties (the opposition alliance) "was threatened on Thursday with killing by a caller who claimed that he was the president of the republic".
The website says al-Qanis informed the Interior Ministry of the threat, demanding to identify the caller and bring him to justice. "He also revealed that figures had met him and demanded him to resign from JMP; otherwise he would be killed by traffic incident."
It’s almost two weeks since the latest
Arab Human Development Report was published and, after the initial burst of news items which basically summarised its content, considered views are beginning to emerge.
The theme of the 2009 report, as I noted last
week, is “human security” – a people-centred approach that goes beyond the usual focus on war, terrorism, etc. Although the authors have been accused (probably unfairly) of underplaying the deleterious effects of foreign occupation, adopting a broader definition of security has allowed them to look in some detail at the way Arab regimes treat their citizens.
This is very welcome. In the new post-Bush era it opens the door to
more constructive ways of looking at ”the Arab problem”.
Few readers could fail to note that the report exposes the inconsistencies of American “democracy promotion”, which combined bold talk about freedom with the continued toleration – even promotion – of human rights abuses in the name of counter-terrorism. It is a pity that the debate about the report has thus far revolved around whether the chapter on foreign occupations is at the beginning or the end.
He continues:
The report refers infrequently to democracy, focusing instead on the need for a fundamental transformation in the conception of citizenship and the obligations of states to their citizens. Given the limited results of nearly a decade of western efforts to promote democracy in the Arab world, this is a useful paradigm shift.
I suspect that a real problem exists in the mind of Arabs; they do not feel that they own their countries. Constantly coaxed into effusions of enthusiasm for Arab or national "unity", I think they do not feel that sense of belonging which westerners feel.
Unable, for the most part, to elect real representatives – even in Lebanon, outside the tribal or sectarian context – they feel "ruled over". The street, the country as a physical entity, belongs to someone else. And of course, the moment a movement comes along and – even worse – becomes popular, emergency laws are introduced to make these movements illegal or "terrorist". Thus it is always someone else's responsibility to look after the gardens and the hills and the streets.
As it happens, this “disengagement” or lack of a sense of citizenship among the Arab public is one of the main themes of my forthcoming book,
What’s Really Wrong With the Middle East (to be published in September). Disengagement is reflected in many areas of Arab society but is perhaps most apparent in politics. In one chapter, entitled “States without citizens”, I make the point that most Arab regimes behave more like colonial rulers than a government which has genuine roots in the country.
For further discussion of the AHDR see:
Rami
Khouri: The seven pillars of Arab fragility (Daily Star)
Khaled
Diab: Who's responsible for the Arab world? (Comment is free)
Peter
David: Waking from its sleep (The Economist) – not
strictly about the AHDR, but relevant
Riz
Khan: video report on al-Jazeera’s English channel
Violence seems to be on the increase in Algeria again.
Reuters reports that at least 14 soldiers were killed in an ambush on Wednesday. (Other reports give a death toll ranging from 11 to
20).
"The past two months have seen an upsurge in the
violence," Reuters says. "Insurgents killed 18 paramilitary police officers and one civilian, according to officials, in an ambush in the east of Algeria in June. That was the deadliest attack in nearly a year."
Wednesday’s attack occurred in the Tipaza province in the west of the country – which may point to an expansion of insurgent activity. “Most of the violence has been concentrated in a region to the east of the capital, with the western part of the country relatively unscathed,” Reuters
explains.
This also comes at a time when Algeria has been trying to re-establish itself as a player on the world’s diplomatic stage. The Moor Next Door blog comments:
No doubt the Algeria of 2009 has more credibility and more influence internationally than did the Algeria of 1999 [and] this is surely due to the good wits of president Bouteflika, or at least those very close to him. What remains to be seen is if Bouteflika’s domestic solution to the dark decade will be able to sustain the international designs he’s set up for the country.
All the progress Algerian diplomacy has made over the last nine years was predicated on the re-establishment of order inside the country and at least the impression of a process of reconciliation between the state and its people.
Without any real reconciliation between the people and the state, or at least certain powerful cliques therein, the possibility for open tensions between the youth and the authorities in the medium term remains quite powerful. While Bouteflika has put an end to broad macro-economic ills and macro-political disputes, he has not resolved any of the fundamental sticking points that make so many Algerians so restive.
“Marhaban bikum,” says the elegantly dressed
newsreader. She’s not wearing a headscarf and she sounds like a highly educated Arab. Her name, if I’ve deciphered it correctly, is Chiang Lu, and she’s presenting the TV news in Arabic – from Beijing.
