Women's Rights in Egypt

March 8th was International Women's Day and with the celebrations came renewed interest in getting the rights of women on par with those of men in Egypt. Egypt has traditionally lagged behind the Western world with affording women rights, their laws more closely resembling that of their Islamic neighbors. Egyptian women were granted full political rights in 1956, but the social and cultural climate of Egypt has hindered women from taking full advantage of these rights and being treated as equals. But very recently women have been making more and more advances, although they have not come quickly and not without a struggle. Much of their gain can be accredited to the National Council for Women, recently celebrating their 10th anniversary. The NCW is celebrating Women's Day by holding conferences across the country to discuss women's achievements and the problems they still face ahead. The series of conferences will commence with the NCW's headquarter's conference that will be held after the governorates have finished their celebrations.

NCW Secretary General Farkhonda Hassan spoke with the Al-Ahram about the work of the NCW, the progress they've made and the steps that lie ahead. Hassan believes that the advancement of women has grown hand in hand with the country's social, economic, and cultural development. Recent victories for the NCW include:
- The 2003 appointment of Tahini El-Gebali as Egypt's first female judge.
- A 2004 Law which allows Egyptian women to pass down their citizenship to their children regardless of the nationality of their spouse.
- A 2007 mass swearing-in of female judges.
- The 2008 appointment of the first female omda (mayor) and maazoun (religious registrar).

The NCW organizes workshops that are aimed at training Egyptian women to build their own political careers. The women are taught about legislative institutions, the election process, and leadership skills, and they are also informed about the economic and social issues facing women in Egypt.
The NCW has developed a detailed national development plan that spans the years of 2007 to 2012. The plan outlines several strategies that will be key to the future advancement of women that include meeting with political parties and working together to improve the status of women, participatory planning, and on-the-job capacity building with partners from national agencies.

However, one of the most pressing goals of the NCW lies ahead in the next week. The State Council is currently deliberating the issue on whether or not it will allow female law school graduates on to the council's administrative judiciary. The problem arose when law student graduates of 2008 and 2009 began applying for judicial posts. After completing initial tests and interviews the review process was stopped and a special committee was created to discuss the issue of appointing female graduates to the council, and the question was then referred to the general assembly. All of this occurred back in mid-January and there have been countless protests by over 150 women's rights groups in front of both the State Council and the National Democratic Party since then. The protesters see the issue as a very cut and dry case because denying women equal power to serve would be unconstitutional, but to the Supreme Constitutional Court it is not that simple. Last Tuesday they voted once again to postpone their decision to an undetermined later date. Although women have come a long way in recent years in Egypt they still have a long way to go. It seems however that things are trending in their favor, as women continue to achieve better representation in the skilled job market as well as many levels of government.

Choosing an image to look at was not too difficult for me this week as I have recently been looking over a particular image for another class. The image depicts terrorists in the process of executing two Iraqi election workers after they were pulled from their car in broad daylight on Haifa Street in Baghdad. The picture is one of a series of twenty AP photographs from Iraq that were awarded the Pulitzer prize in 2005 for Breaking News Photography. The entire series of photographs are very powerful and moving images depicting a bloody yearlong conflict taking place inside this Iraqi city. Some of the images are intimate portraits of a situation entirely inconceivable and unimaginable to Americans and members of the developed world reading about it comfortably from a coffee shop; who do not risk life and limb every time they step out their front door. These tragically beautiful photographs won the Pulitzer prize because of the all-important service they do; they provide us with just a taste of what this other world is like, if only for a fleeting moment. The importance and power of these photographs I feel is undeniable.

However, this particular photo is marred in controversy. Before it won the prize and then much more afterward it was greatly questioned by conservative bloggers. They wanted to know what the photographer was doing there. Being so close as he obviously is to the action, why did he apparently have no fear of the terrorists and why were the terrorists apparently unconcerned with being photographed in the midst of an execution? Did the photographer have advanced knowledge of the crime and was he possibly accompanying the terrorists? Not much has been disclosed or discovered in the time since this photo came out. The AP chose not to reveal the photographers name, sourcing him only as “AP stringer”, citing “safety concerns”. A source at the Associated Press did comment to Salon that claims of foreknowledge of a public execution were “ridiculous” and that the photographer was most likely "tipped off to a demonstration that was supposed to take place on Haifa Street".

I think that claims that an AP photographer was working with terrorists and not reporting possible murders simply to get the exclusive photos are absurd. I think the bigger ethical dilemma is how much do you comply with a radical group's requests to document their activity and what are the possible implications of that? In this instance the photographer captured an extremely important moment on film, but he also gave the terrorists exactly what they wanted. The reason they took election workers out of their car and publicly executed them in broad daylight was to strike fear into others working on elections and in the government. Publishing the photographs has increased their audience for this message exponentially. It's an extremely difficult ethical question to answer, do you sit on important and vivid photos that tell a story readers need to hear, or do you publish the photos giving the terrorist organization the soap box they desire?

