person:abdel fattah

  • Calling a coup a coup? Egypt’s African Union bid to make inroads in Sudan | MadaMasr
    https://madamasr.com/en/2019/04/22/feature/politics/calling-a-coup-a-coup-egypts-african-union-bid-to-make-inroads-in-sudan

    While the head of the transitional military council that has ruled Sudan since ousting former President Omar al-Bashir announced a “readiness” to hand over power to a civilian government last night, negotiations to usher in the transition to civilian rule in Sudan are at a “deadlock,” sources in the opposition tell Mada Masr.

    Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who sits atop the transitional council, took to television late on Sunday night to announce the military’s willingness to hand over the “reins of government” as early as tomorrow, provided that political forces reached a consensus among themselves and put forth a government they could agree upon.

    Burhan’s speech was roundly rejected by leading member of the opposition Freedom and Change Coalition Wagdi Salih, who spoke at a rally in front of the military headquarters shortly after the lieutenant general’s address, announcing that the opposition would suspend talks with the military council.

    “We were supposed to have a meeting with the military council yesterday to inform them of the choices for the civilian sovereign council, but the council, which is a continuation of the ruling regime, revealed its dark side. The council told us they want to discuss our proposal among another 100 proposals from political parties,” Salih told protesters.

    Sunday’s televised exchange played out against the backdrop of a flurry of meetings held on Saturday, when the African Union Commission chairperson Moussa Faki met with the military and opposition in Khartoum.

  • Settlers ’executed’ a Palestinian, and the Israeli army covered it up, rights group reports - Israel News - Haaretz.com
    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-settlers-executed-a-palestinian-and-idf-covered-it-up-human-rights

    Abed al-Muneim Abdel Fattah. Explained repeatedly to investigators that his son had no family or other problems and was never active in any group. Credit : Alex Levac

    It’s a very busy traffic circle on Highway 60, the major route in the West Bank, between the Hawara checkpoint and the Tapuah settlement intersection, not far from Nablus. As you drive toward the spot, which the Palestinians call Beita Circle and the settlers call Beitot Circle, garbage is piled up along the roadside. This is the industrial zone of the town of Hawara, where there is no industry other than garages and workers’ restaurants that look out onto the highway.

    On April 3, three men, all of them on the way to work, arrived at the traffic circle separately. Only two of them left the site alive. The third was shot to death. The B’Tselem Israeli human rights organization asserted this week that the shooting was an execution and that the Israel Defense Forces destroyed evidence and whitewashed the findings.

    It all happened in a flash. A little before 8:30 A.M., Mohammed Abdel Fattah arrived at the circle. He was 23 years old, married and the father of 7-month-old daughter, on the way from his apartment in his uncle’s house in the village of Beita to his job at the uncle’s brick factory in the village of Jama’in. He had apparently been traveling in a shared taxi. Eyewitnesses saw him standing by the side of the road and smoking two cigarettes, one after the other. What was going on in his mind? What was he planning? What made him act? We are unlikely to know.

    He then crossed the road, to the west. He stood on the shoulder, within touching distance of the vehicles proceeding from north to south, a few meters from the circle, where traffic has to slow down. The road was very busy at that time of the morning. He threw two or three stones, not very big ones, at passing cars, hitting no one.

    Even a visit to the home of Mohammed’s family did not provide an explanation for why he threw the stones. He was not a teenager and had never been arrested. He was married with a child, had a steady job and was on the way to work. A few days earlier he’d been to Israel for the first time in his life; together with his wife he visited Jerusalem and they later ate fish at a restaurant in Jaffa. Perhaps that trip holds the key to what drove the young married father to throw stones or try to stab a settler that morning.

    One of the cars he’d thrown a stone at stopped. It was a white Renault with a blue poster of the Union of Right-Wing Parties displayed in the rear window. The driver was Yehoshua Sherman, from the settlement of Elon Moreh, who was working as a field director for the Union of Right-Wing Parties during the election campaign, which had then entered its final week. A blurry video clip from a security camera shows Sherman’s car, which had been traveling from north to south, stopping. Fifteen seconds later, Sherman gets out of the car and apparently shoots Mohammed Abdel Fattah, who’s seen kneeling behind the vehicle. We don’t know what happened in those 15 seconds – the car blocks the view.

    In the meantime a truck with Israeli plates also stops and the driver gets out. B’Tselem field researchers Salma a-Deb’i and Abdulkarim Sadi cite witnesses as saying that they heard two shots. They think Sherman fired them before leaving his car. Abdel Fattah apparently tried to seek refuge behind a dumpster, which this week was still there, overflowing with refuse, at the edge of the road. A second video clip shows him lying on the road on his stomach, and being turned over onto his back by soldiers trying to ascertain if he was carrying explosives.

    According to the testimonies B’Tselem took from four people, who all saw similar things, the two drivers fired a number of shots from close range even after Abdel Fattah lay wounded on the ground. B’Tselem also claims the Israel Defense Forces deleted footage from security cameras in the area of the shooting of the wounded man. Israeli media reported that “a Palestinian terrorist was shot and subdued by two drivers after trying to stab a father and his daughter near Hawara, south of Nablus.”

    From the B’Tselem report, on its website: “At that point, Abdel Fattah was crouching among the dumpsters. Sherman approached him and fired several more shots at him. A truck driving along the road also stopped, and the driver got out. He came over to stand next to Sherman, and the two men fired several more shots at Abdel Fattah, who was lying wounded on the ground… Abdel Fattah succumbed to his wounds a short while later, at Beilinson Hospital in Israel.”

    One of the shots hit Khaled Hawajba, a young man who works in a nearby store, in the abdomen. He was treated in Rafidiya Hospital in Nablus and discharged a few days later.

    Minutes after the shooting by the two settlers, military jeeps arrived at the scene. The soldiers used stun grenades to disperse the crowd that had begun to gather at the site. According to B’Tselem, immediately afterward a group of about eight soldiers entered two of the nearby businesses to check their security cameras. They dismantled a digital video recorder in one of the stores and left. About 20 minutes later, the soldiers returned to the store, reinstalled the DVR and watched the footage.

    “Two soldiers filmed the screen with their mobile phones. They then erased the footage from the DVR and left,” the B’Tselem report states.

    In one of the clips that was uploaded to social networks in Israel, the photographer can be heard saying in Hebrew: “The terrorist tried to jump onto the Jew’s car and stab him. Our heroic soldiers eliminated him, may his name be blotted out. There are no casualties.”

    After the incident, Sherman told Srugim, a website that calls itself “the home site of the religious sector”: “At Beitot junction a terrorist with a knife jumped on the car and tried to open the door. I got out and as the terrorist tried to go around the car in my direction I subdued him with gunfire with the aid of another resident of a nearby settlement who was driving behind me.”

    The media reported that Sherman’s daughter was in the back seat; the allegation was that Abdel Fattah tried to open the car door and stab her. In the clip B’Tselem attached to its report, her father is seen moving relatively coolly toward the young man who is hiding behind the car. What happened there?

    The human rights group is convinced, on the basis of the accounts it collected, that the shooting continued from close range as the wounded man lay on the ground. Moreover, B’Tselem believes that the two drivers shot Abdel Fattah with no justification, after he had moved away from the car and was kneeling behind the dumpster. According to the organization, the security forces who arrived at the scene made no attempt to arrest the two settlers, quickly dispersed the Palestinians and then proceeded to go to the stores and delete the documentation of the event “to ensure that the truth never comes to light and the shooters would not face any charges or be held accountable in any way.”

    It was reported this week that the Samaria Regional Council has decided to award citations to the two settler-shooters.

    The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit this week sent Haaretz this response: “On April 3, 2019 there was an attempted stabbing attack at the Beitot junction, which is [within the purview of] the Samaria Division of the IDF Central Command. The terrorist was shot by citizens and subdued after he threw stones at Israeli cars and then approached one of the cars in order to perpetrate a stabbing attack in the area. At the site of the incident a knife used by the terrorist was found. We would like to point out that the cameras that were dismantled by the security forces as part of their investigation of the incident were returned to their owners. The incident is under investigation.”

    Khirbet Qeis. A small village below the town of Salfit, in the central West Bank, where Abdel Fattah’s parents live. His father, Abed al-Muneim Abdel Fattah, 50, is a night watchman in Ramallah, who has five other children in addition to Mohammed. The house is well kept. Mohammed, the eldest, completed high school, but “regrettably,” his father says, he did not pursue his studies and went to work. In October 2017, he married his cousin, Rada Awadala, from the village of Ein Ariq, near Ramallah, and their daughter Jawan was born last fall. They visited every second Friday, rotating weekends between Rada’s parents in Ein Ariq and Mohammed’s in Khirbet Qeis.

