Nothing has changed in Egypt, my dear little Omar Salah ...

... on the contrary. Things have become worse since you were murdered four years ago. Your killer is free again and there is still no respect for the life of Egyptians.


Three years ago, I wrote this

Letter to my Avatar – My dear little Omar Salah ...

one year ago to this day you were selling sweet potatoes on a street in Cairo near the U.S. embassy. It was not something you did out of choice, but because your family is poor and needs you to help secure an income. There was nothing special about this February 3rd, 2013, Cairo was calm and sunny, and nothing prepared you, when you left your home in the morning, for what was to come.

It was about noon, when a soldier came up to your cart and demanded from you to sell him two potatoes. You urgently needed to go to the bathroom at that moment and told him you would attend to him right when you would be back. The soldier did not accept this and threatened you with his gun saying he was going to shoot you if you didn't serve him immediately.

You were just a 12 year old boy. What could you know about the defects of human minds or the willingness of adults to be vicious? You did not believe him and in the innocent mind that was your right to have with 12 years of age you replied: "But you can't shoot me!"

To this the soldier replied: "I can't?" And then he pulled the trigger and shot you twice in your little heart. You were dead immediately.

The shock this had on those who witnessed it around you, was profound. The other children street vendors cried out and emotions ran high while your blood was spilling onto the street of Cairo. Amongst the soldiers, heated discussions started and the whole situation quickly became a mess.

The U.S. embassy tweeted that there had been an 'incident' in front of their gates but gave no details. For quite some time no one was aware what horror had just happened under the sunny sky of Egypt. And with the first shock subsiding that you indeed were dead right there on the street and for all to see, the military and police started frantically to do anything they could to cover up this horrific crime against you.

While your mother and father sat at home unaware they had lost you forever, the army took your little body to a morgue and covered you hoping that no one would find you and no one would find out. For accepting that one of theirs had killed you in cold blood and take responsibility for this action is not on the mind of the army of Egypt.

You must know, little Omar, that you are not the only one they killed, and not the only one they did not care for after he was dead. Over a year before you left us they had shot dead many protesters at Maspero and ran others over with heavy APCs. Again, later, they killed many at the Cabinet clashes. And so it goes on and on until today, for killing someone is the job of an army, they think. And they don't differentiate between borders or cities, it doesn't matter where they use their guns, they always think that they are in the right to kill. For no other but them has any right to a life. Only a right to be disrespected when – in the eyes of the army – the situation calls for it.

Of course, on that day one year ago, your killing had nothing to do with defending anybody. The soldier who killed you did not feel threatened or feared for the safety of Egypt. He simply expressed what he had learned as a conscript: that you as an Egyptian human being were not worth anything and that your life was cheap enough to be destroyed.

After your father had frantically tried to find you, aided by friends and NGO workers, your little blood stained body was finally found in the morgue. At first again the army tried to deny it had anything to do with this. But as pressure mounted and more and more witnesses spoke up to what they saw that day, the spokesperson felt it would hurt the army more to stay cowardly quiet than to come out with it and he put a statement on their Facebook page declaring your death an "accident" for which he offered your heartbroken parents his "apology".

The story goes that the soldier did not really mean to shoot you. He had thought that his gun was empty – because apparently Egyptian soldiers don't learn how to find out if their gun is loaded or empty and never load them themselves. It must be some hidden force that either loads their guns or not and then falls silent on the matter so that a soldier who carries his gun through Cairo is never aware whether he can actually use it or not. It seems an odd way to run an army or a disturbing way they play games, but then, my little Omar, there are so many odd things surrounding them that one does not wonder much anymore these days. Of course, after the soldier fired the first shot into your heart realising the gun was loaded after all, he had to fire a second time into your heart just to make sure he wasn't mistaken. That we understand. The army is a responsible body and what must be done must be done to make certain that facts are facts. Even in accidents.

Shortly after the world learned what had happened to you on that wonderful sunny February day in Cairo, a video surfaced on YouTube showing you only a few weeks earlier when you were interviewed on the street by an organisation helping needy children, checking whether you might be eligible for their projects.

You were humble and well-mannered but a little shy and uneasy what they would come up with and whether you would be good enough for what they were looking for in you. You told them quietly that you had to sell sweet potatoes because your family was poor and your father had wanted you to support the family. And in all shyness you disclosed into the camera that you would love to go to school and learn to read and write.

When the interviewer asked what you're dreams were, you looked away and were uneasy on this. And then you answered him. You said: "I cannot afford dreams, Sir." And you looked into the camera and then down again as if you were ashamed for this that was none of your fault.

Seeing this video of you, dear little Omar, broke many peoples heart. Hearing that you could not afford to dream, which is a basic human right for a child, and knowing you were not even allowed to live, was unbearable to witness. Seeing your wonderful eyes, your look of modesty, shyness and subdued hope, your life might one day, just might perhaps change for the better in some far-away future after all, teared us apart. It was then that I took your picture and made it my avatar on twitter. I wanted to give you your face back that had been left so sad and soiled and empty of life after the soldier had shot you dead.

