Arabic blogs are making their mark on the international blogging scene, with more writers and commentators taking to their keyboards and enjoying the thrill of the instant publication of their ideas away from government censorship, newspaper censorship and self-censorship!
The BOBS – Best of the Blogs Awards 2006 [1] highlighted a number of Arabic blogs over the previous few weeks of the competition – giving bloggers and readers a wide spectrum of blogs from 22 Arab countries to pounder on.
The winners of the Arab blog categories are: Jar El Kamar [2] from Egypt for the Best Arabic Blog – Jury Award Winner and Nostalgic Story Teller [3] from Lebanon for the Best Arabic Blog – User Prize Winner.
Jar El Kamar announces the results [4] while thanking his readers and supporters.
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سعيد طبعا بهذه الجائزه .. و لن اكذب واقول اني لم اكن اتمناها
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حظا اوفر في المرات القادمه للمنافسين الذين هم في الحقيقه اصدقاء شخصيون اعزاء للغايه
Bobs describes the site as follows: “An example of citizen journalism, Jar el Kamar has been able to cover incidents in his local city of Alexandria more bravely than your typical media outlet. He was on the front line of dangerous situations including violence happening around parliamentary elections and church attacks. He blogs also about culture, social issues and other topics.”
Hilal Chouman too thanks his readers [5]and supporters for the win.
According to Chouman, who is based in the UK, more than 5500 blogs were nominated for the awards.
Bobs sums up Choman's blog as “defined by a beautiful, smooth writing style and clever use of multimedia. Creative, funny, sarcastic, straight to the point. An array of moods is covered in the different posts, all of which are very enjoyable.”
The runners up too deserve mention as their blogs are really well-maintained with almost daily updates. But those will have to wait for the next few weeks.
In other matters, Egyptian bloggers are continuing their efforts to highlight the sexual harassment incidents [6] which rocked their city centre during Eid.
Manal, from Manal and Alaa's Bit Bucket [7], tell us about a rally being staged today to shed light on the incident.
التجمع أمام سينما مترو (أحد مواقع تحرشات وسط البلد)
الثلاثاء، 14 نوفمبر في الثالثة بعد الظهر،
تضامنا مع النساء ضحايا أيام العيد وإعلانا بأن الشارع لنا وأن أحدا لن يعزلنا أو يخيفنا بعيدا عنه.
كي لا تخاف أي أم على ابنتها أو أخت على أختها وأي زوج على زوجته أو أب على ابنته.. كي لا يسرقوا منا الشعور بالأمان في بلادنا..
Meanwhile, Prometheus [8], links an article from the Washington Post [9], which sheds light on blogging in Saudi Arabia, and translates it into Arabic for her readers.
And last but not least, Iraqi Tara [10] tells us about a new nightmare [11] in her war-torn country, where university classes have been suspended until further notice.
الله يعين كل ام واب لم يرجع ابنهم الى حد الان من عمله و يعين كل زوجة لم يرجع زوجها و كل اخت وكل طفل و طفلة.
على الاقل الكابوس الواحد يصحى منه بس اللي احنا بيه اسوأ من كابوس فنحن لانصحو ابدا.