    On the last Friday of Mohammed’s life they were at the home of his in-laws. The next day, when he and Rada went on an organized tour to Jerusalem and Jaffa, they left Jawan with her maternal grandparents. When they got back, Rada went to her parents’ home to collect the baby and stayed there for a few days. Mohammed remained alone in their apartment in Beita, close to his place of work.

    Mohammed’s father was on the job in Ramallah the day his son died. A relative called to inform him that Mohammed had been wounded. Shortly afterward, a Shin Bet security service agent called and ordered him to come to the IDF base at Hawara, Abed tells us now. The agent informed him that his son had tried to stab a soldier and afterward corrected himself to say that his son had thrown stones. The father replied that it was unimaginable for his son to have done that.

    Abed was asked in his interrogation whether Mohammed had been active in any sort of movement, whether anyone had tried to persuade him to throw stones or carry out a stabbing attack, whether he suffered from mental problems or problems at home or at work, or whether perhaps he’d quarreled with his wife. The father replied that his son had no family or other problems and was never active in any group. The interrogator repeated the questions twice, then a third time.

    At this point Abed still didn’t yet know that his son was dead. The Shin Bet agent said he’d been wounded and taken to Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva. He recommended that Abed get in touch with the Palestinian District Coordination and Liaison Office to arrange an entry permit to visit his son in Israel. Finally the agent said to the father, “From now on, you and your children are under surveillance. Dir balak [Watch your step]. Take this as a warning, as a red light. Anyone who lifts his head – we’ll cut it off.”

    Abed was at the base in Hawara for nearly three hours. By the time he got home, almost the whole village had gathered next to his house, and he understood that his son was dead. The social networks said he had been killed by settlers.

    Why was he throwing stones, we asked. Abed: “I don’t believe he did anything like that. He was on the way to work. But even if he did, sometimes the settlers provoke people who are standing on the road, spit at them or curse them or try to run them over. Even if he threw stones, by then he wasn’t endangering anyone. After all, the law says that it’s forbidden to shoot someone who is lying on the ground. Arrest him. But why did you kill him?”

    Israel has not yet returned Mohammed Abdel Fattah’s body; all the family’s efforts to claim it have been rebuffed. His grave has already been dug in the village’s small cemetery. There’s a mound of earth there now, but the grave is empty.

    https://seenthis.net/messages/771991

  • L’Arabie saoudite aurait-il forcé El-Béchir à partir ? – Site de la chaîne AlManar-Liban
    http://french.almanar.com.lb/1322598

    Moins de 24 heures après sa nomination à la tête du Conseil militaire de transition au Soudan, le général Ibn Auf a démissionné à la surprise générale vendredi soir 12 avril. Il a été remplacé par l’ancien chef d’état-major Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman Burhan.

    Les médias « mainstream » en sont désormais à voir à travers lui un « personnage plus consensuel » surtout qu’il n’est pas connu du grand public et qu’on ne lui connait aucune appartenance politique, souligne l’AFP qui affirme qu’il n’est pas issu du parti au pouvoir. Certains commentateurs n’ont cessé de souligner le rôle joué par l’axe Riyad-Le Caire-Abou Dhabi dans le renversement du général El-Béchir, hypothèse qui, vu les événements en cours en Libye, pourrait ne pas être totalement dénuée de sens. Al-Binna retient cette piste.

    Selon al-Binna, journal libanais, les récentes évolutions au Soudan semblent avoir été au moins en partie orchestré par Riyad qui souhaite exploiter l’armée régulière soudanaise dans le sens de leurs propres intérêts. Sous l’intitulé, « D’Hormuz à Gibraltar et en Corne de l’Afrique… l’Amérique est derrière la porte », le journal écrit :

    (...) Le quotidien évoque ensuite le rôle joué par le prince saoudien Mohammed ben Salmane dans les récentes évolutions au Soudan et écrit : « Le coup d’État au Soudan a eu lieu très probablement suite à une série de coordinations entre le prince saoudien Mohammed ben Salmane et le ministre soudanais de la Défense Aouad Ibn Aouf qui s’était rendu, quelques jours auparavant avant le coup de force, à Riyad pour prendre part à une réunion de “l’OTAN arabe”. En effet, le coup d’État au Soudan constitue en effet un pas préventif destiné à étouffer tout autre mouvement de protestation de nature populaire dont le succès pourrait entraîner la fin de l’implication des mercenaires soudanais largement impliqués dans les conflits au Yémen et ce, au profit de l’Arabie saoudite ».

    L’Arabie saoudite, disposant d’une armée désintégrée aux faibles capacités militaires, vise effectivement à bénéficier de l’absence d’Omar el-Béchir, qui s’opposait à l’engagement militaire « trop vaste » de son pays dans les conflits au Yémen bien que les mercenaires soudanais se battent depuis longtemps contre les forces yéménites. Riyad croit pouvoir désormais compter sur l’armée régulière soudanaise, l’une des plus puissantes de toute l’Afrique et la déployer plus efficacement contre les forces yéménites qui continuent à avancer sur tous les fronts et progressent même dans le sud de l’Arabie saoudite. Ce plan B intéresserait Riyad qui commence à perdre le soutien de ses alliés occidentaux à sa guerre génocidaire. Mais avec l’appui soudanais, l’Arabie saoudite pourrait-elle changer la donne ?

    #arabie_saoudite #soudan

  • Egyptian pro-democracy activist free after 5 years in prison
    https://www.citynews1130.com/2019/03/28/egyptian-pro-democracy-activist-free-after-5-years-in-prison

    The lawyer and family of one of Egypt’s most prominent pro-democracy activists, Alaa Abdel-Fattah, say he has been released from prison after serving a five-year sentence for taking part in protests.

    His sisters, Mona and Sanaa Seif, posted on Facebook on Friday that “Alaa is out,” along with a video of him at home, playing with a dog.

    His lawyer, Khaled Ali, confirmed the release by posting: “Thanks God, Alaa Abdel-Fattah at home.”

    Abdel-Fattah was sentenced to five years for taking part in a peaceful demonstration in 2013 after the military’s ouster of Egypt’s freely elected but controversial Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

    His imprisonment was part of a wider crackdown on the pro-democracy movement that began with the 2011 uprising that toppled long-time President Hosni Mubarak.

    #égypte #alaa_abdel-fattah

    • Égypte : libération d’Alaa Abdel Fattah, figure de la révolution de 2011
      Par RFI Publié le 29-03-2019 - Avec notre correspondant au Caire,Alexandre Buccianti
      http://www.rfi.fr/moyen-orient/20190329-egypte-liberation-alaa-abdel-fattah-figure-revolution-2011

      Le militant de gauche et blogueur Alaa Abdel Fattah a été libéré dans la nuit de jeudi à vendredi, a annoncé sa famille. Il avait été arrêté en novembre 2013 lors d’une manifestation contre les militaires.

      « Alaa Abdel Fattah est sur l’asphalte. Mabrouk ! » C’est ainsi que des milliers d’internautes ont accueilli l’annonce de la libération du célèbre blogueur, toujours suivi par plus de sept cent mille personnes sur Twitter malgré des années de silence. Abdel Fattah avait été arrêté en novembre 2013 lors d’une manifestation pour abroger le jugement de civils par des tribunaux militaires dans le projet de Constitution. Libéré sous caution, celui qui avait remporté plusieurs prix internationaux, a été condamné à cinq années de prison en 2014.

  • Egypt. Judicial officials: Constitutional amendments final battleground in struggle for judicial independence | MadaMasr
    https://madamasr.com/en/2019/02/21/feature/politics/judicial-officials-constitutional-amendments-final-battleground-in-struggl

    In a meeting with Middle Eastern and North African general prosecutors in Cairo on Wednesday, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi once again stressed the importance of judicial independence, asserting that “no one can interfere with the work of the judiciary.”

    Yet critics say a set of constitutional amendments making its way through Egypt’s Parliament does precisely that.

    Last week, Parliament voted overwhelmingly to advance the amendments, the primary focus of which have been changes that would allow Sisi to extend his term in office until 2034. But the proposed amendments also include a number of other controversial changes, not least of which are revisions to articles that could further undermine judicial independence and erode the separation of powers by giving the president tighter control over the judiciary.

  • Saudi Arabia Declares War on America’s Muslim Congresswomen – Foreign Policy
    https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/11/saudi-arabia-declares-war-on-americas-muslim-congresswomen

    The rise of politicians like El-Sayed, Omar, and Tlaib also undermines a core argument advanced by dictators in the Middle East: that their people are not ready for democracy. “People would not have access to power in their countries but they would if they leave; this destroys the argument by Sisi or bin Salman,” El-Sayed said, referring to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “What’s ironic is there is no way I would aspire to be in leadership in Egypt, the place of my fathers.”

