by Gary Farber
Appearances matter. To control information is to control. "Don't judge a book by its cover" is a popular saying that will cause anyone who sells books or works in publishing to ROFl ("roll on the floor laughing"), because it's exactly what people do, though no one wants to admit to doing it. It's always someone else.
In Egypt, we're seeing this play out. Mubarak intensifies press attacks with assaults, detentions:
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak unleashed an unprecedented and systematic attack on international media today as his supporters assaulted reporters in the streets while security forces began obstructing and detaining journalists covering the unrest that threatens to topple his government.
[...]
In the past 24 hours alone, CPJ has recorded 30 detentions, 26 assaults, and eight instances of equipment having been seized. In addition, plainclothes and uniformed agents reportedly entered at least two hotels used by international journalists to confiscate press equipment. On Wednesday, CPJ documented numerous earlier assaults, detentions, and confiscations. Mubarak forces have attacked the very breadth of global journalism: Their targets have included Egyptians and other Arab journalists, Russian and U.S. reporters, Europeans and South Americans.
[...]
Government officials, pro-government journalists, and commentators loyal to Mubarak have for the past two days been engaged in a systematic campaign to present foreigners, and particularly foreign journalists, as spies. CPJ has documented at least seven instances on state-owned television or on private stations owned by businessmen loyal to Mubarak in which individuals described elaborate foreign plots to destabilize Egypt that centered on foreign provocateurs, including journalists. In several instances, they were described as "Israeli spies." In one instance, a woman whose face was obscured "confessed" to having been trained by "Americans and Israelis." She went on to say that the alleged training took place in Qatar, where Al-Jazeera is based.
Here is a round-up of attacks on the press:
* The Washington Post told CPJ that the paper's Cairo bureau chief, Leila Fadel, and Linda Davidson, a photographer, were among a number of journalists detained this morning. Their unidentified driver and translator were also picked up, and the driver was beaten. Fadel and Davidson were freed late today, but the status of the driver and translator was unclear.
* Corban Costa of Brazilian Radio Nacional and cameraman Gilvan Rocha of TV Brasil were detained, blindfolded, and had their passports and equipment seized, according to Brazilian news accounts. The two were reportedly held overnight without water in a windowless room in a Cairo police station. An officer forced the reporters to sign a statement in Arabic saying they would immediately leave Egypt for Brazil, reports said. "We had to trust what he said, and sign the document, " Corban said. They said they will be sent back to Brazil on Friday.
* Polish state television TVP said that five journalists working in two crews--Krzysztof Kołosionek and Piotr Bugalski; and Michał Jankowski, Piotr Górecki, and Paweł Rolak--were detained in Cairo and that one of their cameras was smashed. Krzysztof Kołosionek and Piotr Bugalski were released, according to Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza.
[...]
- The New York Times reported today that two of its reporters were released after they were detained overnight in Cairo.
[...]
- Mubarak supporters stormed Cairo's Hilton Hotel searching for journalists, Al-Jazeera reported today. Journalists inside the hotel posted a Tumblr entry that said: "About 20 foreign journalists are currently holed up." BBC Foreign Editor Jon Williams tweeted: "Egyptian security seize BBC equipment at Cairo Hilton in attempt to stop us broadcasting."
- Rachel Beth Anderson, a freelance videographer in Cairo, tweeted that "cameras & phones disappearing from journo hotel rooms in the Semiramis hotel! We're locked inside by staff who says its orders from outside."
- Fox News reported that correspondent Greg Palkot and producer Olaf Wiig were hospitalized after being beaten by protesters in Cairo.
- The Swedish public broadcaster SVT reported that its correspondent in Egypt, Bert Sundström, is recovering from stab wounds to the stomach in a Cairo hospital. STV said it lost touch with Sundström as he was reporting in Tahrir Square and when they finally reached him on his cell phone, a man answered and told the station that he had been "taken by the military." STV's Ingrid Thörnqvist told the online Aftonbladet: "He is seriously injured, but the condition is stable."
- The Greek daily newspaper Kathimerini said its correspondent in Cairo, Petros Papaconstantino, was "briefly hospitalized with a stab wound to the leg" after an attack by Mubarak supporters in Tahrir Square, according to The Associated Press. The reporter wrote on Kathimerini's site: "I was spotted by Mubarak supporters. They ... beat me with batons on the head and stabbed me lightly in the leg. Some soldiers intervened, but Mubarak's supporters took everything I had on me in front of the soldiers." AP also reported that an unidentified Greek newspaper photographer was punched in the face.