The main news of the day is President Hu Jintao’s visit to Yunnan province. The area is home to 26 different ethnic groups, we’re told, and the president has called on Chinese of all ethnic backgrounds “to show mutual respect and concern”. The president smiles
benignly as he walks among the crowds, shaking hands.
Last Saturday, China Central Television (CCTV)
began broadcasting to the Middle East in Arabic, 24 hours a day. Considering that America’s venture into this area with
al-Hurra TV has proved an unmitigated and expensive flop, the Chinese attempt to follow suit raises two obvious questions. Why are they doing it? And will anyone watch?
Marc Lynch, a leading analyst of the Arab media,
is
sceptical. But for China, this seems to be part of a grand plan to raise its profile on the world stage. Arabic is CCTV’s fourth foreign-language channel (after English, French and Spanish, with Russian to follow shortly).
Whereas most Arabs already know quite a lot about the US and English is the main foreign language taught in schools, they know little about China and very few Arabs speak Chinese. Nevertheless,
Arab countries are flooded with Chinese goods and China is clearly hoping to gain influence in the region.
Whereas the aim of al-Hurra was to win Arab hearts and minds by marketing an unsaleable foreign policy in glossy packaging, CCTV seems more modest in its ambitions: it is trying to disseminate awareness of China and its culture (in a government-approved version, of course). This can be seen from its
programme listings … “Tourism in China”, “Learning the Chinese language”, “Chinese arts”, “Cultural films”, etc.
With so many Arabic satellite channels broadcasting populist trash these days, I really can’t see CCTV getting much of a look-in. Its news bulletins certainly won’t pull away crowds from the blood and gore on al-Jazeera; in style they are much more like the long-discredited bulletins on Arab state-run channels.
In any case, I’m not sure that China is wise to raise its profile in the Middle East at the moment. Until recently, I’d have said that most Arabs have a neutral-to-favourable view of the Chinese, and some Arab regimes (such as Syria) look to China as a model for economic progress without democracy.
However, signs of anti-Chinese sentiment in the region emerged
recently over Beijing’s treatment of the Uighur
Muslims. The Yemeni authorities, for example, responded
by cracking down on various Chinese businesses (including brothels), and al-Qaeda issued its
first-ever threat against China.
A higher profile does come at a cost.
It’s a sobering thought that despite all the turmoil in Yemen there are people who look to it as a haven of safety.
Almost a quarter of a million Somalis have fled their homes since May 7 to escape fighting in Mogadishu and up to 12,000 of them have gathered in the northern town of Bossasso, hoping to be smuggled into Yemen.
So far, 30,000 have made the dangerous sea crossing to Yemen but more than 300 have died or gone missing in the process, AP reports via
al-Jazeera and the
Washington
Post.
"These people are obviously reaching the end of their rope,” UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond told a news conference. “They see no future in Somalia and many of them are so desperate that they're willing to risk their lives and the lives of their families to escape."
In Yemen itself, four policemen were killed and one injured
– apparently by separatists – at al-Ayn (Abyan province). A local official said 10 gunmen attacked at 2am while four of the police were asleep and the fifth was on guard.
The Abyan headquarters of the ruling General People’s Congress was badly damaged by an explosion early yesterday morning. The blast also caused “heavy damage” to the opposition Islah party’s offices nearby, along with several neighbouring houses. The GPC’s website has a
report and
picture.
The Committee to Protect Journalists says it is
deeply concerned for the safety of al-Jazeera staff in Yemen after an unknown caller left a threatening message: "Tell the bureau chief that his death is imminent. By God, we will get to him [even] at his home."
The channel’s coverage of disturbances in the south has angered the government and earlier this month a GPC member of parliament called for the station’s office in Sana’a
to be
closed, on the ground that its reports were damaging the country’s security and stability.
On Monday, an al-Jazeera crew were the only journalists
refused entry to a discussion of security issues in parliament. The parliamentary speaker later denied giving instructions to keep them out.
It’s Wednesday and I’m still flabbergasted
by the review of
Bruce
Bawer’s latest book that appeared in the New York Times at the weekend.
The book is called Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom – so you needn’t read further to get the general drift. It’s part of that scaremongering genre about the brown hordes who are coming to get us. Currently it’s ranked at 1,965 on amazon.com and all six customer reviews give it the maximum five stars.
