Egypt

Egypt’s April 6th Youth Movement have declared they are starting a campaign under the slogan 'The eyes of Egypt 2012', to monitor the presidential elections scheduled for May 23 and 24. It said it also adopted the slogan 'participate, elect, monitor and boycott'. The Movement, which has not decided yet which candidate to support in the elections, is also willing to launch a website for the campaign bearing the same slogan 'Eyes of Egypt'.

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Dr Nawal al Saadawi’s continued hope, after decades of persecution by the Egyptian political and religious authorities, and the as yet unfilled promise of Tahrir, offers inspiration to everyone challenging the violence and abuses of patriarchy and capitalism.

On 10 May 2012, Egypt's first ever presidential debate took place between two presidential candidates, Amr Moussa and Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh. The debate was three hours long and the candidates were asked questions on various topics such as human rights, health plans, the economy, foreign relations, sharia law, and the role of the military. Both Egyptians and Arabs around the region were tweeting the candidates' replies - a summary of the tweets is included in this post.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) has denounced the crackdown of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) and Security Services on the freedoms and rights acquired by the Egyptian people after the revolution. 'ANHRI considers the raid on the office of al-Alam news channel in Cairo on May 13th as a new episode in the series of stifling press freedom and clamping down on media work in Egypt for exposing the violations committed in the transitional phase.'

Female protesters continue to participate in pro-democracy demonstrations that remain deadly more than a year after President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown. Primary school teacher Reham El Hakim, for instance, was on the front lines on 5 May when the 12th person was killed during demonstrations against the military government in Abbasaiya. It's now commonplace, however, to hear people say that the military government and Islamic politicians, who did not at first approve of the anti-Mubarak dem...read more

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