MERIP Media Resource List, December 6, 2005

AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS on the following topics:
- CIA secret detention sites and the law
- Internal Palestinian politics as candidates get ready for January 25 parliamentary election
- Egypt's final round of voting for parliament, December 7

LISA HAJJAR
Lisa Hajjar teaches in the Law and Society Program at the University of California-Santa Barbara. She is the author of Courting Conflict: The Israeli Military Court System in the West Bank and Gaza (University of California Press, 2005). Hajjar is a member of the editorial committee of Middle East Report . She said today: "The US government's use of secret detention sites and 'enhanced interrogation techniques,' and the 'disappearance' of top al-Qaeda suspects in CIA custody, has negated any possibility of bringing the accused perpetrators of 9/11 to justice. Unlawful tactics make recourse to future legal prosecution unlikely if not impossible."

LORI A. ALLEN
Lori Allen is a postdoctoral fellow at the Pembroke Center at Brown University. She is an anthropologist whose research focuses on Palestine. Her dissertation is an ethnography of the second intifada. Allen also serves on the editorial committee of Middle East Report . She commented today: "There is growing support for Hamas and Fatah's 'new guard' who have earned credibility in many eyes by actively participating in the second intifada. While there was corruption in the Fatah primaries, as there was for the less popular PFLP, Palestinians will nonetheless vote in large numbers in the January parliamentary elections. They will be voting with the hope that something, anything, will change for the better. They have nothing left to lose."

MONA EL-GHOBASHY
Mona El-Ghobashy teaches political science at Columbia University and is a frequent contributor to Middle East Report . She commented today: "Egypt's parliamentary elections began and ended on dramatically different notes. The first round on November 9 saw relatively little interference by the Mubarak regime, but that soon changed as the ruling National Democratic Party started to see stiff competition from the Muslim Brothers. Egypt's most organized and politically astute opposition force, the Brothers have so far garnered 76 of the 444 seats in the legislature, a marked increase from their 17 seats in the outgoing parliament. During the second and third stages of voting, security forces blockaded roads and fired tear gas and rubber bullets to prevent voters from reaching polling stations, leading to the death of two voters and the injury of dozens. Observers expect more violence during the final round of voting tomorrow, as the regime appears intent on thwarting any more opposition gains."

Background :

+ Lisa Hajjar, "Banning Torture Affirms America's Humanity," Op-Ed, November 2005

+ Lori A. Allen, "Uncertainty and Disquiet Mark Intifada's Third Anniversary," Middle East Report Online , October 8, 2003

+  Lori A. Allen, "Palestinians Debate 'Polite' Resistance to Occupation," Middle East Report 225, Winter 2002

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