Breaking: Al Jazeera in Cairo Reportedly Being Shut Down and Losing Press Credentials
Posted: January 30, 2011 Filed under: Breaking News, Media | Tags: 2011: days of revolt, Al Jazeera, Egypt 33 Comments
Click image for Al Jazeera's "Live blog 30/1 - Egypt protests" Image caption: A protester in Beirut holds a poster showing the potential domino effect in the Arab world (Reuters)
Al Jazeera English correspondent Dan Nolan:
#Egypt state TV reporting Aljazeera office in #Cairo is to be shut down today. Licenses revoked #Jan25
Don’t worry we’ll still report what’s happening in #Egypt no matter what new restrictions they put on us. #Jan25
(in case you are confused, the tweets are breaking news from today, not five days ago–people on twitter are using the #Jan25 tag to keep things consistent for people to follow the tweets on the protests from day to day.)
Al Jazeer English producer Evan Hill:
And, first order of business, Al Jazeera’s operations are being shut down in Egypt. Announcement just went out. #jan25
State TV announces Al Jazeera’s broadcasting license and press cards are being revoked. Our bureau is packing up. #jan25
Several aspects of the apparent government shutdown of AJ remain unclear, we’re all waiting now. No one has come to turn us off. #jan25
Updates from Hill:
Al Jazeera English is now off the air in Egypt. TV is picking up no signal. #jan25
Back and forth – our TV is now picking up Al Jazeera English in Cairo again. I’ll refrain from updating this again until it’s clear. #jan25
Update on Al Jazeera being shut down
Al Jazeera released a statement on Sunday that it “strongly denounces and condemns the closure of its bureau in Cairo by the Egyptian government.” The network says it received notification from authorities on Sunday morning that information minister [Anas al-Fikki] had ordered the suspension of Al Jazeera. It also vowed to “continue its strong coverage regardless.”
Update on news about US response to Egyptian protests
Just saw this on memeorandum.com from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace — “A Need For Free and Fair Elections in Egypt: A Statement by the Working Group on Egypt“:
Amidst the turmoil in Egypt, it is important for the United States to remain focused on the interests of the Egyptian people as well as the legitimacy and stability of the Egyptian government.
Only free and fair elections provide the prospect for a peaceful transfer of power to a government recognized as legitimate by the Egyptian people. We urge the Obama administration to pursue these fundamental objectives in the coming days and press the Egyptian government to:
- call for free and fair elections for president and for parliament to be held as soon as possible;
- amend the Egyptian Constitution to allow opposition candidates to register to run for the presidency;
- immediately lift the state of emergency, release political prisoners, and allow for freedom of media and assembly;
- allow domestic election monitors to operate throughout the country, without fear of arrest or violence;
- immediately invite international monitors to enter the country and monitor the process leading to elections, reporting on the government’s compliance with these measures to the international community; and
- publicly declare that Hosni Mubarak will agree not to run for re-election.
We further recommend that the Obama administration suspend all economic and military assistance to Egypt until the government accepts and implements these measures.
Laura Rozen at Politico — “Ex-officials urge Obama to suspend aid to Egypt“:
A bipartisan group of former U.S. officials and foreign policy scholars is urging the Obama administration to suspend all economic and military aid to Egypt until the government agrees to carry out early elections and to suspend Egypt’s draconian state of emergency, which has been in place for decades.
“We are paying the price for the fact that the administration has been at least of two minds on this stuff, and we should have seen it coming,” said Robert Kagan, co-chair of the bipartisan Egypt working group, regarding what many analysts now say is the inevitable end of Hosni Mubarak’s thirty year reign as Egypt’s president.
Though the Obama administration has tried to look like it’s not picking sides in urging restraint from violence amid five days of Egyptian unrest calling for Mubarak to step down, “the U.S. can’t be seen as neutral when it’s giving a billion and a half dollars” to prop up the Mubarak regime, Kagan said.