There was no justice for you after all this. On public pressure of human rights activists and your family that the army tried to silence with money, a military trial was finally staged that we all never had any witnessing to. Only afterwards we were told that the soldier who shot you dead – just like that, on a sunny day in a street of Cairo – received a sentence of three years by the military judge.

Imagine that, Omar, three years for killing you and destroying your life forever. Do you know that Ahmed Maher and Mohamed Adel, activists of the January 25 revolution, got just the same sentence of three years for allegedly staging a protest without a permission? So killing you, in the eyes of the army, apparently was not worse than going out to protest without requesting a permit. You see what I mean when I say, we do not understand the ways of the army, but we trust they know well what they do?

One year on, my dear little Omar, I have thought long and deep over whether I would let you rest now in your little grave and put a shroud over your wonderful eyes that I see everyday on my twitter timeline. On twitter people have not a very long attention span, you must know. They easily get bored seeing the same avatar over and over for months and need changes a lot to be easy. And many times when I write critical tweets, some tweeps who do not know me or you come and slam me with words like: "Shut up, kid" – actually thinking, I was you and not a grown up man with 35 years working experience. They don't take my words seriously, because – just like the soldier – they think, a young boy has no value and no meaning and must not be respected. l cringe sometimes when I read their "kid", knowing they mean you, and feel the pain of your death they are unaware of and don't understand, and then I tell them to read my profile and come to the conclusion that whoever has no heart for you in his reaction is not worth thinking about anyway. And leave it at that.

It would be so much easier now to let you rest, my little friend, after this long year of tears and pains and death that has sweeped Egypt empty of so many hopes for a decent life, for justice and freedom and bread. On twitter they would jubilate to see a fresh face. The army would love to not have to see you anymore in the public sphere. The tweeps I criticise would not be able to slam me anymore with calling me 'kid'. We would all be so much happier, dear little Omar, if we forgot about what happened a year ago and that we can't change what happened to you after all.

But then, Omar, what can we change if we don't remember? What possibilities will we manage to create if we fall silent and look away and pretend it is all not as sad, not as bad, not as tragic as it actually is? Since your death more than a thousand Egyptians were killed, and they give us many reasons why that, different to you, was not an accident but needed to happen. But apparently they can 'live' with it just as easily. A strange tale has crept into the narrative that pretends that destroying Egyptian lives is inevitable and must be accepted, as if death more than life was the natural thing of the world that one can shrug off to return to the daily pleasures and chores. With every death of human beings falling bloodied in the streets of Egypt we are told to believe that nothing of this can be changed because it is the way of the world. And when we look away and shut our ears to the cries of the mothers and fathers of Egypt who, whether they agreed with their children or not, break down over losing what was precious to them forever and think they just cannot go on anymore, we change the world for the worst, where dying becomes the natural thing and living is just a luxury granted by some in power – whether we are lucky or not.

It must not be luck, little Omar, whether we live. It must be a right, a birth given right that no one must be allowed to take from us. Not with any form of being deliberate, calling it an accident to fool us or an inevitable need to fool us twice. If we don't insist on this, that life is the right and death is the wrong, we have lost everything that makes it worth existing on this planet we call the earth.

You had no dreams, Omar, because we did not allow you to be able to afford them. On that already we all failed you miserably. Your parents to this day cry over your death and will not forget the pain in their heart. Your eyes look at me on my avatar with all the shy innocence that was you in your modest way and I think of the narrative that all this has to be, is inevitable and not worse than going to a protest and forgetting to get a permission. So your killing has the value of a petty crime and your death is worth as much as not filling out a form. And I look at your eyes and mine fill with tears.

Let them laugh about it, for all I care. The other day I saw your picture on the internet, just the one that is my avatar that I see every day. But when I saw it, my little Omar, my heart stopped still. Like yours did on that fateful February 3rd a year ago, when a soldier thought you were worth nothing and could be done away with. When I recovered from this shock, that did not seem to make any sense, I knew I would not fail you and not leave you until justice is served. To you, Omar, who could not afford to have wishes and were not allowed to have hope – and to all the others that have lost a life that was dear to them when others decided it was not.

You will stay my avatar, my little Omar. I will tell you when Egypt is ready that we can part. Just now is not yet the time. Be patient. It will still take a long time. But where life is at stake, you know it well, time and patience means nothing. Life means all.

Letter to my Avatar – My dear little Omar Salah ...

one year ago to this day you were selling sweet potatoes on a street in Cairo near the U.S. embassy. It was not something you did out of choice, but because your family is poor and needs you to help secure an income. There was nothing special about this February 3rd, 2013, Cairo was calm and sunny, and nothing prepared you, when you left your home in the morning, for what was to come.

