Arabisc: Arabic Bloggers Ken

From Egypt… Malek who was scheduled to be free few days ago is now officially free. He just made his first post, titled: Free Morning. Malek writes:

الحمدلله

تم الافراج عني اليوم في حوالي الساعه الرابعه والنصف من قسم ترحيلات الخليفه

لحد دلؤتي مقريتش حاجه اتكتبت عني بس بجد شكرا جدا لكل واحد كتب عني حاجه او وقف معايا في اللي انا كنت فيه

حرجع اكتب بالتفصيل قريب

Thank God!

I was released today at around four thirty

Until now, I haven't read anything written about me, but seriously, thanks very much to all who wrote or stood by my side

I'll continue writing soon

Speaking of Egyptian bloggers and the recent reaction of mainstream media, Al Jazeera Network yesterday aired a documentary program about bloggers in the Arab world and focused on Egyptian bloggers. Malek, Alaa and many other bloggers stories were covered. Viewers of the documentary said it was great and will be aired again twice tomorrow.

Bent Mesreya asked her parents to watch the documentary. She wrote about their reaction. She said:

مش عارفة اوصف احساسى بمشاعرهم.. هما مبسوطين ان فى شباب كده.. ومع ذلك عايزينى افضل بعيدة بردو.. “زيزي انتى لأ”.. “زيزي مين، هو انا اطول اعمل حاجة زيهم.. هو حظى كده.. لو كنت عايشة فى مصر.. ولو كنت بشتغل فى مصر زى الاول”.. طول الحلقة على كده..
I can't describe how they feel.. they are happy to see young people like them.. in spite of that, they want me to stay away… “Zeze (her name), not you”.. “oh me, I wish I can do something like them.. it's my bad luck.. only if I live in Cairo.. or work there like I used to”..

Along the same line of support for the detained bloggers, few Egyptian bloggers are organizing a live music concert; “Sing, Baheya”:

غنى يا بهية.. من أجل زملائنا المعتقلين

غنّى يا بهية.. حفل ينظمه عدد من المدونين المصريين

تضامنا مع زملائنا المدونين المعتقلين وتكريما لمن تم فك سراحهم

غنّى يا بهية.. حفل موسيقى، مسرحى سيقام فى نقابة الصحفيين

نعلن الآن.. عن مرحلة التنظيم للحفل.. شاركونا فى الإعداد.. على من يرغب فى المشاركة لتنظيم الحفل مراسلتنا على

eheaam@gmail.com

فى موعد أقصاه 10 مساءا – الجمعة 26 مايو 2006

Sing, Baheya… For fellow detainees
Sing, Baheya… Ceremony organized by a number of Egyptians Bloggers
In solidarity with our colleague’s bloggers and to honor those arrested and the released ones
Sing, Baheya… Live music concert and theatre play will be held at the Press Syndicate
Those wishing to participate in organizing the ceremony please contact us:
Eheaam@gmail.com
No later than 10 pm – Friday 26, May 2006

The Ghanne Ya Baheya (Sing, Baheya), bloggers (organizers) are welcoming any help. Among these bloggers are, 30 February, Taranim, Seeking Freedom, Ayoub El Masry, Bent Masreya, Tagreba and Shaimaa.

In Kuwait… Following last couple of weeks parliamentary unrest and following the conflict between the Government and large portion of the parliament member regarding the “election zones” law; Kuwait Emir dissolved the Parliament and called for new parliamentary elections by end of June 2006.

The new elections campaign started immediately after the Emir announcement, so did the local newspapers start reporting events and public meetings around the Emirate. However, some bloggers are critical about what pro-government newspapers are showing on their pages.

Jandeef, cut and pasted and then abrogated some photos to prove them fake. The photos that were published by Al-Watan newspaper shows the “Blue-Ribbon” gathering. They are the supporters of the Government proposal for the new “election zones” law. The opponent group is the “Orange-Ribbon” group, which Jandeef seems to be supporting.