- The Associated Press reported that CBS reporter Mark Strassman and a camera operator were attacked while trying to photograph people throwing rocks. Strassman told AP that demonstrators punched and sprayed with Mace his camera operator, whom he did not identify. "As soon as one started, it was like blood in the water," he said.
- Dima Salem, a reporter for Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television, was attacked by pro-Mubarak supporters who took her cameraman's equipment and tried to beat her, the station said. Witnesses helped them escape, Al-Arabiya reported on the air.
The list is chilling and goes on and on. We can watch some of it.
All journalists are affected. NY Times: Gangs Hunt Journalists and Rights Workers:
[...]
No news organization seemed exempt from the rage, which escalated as the week wore on. Whether from Western or Arab media, television networks or wire services, newspapers or photo syndicates, journalists were chased through the streets and had their equipment stolen or smashed. Some were beaten so badly that they required hospital treatment.
ABC News reported that one of its crews was carjacked on Thursday and threatened with beheading. A Reuters journalist said a “gang of thugs” had stormed the news service’s office and started smashing windows. And four journalists from The Washington Post were detained by forces that they suspected were from the Interior Ministry. All four were released by early Friday. But two of them, the paper’s Cairo bureau chief and a photographer, had been ordered not to leave a local hotel.
“It appears that journalists are being targeted by the Egyptian authorities in a deliberate campaign of intimidation aimed at quashing honest, independent reporting of a transformational event,” said The Post’s foreign editor, Douglas Jehl.
If the aim was to suppress coverage, the actions were somewhat effective. Major television networks from around the world were largely unable to broadcast from Tahrir Square, the center of antigovernment protests, on Thursday. The Egyptian state news agency had earlier asked foreign reporters and crews to move out of the hotels near the square.
Live television images were so difficult to transmit that by the afternoon, the Fox News Channel anchor Shepard Smith was showing viewers exactly what his control room in New York was seeing — blank screens from The Associated Press and Reuters television feeds.
Jon Williams of the BBC said via Twitter that Egyptian security forces had seized the news agency’s equipment at the Cairo Hilton “in an attempt to stop us broadcasting.” Both CNN and the BBC relied on taped footage of the square.
Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, which have provided some of the most extensive network coverage of the revolt, said their journalists had been hounded from the street and from vantage points above the square where their cameras had been placed. In the absence of live pictures, the networks relied on grainy amateur video taken on the streets.
Another Arab network, Al Hurra, had what it described as one of the only live feeds from the square.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said it had received nearly 100 reports of damage to news organization property or of individuals being detained or attacked.
The intimidation tactics were condemned at the highest levels of the United States government. The White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, rebuked the Mubarak government and its supporters, calling the harassment “completely and totally unacceptable.” Speaking to reporters traveling with President Obama, he said that “any journalist that has been detained should be released immediately.”
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the attacks on journalists were an affront to the most basic principles of international law. “It is especially in times of crisis that governments must demonstrate their adherence to these universal values,” she said.
And more. We see: Police Van Rams into Peaceful Egyptian Protesters.
Horrifying. The White House and SecState Clinton report:
Killing journalists is, of course, a worldwide problem, as the Committee To Protect Journalists can tell you. 1992-2011:
20 Deadliest Countries 1992-2011
8. India: 27
9. Mexico: 24
10. Afghanistan: 22
11. Turkey: 20
12. Bosnia: 19
13. Sri Lanka: 18
14. Brazil: 17
15. Rwanda: 17
16. Tajikistan: 17
17. Sierra Leone: 16
18. Bangladesh: 12
19. Angola: 10
20. Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory: 10
44 Journalists Killed in 2010/Motive Confirmed
Deadliest Countries in 2010
8. Nigeria: 2
9. Angola: 2
10. Afghanistan: 2
11. Philippines: 2
12. Cameroon: 1
13. Belarus: 1
14. India: 1
Meanwhile Egypt rejoins the Net.
Internet connectivity has been restored to Egypt, though it's hard to tell from the outside just how reliable that connection is. Monitoring organizations Renesys and BGPMon provide technical details on their blogs. For a more dynamic display, RIPE, the community which helps co-ordinate the European Internet, has a live graph of the numbers of Internet routes to Egypt which currently shows the country's return.
Arbor Network's Craig Labovitz posted the image above, showing that levels of traffic are returning to previous levels.