It was about noon, when a soldier came up to your cart and demanded from you to sell him two potatoes. You urgently needed to go to the bathroom at that moment and told him you would attend to him right when you would be back. The soldier did not accept this and threatened you with his gun saying he was going to shoot you if you didn't serve him immediately.

You were just a 12 year old boy. What could you know about the defects of human minds or the willingness of adults to be vicious? You did not believe him and in the innocent mind that was your right to have with 12 years of age you replied: "But you can't shoot me!"

To this the soldier replied: "I can't?" And then he pulled the trigger and shot you twice in your little heart. You were dead immediately.

The shock this had on those who witnessed it around you, was profound. The other children street vendors cried out and emotions ran high while your blood was spilling onto the street of Cairo. Amongst the soldiers, heated discussions started and the whole situation quickly became a mess.

The U.S. embassy tweeted that there had been an 'incident' in front of their gates but gave no details. For quite some time no one was aware what horror had just happened under the sunny sky of Egypt. And with the first shock subsiding that you indeed were dead right there on the street and for all to see, the military and police started frantically to do anything they could to cover up this horrific crime against you.

While your mother and father sat at home unaware they had lost you forever, the army took your little body to a morgue and covered you hoping that no one would find you and no one would find out. For accepting that one of theirs had killed you in cold blood and take responsibility for this action is not on the mind of the army of Egypt.

You must know, little Omar, that you are not the only one they killed, and not the only one they did not care for after he was dead. Over a year before you left us they had shot dead many protesters at Maspero and ran others over with heavy APCs. Again, later, they killed many at the Cabinet clashes. And so it goes on and on until today, for killing someone is the job of an army, they think. And they don't differentiate between borders or cities, it doesn't matter where they use their guns, they always think that they are in the right to kill. For no other but them has any right to a life. Only a right to be disrespected when – in the eyes of the army – the situation calls for it.

Of course, on that day one year ago, your killing had nothing to do with defending anybody. The soldier who killed you did not feel threatened or feared for the safety of Egypt. He simply expressed what he had learned as a conscript: that you as an Egyptian human being were not worth anything and that your life was cheap enough to be destroyed.

After your father had frantically tried to find you, aided by friends and NGO workers, your little blood stained body was finally found in the morgue. At first again the army tried to deny it had anything to do with this. But as pressure mounted and more and more witnesses spoke up to what they saw that day, the spokesperson felt it would hurt the army more to stay cowardly quiet than to come out with it and he put a statement on their Facebook page declaring your death an "accident" for which he offered your heartbroken parents his "apology".

The story goes that the soldier did not really mean to shoot you. He had thought that his gun was empty – because apparently Egyptian soldiers don't learn how to find out if their gun is loaded or empty and never load them themselves. It must be some hidden force that either loads their guns or not and then falls silent on the matter so that a soldier who carries his gun through Cairo is never aware whether he can actually use it or not. It seems an odd way to run an army or a disturbing way they play games, but then, my little Omar, there are so many odd things surrounding them that one does not wonder much anymore these days. Of course, after the soldier fired the first shot into your heart realising the gun was loaded after all, he had to fire a second time into your heart just to make sure he wasn't mistaken. That we understand. The army is a responsible body and what must be done must be done to make certain that facts are facts. Even in accidents.

Shortly after the world learned what had happened to you on that wonderful sunny February day in Cairo, a video surfaced on YouTube showing you only a few weeks earlier when you were interviewed on the street by an organisation helping needy children, checking whether you might be eligible for their projects.

You were humble and well-mannered but a little shy and uneasy what they would come up with and whether you would be good enough for what they were looking for in you. You told them quietly that you had to sell sweet potatoes because your family was poor and your father had wanted you to support the family. And in all shyness you disclosed into the camera that you would love to go to school and learn to read and write.

When the interviewer asked what you're dreams were, you looked away and were uneasy on this. And then you answered him. You said: "I cannot afford dreams, Sir." And you looked into the camera and then down again as if you were ashamed for this that was none of your fault.

Seeing this video of you, dear little Omar, broke many peoples heart. Hearing that you could not afford to dream, which is a basic human right for a child, and knowing you were not even allowed to live, was unbearable to witness. Seeing your wonderful eyes, your look of modesty, shyness and subdued hope, your life might one day, just might perhaps change for the better in some far-away future after all, teared us apart. It was then that I took your picture and made it my avatar on twitter. I wanted to give you your face back that had been left so sad and soiled and empty of life after the soldier had shot you dead.

There was no justice for you after all this. On public pressure of human rights activists and your family that the army tried to silence with money, a military trial was finally staged that we all never had any witnessing to. Only afterwards we were told that the soldier who shot you dead – just like that, on a sunny day in a street of Cairo – received a sentence of three years by the military judge.

Imagine that, Omar, three years for killing you and destroying your life forever. Do you know that Ahmed Maher and Mohamed Adel, activists of the January 25 revolution, got just the same sentence of three years for allegedly staging a protest without a permission? So killing you, in the eyes of the army, apparently was not worse than going out to protest without requesting a permit. You see what I mean when I say, we do not understand the ways of the army, but we trust they know well what they do?

