Alaa Has Been Detained

ahmed saad writes "Alaa (read the slashdot interview) was detained yesterday for activism while in a protest to support Egyptian judges . He's one of the most well known Egyptian activists in human rights, free software (leading Egypt LUG) and free speech in Egypt and worldwide. The Egyptian regime is currently trying to suffocate any movements that are active against it's highly inhuman and dirty practices to keep holding power in Egypt yet are trying to fool the world about their support for democracy and free speech. Please don't let that happen! Contact to the Egyptian embassy in your country and/or your country's embassy here in egypt, tell your congressmen and thanks in advance for your support!"

Word Replace

The Egyptian regime is currently trying to suffocate any movements that are active against it's highly inhuman and dirty practices to keep holding power in Egypt yet are trying to fool the world about their support for democracy and free speech.

Just replace 'Egyptian' with 'Bush' and 'Egypt' with 'America'.

Kinda creepy, how well it fits.

Re:This is why Bush retains power

Because his most vocal opponents can't do anything besides make pithy comments. s/Egypt/Bush == teh insightful.

Really, really pathetic.

Re:Word Replace

The Bush regime is currently trying to suffocate any movements that are active against it's highly inhuman and dirty practices to keep holding power in America yet are trying to fool the world about their support for democracy and free speech.

Really? An A

Re:Word Replace

Anyone who believes that copyright legislation is more serious than the prospect of a police state is living in a fantasy land. Anyone who makes excuses for their 'pet' president on a sketchy historical basis is not only committing a logical fallacy but also playing petty politics. It's hypocritical for people who savagely criticized Clinton to give Bush a free pass for measureably worse behavior.

So save your invectives. Most of the people you're arguing with didn't like Clinton much either, but can at least recognize the lesser of two evils.

That's a little bit too much.

Look, I can't stand Bush, and I think his policies (particularly on the power of the executive branch) are a danger to the long-term health of democracy in America, but until Democrats are being arrested, beaten, and tortured for speaking out against the P

Re:That's a little bit too much.

You're only worried about Democrats being hauled away, then? Honestly, the republicrats are just a big blurry blob in my eyes. The illusion of choice, how comforting.

Re:That's a little bit too much.

You're only worried about Democrats being hauled away, then?

Straw man argument. I'm comparing apples to apples. The Muslim Brotherhood -- the largest opposition group in Egypt -- is a banned party but is the largest political competitor to the President'

Re:That's a little bit too much.

Happy now? Hmm? Hmmmmmmm? Too bad.

Your attitude only serves to point out the futility of explaining my motives or opinions to you, so I shan't bother.

Re:That's a little bit too much.

No, try me. I'd love a good justification for your motives or opinions that led to you accusing me of being "only worried about Democrats being hauled away." Since you're accusing me of only caring for what you see as my own instead of having the prinicp

Re:That's a little bit too much.

Bush can't hold a candle to Mubarak

You have to give him credit for trying. Without a real coup, you can't just march into the White House and announce that you're starting a dictatorship. It takes time, extreme nationalism, an "enemy" that we're always

Amazing

Someone actually modded this post up?

Let's do that word replace, shall we?

The Bush regime is currently trying to suffocate any movements that are active against it's highly inhuman and dirty practices to keep holding power in America yet are trying to fool

Re:Amazing

You forgot about Wilson and Plame?

You forgot about the mercenaries planted in the press rooms?

Propaganda != suffocation.

You forgot about expert scientists being stifled just because they don't tow the party line?

Politics as usual. They all pick and choose

Re:Amazing

Politics as usual. They all pick and choose who they listen to and who they endorse, especially as science is concerned. There have been plenty of experts ignored by every administration, ever. I don't consider that unusual or oppressive, just stupid.

Actua

I call bullshit.

Funny, that, liberals and Europe want intervention in places like Darfur and Iran but when it came to US securing itself, it was somehow unjustified, even though Saddam was a genocidal maniac and just as ruthless as anyone else in the region.

Iraq has never attacked America. Saddam's regime was no threat whatsoever to Americans. If you're going to try to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq on humanitarian grounds, then go ahead and do so, but in case you haven't been reading the papers, the total number of WMDs (the ostensible reason we attacked in the first place) discovered in Iraq remains zero.

Civil liberties in America are no different today than they were pre-9/11.