It's an extremely difficult question and one that I am not sure can be answered indiscriminately every time. What I am sure of is the power of photography and the power of the truth. Photos have a crucial role to play in the press; nothing has the power to inform and move someone so simply and immediately. Photos such as the AP series from Iraq tell a story that words never could, and that makes momentous photos such as the one above invaluable.

The Munich Security Conference

The 46th annual Munich Security Conference was held the other week from February 5th through February 7th. The conference meets once a year and invites influential members and high ranking officials from many of the world's leading countries, as well as members of the media, to take part in talks aimed at finding lasting strategies to secure peace and affect policy change.

To read about the conference through domestic news one would get the idea that the talks were solely about the American dream of nonproliferation. This article from the New York Times seems to paint the conference as a platform for the United States to carry out Obama's commitment to nuclear proliferation with the help of Russia and few others. Looking at an article from Egyptian periodical the Al-Ahram weekly understandably told a different story. The story, entitled “Nukes and handshakes” was all about Middle Eastern issues that were touched on throughout the conference.

This article was obviously aimed at a readership far more informed on current affairs than a typical American audience. I constantly find it refreshing to read about these foreign affairs and not feel as if I'm being patronized. The focus of the article's Middle East discussion was entirely on Israel. My U.S. media upbringing always makes reading these numerous articles critical of Israel shocking but I must admit that I am starting to understand the Palestinian plight more and more. These articles often speculate as to cruel and unknowable motives behind certain actions, and I am always cautious of this, but they also often have legitimate points. For example, the article points out Israel has been holding up peace talks as of late, unwilling to discuss a two-state solution, and continuing settlement building in the West Bank despite pressures from the U.S to stop. Also, following up on my last blog entry about a possible Israeli attack against Hamas, there was no interest in the state of security for other Middle Eastern countries from Israel at the conference; “as for Hamas and Hizbullah, Middle East and European MSC sources agreed that there was no assurance against Israeli attacks. The general feel in Munich was 'if it happens, it happens.'” This seems to be an interesting double standard where the bigger accredited power can freely carry out an attack on a smaller organization (who has declined to retaliate outside of Palestine) because that organization has no validation or backing. But I do not feel qualified in the least to start a discussion on the topic.

A significant moment that the article pointed out, and is alluded to in the title of the piece as well, occurred on the second day of the MSC. “In the wake of a verbal attack” Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Aylon extended his hand and it was shook by former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Torki Al-Faisal. To many uninformed people, myself and most members of the American press included, this action would not hold any significance. But to the keen and enlightened individuals of the Middle East this gesture meant everything, the article goes so far as to speculate it was the “highlight of the event”. Directly following a heated argument on the role of Riyadh in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Aylon offered his hand and, in the words of the article, “the Israeli official managed to secure for his country an unprecedented gesture of recognition from a direct relative of the Saudi monarch”. It's insights such as this one about the slightest glimmers of hope that make studying the press outside of the U.S. rewarding.

Egyptian Press Jumping to Conclusions

It was hard to find an article that wasn't talking about Egypt's national football team winning the Africa Cup of Nations this week; a team that failed to qualify for the World Cup but then failed to lose a single match following this for a record 19 games, beating 4 World Cup bound teams, clinching their seventh Cup, and becoming the first team in history to win three consecutive Nations Cups.

What I did end up finding was an article titled “Several birds, one stone” about a senior Hamas leader who was assassinated in his Dubai hotel room on January 20th. This shocked me as the article seemed like an important story and yet I had heard nothing about it in the several weeks that followed through mainstream U.S. news. I did some searching to see if I had simply not been paying attention and I managed to find one lone article reporting the incident in the New York Times. Apparently the American press didn't deem this story newsworthy which surprises me as it seems to have the makings of a very compelling piece; Arab-Israeli conflict, an assassination plot, hit squads, foreign political intrigue, what more does American media feel it needs to interest viewers in international news?

The story is about Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, a senior leader of Hamas, a Palestinian organization deemed by many western countries as a terrorist organization. Al-Mabhouh was assassinated in his hotel room shortly after checking in on January 20th in Dubai. It is suspected that 7 assassins were tracking Al-Mabhouh and injected him with a poison that mimics the effects of a heart attack so that the true nature of the death was not discovered until some time after. After the truth came out Hamas immediately officially announced that Israeli agents had killed Mahmoud. Israel has yet to release an official comment on the matter.