One year on, my dear little Omar, I have thought long and deep over whether I would let you rest now in your little grave and put a shroud over your wonderful eyes that I see everyday on my twitter timeline. On twitter people have not a very long attention span, you must know. They easily get bored seeing the same avatar over and over for months and need changes a lot to be easy. And many times when I write critical tweets, some tweeps who do not know me or you come and slam me with words like: "Shut up, kid" – actually thinking, I was you and not a grown up man with 35 years working experience. They don't take my words seriously, because – just like the soldier – they think, a young boy has no value and no meaning and must not be respected. l cringe sometimes when I read their "kid", knowing they mean you, and feel the pain of your death they are unaware of and don't understand, and then I tell them to read my profile and come to the conclusion that whoever has no heart for you in his reaction is not worth thinking about anyway. And leave it at that.

It would be so much easier now to let you rest, my little friend, after this long year of tears and pains and death that has sweeped Egypt empty of so many hopes for a decent life, for justice and freedom and bread. On twitter they would jubilate to see a fresh face. The army would love to not have to see you anymore in the public sphere. The tweeps I criticise would not be able to slam me anymore with calling me 'kid'. We would all be so much happier, dear little Omar, if we forgot about what happened a year ago and that we can't change what happened to you after all.

But then, Omar, what can we change if we don't remember? What possibilities will we manage to create if we fall silent and look away and pretend it is all not as sad, not as bad, not as tragic as it actually is? Since your death more than a thousand Egyptians were killed, and they give us many reasons why that, different to you, was not an accident but needed to happen. But apparently they can 'live' with it just as easily. A strange tale has crept into the narrative that pretends that destroying Egyptian lives is inevitable and must be accepted, as if death more than life was the natural thing of the world that one can shrug off to return to the daily pleasures and chores. With every death of human beings falling bloodied in the streets of Egypt we are told to believe that nothing of this can be changed because it is the way of the world. And when we look away and shut our ears to the cries of the mothers and fathers of Egypt who, whether they agreed with their children or not, break down over losing what was precious to them forever and think they just cannot go on anymore, we change the world for the worst, where dying becomes the natural thing and living is just a luxury granted by some in power – whether we are lucky or not.

It must not be luck, little Omar, whether we live. It must be a right, a birth given right that no one must be allowed to take from us. Not with any form of being deliberate, calling it an accident to fool us or an inevitable need to fool us twice. If we don't insist on this, that life is the right and death is the wrong, we have lost everything that makes it worth existing on this planet we call the earth.

You had no dreams, Omar, because we did not allow you to be able to afford them. On that already we all failed you miserably. Your parents to this day cry over your death and will not forget the pain in their heart. Your eyes look at me on my avatar with all the shy innocence that was you in your modest way and I think of the narrative that all this has to be, is inevitable and not worse than going to a protest and forgetting to get a permission. So your killing has the value of a petty crime and your death is worth as much as not filling out a form. And I look at your eyes and mine fill with tears.

Let them laugh about it, for all I care. The other day I saw your picture on the internet, just the one that is my avatar that I see every day. But when I saw it, my little Omar, my heart stopped still. Like yours did on that fateful February 3rd a year ago, when a soldier thought you were worth nothing and could be done away with. When I recovered from this shock, that did not seem to make any sense, I knew I would not fail you and not leave you until justice is served. To you, Omar, who could not afford to have wishes and were not allowed to have hope – and to all the others that have lost a life that was dear to them when others decided it was not.

You will stay my avatar, my little Omar. I will tell you when Egypt is ready that we can part. Just now is not yet the time. Be patient. It will still take a long time. But where life is at stake, you know it well, time and patience means nothing. Life means all.

In memory of martyr Ziad Bakir - Democracy, democracy, democracy

Is it almost a year already? Is it almost a year that Ziad Bakir left the house in Cairo to join the Egyptian revolution?

When Ziad went out on January 28 to be peacefully part of the quest for a new, free Egypt, he had no idea how murderous the regime was going to react. But when the day came to an end, he never returned.

Now that almost a year has passed, you might think the memory of all this has faded, the sadness of those, who loved him dearly, has passed on to bearability. It hasn‘t. „When you lose someone you love, 20 years are nothing“, a woman in a documentary said the other day who had lost relatives in a plane crash in 1979. - Twenty years is nothing. And a year? - So much less.

Did it really happen, this year? Or did all this happen only yesterday? For the relatives this question comes up again and again with no satisfactory answer.

Ziad Bakir was no revolutionary. He was an artist, a fine artist in his trade, heading the design department an the Cairo Opera House. His posters for performances were stunning in layout and colour, creative in their combination of text, photo and colour schemes, and art in itself. Even if you should have known that the event was going to be of poor quality, Ziad‘s posters were so brilliantly arranged and alive that they compelled you to visit the performance. What better quality could such a poster have? The Cairo Opera House was and could be proud of having him as their chief designer.