Zaid Jilani at Think Progress:
The position of the Obama administration has been unclear. While administration officials have condemned abuses of civil liberties, they’ve also fallen short of endorsing Mubarak’s ouster or ending support for the regime, with Vice President Joe Biden even going as far as to say that Mubarak isn’t a dictator.
The United States gives nearly $2 billion in aid to the Egyptian regime every year, and offers diplomatic and military cooperation that helps bolster Mubarak. As protesters continue to be beaten, tortured, and killed by internal security forces, it’s important to know that these abuses are being subsidized by U.S. taxpayer dollars. Threatening to reduce or eliminate this monetary assistance to the Egyptian regime would be a powerful tool that the United States could use to help advance democracy and promote freedom in the country.
Update from Brian Whitaker (Guardian ME editor from 2000-2007) at al-bab.com
Among other things, Whitaker reports that:
On the streets, something strange happened yesterday: the police melted away and looters moved in. There were repeated allegations that the looters were in fact plainclothes police and other members of the security apparatus whose aim was to cause mayhem and provide the excuse for a harsh crackdown. However, Egyptians responded by setting up their own neighbourhood protection committees – a move that seems to have been relatively effective. (There were similar stories of government-instigated looting during the latter stages of the Tunisian uprising.)
This is an open thread until Minkoff Minx’s Sunday morning post.
8 Year Old Saudi Girl’s Message to Mubarak (Updated)
Posted: January 29, 2011 Filed under: Breaking News, The Media SUCKS | Tags: 2011: days of revolt, Egypt, Palestine Papers, Western media bias 42 CommentsCheck out Juju’s message to President Mubarak to the right. What a smart girl!
When people want to know who’s in charge, and when people keep trying to ring the Islamists’ alarm bell, the people answer: “We’re in charge.”
The thousands of Egyptians braving the brutality of Mubarak’s security apparatus are having none of it. It’s about freedom and dignity for them, not about the dictator and the Islamists. It’s the West that’s hung up on that. And it’s hung up on it because for decades the West has sided with “stability” — which has come at the cost of the freedom and dignity of Egyptians, Tunisians and other Arabs.
More:
One of the main demands of the protests is an end to Mubarak’s rule. In presidential elections later this year, he was expected to seek a sixth term in office. I would sincerely love to see Mubarak go, and if he does, those Egyptians who smashed through fear must be the ones to decide who they want to replace him.
They don’t want a Mubarak-lite. They will not sacrifice their freedom and dignity so Western allies can feel better about Egypt — which means a future government must reflect all those Egyptians out there, day after day.
On the Palestine Papers… from the Christian Science Monitor:
Why Palestine papers didn’t spark outrage against Abbas’s government
But the Palestine papers published by Al Jazeera have further dented Abbas’s already low credibility, calling into question his ability to negotiate a lasting peace deal.
This is an Open Thread on Egypt, the Palestine Papers, and the rest of the Middle East…and whatever else is happening this Saturday evening.
To the left: A picture of the human wall protecting the Cairo museum, circulating on twitter.
Update
Stacyx has a brilliant post up called “Egypt: Democracy For Me But Not For Thee“ — she has said everything I’ve been thinking watching the Western media’s coverage and said it better than I could! Please go over and read the whole thing.
Teaser:
As I watch some of the coverage of what is going on in Egypt it’s interesting to see that some of the biggest supporters of “democracy” and “freedom” have now decided that maybe democracy isn’t such a good thing. At least not when it comes to Arabs.
It’s a rehashing of the theme of ‘Fear of a Muslim Planet’ and quite a few commentators I have seen or heard or read are now offering us all a false choice between a corrupt, oppressive dictatorship in Egypt and crazy, America-hating Islamists, as though there is nothing in between those two things. This is interesting because thus far the protesters in Egypt seem concerned with things like food prices, unemployment, repression, government corruption and nepotism, etc. as opposed to promoting Islamic fundamentalism. We’ve heard a lot about the Muslim Brotherhood in the media over the last two days and while I think that discussing any role they play in these protests or their aftermath is certainly very important, a lot of the commentary seems to be hyping a threat that really hasn’t manifested itself, at least as of yet.