Note the buzzword “appeasing” in the title, which subtly gets in a reference to Chamberlain and Hitler without actually spelling it out. It’s a word that Melanie Phillips, author of Londonistan (another of these
coming-to-get-you books), also uses rather a
lot. Strangely, they never use it to describe Blair’s appeasement of Bush, or America’s appeasement of Israel.
Anyway, Bawer’s book was reviewed for the New York Times by Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle in Britain – which presumably, in the eyes of some commissioning editor at the NYT, makes him an expert on Islam.
The review – if it can really be called that – is basically a wholehearted endorsement of Bawer’s views. Pollard does concede that reading it can be “hard going” but even that turns into a virtue “because of the level of detail Bawer offers in support of his argument”. There’s nothing
in the review to indicated that Bawer’s views are actually
contentious (see the Washington
Post) and Pollard ends by saying Bawer is “unquestionably correct”.
Bawer’s previous book in a similar vein, While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within, caused shockwaves in 2007 when it was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle award.
John Freeman, president of the Circle’s board,
complained: “I have never been more embarrassed by a choice than I have been with Bruce Bawer’s While Europe Slept. Its hyperventilated rhetoric tips from actual critique into Islamophobia.”
This video contains images, as they say on TV, “that some viewers may find disturbing”. Or amusing. Either way, the YouTube clip
is causing a stir in Saudi Arabia because it’s said to show male employees of SABB (part of the giant HSBC banking corporation) having a knees-up in Riyadh.
For Saudis of a certain disposition this is shocking behaviour and a flagrant violation of the kingdom’s strict “morality” code. But in Saudi Arabia it all depends on who you are, and SABB/HSBC has the clout and connections to get away with it.
“A party like this shows that we have two different sets of rules in this country,”
Saudi Jeans observes – “one for the poor and commoners, and one for the rich and powerful”.
Those who attended an evening of guitar music held recently in one of Riyadh’s private residential compounds were less fortunate.
Nidal M takes up the story:
The second intermission of the show went on longer than expected … The organiser walked up to the stage, and surprisingly calmly told the audience:
“Ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention please. I am about to say a few things but I do not want anybody to react. The show has been cancelled … I repeat, the show is cancelled. We have been asked to vacate the premises. Please do not remain here as it would be easier if we all left in an orderly and calm fashion. More information will be given over Facebook and via email. Please leave. Thank you and we’re sorry.”
You see, in the west, an announcement like that would mean there was a bomb threat. In Saudi, it means that the Hey’a [religious
police] are here.
The problem then was how to leave without being caught by the
mutawwas waiting at the entrance.
“Carrying photo and musical equipment, our crew would have been the first to get nabbed if we tried to get out. After 10 or so minutes, one of the compound officials ran to the waiting crowd that it was safe to leave if we did it quietly and quick. Presumably the
mutawwas had been distracted for a short while.”
Luckily, it seems no one was arrested on this occasion. But there is still no word about the fate of more than 60 Filipino men
arrested last month after a party in Riyadh where some of them were found to be dressed in women’s clothes. Since they are poor and
expendable they will probably be flogged and deported.
Meanwhile, the cream of the British expatriate community in Riyadh remain unmolested after their
fancy dress ball where
one of the stars of the evening was a man dressed as
Maid
Marian.
I happened to be watching Moroccan television in July 1999 when the programme was interrupted. A newsreader appeared, announced the death of King Hassan and burst into a flood of tears.
My Moroccan companion looked startled ( since the death was
unexpected) but remained totally dry-eyed – which I suspect was the reaction from most of the king’s subjects.
Hassan’s successor, Mohammed VI, has just completed 10 years on the throne and I’ve been looking around for assessments of his reign so far. I didn’t find many – perhaps because he keeps such a low profile.
As kings go, Mohammed is definitely an improvement over his father. But then, it would be hard not to be.
Le Figaro (instant translation by Google
here)
contrasts father and son by saying that Mohammed would rather be liked than feared.
Global Voices speaks of high expectations initially, followed by disappointments – especially in the area of press freedom. Similarly,
Reporters Without Borders detects both “advances and reverses”, and
Human Rights Watch sees a “mixed picture”.
Radio France Internationale is fairly upbeat about
King Mohammed's economic achievements. On the social front, in 2004, he also steered the introduction of a new family code,
hailed at the time as “one of the most progressive laws on women's and family rights in the Arab world”.
Agence France Presse portrays him as a reforming moderniser but
also quotes a historian as saying he has moved the monarchy back to its traditional role, where “the king is present just about everywhere, omnipotent”.