When Ziad went out into the streets of Cairo on that January 28 he had no rocks with him, no molotov cocktails, no weapons - just a perception of a dream: that Egypt - his Egypt he loved - would become free of tyrannical rule, would allow freedom of speech and secure democracy. For in his family these were values he and his sister and brother had been taught, with early contacts to other cultures and languages of the world. All this documented itself in his multicoloured, multicultural wonderful designs. And the soft-spoken, kindhearted father of three went out to see for himself if this dream of Egypt could peacefully come true.

The rest is bitter history. One day only, one single day turned everything upside down. When Ziad did not return even late at night, his family started to get worried. His sister, who was studying art in Europe and who had spoken with him again and again on the phone about the revolution of Egypt and what it could mean to the country, was deeply disturbed and immediately interrupted her studies and booked a flight home. When she arrived on January 31, Ziad had still not been found.

For weeks the family searched all possible places in Cairo, and while the revolution went on in Tahrir, where sister Mirette often could be seen with a photo of Ziad and her hopeful look, someone could recognize him and have some information about him, while Mubarak finally stepped down to the cheers of the Egyptian people - the fear grew in the hearts of those that loved him that he might perhaps never return. Yet, no one was willing to give up on him. His brother and cousin tirelessly searched the morgues and hospitals, his sister organized the media, giving interview after interview to the local and foreign press, hoping someone out there seeing it would have some news on Ziad.

Five long weeks

But the only news they kept getting was devastating in itself. Calls from unknown callers stating they knew where Ziad is, or saying they saw him only days ago in a prison in Sinai - or quite bluntly threatening the family that Ziad would never return alive if they did not stop talking to the press about him.

Undoubtedly the crooks of Amn El Dawla, of Mubarak‘s hated riot police or the despised former ruling party NDP thought it appropriate to torture the family even more. As if the desperate search for their son and brother day in and day out was not hard enough to bear.

Five weeks after Ziad had disappeared, a phone call from a trusted source came to say that a body was seen in Zenhom morgue that could be him. The family was in doubt, for his brother and cousin had been in Zenhom morgue many, many times in those five weeks, they had seen unbelievable scenes and unaccounted bodies, yet never a body that resembled him. But when they went to inspect, the hopes of finding Ziad alive, sitting perhaps in some godforsaken military prison in Egypt, was shattered. With all difficulties of identification, it was in the end to be taken that Ziad Bakir had been found. And his bullet wounds clearly showed that he had been killed by snipers from rooftops.

It is not wise to go back to every detail of those horrible days when he was found and finally buried on March 13. Why open all the wounds once more? A huge funeral was held at Omar Makram mosque next to Tahrir square, only a few meters away from the spot where Ziad had last been seen on that fateful January 28. Many had come to pay their respect: family and friends and many of his colleagues from the Cairo Opera House. Grieving, they parted from a man they had held close to their hearts for so many years and had now to let go.

Ziad Bakir died at the age of 37. A father of three wonderful children, a gifted, talented, friendly character who never found pleasure in hurting. Those who killed him from the rooftops of Cairo had no idea what they destroyed. To them he was nothing. To his family and friends he was a world.

A memorial exhibition

Only those who are forgotten, have truly died, a saying goes. And if this is so, then Ziad has never left. A moving eulogy was published by one of his colleagues, many memorials were held both in and out of Cairo Opera House, and now, that almost a year has passed and after seven months of intense preparation by his family and friends, a wonderful exhibition has opened in his memory at Hanager Arts Center on the Cairo Opera House grounds in Zamalek, showing for a fortnight his impressive posters and designs and making it once more possible to be captivated by his spirited, lively yet soft-treading talent. As if he was still with us, as if he was still alive. And when the people pass through the exhibition, marveling at the flow of movements and colours, his almost shy, humble smile will undoubtedly accompany them. Ziad is speaking to them through his art and many might be sorry that the performances, for which he once so compellingly advertised, are long over. Seeing the posters, one might yet be inclined to buy tickets. He artistically tempts us to the day.

The Ziad that left on January 28 might have been empty handed. But the Ziad that is remembered had a heart full of passion, of light and of dreams. It is art‘s privilege after all to see light where others see nothing, and a revolution also relies on dreamers if it wants to succeed. Life is nothing without art. Love is nothing without the belief in light. If all come together, the chances are good something new and valuable for the world is born.

The legacy

When hopes were still held up that Ziad could be alive in some military prison somewhere and would one day return to his family, his father, Mohamed Bakir, in an interview with the BBC was unmistakably clear about what was needed for the future of Egypt: „Democracy, democracy, democracy.“

His words to this day ring in my ear.

No, there is no sense in a killing, and nothing that comes can make it seem justifiable that Ziad Bakir, as so many others, lost his life. But if there is any legacy to be found in his death, let this be it - the ongoing responsibility to allow it to happen in Egypt: Democracy, democracy, democracy.