Update II
From the Tahrir demonstrations:
“This is the Arab World’s Berlin Moment”
Posted: January 29, 2011 Filed under: Diplomacy Nightmares, Egypt, Foreign Affairs | Tags: Al Jazeera, Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, Philp J Crowley 27 CommentsFrom the Egypt Live Blog at the UK Guardian:
Fawaz Gerges, professor of Middle Eastern politics and international relations at the London School of Economics
This is the Arab world’s Berlin moment. The authoritarian wall has fallen – and that’s regardless of whether Mubarak survives or not. It goes beyond Mubarak. The barrier of fear has been removed. It is really the beginning of the end of the status quo in the region. The introduction of the military speaks volumes about the failure of the police to suppress the protesters. The military has stepped in and will likely seal any vacuum of authority in the next few weeks. Mubarak is deeply wounded. He is bleeding terribly. We are witnessing the beginning of a new era.
11:06pm Cairo neighborhoods are being policed by local residents wielding kitchen knives and hunting
rifles, after the military called for civilians to protect their own property.
The looting has prompted residents in some neighbourhoods, including the upscale Zamalek district in central Cairo, to set up vigilante groups to protect private property. Outside some apartment blocks, guards armed with machine guns had taken up posts.
In the Maadi area south of Cairo, neighbourhood mosques called on young men over loudspeakers to come down to the entrances of building and homes to ward off looters.
Naglaa Mahmoud, a Maadi resident, told the Associated Press that thugs were breaking cars and threatening to get into homes. She said even the ambulance service in the neighbourhood had abandoned their offices and accused the regime of planning the chaos by pulling out all of its police forces.
“All this seems to be prearranged. They are punishing us for asking for this change,” she said.
“What a shame he [Mubarak] doesn’t care for the people or anything. This is a corrupt regime.”
The military also urged local residents throughout the country to defend themselves from looters.
The Lede Blog at the NYT has more on ElBaradei’s early call for Mubarak to resign including a video of his interview. There are also some interesting quotes from Egyptian bloggers. This particular outcry to CNN changed their frame of the protests and the protesters. Propaganda any one?
Less than an hour after Mona Eltahway, an Egyptian blogger and journalist, appealed to CNN to stop focusing on looting and security problems in Egypt following the government’s decision to withdraw the police from the streets, the broadcaster has changed its onscreen headline from “CHAOS IN EGYPT” to “UPRISING IN EGYPT.”
Less happily for Egyptians who want to oust the Mubarak regime, and are tired of the argument that his government is a necessary bulwark against Islamist extremism, the network just aired a report that asked the question “What Happens if Mubrak falls?” that featured video of Ayman al-Zawahri, the Egyptian militant who is now Al Qaeda’s second in command.
You’re beginning to see this icon next to many names on twitter in response to the obvious framing of the Egyptian situation by the network.
Mohamed ElBaradei writes A Manifesto for Change in Egypt at The Daily Beast.
Then, as protests built in the streets of Egypt following the overthrow of Tunisia’s Idictator, I heard Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s assessment that the government in Egypt is “stable” and “looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people”. I was flabbergasted—and I was puzzled. What did she mean by stable, and at what price? Is it the stability of 29 years of “emergency” laws, a president with imperial power for 30 years, a parliament that is almost a mockery, a judiciary that is not independent? Is that what you call stability? I am sure not. And I am positive that it is not the standard you apply to other countries. What we see in Egypt is pseudo-stability, because real stability only comes with a democratically elected government.
f you would like to know why the United States does not have credibility in the Middle East, that is precisely the answer. People were absolutely disappointed in the way you reacted to Egypt’s last election. You reaffirmed their belief that you are applying a double standard for your friends, and siding with an authoritarian regime just because you think it represents your interests. We are staring at social disintegration, economic stagnation, political repression, and we do not hear anything from you, the Americans, or for that matter from the Europeans.So when you say the Egyptian government is looking for ways to respond to the needs of the Egyptian people, I feel like saying, “Well, it’s too late!” This isn’t even good realpolitik. We have seen what happened in Tunisia, and before that in Iran. That should teach people there is no stability except when you have government freely chosen by its own people.