Omnipotent, perhaps, but often invisible. The royal palace has no press spokesman and the king hardly ever talks to the media. I have heard it said that he guards his privacy because his fun-loving lifestyle would not be appreciated by ordinary Moroccans if they knew about it. But Le Figaro says “discretion” is part of his character. Even government ministers rarely see him; he just sends his advisers with instructions.
If the general verdict is that Mohammed has done
fair-to-middling for Morocco, he seems to have done considerably better than that for himself. According to Forbes Magazine, his family’s personal wealth, which stood at $500m in 2000,
has multiplied five-fold since then. Besides his 20 palaces and several thousand hectares of farmland, he has vast business interests which include a
near-monopoly in
phosphates.
Crown Prince Sultan of Saudi Arabia has sent a
cable of congratulation to Sultan Qaboos of Oman on the anniversary of his country's Renaissance Day. The Crown Prince wished the Sultan permanent good health and happiness, and his people steady progress and prosperity.
Sultan Qaboos has sent a cable of greetings to President Zine el-Abidine
ben Ali of Tunisia on the occasion of the Republic Day anniversary. The Sultan wished President
Ben Ali wellbeing and happiness, and the brotherly Tunisian people further progress and prosperity under his wise leadership.
President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt has phoned President Ali Abdullah Salih of Yemen to enquire about his health. President Salih reassured President Mubarak, thanking him for his noble gesture and wishing him good health and happiness, and the brotherly Egyptian people further progress and prosperity.
It’s beginning to look as if the Red-Dead Project – an imaginative (some would say fanciful) scheme to channel water from the Red Sea into the Dead Sea – may one day come to fruition.
The Jordan Times reports that Egypt has dropped its reservations to the project, which was jointly agreed upon in 2005 by Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. Apparently some Egyptians were under the misapprehension that it would take away revenue from the Suez Canal.
The Dead Sea is shrinking fast, and the idea is to top it up with de-salinated seawater. Since the Dead Sea is more than 400 metres below sea level, the height differential could generate hydro power
to assist in pumping and de-salinating the seawater. The purified seawater could also be used for agriculture and other purposes.
I’m a bit sceptical because it sounds rather like those designs for “perpetual motion” machines that don’t actually work. Various environmental concerns have been raised and some suggest at more natural solution to the Dead Sea problem would be to restore its original source, the River Jordan, which nowadays is barely a trickle.
Nevertheless, the World Bank is backing it and there’s a
wildly enthusiastic write-up from last year in the Jerusalem Post.
Obviously there are pluses and minuses, and I’d be interested to hear what readers think of it.
It’s discussed in more detail in a report to the US Congress published in 2008. There’s also a
fairly old article here which gives a basic outline of the plan, together with the diagram below.
Contrary to common belief, fetishes do not just exist in the tents of West African witch doctors or the smelly S&M dungeons of some perverted westerners. No, they exist in the midst of even the most pious of Arab families, and that despite the Islamic prohibition of idol
worship.
I don’t know the writer’s identity but he(?)
describes himself as an anthropologist, peacebuilder and activist who
carries “both the genetic material and historical baggage of the orient and occident”.
Numerous violent incidents reported from southern Yemen on Saturday suggest the situation is deteriorating
rapidly:
The house of Abyan governor Ahmed Al-Miysari was attacked with light and medium-sized weapons; no casualties.
The home of the director of political security in Abyan was also attacked.
An early morning explosion targeted the central security headquarters in Mudiah, Abyan province.
Storage facilities of al-Maz Company for Cotton in Abyan (owned by President
Salih's nephew, Yahya Mohammed Abdullah Salih) were attacked with three RPGs.
About 100 armed people set up a checkpoint in al-Ayn district of Mudiah (Abyan province), demanding ID from those passing through.
Hundreds of tribesmen from Yafa’ and Abyan provinces were heading for Abyan city where separatist leader Tariq al-Fadhli is besieged in his house (presumably by security forces).
Mohammad Qasim, 45, was shot dead in his grocery shop between Khanfer and Zinjibar (Abuyan province), allegedly by Fadhli supporters and apparently because he was a northerner from Ta’izz.
At least one protester was killed and five injured during a separatist demonstration in the main street of al-Dali’ city. A similar demonstration involving hundreds in the neighbouring al-Habileen city passed off peacefully.
Gunmen blocked the Aden–al-Dali’ road and burned tyres.
There are conflicting reports of the
latest attacks by Houthi rebels in northern Yemen.
The Yemen Post says seven soldiers were killed on Thursday and Friday in al-Khamees district of Saada province.