Only then will there be a chance for the family to come to rest. Only then will Egypt manage to bear the loss of its sons and daughters that were so ruthlessly torn from their lives. Harming nobody, chanting with joy and marching peacefully to their unexpected death, so Egypt could live.

----------------

Exhibition of works by martyr Ziad Bakir
18 January - 31 January
Hanager Art Center exhibition hall at the Cairo Opera House grounds

MB & SCAF? - Wait for the surprise

Today presidential candidate El Baradei declared the end to his campaign complaining that with SCAF the old regime was still in power. Ayman Nour, another presidential candidate for the liberal side, also declared not to run for office anymore. With two hopefuls resigning from the presidential race the nerves of liberal revolutionaries in Egypt are on edge and conspiracy theories and rumours about a deal struck between the Muslim Brotherhood and SCAF abound on the internet. Quelle surprise, the French would say. But wait - you might be in for a surprise you had not thought of.

The fact that the Muslim Brotherhood held several talks with the Supreme Council of Armed Forces running Egypt under military rule is to many an indication that a deal was made between the two how to divide power amongst them. Fact is - not only the Muslim Brotherhood held talks with the army generals, practically all important parties in Egypt did. Fact is too - the Muslim Brotherhood has secured almost half of the votes for parliament in the elections and both - MB and SCAF - know what kind of power that means.

Declarations from some MB members regarding the army, regarding even giving impunity to the army for killing of protesters, seems to show that the MB is taking sides with SCAF. When clashes killed 43 protesters around Tahrir and Mohamed Mahmoud street in November, the MB was strikingly silent and did not join in the protests defending the peoples rights. This too is taken as a sign that the MB was siding with SCAF. What is overlooked however is that only days prior to that the MB held a huge "Friday anger" rally in Tahrir demonstrating with all might the power it feels it has with half of the population behind it. That was a clear sign send to the generals to beware and to take the MB very seriously. - You do not send signs like this if you take sides.

What the Muslim Brotherhood in the wake of the clashes clearly did not want, was for the generals to get the impression that the MB was part of the protesting revolution attacking the state. Even more, the MB wanted at no costs that the majority of the population - the so called silent majority - too would think the MB was part of what many (thanks to Maspero and SCAF) called thuggery and chaos spreading. To them the MB was supposed to be the nonviolent strong power in the storm the people could look up to in these times of trouble. Almost 46% of the votes in the past election proved the tactic of the Muslim Brotherhood right. They got what they wanted - almost half of the parliamentary seats - because they stayed away from the uprisings and only spoke up when it was in their favour.

You can call this cowardly, hypocritical, dishonest, unethical, deplorable, disgusting and much more - but to make it short, just use the one term that is commonly associated with this - it's politics.

Yes, what the Muslim Brotherhood did was playing politics to gain power. Quelle surprise.

Regarding the fact that more than 900 brave and mostly young Egyptians lost their lives in and for this revolution, playing politics as coldly as the MB did can be regarded as having a sickening aspect to it. And many activists loudly voice their disgust at this behaviour.

But just for a moment try to change sides and look at it from the point of view of the MB.

They had been banned, threatened, arrested and killed in Egypt for decades under dictatorial rule. Now for the first time thanks to a revolution they at least in part participated in, they were allowed to stand for parliament. Nothing in the world could and would stop them from trying to gain a victory that would make banning them again forever impossible. To ensure their survival, the members of the MB practically had no choice but to play it cool, be utmost tactical in the way they went about and foremost see to it that they would not get into heavy conflict with the military that has basically - no matter what president was on top - ruled this country with an iron fist for so many decades. If MB got into serious clashes with SCAF, they might have gotten even for the many human rights violations they had endured in the past. But it would have endangered their chance to come out of the elections as the strongest force. And only if they could do that would they be able to face up to what has practically been their enemy now for almost 60 years.

It is thinking too short to suddenly invent a big partnership between MB and SCAF ignoring the fact that they are not friends and have no mutual interests at all. True - both want power. But that exactly is what cannot be achieved easily. The MB knows very well what power to the military means. They have lost more than one of their members because of it and they will not trust SCAF one bit. SCAF on the other side knows this too, fears the power the MB has gained now and hopes for any chance to keep their head above water. Had the MB actively taken part in many of the bloody clashes in Tahrir and around it would not have fared so well in the elections, the silent majority of Egypt would not have given them the mandate to be strong in parliamentary politics. Then what? How would the MB then have had a chance to step and speak up to SCAF?

Yes, call it disgusting from your point of view. That is more than understandable. But in politics when it comes to ensuring your survival - and especially in overthrowing a military dictatorship - emotions are just not enough to succeed. It needs careful, cold-blooded calculation and tactical approach to win. And the MB showed perfectly how to play the game. Their win at the elections not only proved them right, it also gave them the power now to stand up to the military in handing over power. And if their political views would not collide with those of many of the revolutionary youths, perhaps revolutionaries would not even be so appalled but silently applaud the coup to achieve a strong position to counter SCAF.