What amazes me after this part in the story is the way that the Egyptian paper handles the matter given these facts. Their article treats the issue as if it was proven fact that Israel committed the attack. Even the story's byline reads, “Israel's assassination of a top Hamas official is clearly aimed at forcing the resistance group into a military response”. They offer little bits of evidence that point to Israel, saying “Israeli cabinet members were strongly hinting that Israel was in fact behind the killing,” and offering a few quotes from said members that did not confirm Israel's involvement in any way. Later on the article explains away this lack of concrete evidence with the statement “the assassination in Dubai is categorised by the Israeli Mossad as a 'silent mission' -- meaning it leaves no evidence leading to Israel”.

The fact that the article believes Israel to be responsible without tangible and verifiable evidence is not what surprises me. In all likelihood it was Mossad that carried out this assassination; they had the motive, training, and resources for such an operation. What is surprising is the disparity between the tenets of journalism in Egypt and the United States. I can't imagine the American press ever stating something to be fact without one single shred of evidence to back it up. A quick glance at the New York Times' article confirms that they do not go anywhere near affirming Israel's involvement in the incident. Their article simply reports what can be proven; that Hamas has accused Israel of the killing and that Israel has declined to comment thus far. Despite this they are still able to get across all of the information the other article does, although with decidedly less speculation as to the implications. Interestingly enough the NY Times appears to be preparing for Israel's admittance to the attack, as they go to great lengths to seemingly explain why Israel would be justified in carrying out this attack.

I feel like I am already getting a better understanding of how the international press covers the same events differently from our press. I can see the advantages and disadvantages of the varying choices both countries make, but neither country's coverage can give you the same understanding and perspective as comparing them will.

State of the Union Address

President Obama made much publicized news domestically and abroad last Wednesday when he delivered his first State of the Union Address. Understandably, the speech has been much discussed and it seems every little remark and mannerism has been picked over and commented on by pundits representing both sides of the aisle. Although the focus of the night was on health care and economic reform there were still brief mentions of foreign policy and I was intrigued as to how the foreign press was evaluating the specific issues that might affect them.

I found an article in my media of choice; the Al-Ahram Weekly, that I feel represents an Egyptian view of the speech quite well. The article, entitled “Obama's disappointment” and written by Hassan Nafaa, covers the entirety of the speech and, similar to all the press I've heard about the speech so far, goes over every detail with a fine-toothed comb, reading into vocabulary and even reasons why certain topics weren't mentioned.

One of the first points of contention the article has with the speech is something that I noticed as well, that President Obama devoted a vast majority of the speech to domestic affairs and very little to issues abroad. The author finds this very odd considering, “the US is mired in two wars that are draining it materially and morally, and… these wars and other problems overseas have a direct impact on domestic security and daily life in the US”. Here I feel the author is making a questionable assumption when he asserts this focus to Obama's fear that the U.S. has lost influence and has irreversibly lost its world power status. Nafaa claims that underneath Obama's confidence and posturing lay a sense of foreboding and “an inescapable note of concern between every line”.

The article's other big issue with the speech was that it never once mentioned issues related to the Arab world, and more specifically the Arab-Israeli conflict and the U.S.'s obligation to broker a peaceful settlement. The fact that Nafaa took such issue with this I found to be extremely interesting. Of course it makes perfect sense that an Egyptian article would be looking over the speech for any issues that concern them, and the most likely candidate for such an issue would be the Arab-Israeli conflict. What is surprising is that upon hearing no mention of the conflict whatsoever Nafaa took offense to this and felt Obama had failed in some way. He cites a time when, “for years virtually every State of the Union address included at least a short paragraph reaffirming America's commitment to the security of Israel and its determination to reach a peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.” Nafaa did not see this snub as an abandonment to the commitment this administration has made to settling peace in the region, but rather a response to Israel's unwillingness to cooperate with the administration's pressures toward slowing settlement development and negotiation tactics.

The article ends with this interpretation; “Obama's State of the Union address revealed both his helplessness and his confusion at this juncture. Sometimes a sense of weakness makes people put on a display of might. Therefore, we might wake up one day to the renewed sound of war drums and, once again, the Middle East will be the battle theatre.” It is an eye-opening experience being able to examine a news event that one is so close to through the lens of another country and another world view. The levels that this article reads into what Obama did not discuss and the conclusions drawn were surprising to me but completely understandable; although they seem far fetched to me these media blogs are allowing me to understand where they are coming from. My media consumption and political leanings lead me to interpret Obama's speech entirely differently, but that isn't to say that I think the conclusions drawn in this article are completely out of the question.