Breaking news: 19 private planes have just arrived in Dubai. These are businessmen fleeing Egypt. (4:30 pm cst) These are tycoons that have played an important role propping up Mubarak and his party and have profited from his iron fist rule. This might be another sign that the ruling class is seeing the end.
SultanAlQassemi
Al Jazeera: Amongst the business tycoons who have fled are Hussein Salem, a huge NDP thug industrial investor in Sharm El Sheikh (corrected)
SultanAlQassemi
Al Jazeera: Also reports that (now) former NDP part thug & Gamal Mubarak confidant Ahmed Ezz has fled Egypt in a private jet.
This is kewl … do you suppose we can get Jeffrey Immelt out of the country to Dubai, some how too?
NPR has put up ‘A primer on Following Egyptian Protests on Twitter’. The relevant hash tags are #egypt and #jan25.
Also, to get the Department’s latest take follow PJCrowley. He hasn’t sent out tweets for about 8 hours so maybe things are shifting again.
Notable tweets
Under the category ask me why I hate the MSM:
weeddude Weed Dude
by teddysanfran
MT @OmarWaraich: Wolf Blitzer’s first Q: to Peter Bergen: “Where does al-Qaeda fit in all of this?” Bergen replied, “Not at all.” #Egypt
No wonder every one was so easily suckered on Iraq.
More Proof that the World is run by the Rich for the Rich
Posted: January 29, 2011 Filed under: crops, Farming, Food | Tags: alfalfa, corruption, GM food, USDA, Vilsack 36 Comments
The Center for Food Safety took the USDA’s decision to allow unregulated planting of Round-Up Ready Alfalfa to court in 2005, all the way to the Supreme Court, and managed to stop any planting of the bio-mutated forage crop until the USDA had a full environmental impact statement ready. No more sneaking GM crops in the back door by pretending not to notice they were being planted, and then when forced to notice saying, ‘Oh My, Imagine that, how did THAT get there?’, with a hand to a cheek and a distressed look on their pretty little faces.
Mohamed ElBaradei Speaks to the Egypt (live updates)
Posted: January 29, 2011 Filed under: Diplomacy Nightmares, Egypt, Foreign Affairs, Live | Tags: Al Jazeera, Egyptian protests, Hosni Mubarak, Mohamed ElBaradei 63 CommentsThis thread is going to contain live updates on Egypt coming on Al Jazeera English and from Twitter updates.
Al Jazeera is clearly the go to place for information.
The protests were the top story on every major news outlet in the Middle East, but the day belonged to Al Jazeera. The station was the first to report that the governing party’s headquarters were set on fire. Breathless phone reports came in from Jazeera correspondents in towns across Egypt. Live footage from Cairo alternated with action shots that played again and again. Orchestral music played, conveying the sense of a long-awaited drama.
Al Jazeera kept up its coverage despite serious obstacles. The broadcaster’s separate live channel was removed from its satellite platform by the Egyptian government on Friday morning, its Cairo bureau had its telephones cut and its main news channel also faced signal interference, according to a statement released by the station. The director of the live channel issued an appeal to the Egyptian government to allow it to broadcast freely.
Other broadcasters, including CNN, said their reporters had been attacked and their cameras smashed by security forces.
Two major news items right now. Opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei has called for Hosni Mubarak to step down and says that Egyptian state is in collapse. He’s asking for a unity government.
Egypt is reaching a “tipping point,” opposition campaigner Mohamed ElBaradei said in an interview with Monocle.
“People are desperate and anxious for change to happen overnight,” ElBaradei, the former chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in the London-based monthly’s February edition. “I see that approaching. People say Egyptians are patient, but you go around the streets of Cairo and you’ll see that the tipping point coming.”
The West is “losing every ounce of credibility when it comes to convincing people here that it is serious about their basic values: democracy, freedom, justice, rule of law,” said ElBaradei, 68. “That fuels extremism. The West doesn’t realize that stability is not based on shortsighted security measures; stability will only come when people are empowered, when people are able to participate.”