I would be much surprised if the Muslim Brotherhood - after securing parliament and presidency - would not start to play a tune the generals of the SCAF will not like. It might be that part of the tune will also not be to the liking of liberal Egyptians. But if any tune is going to have a chance to put the army back where it belongs, it must be one of strength and power. Only the MB with their overwhelming victory at the polls will be able to play that tune. And they will play it. Because there are a lot of atrocities at the hand of the military in the last bitter decades for them to remember.

Fact is, you don't have to like them for their political views. Hate them even for playing politics to win. But I would not want to be in the shoes of the generals if in the end the MB has the power. It's SCAF more than Egypt at the moment that has to beware. Don't fall for the trap that MB and SCAF are one hand. They never have been and I don't think they ever can be.

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The SCAF press conference on the Maspero massacre

Read this documentary of the SCAF press conference today on the massacre of demonstrating Copts at Maspero on Sunday. 25 protesters were killed by gunshots or crushed to death by armoured army vehicles deliberately running them over - as video footage proves.

No truth was to be expected from this press conference. And alas - no truth was presented. This press conference for long will remain in the memories of Egyptians as the worst hour of lying by the SCAF.

Read the documentary by activist tweeps

(Contributors: @acarvin, @alaa, @Amiralx, @cairowire, @Egyptocracy, @ElFoulio, @FarahSaafan, @Gsquare86, @hackneylad, @jmayton, @Linaattalah, @Manar_Ammar, @MattMcBradley, @mosaaberizing, @nadaskandar, @Nadiaglory, @nfm, @Omniaaldesoukie, @RawyaRageh, @Sarahcarr, @sharifkouddous, @simonjhanna, @Zeinobia)

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Egyptian blogger Nabil jailed by army starts hunger strike

On March 28 at night the army arrested blogger Maikel Nabil for blogging about the army and documenting the atrocities against peaceful protesters. Two weeks later and against all international appeals and outcries Nabil was sentenced to three years imprisonment with hard labor and a fine of 200 L.E. for "offending the army". No appeal by human rights groups or even the U.S. government - a firm ally of the Egyptian army - could alter this and he was immediately transferred to prison.

Human Rights Watch called the sentence

"the worst strike against free expression in Egypt since the Mubarak government jailed the first blogger for four years in 2007".

Yet the SCAF found no fault with this, sending a clear signal that it couldn't care less about freedom of expression in Egypt. Amazing, as it is the same SCAF that put up a Constitutional Referendum to vote on, containing explicitly freedom of expression and opinion. In a press conference with General Mamdouh Shaheen and General Ismail Etman it was pointed out that the Constitutional Interim Declaration that resulted from the referendum prevents arrests or detentions without legal basis and ensures freedom of the press as well as freedom of belief and opinion.

Does the SCAF not read its own declaration? How then fits the arrest and sentencing of a blogger into their own declaration? - The SCAF doesn't answer.

On April 8, U.S. Senator Mark Kirk and Member of Congress Frank Wolf wrote personally to Field Marshal Tantawi, Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, asking him not to sentence Nabil but set him free.

Despite this letter from the U.S. Senator and the Congressman, Maikel Nabil was sentenced only two days later to a prison term of 3 years - and - which is even more astounding - in a secretive way behind the backs of his lawyers and in violation of legal procedures while he was not in court. He has been in jail ever since.

Design by Kirolos Nagy / @Kiroz_

Strong protests show now reaction from SCAF

"The sentence is not only severe, but it was imposed by a military tribunal after an unfair trial", said Joe Stork from Human Rights Watch. And Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at HRW warned: "This trial sets a dangerous precedent at a time when Egypt is trying to transition away from the abuses of the Mubarak era."

Reporters Without Borders were shocked at the sentencing of Maikel Nabil: "The circumstances of this blogger’s arrest and the conduct of his trial demonstrate a complete lack of consideration by the military for the most basic principles of international law."

But the Generals of the Army are unwilling to abide by such laws. To them criticism of the army is a crime that must be punished. Since Maikel Nabil's arrest and conviction several journalists, bloggers, twitter and facebook users have come under surveillance, have been summoned to the military prosecutor and threatened with military trials. Strong protests from activists in Egypt and abroad have so far managed to stop the military going through with their crackdown. But all the national and international outcries over the blogger's sentence have so far shown no reaction from the SCAF.

Now Maikel Nabil has started a hunger strike today protesting against his treatment and the attack against freedom of opinion that is guaranteed in a Constitutional Interim Declaration the SCAF itself is not willing to respect. The hope remains that this time more activists will show solidarity with Nabil hopefully having understood by now that when one blogger is thrown in jail, others may soon follow. It could be them - it could be us - it could be you - tomorrow.