    American allies in the region also fear that the Democratic Party’s new Arab leaders will advocate for political change in their countries. Having spent millions of dollars for public relations campaigns in Western capitals, the Persian Gulf countries feel threatened by any policymakers with an independent interest in and knowledge of the region. They have thus framed these officials’ principled objections to regional violations of human rights and democratic norms as matters of personal bias. One commentator, who is known to echo government talking points and is frequently retweeted by government officials, recently spread the rumor that Omar is a descendent of a “Houthi Yemeni” to undermine her attacks on the Saudi-led war on Yemen.

    The most common attack online by the Saudi-led bloc on the Muslim-American Democrats has been to label them as members of the Muslim Brotherhood, or more generally as ikhwanji, an extremist catch-all term. These attacks started long before this year’s elections. In 2014, the UAE even announced a terror list that included the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for its alleged links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

    The attacks attempting to tie Omar and Tlaib to the Muslim Brotherhood started in earnest after CAIR publicly welcomed their election to Congress. One UAE-based academic, Najat al-Saeed, criticized Arabic media for celebrating the two Muslim women’s victories at the midterms, and pointed to CAIR’s support for them as evidence of their ties to the Brotherhood.

  • Egypt. Regeni lawyer discloses names of Egyptian suspects in murder case | MadaMasr
    https://madamasr.com/en/2018/12/06/feature/politics/regeni-lawyer-discloses-names-of-egyptian-suspects-in-murder-case

    The lawyer representing the family of Giulio Regeni says she has compiled a list of at least 20 people suspected of involvement in the death of the Italian PhD student, who was tortured and killed in Egypt nearly three years ago.

    Alessandra Ballerini made the comments at a press conference in Rome on Wednesday alongside Regeni’s parents and their supporters. She said the list was based on an extensive investigation with a legal team in Egypt, and that most of the suspects were generals and colonels in the Interior Ministry’s National Security Agency (NSA).

    “It is very unlikely that President [Abdel Fattah al-]Sisi was unaware of what was going on,” Ballerini said.

    Regeni, a PhD candidate who was researching independent trade unions in Egypt, disappeared from a metro station on January 25, 2016 — the fifth anniversary of the 2011 revolution — while on his way to meet a friend in downtown Cairo. His body was found several days later, bearing marks of severe torture, on the side of a highway on the outskirts of the city.

    Among the names Ballerini identified were the five Egyptian security officials Rome prosecutors placed under official investigation on Tuesday. They include Major General Tarek Saber, a senior official at the NSA at the time of Regeni’s death, who retired in 2017; Major Sherif Magdy, who also served at the NSA where he was in charge of the team that placed Regini under surveillance; Colonel Hesham Helmy, who served at a security center in charge of policing the Cairo district where Regeni lived; Colonel Asser Kamal, who was the head of a police department in charge of street works and discipline; and junior police officer Mahmoud Negm, according to the Associated Press.

    “These people should fear being arrested when they travel abroad because they murdered an Italian citizen,” Ballerini said.

  • Egypt. Regeni lawyer discloses names of Egyptian suspects in murder case | MadaMasr
    https://madamasr.com/en/2018/12/06/feature/politics/regeni-lawyer-discloses-names-of-egyptian-suspects-in-murder-case

    The lawyer representing the family of Giulio Regeni says she has compiled a list of at least 20 people suspected of involvement in the death of the Italian PhD student, who was tortured and killed in Egypt nearly three years ago.

    Alessandra Ballerini made the comments at a press conference in Rome on Wednesday alongside Regeni’s parents and their supporters. She said the list was based on an extensive investigation with a legal team in Egypt, and that most of the suspects were generals and colonels in the Interior Ministry’s National Security Agency (NSA).

    “It is very unlikely that President [Abdel Fattah al-]Sisi was unaware of what was going on,” Ballerini said.

    Regeni, a PhD candidate who was researching independent trade unions in Egypt, disappeared from a metro station on January 25, 2016 — the fifth anniversary of the 2011 revolution — while on his way to meet a friend in downtown Cairo. His body was found several days later, bearing marks of severe torture, on the side of a highway on the outskirts of the city.

    Among the names Ballerini identified were the five Egyptian security officials Rome prosecutors placed under official investigation on Tuesday. They include Major General Tarek Saber, a senior official at the NSA at the time of Regeni’s death, who retired in 2017; Major Sherif Magdy, who also served at the NSA where he was in charge of the team that placed Regini under surveillance; Colonel Hesham Helmy, who served at a security center in charge of policing the Cairo district where Regeni lived; Colonel Asser Kamal, who was the head of a police department in charge of street works and discipline; and junior police officer Mahmoud Negm, according to the Associated Press.

    “These people should fear being arrested when they travel abroad because they murdered an Italian citizen,” Ballerini said.

  • COMMENT LES DIRIGEANTS ARABES BASCULENT-ILS DANS LA DICTATURE ?
    (Le Monde Arabe-Sébastien BOUSSOIS-2018-12-03

    A entendre parler tous les jours de Mohamed ben Salman, depuis les débuts de l’affaire Khashoggi et la prise de conscience internationale (tardive) de la guerre menée contre le Yémen depuis quatre ans, on finit par oublier qu’à une époque, le jeune leader saoudien était moins présent dans les médias. Non pas que ces derniers saturaient, mais il y a quelques mois, personne ne savait où avait disparu le prince héritier saoudien, après la fusillade violente survenue le 21 avril 2018, dans son palais à Riyad. Pendant plus d’un mois, celui que l’on surnomme MBS s’était claquemuré, de quoi générer toute sorte de spéculations hasardeuses. Du moins, les médias occidentaux le pensaient-ils.

    Prix du trône

    Certains titres de presse affirmaient ainsi que le fils du roi Salman avait été touché mortellement. Tandis que, pour d’autres, la purge du Ritz-Carlton, fin 2017, avait généré encore plus d’ennemis, pour le prince héritier, qu’auparavant dans ses propres rangs. Une telle attaque étant dès lors à prévoir. Depuis le selfie de MBS entouré de Mohamed VI et Saad Hariri, à Paris, plus aucune information ou preuve qu’il était toujours vivant n’avait émané d’Arabie saoudite. Pourtant, fin avril, il inaugurait le début des travaux de la Cité du Divertissement (Qiddya), un nouveau hub dédié à l’entertainement et à la culture à Riyad. Certaines sources diplomatiques, de leur côté, de renseigner que le 22 mai, MBS et le président français, Emmanuel Macron, avaient échangé par téléphone. Au sujet, surtout, de la crise générée par le retrait de Washington de l’accord sur le nucléaire iranien et de la guerre au Yémen.

    Le monde entier spéculait encore jusqu’au jour où un cliché de MBS avec le président égyptien, Abdel Fattah al-Sissi – qui aurait pu être pris n’importe où et n’importe quand… -, a ressurgi. Et calmé les esprits. L’Occident avait enfin retrouvé la trace du prince. Qui n’avait jamais, jusqu’alors, connu pareille menace. Cette attaque au palais a été, depuis, largement occultée. Mais c’est à cette époque, probablement, qu’il a commencé à développer un puissant sentiment de paranoïa, accompagné d’une dose de réflexe de survie et de protection de sa personne. A tout prix et coûte que coûte. Quitte à ne même plus hésiter à liquider ses adversaires les plus farouches, comme Jamal Khashoggi, dont il se « contentait » de faire les poches pour leur extorquer quelques milliards et les contrôler. Le prix du trône à venir ?

    Avidité de pouvoir

    Ce n’est pas la première fois, loin de là, qu’un dirigeant arabe suscite tant de convoitises, mais aussi de haines. Et se voit menacé de mort. Ce n’est pas la première fois non plus qu’un dirigeant arabe bascule dans la dictature, à partir du moment où il se sent physiquement directement menacé. Saddam Hussein, ancien président d’Irak, a lui aussi été la victime d’une tentative d’assassinat en 1996. Problème : dans le second cas comme dans le premier, comment avoir la certitude que de tels actes ont véritablement existé ?A l’époque, alors que la CIA cherchait à déstabiliser l’homme fort de Bagdad, l’argument du complot et de la tentative de meurtre revêtait un certain intérêt : justifier le renforcement de ses pleins pouvoirs. Qu’il n’avait pas hésité à utiliser, d’ailleurs, pour faire arrêter et exécuter plusieurs centaines d’officiers soupçonnés d’avoir participé au complot.
    MBS ne manque déjà pas de « proximité » avec l’ancien dirigeant irakien, qui se radicalisait un peu plus à chaque menace pesant sur son siège. Avidité de pouvoir, quête obsessionnelle de leadership régional, ingérence dans les affaires de ses voisins, persécution des chiites, chez eux au Bahreïn et au Yémen, etc. En prenant le pouvoir en 1979, le président-dictateur aspirait non seulement à faire de son pays la première puissance militaire du Moyen-Orient, mais également à devenir le leader du monde arabe. Et, comme le prince héritier aujourd’hui – qui a la main sur la défense et l’économie du royaume -, Saddam Hussein concentrait également tous les pouvoirs en étant chef d’Etat, chef de gouvernement et chef des armées.