Nice astroturfing, but all a reasonable person need do to know just how many of their 'inalienable' rights have been stripped away by the current administration is to read it [rickieleejones.com], your smokescreening notwithstanding.

Re:I call bullshit.

Saddam's regime was no threat whatsoever to Americans.

Unless you count continued attempts to shoot down US planes patrolling the UN-sanctioned no-fly zone. Or the continued development of weapons that violated UN restrictions in terms of range. Then there's the financial support for the families of suicide bombers...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of the USA PATRIOT act and other sorts of legislature. It makes me sick that, at least in the initial bill, only 1 (one) person voted against it. But Saddam was far from a downtrodden lamb.

Re:I call bullshit.

Unless you count continued attempts to shoot down US planes patrolling the UN-sanctioned no-fly zone.

The no-fly zones were illegal creations of the U.S. and Great Britain [prospect.org]; a sovereign nation shooting at hostile aircraft that violate its airspace is not creating a threat to the violating nation.

But Saddam was far from a downtrodden lamb.

Yes, Saddam was a bad guy. That does not mean that anything done to oppose him therefore automatically becomes legal, ethical, or smart.

Re:I call bullshit.

Saddam is not and was not affected in any way or in any fashion by the USA Patriot Act. Well, I guess he might have been entertained by it. In the same way that watching Coyote (of Roadrunner and Coyote) run off the edge of a cliff and not fall until he re

None of those are threats to us.

Unless you count continued attempts to shoot down US planes patrolling the UN-sanctioned no-fly zone.

How does trying to shoot our military planes out of the sky of their territory threaten the people of the US? Not that we didn't have really good reasons for the no-fly zone and not that Iraq is some sort of innocent victim, but how does standing up for the defense of their own territory count? Any threat that posed would be eliminated by not being there.

Or the continued development of weapons that violated UN restrictions in terms of range.

The al-Samoud II missile only had a range of 183 km. [bbc.co.uk] This isn't enough to even reach Israel or Europe, much less the US and they were thus not enough to count as a threat to the US.

Then there's the financial support for the families of suicide bombers...

This aid was provided exclusively to Palestinian suicide bombers, and not to Al Qaeda or any other terrorist movement. In general, Saddam was wary of religious zealots as he wasn't a very dedicated Muslim himself (despite peppering his speech with religious phraseology post Gulf War) but saw the Palestinian movement as both a movement that posed no threat to him and a good way to earn political capital with other Arab neighbors. This was a threat to Israel and not the US.

But Saddam was far from a downtrodden lamb.

Saddam was a bad guy, but he was hardly a threat to the US. Heck, he was barely a threat to Israel which was the enemy within closest striking distance and provided most of that threat by easing the burdens left to their families by suicide bombers.

If we were looking to take on actual threats capable of delivering a nuclear attack on the US, topple a cruel and sadistic tyrant, and damn the consequences internationally, then why is Kim Jong-Il still in power? Why the paper tiger instead of the guy that has missles capable of reaching the US -- the guy that has nuclear warheads? Even the argument of "saving the Iraqis" pales compared to the intimidation, brainwashing, and malnourishment that the North Koreans are suffering.

Re:None of those are threats to us.

then why is Kim Jong-Il still in power? Why the paper tiger instead of the guy that has missles capable of reaching the US -- the guy that has nuclear warheads?

Question (probably rhetorical), meet answer. We didn't attack North Korea because North Korea is actually scary. Hell, it's the same reason we haven't done anything to Iran, who is far more scary and far more of a threat to us than Iraq ever was. Not even our delusional administration could convince themselves that invading Iran was a good idea.

No, we invaded Iraq because it wasn't a serious threat. It was a convenient target. Much like the intelligence that said Iraq had WMD -- the surest sign this wasn't true being our willingness to invade -- all of our stated reasons for invading are false.

Re:I call bullshit.

Perhaps because the newspapers only print stories that promote their own agenda.

Oh...you mean like Fox News [outfoxed.org]?

WMD actually have been found in Iraq as well as the intent to manufacture them.

Liar. Cite proof of this or admit your lie.

Ties to Al Qaeda have also been found.

See response to above.

BUt I doubt the media is trumpeting that much.

