Egypt

NOVANEWS Journalist Hossam al-Deen Seed was arrested in his home and taken to an unknown location on Thursday morning, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) reported. He was still missing as of Thursday evening. The charges against Seed are unknown, according to the ANHRI statement, which noted that he is a member of the Journalists Syndicate. The Interior Ministry did not respond to Mada Masr’s calls for a comment on the incident. Seed’s arrest comes the day after security forces raided the offices of the Mada Foundation for Media Development and arrested all staff members on the premises. This raid represents “a dangerous escalation in the Egyptian authorities’ crackdown on freedom of expression and association,” Amnesty International argued in a statement released Wed...

NOVANEWS The International Federation for Human Rights published a report exposing the systematic use of sexual violence by Egypt’s security forces Demonstration against sexual violence against women in Egypt, 6 February 2013 (AFP)  “It can happen to anyone, they arrest you for any reason, and they do all these things to you. I feel more and more at risk,” said A, speaking from the terrace of a cosy bar in the Egyptian capital. While he was on his way to join his friends, A was checked by the police twice for no apparent reason. "They put pressure on us. All those things you hear about what is going on in police stations and prisons, it terrifies everyone and that way they make us toe the line." Four years after the 25 January revolution raised the slogans “freedom, justice, dig...

NOVANEWS Will U.S. Stop "Cozying Up" to Regime? Report From Cairo Courtroom: Egypt Releases Two Al Jazeera Reporters After 411 Days in Jail Journalists Mohamed Fahmy, Baher Mohamed and Peter Greste were sentenced over the weekend to three years in jail for "spreading false news" that purportedly harmed Egypt following the 2013 military coup. Fahmy and Mohamed were taken into custody on Saturday. Greste remains free in Australia. The three had already spent more than a year in prison before being released on bail earlier this year. We speak with Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous in Cairo and with Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "The U.S. should stop cozying up to General—now President—Sisi," Roth says. "He is presiding over the worst crack...

NOVANEWS The New York Times Egypt’s rising authoritarianism has been met with a collective shrug in Washington, which sends Cairo $1.3 billion in military aid each year. One notable exception is Senator Patrick Leahy, who is raising alarm about human rights abuses Egyptian security forces have committed as they battle militants in the Sinai Peninsula. He recently asked Secretary of State John Kerry in a letter whether Egypt had run afoul of a federal law he sponsored that bars military units that have committed human rights abuses with impunity from receiving American aid. “According to information I have received, the number of militants has steadily increased, due, at least in part, to ineffective and indiscriminate operations by the Egyptian military and the lack of licit economic opp...

NOVANEWS A militant group based in the Sinai that has sworn allegiance to the Islamic State said the attack was retaliation for Egypt's execution of six of its members. By Arthur Bright Dozens wounded in Cairo car bombing MOHAMED ABD EL GHANY/Reuters An Egyptian militant group affiliated with the self-declared Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a car bomb that exploded outside a government security building in Cairo Thursday. The group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, also known as Sinai Province of IS, claimed responsibility in a series of tweets, saying that the attack was made in response to the execution of six of its members last month by the Egyptian government, which had convicted the men of killing Army officers. "Let the apostates of the police and army, the...