Information wants to be free. So do Egyptians. Egyptian Government Figures Join Protesters:
With signs of fracturing within Egypt’s ruling elite, hundreds of thousands of people packed Cairo’s central Tahrir Square on Friday, chanting slogans, bowing in prayer and waving Egyptian flags to press a largely peaceful campaign for the removal of President Hosni Mubarak.
As the uprising entered its 11th day, there were few signs of the violent Mubarak supporters who the protesters said were organized and dispatched by the Mubarak government over the last two days in an effort to capture the initiative. Lurking fears among the opposition that their movement may have lost momentum were banished by the sheer numbers of the protesters and the level of their passion.
Some carried baskets of bread, food and water for those who camped out in the central square overnight after days of running battles, urging the president to depart at one of the most decisive moments in Egypt since the 1952 revolution against the monarchy. “Leave, leave, leave,” protesters chanted.
Tens of thousands of jubilant protesters turned out in the port city of Alexandria, the site of bitter and deadly clashes in the last week.
Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League and a former foreign minister serving Mr. Mubarak, appeared among the crowds in Tahrir Square, seeming to align himself with the protest. Twice he sought to address the crowd, but both times he was drowned out by roars of approval at what seemed a tacit endorsement of their cause.
Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, the defense minister and deputy prime minister, appeared in the square — the first member of the ruling government elite to do so — but he seemed to be concerned mostly with reviewing the troops and did not seek to speak to the crowd, though he did chat with some protesters.
And Mohamed Rafah Tahtawy, the public spokesman for Al Azhar — the center of Sunni Muslim learning and Egypt’s highest, state-run religious authority — told reporters that he was resigning because “I am participating in the protests and I have issued statements that support the revolutionists as far as they go.”
- The Lord, by Moses, to Pharaoh said: Oh! let my people go.
- If not, I'll smite your first-born dead—Oh! let my people go.
- Oh! go down, Moses,
- Away down to Egypt's land,
- And tell King Pharaoh
- To let my people go.
The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization founded in 1981. You can donate here.
See also The International Federation of Journalists.
The International Federation of Journalists is the world's largest organisation of journalists. [...] Today the Federation represents around 600.000 members in more than 100 countries.
The people protect us with information. And, today, we are all citizen journalists.
Follow the latest developments in Egypt with Democracy Now!’s Sharif Abdel Kouddous reporting live from Cairo.
- Live From Egypt: The True Face of the Mubarak Regime by Sharif Abdel Kouddous
- Live From Egypt: The Rebellion Grows Stronger by Sharif Abdel Kouddous
- Live From the Egyptian Revolution by Sharif Abdel Kouddous
- Sharif’s latest updates on Twitter
- Democracy Now!’s coverage of the demonstrations in Egypt
Call the White House 202-456-1111 and State Dept. (and use the contact form at the state.gov website). Ask that they freeze U.S.-held assets of Mubarak and family and suspend military aid until he goes. Let them know how completely unacceptable it is that a 75-year-old professional torturer would oversee any "democratic transition".
The idea that Suleiman, http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/01/the-torture-career-of-egypts-new-vice-president-omar-suleiman-and-the-rendition-to-torture-program/
">torturer-in-chief, will be the one to preside over any kind of "reform" process is laughable, disgusting. Here's an intelligence chief whose level of awareness is such that he said yesterday about the protesters "We will ask their parents to tell them to go home." Take a look at the massive Alexandria march and the Tahrir Sqare demonstrators; they're all ages, all classes, women and men, secular and religious.
It's very clear that the Muslim Brotherhood has made an active, organized decision to stay out of the demos; beyond chance that there'd be no signs mentioning Israel (it's not a big secret to the Egyptian people why their army gets $1.3 billion a year).
Posted by: Nell | February 04, 2011 at 01:02 PM
Violence against unarmed people is terrifying; violence against unarmed journalists, and others whose only job is to observe and report, is even more so. What does the Mubarak regime have to hide that is worth this much violence? The last number I saw on Al Jazeera tv was an estimated 6,000 injured and dead in two days.
Posted by: Fiddler | February 04, 2011 at 09:13 PM
Thank you for the interesting links, Gary.
Posted by: wonkie | February 04, 2011 at 09:23 PM
He's also been one of the chief makers of what peace there is between both Israel and Egypt, and to some degree between Hamas and the PA, you know. Things, and people, are always complicated.
Notice I'm not disagreeing with you, Nell. I'm merely making an additional small point.
I may have another post on the situation tomorrow, but we'll see.
There's hardly a shortage of stuff for me to address; the opposite problem. There are hundreds of invaluable reports worth highlighting, and aspects worth discussing, about Egypt, and the question of which to address without going too long, too deep, we'll see.
