Egypt: Free Detainees, Lift Emergency, End Torture. (Cairo) - Egypt's Higher Military Council should take immediate steps to free those detained during the recent unrest, lift emergency laws, and make a clear commitment to end torture and police abuse, Human Rights Watch said today. On February 13, 2011, the council ordered the suspension of the constitution and the dissolution of parliament. "The first priority of Egypt's military authorities should be to create a government that respects human rights and establishes the rule of law," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "A good place to begin would be for the Higher Military Council to end the state of emergency and demonstrate zero tolerance for the abusive practices of the past.
" In its communiqué number five on February 13, the Higher Military Council announced that it was setting up a committee to draft a new constitution to be submitted to referendum. The military authorities should take these early measures to build confidence: 1. Back to Work in Cairo. Egyptian authorities urged to rein in security forces. FACTBOX - Analysts' reaction to Egyptian protests. Jan 29 (Reuters) - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak refused to bow to demands that he resign, after ordering troops and tanks into cities in an attempt to quell street protests against his 30-year rule. [ID:nLDE70R2FE] "This is the Arab world's Berlin moment. The authoritarian wall has fallen -- and that's regardless of whether Mubarak survives or not.
It goes beyond Mubarak. The barrier of fear has been removed. It is really the beginning of the end of the status quo in the region. The introduction of the military speaks volumes about the failure of the police to suppress the protesters. The military has stepped in and will likely seal any vacuum of authority in the next few weeks. "I think it will take a couple of days to organise his departure if it happens. جبهة الدفاع عن متظاهرى مصر. U.S. Military Urges Egyptian Army to Use Restraint. The relationship between the Egyptian and American militaries is, in fact, so close that it was no surprise on Friday to find two dozen senior Egyptian military officials at the Pentagon, halfway through an annual week of meetings, lunches and dinners with their American counterparts.
By the afternoon, the Egyptians had cut short the talks to return to Cairo, but not before a top Defense Department official, Alexander Vershbow, had urged them to exercise “restraint,” the Pentagon said. It remained unclear on Saturday, as the Egyptian Army was deployed on the streets of Cairo for the first time in decades, to what degree the military would remain loyal to the embattled president, . The crisis has left the Obama administration to try to navigate a peaceful outcome and remain close to an important ally, and the military relationship could be crucial in that effort.
“If they shoot on the crowd, they could win tomorrow, and then there will be a revolt that will sweep them away,” said Bruce O. Technolog - 'This is about social networks that are beyond the reach of Mubarak'. J’accuse. We are to join in a chorus of condemnation. Jointly, Muslims and Christians, government and opposition, Church and Mosque, clerics and laypeople – all of us are going to stand up and with a single voice declare unequivocal denunciation of al-Qaeda, Islamist militants, and Muslim fanatics of every shade, hue and color; some of us will even go the extra mile to denounce salafi Islam, Islamic fundamentalism as a whole, and the Wahabi Islam which, presumably, is a Saudi import wholly alien to our Egyptian national culture.
And once again we’re going to declare the eternal unity of “the twin elements of the nation”, and hearken back the Revolution of 1919, with its hoisted banner showing the crescent embracing the cross, and giving symbolic expression to that unbreakable bond. All of it will be to no avail. I am no Zola, but I too can accuse. And it’s not the blood thirsty criminals of al-Qaeda or whatever other gang of hoodlums involved in the horror of Alexandria that I am concerned with. U.S. warns against blocking social media, elevates Internet freedom policies. The decision by Egyptian officials to virtually shut down Internet access to the country Friday marked an audacious escalation in the battle between authoritarian governments and tech-savvy protesters.
It was also a direct challenge to the Obama administration's attempts to promote Internet freedom. Internet access was cut off in Egypt shortly after midnight Friday, apparently after authorities ordered the country's five service providers to block it, according to experts. Cellphone service was also severely disrupted. "The Egyptian government's actions ... have essentially wiped their country from the global map," James Cowie of Renesys, a New Hampshire-based company that monitors Internet data, said on the company's Web site.
The move came roughly a day after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had publicly urged Egypt not to close off access to the technology and social media that were being used to organize demonstrations. Egypt: Mubarak's Defiance Makes Life Harder for Obama. "America doesn't have friends," Henry Kissinger once observed, "America only has interests. " By that logic, the Obama Administration may have been tempted, Friday, to cut President Hosni Mubarak loose — nothing personal, you understand, but the Egyptian president has become the focus of such intense hostility from his own people after 30 years of authoritarian rule that backing him in the face of a growing democratic rebellion could jeopardize long-term U.S. regional interests in Egypt. As the streets of Cairo, Alexandria and Suez roiled with anti-regime protests on Friday, the Administration insisted that Mubarak's security forces refrain from using force against peaceful demonstrators, and instead not only respect their right to free speech and assembly, but also heed their grievances.
The White House statements seemed increasingly to be addressed to the Egyptian "authorities" over Mubarak's head.