Middle East still simmering. Roundup I

Today?s protests in Iran may have had some amount of organization occur through social media, including a Facebook page called the 25th Bahman.

Bahraini Protesters Organize Via Facebook

Bahrain?s Sh?ite Muslim opposition have been organizing anti-government protests throughout the island nation, starting yesterday in what has been called Day of Wrath, and continuing today.

Algeria shuts down internet and Facebook as protest mounts – Telegraph

Why Twitter is not to be ridiculed

John Naughton, professor of the public understanding of technology at the Open University (UK), has written an insightful little piece in the Observer entitled Twitter?s five-year evolution from ridicule to dissidents? tool. He writes:

Why Egypt?s progressives win, Paul Amar

Saudi Arabia: Cheers for Our Egyptian Brothers!

Written by Haifa Alrasheed

In their reaction to the news that Hosni Mubarak stepped down, Saudis joyfully congratulated Egyptians on their victory, especially those in Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo, the epicentre of massive protests calling for an end to the Mubarak regime that rocked Egypt for 18 days.

Egypt: Freedom Party Continues (Videos)

Written by Hisham

This post is part of our special coverage of Egypt Protests 2011.

Since the news came out that Hosni Mubarak has decided to step down as president of Egypt, celebrations were carried out across the country. Throughout the world, people are celebrating in solidarity with the Egyptian people and their newly recovered freedom. More and more videos are uploaded on social networks and video sharing websites. Millions of people filmed different angles of a globally celebrated moment. Here’s a tiny sample of the videos posted online.

Iran: ?Al Jazeera, Please Cover Iran as you did in Egypt?

Written by Hamid Tehrani

As Iranian cyber activists flooded into the virtual world to encourage an officially banned mass demonstration on 14 February (25 Bahman) in the name of the Egyptian and Tunisian peoples, a Facebook page has been launched to encourage Al Jazeera to cover the event.

There is an image on this Facebook page that says ?Al Jazeera please cover Iran as you did in Egypt?. The page has attracted more than 3500 fans so far.

2011-02-14 Omar Suleiman and Canadian complicity in torture

Ahmad Abou El Maati is one of four Canadian citizens of dual nationality who became loosely linked together, incidentally and accidentally, by botched police and intelligence investigations in the wake of the September 11 attacks in the US.* All four were either apprehended in or kidnapped and transferred to Syria, where they were tortured.** Because El Maati?s country of origin was Egypt (born in Kuwait to an Egyptian father), he alone was transferred from Syria to Egypt months after he was detained, and survived another two years of torture in a succession of Egyptian prisons.

Egyptian ‘Sandmonkey’ Blogger Unmasks Himself in Cairo

CAIRO, EGYPT — I have been following the Egyptian pro-democracy blog, Rantings of a Sandmonkey, for years now. I have long wondered about the identity of its author, who describes himself as “a micro-celebrity, blogger, activist, new media douchebag, pain in the ass!” on his blog. I contacted him several times on previous trips to Egypt, requesting an interview, and getting no reply. In pre-revolution Egypt, he was rightfully too scared to talk to a journalist. I suspected that amidst the revolution, while all of pro-democracy Egypt was in Tahrir Square, that he might have the confidence to reveal his identity. It turns out I was right.

2011-02-13 Tales of Tyrants: Ben Ali, Mubarak & Suleiman

Many mysteries remain and questions still go unanswered about what just happen in Egypt last week, particularly with regards to Mubarak and Sulieman. Who even knows where they are and what they’re doing now?

Egypt Rises?and Triumphs

Banner in Tahrir Square saying “The People’s Revolution: We won’t let go of our rights after today.” Photo courtesy Yasmin Moll

This post is written by guest blogger Yasmin Moll. Yasmin shares an update from Cairo, Egypt. Her first blog post appeared on February 8, 2011. Thank you Yasmin!

Egypt and the Clinton Doctrine

from OPEN ANTHROPOLOGY by Maximilian Forte

Goodbye, Mubarak: Hope, Fear and Mahir Çağrı

First, Mabrook to all my Egyptian friends on their success in ousting Mubarak and to my Tunisian friends for proving that peaceful protest can lead to real change.

Three brief reflections on what comes next:

Google?s Wael Ghonim Thanks Facebook For Revolution

Google?s Middle East and North Africa Marketing Manager Wael Ghonim, credited with organizing the demonstrations in Cairo, thanked Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg for the social network?s role in helping achieve freedom in Egypt.

Morning Brief: Egypt-inspired protests held throughout Middle East

from FP Passport by Joshua Keating

Exactly what role did social media play in the Egyptian revolution?

The role of social media is critical because it helps to spread cognitive dissonance by connecting thought leaders and activists to ordinary citizens rapidly expanding the network of people who become willing to take action. Brian Solis describes this process as creating the necessary ?density? of connections, writing ?If unity is the effect, density is the cause.?

The Arab world is dead, but the Egyptians may revive it | Hussein Agha and Robert Malley

Egypt’s revolution has not just deposed a dictator, it has breathed life into an exhausted idea: Arab self-determination

The protesters on the streets of Cairo who, in just 18 days, ended the three-decade rule of Hosni Mubarak were not merely demanding the end of an unjust, corrupt and oppressive regime. They did not merely decry privation, unemployment or the disdain with which their leaders treated them. They had long suffered such indignities. What they fought for was something more elusive and more visceral.

Warnings for Egypt from both sides of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution

Is the Arab revolt spreading to Libya?

Libya?s Muammar Gaddafi Warns Against Facebook

The elusive subject of revolution

2011-02-14 Senior Egyptian army officers ordered massacre

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has resigned and is said to be in a coma or “psychologically devastated”. His appointed replacement, Omar Suleiman, is nowhere to be found and the Egyptian army has taken over. There has been wild celebration in the streets of Cairo but there is good reason to think that all is not well and the danger is far from over. Thanks to the reporting of Robert Fisk, we now have the information upon which to arrive at the terrible conclusion of the title. Senior Egyptian army officers, the very ones that are exercising a military dictatorship now, where quite willing only two weeks ago, to carry out a wholesale slaughter of the thousands of protesters in Liberation Square.

Winners and Losers in a Post-Mubarak Arab World

By Yousef Munayyer, Palestine Center, The Jerusalem Fund, February 14, 2011

Thirty years ago the Soviet Union was at the beginning of a long campaign in Afghanistan, the average person was lucky to have an advanced recording technology called a ?VHS tape,? and Mohammad Hosni Mubarak took control of Egypt, the most populous nation in the Arab Middle East. This week, the last of these beginnings came to an end when millions of Egyptian protestors succeeded in toppling one of the longest standing rulers in the 5,000-year history of Egypt.