Why was the death of Mervat Abdel Fattah not as spectacular?

in «Politics & Human Rights» by moftasa

On October 2008, in Samalut, Menya, few hundred kilometres from Cairo, a pregnant 36 years old woman was woken up, terrified, early in the morning along with her husband and their 8 years old son, by 5 police officers looking for her brother-in-law. Mervat was kicked by police officer Ahmed Anwar in her stomach, she fell and in 10 minutes she died. Her 8 years old son, Sayyed, witnessed the assault and the death of …

Services available at St Andrew's Refugee Services

in «Politics & Human Rights» by moftasa

I work with lots of refugees. Many of them experienced torture and escaped horrors in their homeland. Helping them overcome their psychological difficulties, make them feel they are safe and telling them that there might be hope in the future is hindered by their financial situation, lack of free medical care and education, xenophobia, sexual harassment and unemployment.

Chose to employ a refugee or donate money:

Services available at St Andrew's Refugee Services

Donations: We …

Microsoft blocks Iran and Iran blocks Facebook

in «Local & Regional» by moftasa

Microsoft has blocked access to Windows live messenger (i.e. Hotmail webmail and MSN chat) to people living in Iran, Syria, Sudan, Cuba and North Korea. The reason is that the company suddenly realised that it doesn't do business with countries sanctioned by the U.S. At the same time, Iran blocked Facebook ahead of the presidential elections because a candidate is using it successfully for his campaign.

Microsoft's decision doesn't mean that people in …

Killing 300,000 thousand innocent pigs is the most gruesome act of unjustifiable killing of animals I will ever witness

I said this earlier and unfortunately I did witness a part of it on Youtube and Vimeo and it is horrible.

I know petitions are of no value when it comes to changing policies here. But they make you feel a bit better.

Or perhaps not.

Sorry to bring this to your attention again, it is very depressing.

UPDATE: Thanks to Lobna for pointing out that I am challenged …

Now you can leave comments on my blog with your twitter sign-in thanks to @disqus

in «Blogging & Personal» by moftasa

One additional reason to love Disqus:

Twitter is a fast growing service that millions of people (including all of us here at Disqus) use to easily update and get updates from friends. We recently released the ability to tweet out comments for commenters with a Disqus Profile. This allowed people to share their comments on Twitter and bring in new voices to the conversation (see this in action).

Today, we released a new feature for …

No more Internet pornography in Egypt

Blocking porn sites is not the main issue here, there are ways to circumvent censorship and if people want to watch porn, and they do, they will resurrect VHS.

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A chart fromGoogle Insightshowing the search for the term "sex" and "سكس", originating from Egypt and from 2004 till now. The annual dip in search, marked with the red R, coincides with the month of Ramadan.

This ruling is like legalizing the monitoring of …

Do you really think slaughtering pigs in Egypt will prevent swine flu from entering through the airport in a man's lung?

Killing 300,000 thousand innocent Egyptian pigs to prevent the swine flu from jeopardising our health is the most gruesome act of unjustifiable killing of animals I will ever witness.

The swine influenza type A (H1N1) is now a human transmissible virus of swine origin i.e. it spreads from a sick person to another healthy one through coughing and sneezing. Although, it originated from pigs in Mexico and infected humans the role of pigs …

Stencil fear

in «Politics & Human Rights» by moftasa

Three days ago, an artist spray painted a stencil graphic on the grounds of down town Cairo by night, which next morning alarmed the state security and prompted wide questioning of people. Possibly on that same night and by coincidence Mo'men, a fast-food chain, stuck small stickers. What Mo'men did was just an ad campaign that has nothing to do with the stencils.

State security investigations (SSI), the ears, nose and throat of the system …