They're Running Scared
Twitter blocked in Egypt
I keep waiting for Sandmonkey to check in, but nothing so far. Maybe they've blocked bloggers too.
And from the "I miss Dubya" file:
I keep waiting for Sandmonkey to check in, but nothing so far. Maybe they've blocked bloggers too.
And from the "I miss Dubya" file:
"TENS OF thousands of Egyptians took to the streets of Cairo and other cities Tuesday in an unprecedented outburst of protest against the regime of Hosni Mubarak. Inspired by Tunisia's popular uprising, they demanded political concessions that Mr. Mubarak's rotting government should have made long ago: an end to emergency laws, freedom for political activity and a limit on the president's tenure in office. The United States has said that it favors such reforms. But when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was asked about the demonstrations, she foolishly threw the administration's weight behind the 82-year-old Mr. Mubarak....and Reagan.
"Our assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people," Ms. Clinton said.
The secretary's words suggested that the administration remains dangerously behind the pace of events in the Middle East. It failed to anticipate Tunisia's revolution; days before President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was driven from the country Ms. Clinton said the United States was "not taking sides" between the dictator and his protesting people."
Labels: Arabs, democracy, Democrats, dictatorships, Egypt
posted by Louise at 8:50 pm
3 Comments:
Not just Twitter blocked. According to this Breitbart AFP article "Facebook reported inaccessible in Egypt", the Egyptian govt is blocking Facebook, Bambuser (major live video streaming service), and other social networking services that are being used by the protesters to share information and coordinate protests.
There's no mention of cellphone & texting service being blocked but I'd think if the regime is going to the effort of blocking all the online social networking and streaming video, they'll also get around to that too.
Since this seems a grassroots movement, with no real leaders to arrest, that approach is out. Plus, the photos of the protests seem to indicate the protest crowds are thousands and thousands of people, far too large for the police to do mass arrests.
This leaves the questions, can the regime ride this out? Will the protests get even bigger, maybe with large or general strikes? Things are getting tougher and tougher for Arab dictators now...
Here's a very informative article, with a couple of excellent videos, from (drum roll, please!) the NY Times. "Protesters in Egypt Defy Ban as Government Cracks Down".
"...The reality that emerged from interviews with protesters — many of whom said they were independents — was more complicated and reflected one of the government’s deepest fears: that opposition to Mr. Mubarak’s rule spreads across ideological lines and includes average people angered by corruption and economic hardship as well as secular and Islamist opponents. That broad support could make it harder for the government to co-opt or crush those demanding change..."
"...The marchers came from all social classes and included young men recording tense moments on cellphone cameras, and middle-age women carrying flags of the Wafd Party, one of Egypt’s opposition groups. A doctor, Wesam Abdulaziz, 29, said she had traveled two hours to join the protest. She had been to one demonstration before, concerning the treatment of Mr. Said.
“I came to change the government,” she said. “I came to change the entire regime".
This isn't just Islamists but appears to be a real cross-spectrum of the Egyptian people who want the dictatorship GONE.
(BTW, Louise, have you considered having an email addy for your readers to email you info, links, etc? Maybe one of those freebie Yahoo, Gmail or whatever addresses that you could show at the top of the home page?)
"Plus, the photos of the protests seem to indicate the protest crowds are thousands and thousands of people, far too large for the police to do mass arrests."
Indeed, that's the thing that has me so captivated. This is something I have never seen before in the Muslim world, and I've had my eyes on that part of the world since the late 1960s. (Yes, I'm that old. Creak and groan.)
Lebanon is extremely complex and boiling right now. Haven't heard anything from the Saudis or the Mad Mullahs, but I'm sure they are pacing their respective floors.
I dare not get too hopeful,though. There's no telling what the Dictators 'r' Us club have up their sleeves.
Re email addy, I'd rather not put it up there for all to see. But since nobody reads my blog, I'll put it here for now:
oldweesie@sasktel.net
Anybody can put a message in any one of my posts and it lands in my email inbox first, so if you have any tips, you can do that via an old post from ages ago and request that I don't publish your comment or whatever you prefer. That's one of the reasons I monitor comments.
Post a Comment
<< Home