I also have a lot of other stuff to do.
Posted by: Gary Farber | February 05, 2011 at 03:16 AM
It's telling (again) that a part of the RW media (Limbaugh in the lead) at first mocked the attacked journalists/reporters until the guys from FOX became victims too. Then it went to 'we were just joking' etc.
The Son of Cain used the word 'virus' in decscribing the popular anti-dictator movement currently sweeping the Near and Middle East and was very ambiguous about it (giving the impression that keeping the old reliable dictators would not actually break his heart).
Posted by: Hartmut | February 05, 2011 at 03:55 AM
I may not get to the substantive post I hoped to do, as I've wound up awake all night, with Ailments.
But I'll note that the internet can also be used against activists, as the Iranian government has successfully been doing.
Posted by: Gary Farber | February 05, 2011 at 08:27 AM
Gary: He's also been one of the chief makers of what peace there is between both Israel and Egypt, and to some degree between Hamas and the PA, you know. Things, and people, are always complicated.
Oh, yes. He's a vital prop to the "cold peace" policy of supporting Israel's seal-off and economic siege of Gaza, very much including the torture of Egyptians and Palestinians who oppose the policy.
I don't regard that as a countervailing "complexity"; the torture and spies are all in support of a set of arrangements that need to end. Someone with absolutely NO commitment to democracy on any level being put in charge of a "democratic transition"? Laughable and disgusting.
Posted by: Nell | February 05, 2011 at 11:25 AM
In the spirit of Nell's response, I'm not sure that Suleman is complex so much as smart and amoral and maybe ruthless. There are lots of smart Egyptians. Ditching this one doesn't seem like a great loss, and losing someone who was complicit in torture on a massive scale seems like a big win.
Posted by: Turbulence | February 05, 2011 at 11:39 AM
"), because it's exactly what people do, though no one wants to admit to doing it.
No... Each year I buy the "Best Science Fiction Stories of XXXX" and read it. The authors I like go on my 'buy' list. The author's I don't like, well, don't make the 'buy' list...
I also look to the Nebula's and Hugo's for authors. Plus recommendations from people who share my over-all level of taste...
Posted by: MosesZD | February 05, 2011 at 11:50 AM
The map really should distinguish safe countries from no-information countries. I doubt that Mali is as safe as Sweden. Maybe just fewer journalists.
Posted by: John Emerson | February 05, 2011 at 11:52 AM
It's been surprisingly under-covered, but the basic demands of the demonstrators were listed on a gigantic banner in Tahrir Square on Friday. (Related digression: Turns out that the U.S. daytime Al Jazeera English anchor, Polly somethingorother, does not read or understand Arabic. WTF? I assumed wrongly it was a job requirement.)
Our demands:
1. Resignation of the president
2. End of the Emergency State 3.Dissolution of The People's Assembly and Shora(adviasory) Council
4. Formation of a national transitional government
5.An elected Parliament that will amend the Constitution to allow for presidential elections.
6. Immediate prosecution for those responsible of the deaths of the revolution's martyrs
7. Immediate prosecution of the corrupted and those who robbed the country of its wealth.
Youths of Egypt.
Posted by: Nell | February 05, 2011 at 12:47 PM
Ran into an informative rundown on Suleiman and the U.S. govt from Katherine (former ObWi main poster) somewhere in the twitterstorm.
Posted by: Nell | February 05, 2011 at 04:32 PM
But I don't need a rundown on Suleiman; I've been following what he's doing for decades as it happened since, well, I'd date my news-junkiedom in particular from the first week of June, 1967, if that's helpful.
Respectfully, anyone who needs an introduction to him is saying they know next to nothing about Egypt/Israel and the surrounding polities, their interactions with the rest of the world, and internal Egyptian matters of the past twenty five years or so. It's like saying "hey, here's a rundown on this 'Dick Cheney' guy I've just heard is in the news now."
Moses ZD:
Cool, but are you referring to Terry Carr's, Don Wollheim's, the continuations by Art Saha, Gardner Dozois', Judy Merrill's, Hartwell & Cramer's, "Lester del Rey"'s, the Bluejay editions, Ellen Datlow's, the modern, well, I tend to be this specific because I was a friend of Terry's, know Betsy, hung in Art's home innumerable times as a kid, first met Gardner in '73, chat with him most days, worked with David decades ago, known Kathryn since she was 16, Frenkel tried to hire me as his assistant, can tell you "Lester del Rey's" real name, and in general it's barely possible I might know a bit more about the sf field and publishing and bookselling and buying then you do.But if you'd like, I'll bring some of these folks over here to tell you.