    Capacités nucléaires

    La surenchère va bon train. Et plus MBS affiche un visage cynique, plus il continue à être invité partout, semble-t-il. La preuve : son récent circuit diplomatique, fin novembre, pour tenter de faire oublier l’assassinat du journaliste saoudien et la guerre désastreuse au Yémen. Une véritable « résurrection », qui n’est pas sans rappeler celle du roi du Maroc Hassan II, après deux tentatives d’assassinat contre sa personne, en 1971 et 1972, lors de putschs ratés. Le monarque, père de l’actuel roi du Maroc, Mohammed VI, en sort renforcé, dans son culte de la personnalité notamment. Mais, revers de la médaille, la paranoïa envers toute opposition qui pourrait fomenter un complot contre lui le gagne. C’est le début des années de plomb (de 1970 à sa mort), où une violence et une répression sans précédent à l’égard de toute opposition sévira comme jamais. Et dépassera largement le cadre de la « disparition » de son opposant numéro 1, Mehdi ben Barka, en 1965.

    La crainte, à présent, est de voir MBS ressembler de plus en plus à Saddam Hussein. Effrayant, surtout lorsque l’on sait que certains seraient prêts à lui confier des capacités nucléaires – civiles pour commencer. Mais il n’est que le reflet de la personnalité de nombreux dirigeants arabes, qui ont fait de la personnalisation du pouvoir une marque de fabrique. Attenter au raïs, ainsi, c’est attenter au pays. Saddam Hussein et Hassan II en sont les preuves « vivantes ». Va-t-on marquer cette date du 21 avril 2018, sur le calendrier géopolitique du Golfe, comme le catalyseur de la dérive autoritaire du prince héritier, afin d’y mettre un terme ? Ou va-t-on, au contraire, y assister en simple spectateur – ce qui est le cas aujourd’hui ? Pour rappel, c’est ce sentiment de toute puissance qui a contribué à faire du Yémen « la pire crise humanitaire du monde », selon les Nations unies.

  • Égypte. Obama, ce « laquais » des Frères musulmans – Salimsellami’s Blog
    https://salimsellami.wordpress.com/2018/11/20/egypte-obama-ce-laquais-des-freres-musulmans
    https://orientxxi.info/local/cache-responsive/cache-360/cd917f1e91dd186847fb03aff7f9932f.jpg?1538648598

    L’administration de Barack Obama s’est divisée face aux bouleversements qui, de manière inattendue, ont menacé l’ordre régional ancien à partir de l’hiver 2011-2012. La secrétaire d’État Hillary Clinton souhaitait soutenir jusqu’au bout le président Hosni Moubarak, alors qu’Obama, très isolé au sein de son gouvernement, pensait le contraire. Mais, au-delà de ces différences, la défense des intérêts américains était le point qui les rassemblait, et la démocratie n’était pas une préoccupation prioritaire. Comme l’explique à l’auteur un haut fonctionnaire du département d’État, « on a penché en faveur d’une transition dirigée par Moubarak. Quand ça n’a pas marché, on s’est prononcé pour Omar Suleiman1, et quand cette idée a été abandonnée, on s’est dit, “d’accord, travaillons avec le Conseil supérieur des forces armées2 ”. » L’objectif étant de garder le contact avec les autorités et surtout avec l’armée égyptienne, garante de la paix avec Israël.

    Que pensait le gouvernement américain des Frères musulmans ? Au printemps 2011, le département d’État ne connaissait personne dans ce qui allait devenir le bloc politique égyptien le plus influent ! Comme le raconte un membre du Conseil de sécurité nationale à l’auteur : « Nous ne savions rien ! Les conseillers de Mme Clinton au département d’État et le personnel du bureau égyptien au Conseil de sécurité nationale ont rédigé un câble demandant officiellement à l’ambassade du Caire d’entrer en contact avec les Frères musulmans. »Mais il fallut encore un mois pour que les diplomates obtempèrent.

    UN DOUBLE PARI DE WASHINGTON
    Ces premiers contacts ne furent pas très fructueux, et nombre de responsables politiques, militaires ou du renseignement américains craignaient l’élection de Mohamed Morsi. Le deuxième tour de l’élection en juin 2012 donna lieu à de virulentes discussions internes, d’autant que le très influent réseau saoudien et émirati à Washington était favorable à son adversaire Ahmed Chafik. « De nombreux membres de l’armée et des services de renseignement américains craignaient la perspective d’un président islamiste en Égypte, relate Kirkpatrick. Mais étant donné la piètre performance des généraux [depuis février 2011], une victoire truquée de Chafik ne semblait garantir qu’un chaos continu. » Il cite Ben Rhodes, un proche conseiller d’Obama qui assistait à une réunion du Conseil de sécurité nationale : « On pouvait voir que beaucoup de gens dans la salle penchaient pour Chafik. Mais même ces gens ne pouvaient pas accepter que nous agissions contre l’autre gars (Morsi) qui avait gagné une élection libre. »

    Le double pari de Washington — en tout cas celui de la Maison Blanche — était que les Frères musulmans, le plus puissant parti et le mieux organisé d’Égypte, pourraient engager les réformes économiques nécessaires et rétablir la stabilité ; le second était que le soutien de facto de Morsi aux accords de paix israélo-égyptiens renforcerait l’influence américaine. Si le second pari a été gagné, le premier a échoué.                                                                

    Un test grandeur nature vint après l’offensive d’Israël contre Gaza et le Hamas en novembre 2012. Obama entra directement en contact avec Morsi et ce dernier lui promit d’amener le Hamas à la table des négociations. Ben Rhodes se souvient : « Les pourparlers de cessez-le-feu étaient dans l’impasse avant que Morsi n’intervienne […] Et il a tenu ses engagements […] Il a respecté sa part du marché […] Il a surpris même les sceptiques. »

    « C’était un test décisif pour Morsi, et il l’a passé avec brio, se souvient Steven Simon du Conseil de sécurité nationale. […] Il était indispensable. » La récompense ne tarda pas, Hillary Clinton en personne se rendit au Caire le 21 novembre pour annoncer le cessez-le-feu et remercier Morsi « pour avoir assumé le leadership qui a longtemps fait de ce pays une pierre angulaire de la stabilité et de la paix dans la région ». Et quand le conseiller de politique étrangère de Morsi, Essam Al-Haddad se rendit à Washington quelques semaines plus tard, il fut surpris d’obtenir une audience impromptue avec le président Obama lui-même. Ces événements eurent une double conséquence : alimenter en Égypte une campagne sur le soi-disant soutien d’Obama aux Frères musulmans ; convaincre Morsi qu’il disposait du soutien de l’administration américaine qui empêcherait toute intervention de l’armée contre lui : la suite allait lui montrer son erreur.

    Car le pouvoir de Morsi, au-delà de sa propre incompétence, de ses erreurs et de son sectarisme, faisait face à une campagne régionale bien organisée, relayée par des cercles influents au sein de l’administration américaine. « En avril 2013, note Kirkpatrick, le réseau satellitaire basé aux Émirats — Sky News Arabia, Al Arabiya en Arabie saoudite et d’autres médias égyptiens liés aux Émirats dénonçaient un prétendu complot américain pour amener les Frères au pouvoir, avec l’ambassadrice Patterson comme chef de file […] [Ils] étaient pleins d’accusations selon lesquelles elle était un “laquais” des Frères, une “vieille sorcière” ou un “ogre”[…] Ils affirmaient que l’ambassadrice avait fait pression sur le gouvernement égyptien pour truquer l’élection présidentielle. » Le tout étant le résultat d’un « grand complot », au profit… d’Israël ! Comme le rappelle Rhodes à l’auteur, « les alliés des États-Unis ont financé une campagne de dénigrement contre l’ambassadrice des États-Unis dans un pays qui est l’un des plus grands bénéficiaires de l’aide des États-Unis pour renverser le gouvernement démocratiquement élu de ce pays ».