Design by Kirolos Nagy / @Kiroz_

Please Poke Now!

I have a confession to make: I am not a virgin anymore. I think it is better to say this right out loud so that if one day the Egyptian military should get their hands on me, they won't have to take the trouble to poke their fingers into dark spaces to find out anything that some might think is none of their business. No, I confess it right here and now to spare them the trouble. So please take it down in your files, dear army: no virginity left - so nothing to test.

You know of course that to the army of Egypt knowing the virginity of a revolutionary is of vital importance. Because - no doubt about it - you're either a virgin or a direct threat to the national security. In fact, if you get caught sharing a tent at Tahrir square virginity is basically erased automatically. It must have something to do with the poles they use to prop these tents up or something. I am no expert in this, but the army knows. And they know too - for this is what their accusation ran into - that if you're not a virgin you're automatically a whore, a prostitute. What else could you possibly be?

To me this is of course troubling. Not being a virgin and not being a whore leaves me somehow in limbo, a place no one really likes to be in. And what I find even more irritating as to my status is - that I am a boy, And boys never get checked on their virginity by the army. That really sucks.

Because why are we treated differently to girls? Why do they get the caring special attention by army officers in their most private crevices while we are simply ignored? Don't we have a dignity that can be molested? Is there no sexual privacy ours that can be attacked? Don't we too hold openings that can be used for the first time and after that are undisputedly reduced to proof of looseness, western decadence and the sure travel ticket to hell?

Truly, the way the army handles the matter clearly shows that gender inequality is on their minds. I hate that! I want to be equal to women. I don't want to be discriminated just because of my sex! So please, Supreme Council of Armed Forces, see to it that your military officers respect this. Instruct them accordingly and - now that one of your Generals admitted to this - make sure next time we guys get the same treatment you gave to the girls: the goggling soldiers standing by, the windows letting in the stares of strangers, the open door to the corridor holding spectators while a male what-ever-he-is pokes two fingers into us. We would just love that, and the times when you ignore us coldly shutting us out from this ritual must end once and for all.

I mean: Are you trying to tell us that our virginity is of no interest to the security of the country? Are you trying to insinuate that if WE lost 'it' that's ok, it's only the girl's loss that shakes the ground of Egypt? If so, you are saying nothing less than that women are more important to the country than men!

Dare you say something like that. WE are the heroes of the world! WE are the ones that make Egypt's ground shake! So for God's sake, will you please poke your fingers in us next time so that we know - you are taking us seriously!

Oh - and while we are at it: You dear fellow revolutionaries, good hearted brave warriors for a new Egypt - how could you let this happen? How come you just ignored all those testimonies from the girls that had been telling us about this gross violation of gender equality since March 9 already? Why did you not protest to having been ignored so violently by the arresting army officers? And why are some of you still even now in doubt whether this is true and the army actually did this to the girls?!

Yeah, I know. You simply can't take it that your virginity is of no importance to the country, that it is ignored, thought nothing of. I know, that hurts. But then - don't just stand there damn it and be in denial! Get your bottoms (sure you're virgin? - let's check) up and voice your protest!

From now on - if the army thinks it is in the national interest to assess the virginity status of arrested protesters - WE want to be the ones tested! Poke US, dear army officers! Because then at least you might find out something that so far you haven't noticed: Checking on virginity can really get you into shit!

Yours sincerely
Unmolested, unchecked - truly heart broken

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HRW: Trial of Maikel Nabil sets dangerous precedent

The New York based Human Rights Watch has strongly appealed to the Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to drop all charges against the blogger Maikel Nabil for his internet blog post critical of the military.

"It's pretty stunning in Egypt's supposed new era of rights to see the military government prosecuting someone in a military court for writing about the military," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "This trial sets a dangerous precedent at a time when Egypt is trying to transition away from the abuses of the Mubarak era."

The right to freedom of expression, including writing that criticizes the military, is protected under international human rights agreements to which Egypt is a party, Human Rights Watch said. The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights in article 9 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in article 19 obligate Egypt to protect free expression. Under international law, restrictions on freedom of expression must be strictly limited to meet a legitimate aim.

Human Rights Watch strongly opposes any trials of civilians before military courts, the proceedings of which do not protect due process rights. The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, in interpreting the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, has said that military courts "should not, in any circumstances whatsoever, have jurisdiction over civilians."

"The Supreme Military Council, in its caretaker role, is supposed to protect and uphold the rights of Egyptians to express themselves, however critical their views may be," Whitson said. "The Egyptian army should understand that it is no more immune from criticism than former President Mubarak."

Watch Aljazeera report on the arrest and trial of Maikel Nabil:

In the meantime the trial against blogger Maikel Nabil, who has been in military custody now for over a week, was again postponed today and will resume on Sunday, April 10. Demonstrations in front of the military court in support of Maikel Nabil are planned.

If you want to help Maikel in his quest to get free, go here.

HRW - Drop Charges Against Blogger Critical of Military