Not Terry or Art or Don, alas.
Also, you may not have noticed, but the title of a book is what we put on the cover. If we published them all with brown wrappers, no names, and just said "good book," then, yes, you'd probably be buying simply on the content, which, of course, you'd only be able to do by having first read the book.
I spent a lot of years writing cover copy, and oh, hell, I'm not going to list my credits for you. As I said, no one admits to buying a book based on the cover, and anyone in the business will laugh heartily at that.
Because there's no other way to judge a book that isn't otherwise second-hand, and don't get me started on the logrolling with the Nebulas, the predictability of who is popular with the core Worldcon membership that votes for the Hugos, and so on, or we'll be here for a couple of decades.
I'll helpfully point out that I've not done more than glance at Jonathan Strahan's.
Also, there's no apostrophe in "Hugos" and "Nebulas." :-)
But you might want to take a look at my Facebook Friends List sometime, and then look at which old friends I tend to chat with. As in, say, Gardner a few hours ago, ast Kathryn or David about me, Chip Delany, blahblah, etc.
I shouldn't write comments when I'm this tired; I get a little too honest and a little too easily buttons-pushable. Your methodology is very reasonable, and I'm just rather too close to the subject.
But one of my strengths and occasional weaknesses as a blogger is what I regard as one of the Great Little-Known Sekrits of Life: try to stick to only talking abut subjects where one really knows what one's talking about.
The topics I'm not competent to discuss are infinite.
But, then, you won't find me discussing them.
So if I'm discussing something, I tend to come off as if I'm playing Mr. Know It All, when all it is is that I only address a fairly specific range of topics.
Don't ask me to blog about plumbing, gardening, math, well, as I said, an infinite list.
SF, history, politics, subtopics thereof, on the other hand....
Really, I think this will be my last comment of the evening. Unless I stick to something very simple. G'night!
Except. Nell:
Yes, that's the world we live in, all right.And people do both good and evil.
I'm also deeply unclear where you're deriving your "countervailing" from: could you quote which words of mine you believe suggested any such thing, please?
I don't see that word in what I wrote: "Things, and people, are always complicated." Did I forget to write it, or what?
Also, I wrote: "Notice I'm not disagreeing with you, Nell. I'm merely making an additional small point."
Which part of this, specifically, are you disagreeing with?
Given that these are, in fact, the words I did write, and you're responding to the, I'd like to know which words you're actually responding to, because I'm having trouble finding them in what I did write. Help me out here, please?
I'm happy to endorse and agree with Turb's 11:39 AM.
It seems a bit more on-target to me, but if you'd help me out with which words of mine you didn't quote, Nell, that you're responding to, I might agree that you're on-target.
Or were you responding to something someone else wrote somewhere else?
Posted by: Gary Farber | February 06, 2011 at 01:12 AM
this might be helpful?
Also, Nell, I should acknowledge that your link to Katherine's links are very useful to people who aren't already knowledgeable about the field, and most of the point of blogging is educational, as well as stimulating discussion, so please let me apologize for sounding as if I was implying that Only Experts should comment, which is not at all remotely what I believe.
I simply should have stuck to what I wrote here, and not written any comments until I'm feeling better.
I think it would be tacky of me to delete my previous comments, so let me please instead immediately apologize for some of them, much though my simply being less compulsive about responding to writing in front of me is always a better idea.
Posted by: Gary Farber | February 06, 2011 at 01:29 AM
If we want quick and dirty summaries of Omar Suleiman, you could do worse than Jane Mayer.
There's also a certain name in that article that I should discreetly not say anything more about other than noting that there's a certain name.
Otherwise, if we're sticking to quick and dirty contemporary news stories, rather than the many indepth books, history as it happened, etc, Suleiman, Suleiman two years ago, more background, and on we can go.
Yes, things and people are complicated, and no, such a statement doesn't imply any "countervailing" unless a statement uses such a word.
There aren't many governments run by the equivalent of Mahatma Gandhi, and he never ran a government, either. Instead we got Jawaharlal Nehru, and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Are these men black and white, evil or good?
How many governents are, there, exactly, today or ever, run by purely good people who have done no wrong?
I'd really like to move to a place with one of those.
Which is not to say that Suleiman should have any role in the next Egyptian government. If I wanted to write that, I'd write it, and I'm not.
Posted by: Gary Farber | February 06, 2011 at 01:50 AM
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