Showing posts with label Governance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Governance. Show all posts

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Egypt: 29 years between a president and his heir

Ayman Nour

President Mubarak made his first Presidential oath on October 14, 1981. He swore to observe the interests of the country. He said “I” and did not mention “I and my son after me” in his oath. Three days ago, Mubarak completed his 29th year as president of Egypt. Let’s, then, qualify the statuesque in Egypt after 29 years under Mubarak – Mubarak senior! I dedicate this article to the youth of the April 6 movement, who are going to hold a parallel conference to the annual conference of the National Democratic Party (NDP) at the end of this month.

Egypt lives in a chaos of “reversed” selections. The best items are expelled out and the worst items are kept in. Hypocrites and corrupt members are taken to the top.

There is a case of doubled general failure every where. “Zero” has become the slogan of the current phase of Egyptian history, in all fields.

High prices of basic commodities and various costs of living are exaggerated in a most unprecedented way in history!

More than half of the Egyptian people live under the poverty line. They cannot earn their daily living.

Public health is deteriorating daily thanks to the pesticides, poisoned substances in the air and water, corruption, poverty, pollution and life’s pressures.

Free health services are getting worse. Providing proper medication has become the responsibility, not of the country, but of the patients who can pay for it.

Corruption is controlling every single activity inside the state, from the highest level of the regime to the lowest levels. Systematic stealing is happening everywhere.

Bribes became the only way for citizens to have their rights given, their interests satisfied, and their legal permits taken, and their day moving smoothly.

Nepotism and favoritism have become the ideal gateway to having anything done.

Education is getting worse; both undergraduate and graduate levels.

Parents are doubly burdened by the responsibility of supporting their children with private lessons or parallel education classes, particularly after the appearance of Swine Flu.

Unemployment is killing the ambitions of fresh graduates and young people who have lost their hope in the future for themselves and for their country.

The number of those who commit suicide at a young age is increasing out of their feeling of social injustice.

The marriage age is increasing and unmarried youth and “custom” marriage have become a rampant phenomena of the Egyptian society.

The number of the crimes for immoral behavior, homosexuality and whoredom is increasing.

The social texture is dissolving. The divorce rate in Egyptian society is reaching unexpected and unprecedented levels.

Unjustified violence and crimes of robbery and murder are happening at higher rates.

The traditional values of Egyptian society are vanishing. The morals and behavior of Egyptian society is changing to the negative.

Egyptian youth are seeking illegal migration, despite the high risk, which was not the case before. Hundreds of Egyptian youth died while trying to get out of Egypt through the sea!

Egyptian youth who could not do illegal migration to other countries, made another migration into themselves. Some ran to drugs, some ran to extremism and some ran to the glories of the past.

Egypt has become a big prison; its bars are the impossibility of life with dignity.

Egypt is witnessing the illegal marriage between power and money. Corruption is wasting the credibility of the so-called reformists and their claimed reforms.

Egypt is no longer the gift of the Nile. Egypt has become the gift of the monopoly of everything: monopoly of power, economy, businesses, and rights.

Justice has disappeared on legal and moral levels. The sense of tyranny and injustice is everywhere.

Egypt is going through a general case of a slow death caused by the eternity of officials on their seats, and even worse inheritance of these seats.

The police state is controlling different forms of life in Egypt. Police logic has become the governing rule of all state offices.

Laws were turned into a means to support tyranny, suppression and corruption via a false majority in Parliament.

Hypocrisy and lying are controlling different forms of life here. Beautifying the failure, decorating the ugly, and justifying the wrong are now the official behavior of the state.

The official media in Egypt has become the personal property of the president, his family and his party. This has increased people’s sense of alienation inside their country.

The above symptoms are only one part of the real image of Egypt’s sufferings at the beginning of the 29th year of President Mubarak in office. Those are the symptoms of a number of fatal diseases that include: totalitarianism, individual rule, lack of transparency, lack of power exchanges, lack of judicial independence, election fraud and the monopoly of power.

We should not accept our country to be inherited by those who are still putting their knife on our neck! Now is the time to put an end to this very long and absurd black comedy!

[Cited]


Saturday, May 23, 2009

Egypt opposition leader Ayman Nour firebombed

Egypt's Ayman Nour claims attack, suffers facial burns

Egypt opposition leader Ayman Nour firebombed


Ayman Nour was attacked Friday evening on his way to a Ghad party meeting
Ayman Nour was attacked Friday evening on his way to a Ghad party meeting

CAIRO (Marwa Awad)

Egypt’s leading opposition figure Ayman Nour survived a bomb attack late Friday in front of his home a day after he vowed to run for elections in 2011.

Nour, one of Egypt’s best known political dissidents, was admitted to a Cairo hospital late Friday for first degree facial burns after a motorcyclist firebombed his car.

The attack took place 300 meters (984 feet) outside of Nour's home in the upper-class neighborhood of Zamalek. A youth in his late teens rode up to Nour, who had his car window rolled down, and sprayed flammable liquid in his face and lit a fire simultaneously.

“I had my window rolled down and he came up to me within a distance of one meter. He sprayed a liquid that ignited into a ball of fire that covered my face and head and I was immediately rushed to the hospital,” Nour told Al Arabiya in his first comments since the accident and declined to disclose the name of hospital he where he is being treated.

His driver was unhurt and immediately took Nour to the hospital.

Nour said he suffered first degree burns on half his face and 20 percent of his hair. Doctors told him they expect to release him within two weeks with the possibility of minor plastic surgery.

“We are in the process of filing a statement of criminal assault to the Abdel Maguid Mahmud the Attorney General to initiate an investigation into this crime,” Ehaab al-Khoury, head of the Ghad Party, told Al Arabiya. “We will also issue an official statement condemning such an act and demanding justice.”

Osama Abdel Menem, attorney with al-Ghad party told Al Arabiya he will file the criminal assault report Sunday.

Nour did not know who his attackers were, but said he believed the attack was in response to a speech he gave Thursday in Port Said announcing his resolve to run for the presidency for a second time in 2011.

However managers at Alfa market and Hardee's in Zamalek, two businesses located near the alleged attack, were unaware of any incidents around that time.

Zamalek police said no report of criminal assault was filed by Nour or the Ghad party on Friday.

" I had my window rolled down and he came up to me within a distance of one meter. He sprayed a liquid that ignited into a ball of fire that covered my face and "
Ayman Nur, Ghad Party founder

Nour, a 44-year-old diabetic, formed a political party and mounted an unprecedented challenge against veteran President Hosni Mubarak during the 2005 presidential election, coming a distant second. He was then imprisoned on charges of forging signature to found his party, which his supporters believe were trumped up, and sentenced to five years in prison. He was released in February.

“There are many who could have done this criminal act, especially after my visit to the city of Port Said and the speech I gave there,” Nour said, adding that he remains resolved to carry on with his political activities and “will not succumb to any obstacles.”

Nour called the attack “unfair play outside of all norms of decency and legitimacy,” maintaining that ever since his release in February of this year, he has been periodically assailed in ways that sought to damage his political and social standing and hinder any progress on his political reform efforts.

“A series of distractions and obstacles were set in my path since my release. Attempts on my life of this illegitimate sort outside of the political arena try to disable the party’s development and progress,” Nour explained.