Egyptian police beat protesters --- note the man knocked unconscious by a baton --- and drag them away, including one by the hair, just off Tahrir Square
Rachid Ghannounchi, leader of Tunisia's EnnadhaCivic Islamism is linked with the novelty of the context, the Arab Spring, and the new dynamic of legalised Islamism as in Egypt and Tunisia. Civic Islamism displays features of impressive organisation for the contest of power, coupled with an aptitude to penetrate secular civil society through coalition-building with non-Islamists.
Only through inclusion, competition, participation and the tests of "power", will this force learn to moderate its politics, gradually learning to take its place amongst the progenitors of civic politics in the Arab spring states.
The atmosphere in Egypt is tense. There is concern, nine months after the fall of Hosni Mubarak, about the hard task of building a nation, as Observers warn, "Two weeks before parliamentary elections billed as a first big step toward democracy, there are new signs that the generals still ruling Egypt are trying to steer the transition to preserve their vast political and economic power." The military rulers have imposed punishment on 11,697 civilians since February. Prominent activists like Alaa Abd-El Fattah are detained.
In the midst of this is an incident on 9 October, when 28 people were killed after a march, mainly of Coptic Christians, was attacked in the Maspero section of Cairo. The regime blamed protesters for causing trouble and assaulting the military. Activists say the deaths were due to the security forces --- this is their account of that evening:
Police clash with protesters after breaking up a march in Nabeeh Saleh in Bahrain on Friday night
1955 GMT:One protester was killed and 12 others injured on Sunday when Egyptian security forces clashed with protesters staging a sit-in for the sixth day against the expansion of the MAPCO-Agrium fertilizer plant in Damietta.
Confrontations began on Saturday night and continued into early Sunday morning, with security forces using tear gas bombs to disperse protesters.
0150 GMT: The Bahraini Ministry of Interior is now trying to explain how its policemen were not responsible for the attack on the house and car of the head of the Al-Wefaq opposition party, Sheikh Ali Salman, blaming protesters while shifting attention from authorities:. Here's the lengthy statement in full from the Ministry of Interior's website:
The General Director of Northern Governorate Police has announced that at around 10:55 PM on Thursday around 60 individuals went into illegal procession in Bilad Al Qadeem with the aim to block roads and hinder traffic flow. They were also involved in vandalism, rioting and hurling Molotov cocktails and stones at policemen. This led to the interference of police forces to disperse them and reopen the roads by shooting tear gas and sound shoots.
In regard of what was circulated by some individuals through social media websites claiming that the house and car of the General Secretary of Al Wefaq National Islamic Society were damaged by policemen, the General Director explained that vandals were 50 meters away from the house and there was a distance of around 50 meters between vandals and policemen, hence they were around 100 meters away from the house. Policemen used teargas and sound shoots and both are hurled by hand, so it is difficult for them to reach to the house and the car that was next to it. The shell...that was found inside the car is a [shell] that is hurled by the hand as it is shown in the image.
He added that the concerned team moved to the scene, while no complaint was reported by those affected by the incident and that explains that those who created the damages bear the responsibility of what they did.
2030 GMT: An anti-regime demonstration in the Midan district of the Syrian capital Damascus tonight:
1910 GMT: Burhan Ghalioun, the head of the opposition Syrian National Council, has addressed the Syrian people in a televised address tonight. A summary, provided on Twitter:
This crisis has unified efforts of all Syrians....Syria will no longer be like a farm owned by a single family....A new constitution will give rights to minorities, especially Kurds....Power will be in the hands of people, they decide who rule them.
Every drop of blood is one more step on the way to freedom....Those who use violence against their own people are traitors who will fall and lose.
The Syrian National Council is your way to make your voices heard around the world. We are honored by your support....We will not negotiate or compromise.
Regime attempts to buy time will not help them....We have asked the Arab League and UN to protect civilians in Syria....We salute the Free Syrian Army who defended their brothers and their peaceful protests....Syrians will not forget the sacrifices of those who defended the uprising.
We tell people who are undecided, this revolution is yours....Syrians will not forget those who supported their revolutions....The regime of tyranny has fallen, but they are still trying to cling to power.
New Syria is being built today....The future Syria will be coming soon, free, democratic, and without slavery....Long live free Syria.
The impact of social media on revolutionary movements like Egypt’s has been hashed out to the precipice of cliché, with scholars still puzzling over how networks online and off contributed to the ousting of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. As Egypt’s transitional period drags on, staggering obstacles lay ahead for the architects of the post-Mubarak Egypt, with Twitter laying bare divisions both within the activists’ ranks and between the relatively small number of activists using the Internet to organize and the “silent majority” on the street. Some of Egypt’s young revolutionaries are still trying to find a way to merge their online presences with street level politics and outreach in time for the approaching parliamentary elections.
1747 GMT: The Bahrain Justice and Development Movement have posted an English-language account of the death of 70-year-old Ali Hassan Aldaihi, allegedly beaten by riot police as he returned home last night.
Aldaihi, the father of the Deputy Secretary General of the leading opposition party Al Wefaq, was found by his son. He was taken to hospital with head injuries but died at 12.30 a.m. after a cardiac arrest.
Aldaihi's home was attacked in September with rubber bullets fired into it.
1637 GMT: So, yesterday the Syrian government enters into an agreement with the Arab League, pledging among other things to withdraw troops and tanks and stop the bloodshed. What happened? A bloody day, with tanks deployed everywhere. Tomorrow, opposition groups are planning to put Assad's pledge to the test, with massive demonstrations scheduled in many locations. Many of our sources are buzzing that we may see protests in Damascus tomorrow. The Guardian's Martin Chulov thinks so too:
Two activists in Damascus said protests were being organised under a premise that nothing had changed. "Tomorrow [Friday] we will see how serious they are," one said. "I think they cannot afford to take the tanks from the streets just yet."
Alaa at Personal Democracy ForumI did not expect that the very same experience would be repeated after five years, after a revolution in which we have ousted the tyrant, I go back to jail.
The memories of being incarcerated have returned, all the details, from the skills of being able to sleep on the floor with eight colleagues in a small cell (2 x 4 meters) to the songs and discussions of the inmates. But I am completely unable to remember how I secured my glasses while asleep. They was trampled upon three times in one day. I realize suddenly that they are the very same pair I had when I was jailed in 2006, and that I am imprisoned, now, pending investigation under similar flimsy accusations and reasons of that incarceration, the only difference is that we have exchanged State Security prosecution with military prosecution: a change fitting to the military moment we are living.
Sunday, November 20, 2011 at 12:21 | 