    PAS DE DIFFÉRENCE ENTRE AL-QAIDA ET LES FRÈRES MUSULMANS
    Mais cette campagne n’aurait pas eu un tel impact si elle n’avait pas disposé de relais influents à Washington, si elle n’avait pas été alimentée par les activités des ambassades saoudienne et émiratie. Au Pentagone, nombre de responsables ne cachaient pas leur haine de tout ce qui est musulman. Le général James Mattis, chef du Central Command, responsable de toutes les opérations au Proche-Orient, en Asie centrale et du Sud-Est (il deviendra secrétaire d’État à la défense du président Donald Trump) pensait que les Frères musulmans et Al-Qaida représentaient plus ou moins le même courant. Et Michael Flynn, directeur de l’agence du renseignement de la défense (DIA), qualifiait l’islam de « cancer » et avait développé des relations étroites avec celui qui n’était encore que le ministre de la défense, le général Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi. Flynn fut limogé par Obama en août 2014 et sera, brièvement, conseiller national à la sécurité de Trump.

    Comme le note l’auteur, « les divisions au sein du gouvernement américain devenaient évidentes pour les diplomates et les militaires de la région. Obama et une partie de la Maison-Blanche espéraient que Morsi réussirait ; beaucoup au Pentagone, comme Mattis et Flynn, étaient d’accord avec leurs homologues égyptiens et émiratis que Morsi était un danger. La schizophrénie américaine était si visible que les généraux égyptiens s’en sont plaints auprès de leurs contacts au Pentagone ». Et ils ont compris qu’ils pourraient agir contre le pouvoir élu sans représailles américaines.

    En janvier 2013, Obama nomme Chuck Hagel, un sénateur républicain, au secrétariat d’État à la défense. Celui-ci se rend en Égypte avec comme instructions de prévenir Sissi que tout coup d’État provoquerait l’arrêt de l’aide militaire américaine. Mais, à la fois du fait de ses convictions, et des pressions saoudiennes, émiraties et israéliennes, Hagel n’en fit rien, si l’on en croit Kirkpatrick.

    Dès le printemps 2013, l’ensemble des organisations de renseignement américaines informèrent Washington qu’un coup d’État était en préparation, « mais personne au Pentagone, au département d’État, à la Maison Blanche ne dit à Sissi de s’arrêter ni n’expliqua à Morsi que Sissi s’était retourné contre lui »(étonnamment, presque jusqu’au bout Morsi fit confiance à son ministre de la défense).

    ISRAËL AVEC LES PUTSCHISTES
    Le 3 juillet 2013, l’armée égyptienne franchissait le Rubicon et Morsi était mis sous les verrous. Le lendemain, Obama convoquait une réunion du Conseil national de sécurité. À la surprise de ses conseillers, le président refusa de qualifier les événements de « coup d’État », ce qui aurait entraîné ipso facto la suspension de l’aide militaire américaine. John Kerry, secrétaire d’État depuis décembre 2012, abonda dans son sens. Il expliquera plus tard à l’auteur que « Sissi s’était incliné devant la volonté populaire et agissait pour sauver l’Égypte. Les généraux affirmaient qu’ils avaient destitué Morsi pour éviter une implosion et établir la primauté du droit, et non dans le but de gouverner. Ils prétendaient qu’ils allaient adopter une feuille de route permettant le recours aux élections ».

    Israël joua un rôle non négligeable dans ces choix, comme l’explique Hagel à Kirkpatrick : « (Les Israéliens) me disaient, c’est notre sécurité et [Sissi] garantit la meilleure relation que nous ayons jamais eue avec les Égyptiens. Et ils intervenaient auprès du Congrès ». Le sénateur Rand Paul, républicain du Kentucky, avait présenté un projet de loi visant à mettre fin à l’aide militaire à l’Égypte en raison du coup d’État. L’American Israel Public Affairs Committee — plus connu sous l’acronyme AIPAC — écrivit à tous les sénateurs en faisant valoir que toute réduction de l’aide « pourrait accroître l’instabilité en Égypte, miner d’importants intérêts américains et avoir un impact négatif sur notre allié israélien ». Le Sénat vota par 86 voix contre 13 la poursuite de l’aide.

    Cet appui d’Israël et du lobby pro-israélien au régime égyptien confirmait la fragilité et la dépendance du président Siss, malgré ses rodomontades ultra nationalistes, et diminuait le poids que pouvait avoir l’Égypte pour trouver une solution au conflit israélo-palestinien. Comme le rapporte l’auteur, « le 21 février 2016, le secrétaire d’État Kerry a convoqué un sommet secret à Aqaba, en Jordanie, avec Sissi, le roi Abdallah de Jordanie et le premier ministre israélien Benjamin Nétanyahou. Une partie de l’ordre du jour était un accord régional pour que l’Égypte garantisse la sécurité d’Israël dans le cadre de la création d’un État palestinien. Nétanyahou tourna la proposition en ridicule. Qu’est-ce que Sissi pouvait offrir à Israël ? s’interrogea-t-il, selon deux Américains impliqués dans les pourparlers. Sissi dépendait d’Israël pour contrôler son propre territoire, pour sa propre survie. Sissi avait besoin de Nétanyahou ; Nétanyahou n’avait pas besoin de Sissi. » Nétanyahou savait que, loin d’apporter une solution au « terrorisme », le coup d’État du 3 juillet 2013 avait marqué le début d’une insurrection dans le Sinaï, sous la direction d’un groupe qui rallia en 2015 l’organisation de l’État islamique (OEI) ; l’armée égyptienne était incapable de la juguler et Israël dut intervenir plusieurs fois militairement pour aider les militaires égyptiens. On était loin des rodomontades ultranationalistes du Caire.

    Il fallut le massacre de près d’un millier de civils à Rabaa au mois d’août 2013 pour que les États-Unis réagissent. D’abord en reportant les manœuvres militaires conjointes américano-égyptiennes, ensuite, au mois d’octobre, en suspendant l’aide militaire de 1,3 milliard de dollars (1,58 milliards d’euros). Mais il était trop tard, d’autant que de puissantes forces se faisaient entendre à Washington contre ces orientations : le Pentagone ne désignait plus les conseillers du président que comme « les djihadistes de la Maison Blanche » ou « le caucus des Frères musulmans ». Rapidement, Obama rétablit l’aide militaire. Washington tirait un trait sur la démocratie en Égypte.

    Du livre se dégage le portrait finalement peu flatteur d’un président Obama velléitaire, incapable d’imposer ses choix à sa propre administration, et pour qui la démocratie n’est sûrement pas une composante majeure de la politique étrangère des États-Unis. Avec des conséquences graves. Comme l’explique Mohamad Soltan, un Égypto-Américain membre des Frères emprisonné par la junte avant d’être expulsé vers les États-Unis : « La seule chose qu’ont en commun tous ceux qui sont en prison — les gars de l’État islamique, les Frères musulmans, les libéraux, les gardes, les officiers — c’est qu’ils haïssent tous l’Amérique. » On se demande pourquoi…         

    ALAIN GRESH

  • Palestinian ’geeks’ code their way to a better future in Gaza | Israeli–Palestinian conflict | Al Jazeera
    https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/palestinian-geeks-code-future-gaza-181110115605269.html

    Gaza is home to roughly 2 million people and experiences one of the highest unemployment rates in the world - more than 50 percent are without work.

    The unemployment is a product of its isolation. Gaza has been under an Israeli blockade, assisted by Egypt under the governments of former President Hosni Mubarak and current leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, since 2007.

    But Gazans are finding opportunities beyond the besieged strip. There is a rise in entrepreneurial start-ups and tech accelerators, providing residents of the strip with outside opportunities previously unavailable.

    GSG’s coding school was established in 2017 with funding from the likes of Google and London-based coding boot camp Founders & Coders. It aims to empower students to be full-stack developers, which means they will be able to handle software building for mobile, computer and web.

    #gaza #palestine #tic_arabes

  • Report: Netanyahu asked Trump to stick with Saudi crown prince after Khashoggi murder - Middle East News - Haaretz.com
    https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/netanyahu-asked-trump-to-stick-with-saudi-crown-prince-after-khashoggi-murd

    WASHINGTON - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked senior officials in the Trump White House to continue supporting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman following the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.

    Citing U.S. officials, the report stated that Netanyahu described the Crown Prince as a “strategic ally” in the Middle East.

    The report said that a similar message was conveyed to the White House by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi.