There is looting by thugs on motorcycles and it appears to be thugs from the Mubarak’s political party. The Department of Interior’s police force appears to have melted away. There’s no visible presence of the police, only the military. There are reports that the National Museum with its incredible collection of antiquities has experienced looting and damage.
The museum in central Cairo, which has the world’s biggest collection of Pharaonic antiquities, is adjacent to the headquarters of the ruling National Democratic Party that protesters had earlier set ablaze. Flames were seen still pouring out of the party headquarters early Saturday.
“I felt deeply sorry today when I came this morning to the Egyptian Museum and found that some had tried to raid the museum by force last night,” Zahi Hawass, chairman of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said Saturday.
“Egyptian citizens tried to prevent them and were joined by the tourism police, but some (looters) managed to enter from above and they destroyed two of the mummies,” he said.
AJ also continues to update it’s live blog for the day. Here are three entries:
7:38pm Ayman Mohyeldin reports that eyewitnesses have said “party thugs” associated with the Egyptian regime’s Central Security Services – in plainclothes but bearing government-issued weapons – have been looting in Cairo. Ayman says the reports started off as isolated accounts but are now growing in number.
…
6:50pm As protesters continue to defy curfew, a bystander in Cairo tells Al Jazeera that there are no police left in the capital. Formerly omnipresent traffic police are nowhere to be found. Reports suggest that private property is being seized in locations throughout Egypt.
6:43pm Some of the rarest antiquities in the world are found damaged by looters at famed Cairo musuem.
There are marches on the street. People are dying and being hurt. At least 25 people have been killed in Cairo. Suez reports 38 deaths. Alexandria reports 36 killed. Women are being threatened with sexual assault. The Children’s Cancer Hospital has also been the target of looting. Again, it appears that may of the looters are the party police in plain clothes. AJ has been reporting that some were caught trying to loot richer areas and were found to be carrying ID cards from the State Security forces. People are still ignoring the curfew.
Probably the most disturbing announcement is that Egypt’s Head Spy is now the VP of the country. This is the man that has handled torture of US detainees.
In December, the Wall Street Journal’s Jerusalem correspondent pronounced Suleiman “the most likely successor … President Mubarak’s closest aide, charged with handling the country’s most sensitive issues.
“He also has close working relations with the U.S. and a lifetime of experience inside Egypt’s military and intelligence apparatus,” Charles Levinson wrote.
Likewise, the Voice of America said Friday, “Suleiman is seen by some analysts as a possible successor to the president.” “He earned international respect for his role as a mediator in Middle East affairs and for curbing Islamic extremism.”
An editorialist at Pakistan’s “International News” predicted Thursday that “Suleiman will probably scupper his boss’s plans [to install his son], even if the aspiring intelligence guru himself is as young as 75.”
Suleiman graduated from Egypt’s prestigious Military Academy but also received training in the Soviet Union. Under his guidance, Egyptian intelligence has worked hand-in-glove with the CIA’s counterterrorism programs, most notably in the 2003 rendition of an al-Qaeda suspect known as Abu Omar from Italy.
This thread will continue to update during the day.
Notable Tweets:
Category of I know how they feel:
SultanAlQassemi Sultan Al Qassemi
Zuwail “There has been a shrinking in the middle class in Egypt while an elite group has become excessively wealthy” cc Ahmed Ezz/Gamal
SultanAlQassemi Sultan Al Qassemi
Zuwail “Education has been the issue in every household in Egypt. Science & research has reached the lowest levels, Egypt deserves better”
GREAT UPDATE!!!
What you are seeing here is very interesting. These are Egyptian Muslims praying. Behind them are Egyptian Christians Guarding the neighborhood so they can pray safely.
You may remember that Wonk the Vote wrote a post with a similar theme in Egypt a few weeks ago when Egyptian Muslims surrounded Christian Churches who could celebrate Christmas with out fear of suicide bombers..
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