Jandeef then writes:

نحن لا نجزع من تجمع معارضي إصلاح النظام الانتخابي ، فلهم كل الحق في التعبير عن ذلك وعليهم بالعافية ، لكن ترى ما فيها مشكلة يا “الوطن” إذا ما كان التجمع حاشد ، فالتجمع البرتقالي الأول عند قصر السيف كان عدد حضوره قليل بالنسبة للتجمعات التي تلته ، ولكن العبرة ليست بالعدد ولكن بالهدف والمضمون.
We are not worried from the gathering of the electoral system reform, opponent's. They have the right to express themselves, it's not a problem if the assembly was crowded, the first Orange gathering was small if compared to numbers of groupings that followed, but the lesson is not the number but the purpose and content.

In Lebanon… It was the week of celebrating the anniversary of liberation from the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon.

Watani, in support for the “resistance” (a term usually used to describe the Lebanese Hezbollah fighters) writes:

إن مسيرة تحرير الوطن، واستعادة السيادة والإستقلال هي مسؤوليّة جميع اللبنانيين وتتخطىّ التنوّع الطائفيّ والطبقيّ والأجيال. نهنىء اليوم المقاومة على إنجازها الرائع بإرغام إسرائيل على الإنسحاب من لبنان دون قيد أو شرط. فقد تخطّت جميع الصعوبات وقدّمت التضحيات وهكذا كانت النموذج الوحيد في الدول العربيّة الذي استطاع استرداد الحق من دون وساطة أو تفاوض أو تنازل
The march of the liberation of the homeland, and the restoration of sovereignty and independence are the responsibility of all Lebanese and it transcends sectarian diversity, classes and generations. Today we congratulate the resistance to accomplish wonderful forcing of Israeli withdraw from Lebanon unconditionally. They (the resistance fighters) exceeded all of the difficulties and made sacrifices and were thus the only model in the Arab world, which were able to recover their rights without mediation or negotiation or giving up.

To Saudi Arabia… On reading and censorship… Tech2click asks, “With the internet betweens our hands, do we still don’t read?” While Saad writes about the brutality of the media censorship.

So, Tech2Click writes about reading online:

فالمنتديات والقوائم البريدية وغرف الحوار ساهمت لحد ما في جعل الشاب يقرأ خارج نطاق الكتاب المدرسي … ولكن مع ذلك مصادر المعلومات في هذه القنوات سببت مشكلة الرؤية بدائرة ضيقة… في الغالب يستقي شبابنا الثقافة والمعلومات التي يحملونها من معلومات متداولة إما في القوائم البريدية أو المنتديات وغرف الدردشة …ولكن هل فكر الشاب أن يخرج من هذه الدائرة الضيقة لنطاق أوسع. قد يقول البعض أن الإنترنت فقيرة من ناحية المحتوى العربي المفيد فمن أين له أن يقرأ؟…هذا القول لحد ما صحيح ولكن هل فكرنا بمحتوى اللغات الأخرى، فالإنترنت في ذات الوقت غنية بالمحتوى المفيد وبلغات أخرى …. يعني ذلك أننا أوجدنا عقبة أخرى سوف تواجه شبابنا وهي اللغة.
Blogs, mailing lists and forums contributed to some degree, to make young people read beyond the school books … Yet these sources of information have caused the problem of narrow vision… Often youth obtain knowledge and information they possess from information circulated either in the mailing lists or forums and chat rooms … But did the youth thought of emerging from this narrow scope of this broader. Some may say that the Internet is poor in terms of Arabic content, so what can he read? … To some limit, this is true, but did we think in the content of other languages? The Internet is rich with content in other languages …. This means we have another obstacle facing young people, the language.

Saad has another type of problem with reading. He is complaining about the Media's official type of censorship. He goes far into calling them ignorant. He writes:

لا مانع لدي أن تقوم الدولة ممثلة بوازرة الإعلام أو جهة أخرى بمراقبة المطبوعات المختلفة من كتب ومجلات وجرائد خصوصاً التي تأتي من خارج الممكلة وتكون تحتوي على ما يخالف أحد توجهات البلد الدينية أو الساسية. لكن مالا أوافق عليه أن يتم عمل هذه الرقابة بإسلوب همجي ومتسرع وأقرب ما يقال عنه أنه متخلف.