  • The Real Reasons Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Wanted Khashoggi ‘Dead or Alive’
    https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-real-reasons-saudi-crown-prince-mohammed-bin-salman-wanted-khasho

    Christopher Dickey 10.21.18
    His death is key to understanding the political forces that helped turn the Middle East from a region of hope seven years ago to one of brutal repression and slaughter today.

    The mind plays strange tricks sometimes, especially after a tragedy. When I sat down to write this story about the Saudi regime’s homicidal obsession with the Muslim Brotherhood, the first person I thought I’d call was Jamal Khashoggi. For more than 20 years I phoned him or met with him, even smoked the occasional water pipe with him, as I looked for a better understanding of his country, its people, its leaders, and the Middle East. We often disagreed, but he almost always gave me fresh insights into the major figures of the region, starting with Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, and the political trends, especially the explosion of hope that was called the Arab Spring in 2011. He would be just the man to talk to about the Saudis and the Muslim Brotherhood, because he knew both sides of that bitter relationship so well.

    And then, of course, I realized that Jamal is dead, murdered precisely because he knew too much.

    Although the stories keep changing, there is now no doubt that 33-year-old Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the power in front of his decrepit father’s throne, had put out word to his minions that he wanted Khashoggi silenced, and the hit-team allegedly understood that as “wanted dead or alive.” But the [petro]buck stops with MBS, as bin Salman’s called. He’s responsible for a gruesome murder just as Henry II was responsible for the murder of Thomas Becket when he said, “Who will rid me of that meddlesome priest?” In this case, a meddlesome journalist.

    We now know that a few minor players will pay. Some of them might even be executed by Saudi headsmen (one already was reported killed in a car crash). But experience also tells us the spotlight of world attention will shift. Arms sales will go ahead. And the death of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi risks becoming just one more entry in the annals of intensifying, murderous repression of journalists who are branded the “enemy of the people” by Donald Trump and various two-bit tyrants around the world.

    There is more to Khashoggi’s murder than the question of press freedom, however. His death holds the key to understanding the political forces that have helped turn the Middle East from a region of hope seven years ago to one of brutal repression and ongoing slaughter today. Which brings us back to the question of the Saudis’ fear and hatred of the Muslim Brotherhood, the regional rivalries of those who support it and those who oppose it, and the game of thrones in the House of Saud itself. Khashoggi was not central to any of those conflicts, but his career implicated him, fatally, in all of them.

    The Muslim Brotherhood is not a benign political organization, but neither is it Terror Incorporated. It was created in the 1920s and developed in the 1930s and ‘40s as an Islamic alternative to the secular fascist and communist ideologies that dominated revolutionary anti-colonial movements at the time. From those other political organizations the Brotherhood learned the values of a tight structure, party discipline, and secrecy, with a public face devoted to conventional political activity—when possible—and a clandestine branch that resorted to violence if that appeared useful.

    In the novel Sugar Street, Nobel Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz sketched a vivid portrait of a Brotherhood activist spouting the group’s political credo in Egypt during World War II. “Islam is a creed, a way of worship, a nation and a nationality, a religion, a state, a form of spirituality, a Holy Book, and a sword,” says the Brotherhood preacher. “Let us prepare for a prolonged struggle. Our mission is not to Egypt alone but to all Muslims worldwide. It will not be successful until Egypt and all other Islamic nations have accepted these Quranic principles in common. We shall not put our weapons away until the Quran has become a constitution for all Believers.”

    For several decades after World War II, the Brotherhood’s movement was eclipsed by Arab nationalism, which became the dominant political current in the region, and secular dictators moved to crush the organization. But the movement found support among the increasingly embattled monarchies of the Gulf, including and especially Saudi Arabia, where the rule of the king is based on his custodianship of Mecca and Medina, the two holiest sites in Islam. At the height of the Cold War, monarchies saw the Brotherhood as a helpful antidote to the threat of communist-led or Soviet-allied movements and ideologies.

    By the 1980s, several of the region’s rulers were using the Brotherhood as a tool to weaken or destroy secular opposition. Egypt’s Anwar Sadat courted them, then moved against them, and paid with his life in 1981, murdered by members of a group originally tied to the Brotherhood. Sadat’s successor, Hosni Mubarak, then spent three decades in power manipulating the Brotherhood as an opposition force, outlawing the party as such, but allowing its known members to run for office in the toothless legislature, where they formed a significant bloc and did a lot of talking.

    Jordan’s King Hussein played a similar game, but went further, giving clandestine support to members of the Brotherhood waging a covert war against Syrian tyrant Hafez al-Assad—a rebellion largely destroyed in 1982 when Assad’s brother killed tens of thousands of people in the Brotherhood stronghold of Hama.

    Even Israel got in on the action, initially giving Hamas, the Brotherhood branch among the Palestinians, tacit support as opposition to the left-leaning Palestine Liberation Organization (although PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat once identified with the Brotherhood himself).

    The Saudi royals, too, thought the Brotherhood could be bought off and manipulated for their own ends. “Over the years the relationship between the Saudis and the Brotherhood ebbed and flowed,” says Lorenzo Vidino, an expert on extremism at George Washington University and one of the foremost scholars in the U.S. studying the Brotherhood’s history and activities.

    Over the decades factions of the Brotherhood, like communists and fascists before them, “adapted to individual environments,” says Vidino. In different countries it took on different characteristics. Thus Hamas, or its military wing, is easily labeled as terrorist by most definitions, while Ennahda in Tunisia, which used to be called terrorist by the ousted Ben Ali regime, has behaved as a responsible political party in a complex democratic environment. To the extent that Jamal Khashoggi identified with the Brotherhood, that was the current he espoused. But democracy, precisely, is what Mohammed bin Salman fears.

    Vidino traces the Saudis’ intense hostility toward the Brotherhood to the uprisings that swept through much of the Arab world in 2011. “The Saudis together with the Emiratis saw it as a threat to their own power,” says Vidino.

    Other regimes in the region thought they could use the Brotherhood to extend their influence. First among these was the powerful government in Turkey of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has such longstanding ties to the Islamist movement that some scholars refer to his elected government as “Brotherhood 2.0.” Also hoping to ride the Brotherhood wave was tiny, ultra-rich Qatar, whose leaders had used their vast natural gas wealth and their popular satellite television channel, Al Jazeera, to project themselves on the world stage and, they hoped, buy some protection from their aggressive Saudi neighbors. As one senior Qatari official told me back in 2013, “The future of Qatar is soft power.” After 2011, Jazeera’s Arabic channel frequently appeared to propagandize in the Brotherhood’s favor as much as, say, Fox News does in Trump’s.

    Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world, and the birthplace of the Brotherhood, became a test case. Although Jamal Khashoggi often identified the organization with the idealistic hopes of the peaceful popular uprising that brought down the Mubarak dynasty, in fact the Egyptian Brotherhood had not taken part. Its leaders had a modus vivendi they understood with Mubarak, and it was unclear what the idealists in Tahrir Square, or the military tolerating them, might do.

    After the dictator fell and elections were called, however, the Brotherhood made its move, using its party organization and discipline, as well as its perennial slogan, “Islam is the solution,” to put its man Mohamed Morsi in the presidential palace and its people in complete control of the government. Or so it thought.

    In Syria, meanwhile, the Brotherhood believed it could and should lead the popular uprising against the Assad dynasty. That had been its role 30 years earlier, and it had paid mightily.

    For more than a year, it looked like the Brotherhood’s various branches might sweep to power across the unsettled Arab world, and the Obama administration, for want of serious alternatives, was inclined to go with the flow.

    But then the Saudis struck back.

    In the summer of 2013, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, the commander of the Egyptian armed forces, led a military coup with substantial popular support against the conspicuously inept Brotherhood government, which had proved quickly that Islam was not really the “solution” for much of anything.

    Al-Sissi had once been the Egyptian military attaché in Riyadh, where he had many connections, and the Saudis quickly poured money into Egypt to shore up his new regime. At the same time, he declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, and launched a campaign of ruthless repression. Within weeks of the coup, the Egyptian military attacked two camps of Brotherhood protesters and slaughtered hundreds.

    In Syria, the efforts to organize a credible political opposition to President Bashar al-Assad proved virtually impossible as the Qataris and Turks backed the Brotherhood while the Saudis continued their vehement opposition. But that does not mean that Riyadh supported moderate secular forces. Far from it. The Saudis still wanted to play a major role bringing down the Syrian regime allied to another arch enemy, the government of Iran. So the Saudis put their weight behind ultra-conservative Salafis, thinking they might be easier to control than the Muslim Brothers.

    Riyadh is “okay with quietist Salafism,” says Vidino. But the Salafis’ religious extremism quickly shaded over into the thinking of groups like the al Qaeda spinoff called the Nusra Front. Amid all the infighting, little progress was made against Assad, and there to exploit the chaos was the so-called Islamic State (which Assad partially supported in its early days).

