MER Article

"A Beast That Took a Break and Came Back"

Aida Seif al-Dawla is a psychiatrist whose fight for citizens’ rights and dignity in Egypt has taken many forms since her days as a student activist in the 1970s. In 1993, she founded the Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture, of which she remains executive director

Lina Attalah • 10 min read

Current Analysis

Matariyya, Egypt's New Theater of Dissent

On June 6, two police officers will stand trial for torturing Karim Hamdi, a 27 year-old lawyer, to death on a cold February evening inside the Matariyya police station in eastern metropolitan Cairo. The identities of the officers are protected by a gag order, but the widely publicized images of the

Amira Howeidy • 16 min read

Current Analysis

Letter of Support by Colleagues and Personal Friends of Emad Shahin

For those familiar with even the barest facts of the case, the provisional sentence of Emad al-Din Shahin to death seems appalling. Professor Shahin is a widely respected and accomplished academic who has taught at Notre Dame, Harvard, Georgetown, the American University in Cairo and George Washingt

(Author not identified) • 3 min read

Current Analysis

Repression and Remembering in Kent and Cairo

Yesterday was the forty-fifth anniversary of the day [http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/05/45th_anniversary_of_kent_state.html] when Ohio National Guardsmen fired 67 rounds of live ammunition into a crowd of peaceful protesters at Kent State University. The crime took 13 seconds. The tra

Joshua Stacher • 3 min read

Current Analysis

Fear Makes Everything Possible

It is a time in Egypt when it is not welcome to write something serious that addresses serious issues. Everything borders on the ridiculous. Rhetoric has shifted to a medieval or primal state where basic values are being revisited. Is it OK to discard human rights [http://timep.org/commentary/pope-t

Wael Eskandar • 2 min read

MER Article

The Everyday in Ramlat Bulaq

Walking through the alleys of Ramlat Bulaq, an old working-class neighborhood in northern Cairo close to the banks of the Nile, I encountered an 11-year old girl playing in front of her house with other children her age. She stopped me and said, “Do you know ‘Amr, the man who was killed? He used to

Omnia Khalil • 5 min read

MER Article

Reexamining Human Rights Change in Egypt

Over five tumultuous years in Egypt, the independent human rights community moved from a fairly parochial role chipping away at the Mubarak regime’s legitimacy, one torture case at a time, to media stardom in 2011, and from fielding a presidential candidate, who won over 134,000 votes, in 2012 to fa

Heba Morayef • 11 min read

MER Article

Rebels, Reformers and Empire

For 20 years leading up to the uprisings of 2010-2011, Egypt and Tunisia suffered the ill effects of neoliberal economic reform, even as the international financial institutions and most economists hailed them as beacons of progress in the Arab world. For ten years preceding the revolts, workers and

Karen Pfeifer • 21 min read

Current Analysis

The Politics of Egyptian Migration to Libya

The beheading of 21 Egyptian Copts working in Libya, as shown in video footage released by the Islamic State on February 12, 2015, made headlines across the world. The story was variously framed as one more vicious murder of Middle Eastern Christians by militant Islamists, one more index of chaos in

Gerasimos Tsourapas • 15 min read

Current Analysis

The Humble Tomato

In early February 2011, shortly after the beginning of the January 25 revolution that toppled Husni Mubarak, I made a phone call to a friend in an informal area of Cairo. I wanted to check on her wellbeing, and was interested to hear her perspective on reports that some of

Tessa Farmer • 3 min read

Current Analysis

Doubling Down on Dictatorship in the Middle East

For a moment, four years ago, it seemed that dictators in the Middle East would soon be a thing of the past. Back then, it looked like the United States would have to make good on its declared support for democracy, as millions of Tunisians, Egyptians, Bahrainis, Yemenis, and others rose up to reje

Amanda Ufheil-Somers • 3 min read

Current Analysis

The Battle of Egyptian Football Fans Against Dullness

Ultras, or organized groups of football fans, represented an influential faction of the Egyptian revolutionary multitude in 2011. The ultras’ long experience of street fights with police at stadiums aided the revolutionaries in achieving many victories over riot cops in the early days of the January

Dalia Abd El-Hameed • 4 min read