هذا بالضبط ما حدث معي قبل أيام عندما اشتريت مجلة “الإسلام اليوم” العدد رقم (18) حيث تم تمزيق بعض الصفحات الداخلية بشكل يدوي شوهـ المجلة ودل على أن من قام بهذا العمل لا يمت للعقل بصلة. كما ذكرت في بداية المقال بأنني لا أمانع حذف ما يخالف قوانين وزارة الإعلام ، لكن هذا الأسلوب لا يرضاه أحد ، بل أنه يدل على إستحقار وأستخفاف بعقل القاريء ، توجد طرق أخرى يمكن حذف الصفحات بها بدون أن يعرف القاريء عنها إما بقطعها بشكل جيد أو منظم على الأقل.

هذا الحدث ذكرني بما كان يحدث قديماً على القناة الثانية للتلفزيون السعودي ، حيث كان يعرض الفيلم وهو مليء بالمشاهد الغير لائقة والتي بالطبع يتم حذفها جميعاً وهذا الحذف يؤثر على قصة الفيلم حيث تفوتك أشياء كثيرة من أحداث الفيلم المترابطة وبالتالي تكون ضائع وسط الفيلم ولا تدري إلا والفلم قد انتهى ثم تتسائل مالذي حدث وماذا حدث لكذا وكذا .. السؤال الذي يطرح نفسه لماذا تم شراء الفيلم من الأساس ونصف الفيلم تقريباً غير صالح للعرض وسيتم حذفه! .. هذه الحادثة تكررت مع أكثر من فيلم ومسلسل لم أفهم بعضها حتى الآن.

I have no objection that the State represented by the Ministry of Information or any other official's to control the various publications of books and magazines and newspapers in particular these that comes from outside of the Kingdom and contains material that is in contrary to one of the country's religious or political directions. But what I don't agree with is the barbaric method, hasty and ignorant way this is done.

That was exactly what happened to me a few days ago when I purchased “Islam Today” magazine, where some pages were torn by hand, which distorted the magazine and demonstrated that the work is far from rational mind. As I mentioned before, I do not mind deleting material that contravenes the laws of the Ministry of Information, but this methods are not a satisfactory one, rather, it mocks reader's mind. There are other ways to do this without readers can come to know about, or well structured methods at least.

This event reminded me of what used to happen at Saudi TV Channel 2, where a film with a lot indecent scene of course will be deleted, but the deletion affects the story of the film until the film's events become irrelevant and thus the film end while you wonder what happened to this in that part of the story … The question arises: why the film was purchased at first place if nearly half of the film is unsuitable and will be deleted? This incident repeated with in so many films and I still don't understand them.

2 comments

  • Mel Herdon

    Today Amnesty International and The Observer newspaper, with support from the OpenNet Initiative and Soda Creative launched a new campaign – Irrepressible Info:

    http://www.irrepressible.info

    The campaign aims to combat internet repression by tackling the authorities and the companies that support them. You can get involved in the campaign in three ways:

    – sign the pledge on Internet freedom which will be used at a UN conference later in the year;
    – take action to free Shi Tao by writing to the Chinese authorities and Yahoo! to urge the release of this journalist serving 10 years in prison for sending an email to a pro-democracy website; (Amnesty plans to change this action periodically, to focus on a number of cases, governments and companies)
    – undermine censorship by publishing neat fragments of censored material on your site or blog.

    see the website: http://www.irrepressible.info

    read the articles in The Observer:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/humanrights/story/0,,1784725,00.html
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/humanrights/story/0,,1784719,00.html

    press release from Amnesty:
    http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=16970

  • ragab mohamed

    كم أتمنى أن أرى المسلمون متحدون كما كانوا 0 أنا لا أحب تسمية المساجد بالشيعية أو السنية فالمساجد كلها لله . احلم ان ارى جميع المسلمون يصلون فى مسجد واحد يصلون صلاة واحدة لله الواحد0 اذا حدث ذلك ساعتها ستهابكم الاعداء الذين يستغلون فرقتكم0

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