    Then, in January 2015, at the height of all this regional turmoil, the aged and infirm Salman bin Abdelaziz ascended to the throne of Saudi Arabia. His son, Mohammed bin Salman, began taking into his own hands virtually all the reins of power, making bold decisions about reforming the Saudi economy, taking small measures to give the impression he might liberalize society—and moving to intimidate or otherwise neutralize anyone who might challenge his power.

    Saudi Arabia is a country named after one family, the al Saud, and while there is nothing remotely democratic about the government, within the family itself with its thousands of princes there traditionally has been an effort to find consensus. Every king up to now has been a son of the nation’s founder, Abdelaziz ibn Saud, and thus a brother or half brother of the other kings.

    When Salman took over, he finally named successors from the next generation. His nephew Mohammed bin Nayef, then 57 and well known for his role fighting terrorism, became crown prince. His son, Mohammed bin Salman, became deputy crown prince. But bin Nayef’s position between the king and his favorite son clearly was untenable. As one Saudi close to the royals put it: “Between the onion and the skin there is only the stink.”

    Bin Nayef was pushed out in 2017. The New York Times reported that during an end-of-Ramadan gathering at the palace he “was told he was going to meet the king and was led into another room, where royal court officials took away his phones and pressured him to give up his posts as crown prince and interior minister. … At first, he refused. But as the night wore on, the prince, a diabetic who suffers from the effects of a 2009 assassination attempt by a suicide bomber, grew tired.” Royal court officials meanwhile called around to other princes saying bin Nayef had a drug problem and was unfit to be king.

    Similar pressure was brought to bear on many of the richest and most powerful princes in the kingdom, locked up in the Ritz Carlton hotel in 2017, ostensibly as part of an extra-legal fight against corruption. They were forced to give allegiance to MBS at the same time they were giving up a lot of their money.

    That pattern of coerced allegiance is what the Saudis now admit they wanted from Jamal Khashoggi. He was no prince, but he had been closely associated in the past with the sons of the late King Faisal, particularly Turki al-Faisal, who was for many years the head of the Saudi intelligence apparatus and subsequently served as ambassador to the United Kingdom, then the United States.

    Although Turki always denied he had ambitions to be king, his name often was mentioned in the past as a contender. Thus far he seems to have weathered the rule of MBS, but given the record of the crown prince anyone close to the Al Faisal branch of the family, like Khashoggi, would be in a potentially perilous position.

    Barbara Bodine is a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen, which has suffered mightily since MBS launched a brutal proxy war there against Iran. Both MBS and Trump have declared the regime in Tehran enemy number one in the region. But MBS botched the Yemen operation from the start. It was dubbed “Decisive Storm” when it began in 2015, and was supposed to last only a few weeks, but the war continues to this day. Starvation and disease have spread through Yemen, creating one of the world’s greatest humanitarian disasters. And for the moment, in one of those developments that makes the Middle East so rich in ironies, in Yemen the Saudis are allied with a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

    “What drives MBS is a ruthless effort toward total control domestically and regionally; he is Putin of the Desert,” says Bodine. “He has basically broken the back of the princelings, the religious establishment and the business elite, brought all ministries and agencies of power under his sole control (’I alone can fix it’), and jailed, killed or put under house arrest activists and any and all potential as well as real opposition (including his mother).”

    In 2017, MBS and his backers in the Emirates accused Qatar of supporting “terrorism,” issuing a set of demands that included shutting down Al Jazeera. The Saudis closed off the border and looked for other ways, including military options, to put pressure on the poor little rich country that plays so many angles it has managed to be supportive of the Brotherhood and cozy with Iran while hosting an enormous U.S. military base.

    “It was Qatar’s independent streak—not just who they supported but that they had a foreign policy divorced from the dictates of Riyadh,” says Bodine. “The basic problem is that both the Brotherhood and Iran offer competing Islam-based governing structures that challenge the Saudi model.”

    “Jamal’s basic sin,” says Bodine,“was he was a credible insider, not a fire-breathing radical. He wrote and spoke in English for an American audience via credible mainstream media and was well regarded and highly visible within the Washington chattering classes. He was accessible, moderate and operated within the West. He challenged not the core structure of the Kingdom but the legitimacy of the current rulers, especially MBS.”

    “I do think the game plan was to make him disappear and I suspect the end game was always to make him dead,” said Bodine in a long and thoughtful email. “If he was simply jailed within Saudi there would have been a drumbeat of pressure for his release. Dead—there is certainly a short term cost, whether more than anticipated or longer than anticipated we don’t know yet, but the world will move on. Jamal will become a footnote, a talking point perhaps, but not a crusade. The dismembered body? No funeral. Taking out Jamal also sends a powerful signal to any dissident that there is no place safe.”

    #Arabie_Saoudite #Turquie #politique #terrorisme #putsch

  • A relire

    Wikileaks: Egyptian media and journalists go to Saudi for financing | MadaMasr
    https://madamasr.com/en/2015/07/05/feature/politics/wikileaks-egyptian-media-and-journalists-go-to-saudi-for-financing

    Since the Wikileaks website began posting leaked documents from the Saudi Arabian government, the issue of the Kingdom financing Egyptian media channels, journalists and researchers has garnered major attention. 

    While the first group of documents released on the website on June 19 contained details regarding funding requests by pro-regime journalist Mostafa Bakry and religious preacher Amr Khalid, unpublished documents received by Mada Masr, upon an agreement with Wikileaks, has shed light on new names and details.

    Requests for funding from the Saudi government varied, and in some cases was in exchange for writing articles, the fees for which were collected from the embassy.

    One of the documents, titled “Bill of the representative of Dar al-Helal Institution,” is a memo raised by the head of the media affairs department at the Saudi Foreign Ministry to the deputy minister of culture and media in the Kingdom, requesting the disbursement of a check of US$68,000 to the state-owned Egyptian Dar al-Helal in February 2012 “for publishing a series of weekly articles throughout the pilgrimage season 1432 H on the achievements of Saudi Arabia in renovating and expanding the two holy mosques and other recent projects.”

    During the period referred to in the cables, writer Abdel Qader Shohaieb was head of the board of Al-Helal institution, while Hamdi Rizk, a staunch supporter of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s government, was editor-in-chief of Al-Mosawar, one of its publications. Al-Helal is considered one of the oldest media publishing houses in Egypt and the region.

    Other publications were not as successful in collecting funds in exchange for publishing articles favoring the Kingdom, especially when the request for funding came after publishing without prior coordination.

  • Egypt Sends Actress to Jail for Spreading ‘Fake News’ Over Sexual Harassment - WSJ

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/egypt-sends-actress-to-jail-for-spreading-fake-news-over-sexual-harassment-1538

    CAIRO—A woman has been sentenced in Egypt to two years in prison for allegedly spreading fake news after she posted a video on Facebook decrying her experience of sexual harassment in the country.

    The sentencing of actress Amal Fathy comes as Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi has given free rein to the country’s police and judiciary to clamp down on women who complain of sexual assault and harassment and women’s activist groups. The crackdown on women and feminist organizations is part of a broader government assault on civil society, dissidents, and anyone perceived as tarnishing the country’s image.

    Ms. Fathy was arrested in a raid on her home in May after she published a video on her personal Facebook page where she talked about her experience of sexual harassment in a Cairo bank.

  • Khrys’presso du lundi 3 septembre
    https://framablog.org/2018/09/03/khryspresso-du-lundi-3-septembre

    Brave New World L’Egypte se dote d’une loi autorisant une #Surveillance étroite des réseaux sociaux Le président égyptien Abdel Fattah al-Sissi a promulgué une loi portant sur la réglementation de la presse et des médias, qui va permettre de surveiller … Lire la suite­­

    #Claviers_invités #Internet_et_société #Libr'en_Vrac #Libre_Veille #DRM #espionnage #Facebook #GAFAM #Internet #Revue_de_web #veille #webrevue
    https://mamot.fr/system/media_attachments/files/001/832/058/original/fccf4acc984ef95f.mp4

  • Egypt Political figures arrested over Eid holiday interrogated about political views, affiliations | MadaMasr

    Escalade de la répression en Egypte où Emmanuel Macron a annoncé qu’il se rendrait bientôt

    https://www.madamasr.com/en/2018/08/29/feature/politics/political-figures-arrested-over-eid-holiday-interrogated-about-political-v

    In interrogations held on Monday and Tuesday, five of the seven political figures arrested over the Eid holiday were questioned about their views on and relationship to prominent political groups and events in Egypt’s post-2011 political landscape.