AFP quotes a military source as saying: "Clashes broke out after Houthi rebels attacked army bases in the Saada province, during which seven soldiers were killed, while a number of others were wounded or captured."
The Yemen Observer, referring only to an attack on Friday morning,
says five soldiers died. Reuters
says three were killed on Friday and a fourth abducted.
Meanwhile, two men have been named as suspects in the killing of an army colonel and his two bodyguards in Saada on Tuesday: Abdulmohsen Taos and Hazmal Ali Hazmal.
This seems an appropriate moment to explain some of the background to the Houthi rebellion – Yemen’s bloodiest conflict since the 1994 north-south war – which has been running intermittently in the far north of the country since 2004. Its origins are complex and its objectives not entirely clear, but the Houthis (the family leading the rebellion) belong to the
Zaidi sect, a branch of Shi’a Islam that is prevalent in parts of northern Yemen.
It is also linked to an organisation called
Believing Youth (al-Shabab al-Mu’min) whose teenage members have caused disruption at mosques in various parts of the country by chanting “Death to America, Death to Israel” after Friday prayers. The youths have often been arrested, only to return later and do it again. (I wrote about the rebellion
here, shortly after its outbreak in 2004.)
The original leader, Hussein al-Houthi (who was killed in the early months of the rebellion) insisted he had no quarrel with the Yemeni government beyond opposing its co-operation with the United States, though the movement also seemed to be trying to counter the spread of Sunni Wahhabi influence.
Meanwhile the government, perhaps in the hope of discrediting Houthi, claimed he had a monarchist agenda – since the rulers of north Yemen who were overthrown in the republican revolution of 1962 had also been Zaidis.
Whatever its original driving force, though, the rebellion has clearly been fuelled by economic marginalisation, a lack of services and the government’s heavy-handed military response.
The rebellion has supposedly ended several times, only to resume again shortly afterwards.
Access to the area is restricted, so reliable information tends to be scanty. In May this year the International Crisis Group published a report,
Defusing the Saada Time
Bomb, which is probably the best up-to-date exploration of the conflict. It is also discussed in
a briefing paper issued by Chatham House last November.
It’s worth noting the
arrests this week of three bloggers in Egypt – one of the
10 worst countries to be a blogger, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Those arrested are: Abdel Rahman Ayyash,
Al-Ghareeb (The Stranger); Magdi Saad, formerly of
Yalla Mesh Mohem (Who Cares); and Ahmad Abu Khalil,
Bayarek (The Lanterns).
Since they are all Islamists, they probably won’t get much sympathy in the west. But the issue here is free speech, not their politics. More details from
Menassat,
Global Voices and
The
Arabist.
I’m in two minds about Mazen Abdul Jawad, the 32-year-old Saudi who has been arrested after bragging on TV about his sexual conquests. He does come across as appallingly sexist. On the other hand, that’s no reason for the religious police to swing into action and have him flogged.
Abdul Jawad, a Saudia airline employee, was seen on Lebanese television (LBC’s controversial Bold Red Line programme) describing his first sexual experience – with a neighbour at the age of 14.
“After discussing sex and foreplay in graphic detail and providing a recipe for an aphrodisiac,”
Arab News
reports, “Abdul Jawad is seen getting into his vehicle at night on a Jeddah street” to go cruising for women.
The Crossroads Arabia blog discusses exactly what crimes he might be charged with under the kingdom’s arcane legal system, but basically the case is yet another example of the moral muddle the Saudis have got themselves into. Only a fool would pretend that philandering men are a rarity in the kingdom. And, in an age of satellite television, the internet and so on, any hope of keeping up that pretence is rapidly disappearing out of the window.
Moqtada al-Sadr, the rabble-rousing Iraqi cleric, visited President Assad in Damascus earlier this week to discuss “brotherly and friendly relations and mutual interests”.
The Syrian president underlined “the importance of strengthening national unity among the Iraqi people, and Syria's care for extending support to any effort that would help achieve that goal and preserve the security and stability of Iraq”.
Sadr, in turn, “expressed high appreciation of Syria's supportive stances to the interests of the Iraqi people and care for the unity of the Iraqi people and land”.
At least, that’s what the official Syrian news agency says – which makes you wonder why they didn’t just have a friendly natter on the phone.
Syria watcher Joshua Landis has a theory about the meeting: Assad
was signalling to the west that even after losing most of his political leverage in Lebanon he still has cards to play.
Landis may be right. Guess who turns up four days later
for talks in Damascus … Obama’s special Middle East envoy, George Mitchell.
