NVA in Mid East/ N. Africa - 2009 February 27

Monday, 09 March 2009

Silencing voices in Israel
By: Sharon Weill and Valentina Azarov, thepeoplesvoice.org, February 26, 2009
One of the main issues raised during the recent conflict in the Gaza Strip -- apart from a considerable number of allegations of violations of international humanitarian law that will not be dealt with here -- concerns the functioning of rule of law in Israel in cases regarding the freedoms of expression, opinion and access to information. The state did all that was in its power (and far beyond) to silence the voices that opposed the government's policies and operations in Gaza.
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Egypt: Philip Rizk's four days in detention
By: Lasto Adri, Global Voices, February 25, 2009
A day after publishing "Egypt: More activists and bloggers arrested" on Global Voices Online, news of Philip Rizk's detention spread like wildfire around the world - and the blogger and activist was finally released.
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Egypt: Police crack down on student demonstration
By: Lasto Adri, Global Voices, February 25, 2009
The 21st of February 1946 marks a shameful memory in the modern Egyptian history. On that day, hundreds of students demonstrating on the movable Abbas Bridge were either shot dead or drowned in the Nile, after British officials ordered to open fire, before finally deciding to open the bridge.
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Student protesters arrested in Iran
By: Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post, February 25, 2009
Dozens of Iranian students were arrested Monday after they protested a government decision to rebury troops who died in the Iran-Iraq war on the grounds of a Tehran university, Iranian student Web sites reported. The semiofficial Fars News Agency said that "a few people tried to create problems and prevent the burying of the martyrs" but did not mention arrests.
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Iranian women and the Islamic republic
By: Nikki Keddie, Open Democracy, February 25, 2009
The subject of women in Iran since 1979 is a large one, to write about it briefly a challenge. A theme that is relevant to the thirtieth anniversary of the revolution but also long predates it is the importance of the "two cultures" of 20th-century urban Iran regarding women: the popular-bazaar culture and the educated-elite culture; related to this is the unfortunate, but not unique, association of governmental reforms affecting women with autocratic rulers seen as tools of the United States (see "Women in the Middle East: Progress and Backlash", Current History [December 2008]).
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Musical show of unity upsets many in Israel
By: Ethan Bronner, IHT, February 24, 2009
Achinoam Nini, a singer and peace activist, has long stirred controversy here. Known abroad by her stage name, Noa, she has recorded with Arab artists, refused to perform in the occupied West Bank, condemned Israeli settlements there and had concerts canceled because of bomb threats from the extreme right. But lately it is the left that has been angry with Nini.
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U.N. envoy commits to Saharawi self-determination
By: Alfred de Montesquiou, AP, February 23, 2009
The United Nations' new envoy to the Western Sahara on Sunday reasserted the Saharawi people's right to self-determination, a stance that could further complicate negotiations with Morocco, which refuses any such solution to the long-standing conflict. Anch1

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Freed Egyptian dissident vows to fight Mubarak son's succession
By: Emad Mekay, Bloomberg.com, February 19,2009
Ayman Nour, a prominent Egyptian dissident freed from jail yesterday, spoke out in his first press conference against the possibility that aging president Hosni Mubarak will name his own son, Gamal, as his successor. Before Nour was jailed in late 2005, he ran a vigorous presidential election campaign against Mubarak, 80, and criticized the creation of what he said was a dynasty. Egyptian politicians have long speculated that Gamal would be named president when his father left the scene.
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UAE: Atwood pulls out of Dubai festival in censorship protest
By: Alison Flood, The Guardian, February 18, 2009
Margaret Atwood has pulled out of the inauguraul Emirates Airline international festival of literature in the wake of a novelist being blacklisted for potential offence to "cultural sensitivities". Other authors due to appear at the festival, including bestselling children's authors Anthony Horowitz and Lauren Child, are now also reconsidering whether to attend.
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