    On Monday, Supreme State Security Prosecution conducted preliminary interrogations with former ambassador Masoum Marzouk, university professor Yehia al-Qazzaz, economist Raed Salama and activist Nermeen Hussein, all of which will continue next Monday, according to lawyer Khaled Ali.

    Activist Sameh Seoudi’s questioning took place on Tuesday, Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) lawyer Ahmed Abdel Latif told Mada Masr on Wednesday. The sessions will be resumed next Saturday.

    The two remaining defendants in the case, university professor Abdel Fattah Saeed al-Banna and activist Amr Mohamed, are being interrogated today.

  • Egypt internet : Sisi ratifies law tightening control over websites
    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-45237171

    Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has signed a new law that tightens controls over the internet. The legislation on “cybercrime” means websites can be blocked in Egypt if deemed to constitute a threat to national security or the economy. Anyone found guilty of running, or just visiting, such sites could face prison or a fine. Authorities say the new measures are needed to tackle instability and terrorism. But human rights groups accuse the government of trying to crush all (...)

    #censure #surveillance #web

  • A superb new book on the 2011 Egyptian uprising shows how Israel helped thwart democracy there – Mondoweiss
    https://mondoweiss.net/2018/08/egyptian-uprising-democracy

    Kirkpatrick quotes Leon Panetta, at the time the head of the CIA, who says the new Egyptian strongman, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, recognized that the American threats were bluffs partly because Sisi was confident the Israel lobby would protect the Egyptian military. 

    The [U.S.] Congress knew that in a part of the world where Israel does not have a lot of friends, it does not make a heck of a lot of sense to kick Egypt in the ass, because they are one of the few players in that area that are a friend to Israel.

    Israel was not the only reason the U.S. betrayed democracy in Egypt. America’s other allies in the region, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf oil kingdoms, also preferred military rule there. Senior U.S. commanders, like Generals James Mattis and Michael Flynn, had personal ties to Sisi and other Egyptian top brass. Kirkpatrick also notes that Hillary Clinton “saw the generals as a source of stability.” But remove Israel from the equation and it is more likely that the minority of moderates in the Obama administration, which included Obama himself, might have prevailed.

    #Egypte #Israel #démocratie

  • Egypt’s new media laws: Rearranging legislative building blocks to maximize control | MadaMasr

    https://www.madamasr.com/en/2018/07/17/feature/politics/egypts-new-media-laws-rearranging-legislative-building-blocks-to-maximize-

    Amid backlash from various stakeholders, Parliament passed three highly contested laws regulating Egypt’s media landscape by a two-thirds majority on Monday.

    The laws, which took a convoluted and chaotic path through the legislature, set forth an array of regulations governing state and private media in Egypt that, when signed into law by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, will effectively disband and reformulate three key media regulatory bodies which have operated in a murky legal environment since they were first created in 2016. The most powerful of these bodies, a the Supreme Media Regulatory Council, has been granted far-reaching powers that, combined with draconian rules governing media practices contained within the law, will allow authorities to further censor the press and restrict journalists’ work.

    The new laws — parts of which have been criticized as unconstitutional — come in the context of a wider crackdown on the press in recent years with Egyptian authorities harassing and imprisoning journalists, blocking access to hundreds of websites, silencing oppositional voices and taking direct ownership of private media outlets.

    The evolution of the controversial laws over the past two and a half years sheds some light on how authorities have worked to grant themselves greater jurisdiction to assert control over the media and to clamp down on overall freedom of expression in Egypt.

  • Comment la France a armé la dictature en Égypte
    Middle East Eye | Akram Kharief | 2 juillet 2018
    http://www.middleeasteye.net/fr/reportages/comment-la-france-arm-la-dictature-en-gypte-1234736328

    Cinq ans après son accession au pouvoir, le président Abdel Fattah al-Sissi a pu compter sur la France comme fournisseur d’armes, dans une des périodes les plus troubles de l’histoire de l’Égypte.

    C’est ce que révèle ce lundi un rapport de plusieurs ONG – la Fédération internationale des droits de l’homme (FIDH), le Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, la Ligue des droits de l’homme et l’Observatoire des armements (OBSARM) – selon lequel « l’État français et plusieurs entreprises françaises ont participé à la sanglante répression égyptienne des cinq dernières années ». (...)

  • La France et ses entreprises participent à l’écrasement du peuple égyptien
    http://obsarm.org/spip.php?article310

    Un nouveau rapport dévoile aujourd’hui comment l’État et plusieurs entreprises françaises ont participé à la sanglante répression égyptienne des cinq dernières années, en fournissant au régime d’Abdel Fattah al-Sissi du matériel militaire et de surveillance. Dotant les services de sécurité et de répression égyptiens de puissants outils numériques, elles ont participé à la mise en place d’une architecture de surveillance et de contrôle orwellienne, utilisée pour briser toute velléité de dissidence et de (...)

    #Actualité_des_transferts_d'armes

    / #Égypte, Transferts / exportations, #Coopération_militaire

    #Transferts_/_exportations
    http://obsarm.org/IMG/pdf/egypte716frweb.pdf

  • Egypt: A season of morality and police uniforms | MadaMasr
    https://www.madamasr.com/en/2018/06/24/feature/culture/a-season-of-morality-and-police-uniforms

    Days ahead of this year’s Ramadan TV season, fans of Egyptian television sensed an impending crisis, one that played out with the sudden removal of several anticipated series from the 2018 schedule. Some of the issues cited, such as shooting delays, were familiar. What was different, however, was the extent of direct state interference in both the schedule and the content of the shows that were broadcast, contributing to what many have called the weakest Ramadan season in many years.

    Though particularly insidious this year, this kind of state control did not emerge out of the blue, there have been indications of it over the past two years. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and other state bodies have issued a series of statements expressing their displeasure with the content of Egypt’s artistic works, criticizing TV series in particular. It seems these statements were initial steps toward cementing state control over Egypt’s media and culture industry, followed by the monopoly of state institutions and their business affiliates over the satellite TV channels considered to be the powerhouses of drama production. Most of these channels are now owned by state-acquired or affiliated production companies, namely Falcon, Egyptian Media Group and Eagle Capital, placing the production and broadcasting of TV series largely at their mercy.

    The state took one step further with the creation of the Supreme Media Regulatory Council (SMRC) and its associated Drama Committee in 2016. The council swiftly started to exercise its stated mission of practicing post-screening censorship, instructing TV channels to cut certain scenes or lines of dialogue, despite them having already been approved by the Censorship Board, as happened with the popular series Sabea Gar (The Seventh Neighbor), which ran on CBC channel from October 2017 to March 2018.

    It is not only through acquisitions and expanding the role of censorship authorities that the state has tried to influence Egypt’s TV landscape, it has also attempted to control the economy of drama production itself. For instance, producer Tamer Morsy of Synergy Productions had a stake in most of this past season’s TV series, while simultaneously holding the position of CEO of Egyptian Media Group, the current owner of ONtv network, and a shareholder of several other channels. In addition, the company entered into an agreement with a number of other channels not to sign any TV series with budgets exceeding LE70 million.

  • Egypt, Ethiopia approach negotiations over filling Renaissance Dam reservoir | MadaMasr

    https://madamirror.appspot.com/www.madamasr.com/en/2018/06/21/feature/politics/egypt-ethiopia-approach-negotiations-over-filling-renaissance-dam-reservoir/?platform=hootsuite

    As the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) nears completion, both Egyptian and Ethiopian sources say that the most significant outcome of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s three-day visit to Cairo in early June was reaching a direct understanding with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on beginning to draft a legal agreement regarding filling the dam’s reservoir.

    The water reservoir is projected to be filled with approximately 75 billion cubic meters over the course of three phases, and is designated to generate a massive electricity supply for Ethiopia. The construction of the dam commenced six years ago, and the Nile Basin country is expected to mark the launch of the first filling phase later this year with mass popular celebrations.

    Egypt is concerned that filling the reservoir too rapidly would affect its water share, which it already claims is insufficient. But since construction began, Ethiopia has reiterated that the project — whose projected cost is approximately US$4.2 billion — is vital to the development of the country and to meeting the needs of its population, which is nearly as large as Egypt’s.

    Although Ahmed was friendly during the three day visit, which ran from June 10 to June 12, and repeatedly expressed that Ethiopia completely “understands” the significance of the matter of the Nile water to the Egyptian people and, consequently, the implications of “any big setbacks” in that regard for “[Sisi]’s situation,” he was also clear that his country is determined to begin the first filling phase this coming fall, sources speaking on condition of anonymity tell Mada Masr.