If WMDs were actually found in Iraq (or ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda were discovered), do you really think the current administration would spare any expense 'trumpeting' this information? And seeing how the new White House Press Secretary, Tony Snow, was a former White House news anchor [newshounds.us], your cute little fantasy about the 'liberal media' keeping the American public in the dark to promote 'their agenda' is revealed as the bullshit right-wing propaganda it is.

I could respond to the rest of your 'points' in the same manner, but this is already getting too long, and I don't feel like wading through two more paragraphs of non-sequeturs, ad homenim attacks, and outright lies. Take your astroturfing elsewhere...most readers here are smart enough to not watch Fox News.

Re:I call bullshit.

[Fox News] is hardly a bastion of Conservative thought.

What a joke. Especially since the bias has been admitted [slate.com] by Fox itself.

But perhaps you're right...perhaps I should peruse Powerline, Opinion Journal, American Spectator or National Review. As I am a

I call you naive

So because a news organiziation admits bias, that automatically moots all their points?

In a word, yes.

A news organization that is biased is no longer objective, and is therefore worth much less than an unbiased news source. Fox News is demonstrably biased

Re:I call you naive

Wow...all those words, and you managed to say absolutely nothing. You do know that the White House Press Secretary position has already been filled, right?

If you actually watched OutFOXed [outfoxed.org], you wouldn't bother trying to maintain that FOX News is capable of

Re:I call you naive

Our other measure found that Fox News' Special Report is the most centrist.

What a joke. This sentence alone shows the worthlessness of this 'study'.

Re:I call bullshit.

>WMD actually have been found in Iraq as well as the intent to manufacture them.

After a huge effort with teams of experts and complete freedom to inspect sites and empty out filing cabinets, this is what we found:
The Duelfer Report [cia.gov]

>Iraq harbored terr

Re:Word Replace

Civil liberties in America are no different today than they were pre-9/11.

A couple weeks ago the "miss utility" folks came out and marked where all the fiber optic lines are buried near where I work. The water company wanted to install a new water main wit

You hit the nail on the head, bud.

even though Saddam was a genocidal maniac and just as ruthless as anyone else in the region.
Now THAT, I can agree with. So, when do we invade Israel and Saudi Arabia?

Re:Word Replace

Bush's policies have stopped genocide there... for now.

Did anyone catch this? It's always BUSH's policies when something marginally good happens anywhere, for any reason. If anything bad happens, it's always because of the UN or the evil media (that shoul

Re:Word Replace

It seems obvious to me that the parallel exists in the intentions, the rhetoric, and the lack of real concern for human rights. Situations can be analogous without being identical, your "barf" notwithstanding.

This is what big government does

It serves the interests of those in power. It's why Socialism, Communism, Fascism, "state Capitalism" and all other big government ideologies fail spectacularly. Every law that enacts a new police power that isn't objectively strictly needed to do basic law enforcement, every new agency, every new unneeded spending bill and especially fiat currency play into the hands of the tyrants and would-be tyrants. What has happened here should be a lesson to every Democrat or Republican who believes that if only their guy was in office, big government would work. It doesn't, it just goes after those that challenge it because the more that people start to question small excesses, the more they question their very relationship with the state.

Re:This is what big government does

This is not what "big government does". This is what a facist police state does.

I would bet that the governments of the western, industrialized nations, including most of Europe, The US and Canada, Australia and Japan, are "bigger" than Egypts' in any sense you can think of ( budget, tax revenue, number of employees, number of laws, etc. ). However, because their representatives are elected and the government employees consider themselves servants instead of power brokers, the "big governments" in those countries aren't locking up political prisoners.

I agree that locking up political prisoners is bad, but you are attacking the wrong philosophy here. Facism and a police state is the problem, not "big government".

Police Power Risks

While it's the fascist states that wind up committing the atrocities, the power is often laid in place beforehand. I don't believe that the Patriot Act is truly trying to usher in a fascist state, but I can see where a later administration could really abu

Re:Police Power Risks

I don't believe that the Patriot Act is truly trying to usher in a fascist state, but I can see where a later administration could really abuse it.

You might want to check out the following links:

• Patriot Act Abuses Seen [cbsnews.com]
  
• Critics cite PATRIOT Act abuse and misuse [dailytexanonline.com]
  
• Abuse of the "Patriot Act" [legalreader.com]
  
• Patriot Act Abuses and Misuses Abound, ACLU Says [aclu.org]
  
• More Signs of Patriot Act Abuse [talkleft.com]

Re:Police Power Risks

While big government does not equal a police state, it does provide the dark and dank corners for the fungus to grow unchecked and unnoticed.