Agence France Presse is reporting that at least 16 people were killed today and 30 injured by shelling and gunfire in Zinjibar on the southern coast of Yemen. Earlier reports (including the
official news agency and
the BBC put the death toll at eight). AFP says the dead include six policemen.
This is clearly the most serious outbreak of violence since the revival of separatist agitation in the south.
The clashes erupted after supporters of separatist Tariq al-Fadhli incited violence during a rally called for by the Southern Movement to be held in Zinjibar, Ahmad al-Maisari, the governor of Abyan said.
“We allowed people to gather for peaceful protest but supporters of Tariq al-Fadhli marched towards the Central Security prison in the city and fired RPGs and armors in an attempt to release some prisoners over previous riots by force,” said al-Maisari.
Security authorities imposed a curfew in the city as the clashes continued during the afternoon, witnesses said.
Security forces reportedly exchanged fire with guards of the house of Sheikh al-Fadhli in an attempt to raid the house to arrest al-Fadhli.
Zinjibar was once the capital of the Fadhli
Sultanate. Tariq al-Fadli (or Fadhli) recently nominated himself as leader of the separatists. In the early 1990s he
led armed Islamist rebels in the south but later changed sides and became a supporter of President Salih. This year he switched sides again.
At least 10 people have died in a two-day battle between Shias and Sunnis for
control of a mosque in northern Yemen. Although tribal fighting in the country
is common, the sectarian dimension in this case is new and alarming.
It appears to have started with both sides insisting on their own
choice of imam and rejecting the other side’s choice.
According to the Yemen
Observer, supporters of the Houthi rebels (Zaidi Shia) seized the Zain
al-Abidin mosque in the Zahra district of al-Jawf province on Saturday:
Groups from the Islah party [Sunni, Islamist] tried to recover the
mosque, but faced armed resistance leading to confrontations between the
two sides, resulting in the death of one Islah party member and the flight of
the others from the battlefield.
The next day, 40 cars carrying armed Islah party members went
... to avenge the death of their colleague and to restore rightful control of the
mosque, but the Houthis ambushed and attacked them, killing two and
injuring an unidentified number. A battle broke out and continued from the
afternoon until shortly before sunset.
According to the paper, fighting ended after intervention from a local official of
the Socialist party. The report adds that a Houthi spokesman accused the
Yemeni authorities of arming Salafi [ie Islah] hardliners against them.
Early on Tuesday, an army vehicle was ambushed in the adjacent Saada
province and a colonel was killed along with two bodyguards. The attack has
been blamed on Houthi rebels and may be a reprisal for the death sentences passed on seven Houthi supporters earlier this month in
connection with previous attacks.
In June, nine foreigners were kidnapped in Saada –
apparently by Houthi rebels. Three were found dead shortly afterwards. The others (five Germans
and a Briton) are still missing.
Writing about the Arab Human Development Report yesterday, I
noted with pleasure that Capmas had not been involved in the research, and promised to
explain more about this dreadful Egyptian institution.
Capmas, the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics, is a
hangover from the Nasserist era. It was established by a presidential decree in 1964 as the country’s “official source
for the collection of data and statistical information, and its preparation,
processing and dissemination”.
Capmas is in charge of “providing all the state bodies, organisations, universities,
research centres and indevelopment [sic] and evaluation processes with the
information that can help them to make informed deceisins [sic]”.
In effect, this gives the Egyptian state a monopoly on statistics. The idea
behind it is that keeping control over research is an essential part of
maintaining state security. Since 1981 (and probably before) Capmas has
been headed by a succession of major-generals from the military.
Anyone wishing to compile data independently, through surveys or interviews,
must first obtain a permit from Capmas’s “General Department for Security”.
Where controversial issues are involved, the security department often delays
permission indefinitely or refuses it outright, without giving reasons. Capmas
may also delete certain questions from a survey or demand that they be re-
worded.
Whether or not a permit is granted “depends on contacts and the sensitivity of
topics”, according to Reem Saad, an associate professor at the American
University in Cairo, but “certain topics can’t be researched”. For more details,
see the Human Right Watch
report, “Reading between the ‘red lines’: the repression
of academic freedom in Egyptian universities”.
Besides restricting academic work, this also affects opinion pollsters. Region-wide polling, which began in the early 2000s, has been hampered by some
countries refusing permission for questions that they regarded as too
sensitive. A Gallup poll in 2002, for example, included the question: “Do you
believe news reports that Arabs carried out the September 11 attacks?” –
which was forbidden in Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