Ah, the sweet smell of platitudinous nonsense. I can see the police state growing already within the dank corner

Re:This is what big government does

...The US and Canada, Australia and Japan, are "bigger" than Egypts' in any sense you can think of ( budget, tax revenue, number of employees, number of laws, etc. ). However, because their representatives are elected and the government employees consider themselves servants instead of power brokers, the "big governments" in those countries aren't locking up political prisoners....

If you look at the history of the US representative government (specifically the Legislative and Administrative branches) since, say, the New Deal era, you will see that those elected representatives most certainly consider themselves anything but servants of the people who elected them and pay their salary. Instead, they peddle influence and contracts to the highest bidder (why do you think Porter Goss really retired? The current defense contract scandal/inquiry touches many of your alleged 'servants,' perhaps it even touches him?).

Big Government, Western style, is nothing more than legalized racketeering.

YMMV. HTH. HAND.

--
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There are always exceptions to the rule

But then, you forget that the West has a tradition of liberalism that tempers the excesses of its big government policies. Few countries around the world have that. Egypt has no such tradition and there is no cultural barrier between big government and Fas

Traditions of liberalsim

>Egypt has no such tradition and there is no cultural barrier between big government and Fascism in countries without that liberalism.

It's not strong enough to help, but there's a tradition within Islamic practice of disapproving of absolute government.

Re:This is what big government does

What he means by "big government" is "omnipotent government." A government that people completely depend upon for their day-to-day needs. When government is "big" enough to give you all that you want, it's big enough to take away all that you need. When

Re:This is what big government does

It's why Socialism, Communism, Fascism, "state Capitalism" and all other big government ideologies fail spectacularly.

I expect by 'all other big government' you meant Market Liberalism / Capitalism? Because the government sector in the US can compete with pretty much anything when it comes to size. How's your military? NSA/CIA/FBI etc? NASA? Research programs at universities? Medicare? Public Infrastructure... etc

Where do you think the US would be today without its socialist(ie government-funded) support of research through the universities? Or the space-program? Small-state advocates never give the government credit for what it does, and have done. I mean, seriously, barring Bell Labs (which basically was goverment anyways) have the all-glory no-guts private industry ever made any usefull discoveries in any way whatsover without goverment involvment? No?

So, my point is, how(who) you elect/choose your government (or not) is important when it comes to personal freedom. How you run your economy is not. All hyper-capatilistic projects so far have failed (see the world-bank, South America, Africa) (but still Americans advocate that other countries should use systems themselves refuse to adapt).

Oddly enough...

State and local government are collectively far larger than the federal government, but when people talk about "big government" all they think about is what comes out of Washington, DC. This is really quite sad because almost all of the federal influence o

Re:This is what big government does

Also, before you start your ranting, China != Communist. USSR != Communist. Nortk Korea != Communist. A true communist state would have democraticly elected officials.

China is a communist state.
The USSR was a communist state.
N Korea is a communist state.

T

Re:This is what big government does

China has a communist government and a capitalist economy. "Communist" doesn't mean what you want it to mean in English. Almost every English speaker understands that "communist" means "the kind of government that China and the USSR have" -- a totalitari

Re:This is what big government does

It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. :) China no longer seems concerned with "communism" as they have other effective ways to mantain their totalitarian dictatorship, and they *like* capitalism and the productivity it brings. There's no particular rea

London Egyptian Embassy contacted

Hadn't heard of Alaa, asked the press office for comment. They say they will get back to me later today.

Freedoms in other countries

The idea that each country can just gaze at it's own navel and ignore what happens in other countries is a persistent one, but there are so many historical examples of why it's a very bad idea that it's hard to know where to begin.

I'll skip the obvious one by just saying "Godwin's Law", you know what I mean. In the case of Iraq, for the first war when one country invades another and threatent others you can nolonger say it's an internal matter. As for the second Iraq war, you know the first war never realy ended. We were still sending planes over Iraq, still occasionaly attacking their SAM batteries and enforcing UN sanctions. People were still dying, and that situation couldn't go on forever. Again, it wasn't an internal issue regardless of what you might think about how things turned out doing nothing wasn't an option and don't believe those who say otherwise. At least if you disagree with what was done (it was completely screwed up after all), say what you think should have been done instead and don't dodge the issue.

Opression within a country inevitably has knock-on effects beyond the borders of that country. How to treat refugees? Do you extradite people who are criminals in their own country even though their 'crimes' aren't punishable in your own? What about your own companies doing business over there? What about the freedoms of your own reporters in that country? Toes are going to be stepped on, whatever you do and if the situation does spill over into violence who do you side with? Perhaps the 'terrorists' in that country have at least some legitimate complaints.

Saying "It's just their culture" also doesn't wash, the Egyptian government is highly un-islamic. They aren't even operating uder their own normal 'laws of the land'. The government has been operating using emergency laws for decades. What emergency? It's one of the government's own making!

It is our business. That doesn't mean we should invade now, or any such rubbish. It means we (I'm British) do have freedoms and rights. We can make our views known to the Egyptian Embassy. We can write letters to our democratic representatives. We can even write to the newspapers in our country, or just blog about our opinions and write about them here. Expressing our opinions can and does make a difference. Egypt in particular is highly dependent on wester tourism (I've been there for buisness and on holiday myself), and can't afford too much negative press especialy in the wake of the bombings. We can make a difference.

Simon Hibbs

Re:Allah has been detained?!

"The Muslim fundamentalists are going to be pissed about this!"

There is no god but Allah, and Fat Tony Varisco is his cellmate!

Re:Western Arrogance

how dare we judge Egypt by our arrogant, self-centered western views on human rights and justice. I'm sick of phrases like "highly inhuman and dirty practices."...We need to respect Egypt's right to its culture.

Interesting. Would you have applied that

Re:Western Arrogance

Quoting BlackRookSix's post: "I'd like to say that you may not completely understand the Chinese context. Not all of us have the same concept of "personal freedoms" that you do. We understand that we must sacrifice some of our personal freedoms for the greater good of the society as a whole. I can only speak for my friends, family and myself, but we give these freedoms happily and in the knowledge that we know that the government that we elected works for the benefit of all in China. Not all of us agree, we all know there are plenty of dissidents who openly voice their opinions, but you must recognise that these can be dangerous people."

You and your Chinese friend may make all of the sacrifices you want, but don't make them for me. Only through your own arrogance can you force others to make the same sacrifices when they do not wish to. What makes a practice "inhuman and dirty" is the assumption that some elses viewpoint is not valid -- notice that in this forum, you're allowed to espouse your view without censorship, whereas, in BlackRookSix's homeland, you can't.

States and societies don't have rights, individuals do. Each Egyption has a right to his or her culture, and respecting that right is the foundation for classical liberal "Western" views. Ignoring or suppressing dissent because "its not our culture" is making the stupid mistake that "our culture is fundamentally right" -- human beings are imperfect and so is anything, including the state, composed of them. American's also make this mistake, but the ability of the government to force it upon anyone is limited by the Constitution (when it is obeyed). Whether or not classical liberal views should be spread by force, thats debatable -- were we to successfully invade Egypt or China or many other nations, there are definitely some people -- specifically their large numbers of political prisonsers -- that should be freed. Of course, for the US government to take such a stance given policies like the Gitmo Concentration Camp* and extraordinary rendition would be quite hypocritical.

Legitimate government exists to allow each individual to act as morally as possible while minimizing the limitation on any else's ability to make moral choices. No government succeeds at this (they're imperfect) and governments like China and Egypt do not even make the attempt. Egyptian and Chinese cultures could thrive just as well in a ideal, western style democracy because the people would be allowed to adopt whatever culture they choose, just not force it on their neighbor.

"Dangerous people." *Shudder* I don't know that, you don't know that and BlackRookSix doesn't know that, either. The only way to know someone is dangerous is if they attempt to materially harm someone. Voicing your dissent is the exact opposite, its an attempt to change people's minds without harming them.

--sabre86

*Yes, it is a concentration camp.

Re:Western Arrogance

American's also make this mistake, but the ability of the government to force it upon anyone is limited by the Constitution (when it is obeyed).

Great post.

The powers of the American government are limited not by the Constitution, but by the willingness of

Great argument

Man, a great post lingering at 1, and me with no mod points.

Since I agree on all your points, I'll just reiterate my support for your main one: "States and societies don't have rights, individuals do". A state without people does not exist. A society witho