Trump & Sisi Talk Business

Fucking birds of a feather...

*Artwork by Carlos Latuff, courtesy of Latuff Cartoons

Traitor Sisi handing over Tiran & Sanafir islands to his Saudi master

*Artwork by Carlos Latuff

Egypt's judiciary is the counter-revolution

Mubarak acquitted & released from army hospital; Meanwhile, 1,000s of political detainees languish in their prison cells


Thanks to Sisi's judiciary...Dictator Mubarak is acquitted & released from "detention" in luxury hospital ward

Justice for 800+ murdered protesters - Egypt's very independent judges acquit Mubarak & his entire regime, along with all police forces

 *Artwork by Carlos Latuff (2012 & 2014) courtesy of Latuff Cartoons

Egypt's art disasters that led to ban on unauthorized work on public statues

Mada Masr
The art disasters that led to a ban on unauthorized work on public statues

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Jano Charbel

Prime Minister Sherif Ismail has issued a decree banning the construction and restoration of all statues, murals and sculptures in public squares without prior authorization from both the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Antiquities.

Wednesday's decision comes in the wake of several unusual and poorly-crafted statues that have reared their ugly heads across the country over the past couple of years.

Most recently a statue in Sohag, intended to represent a martyred soldier embracing his mother, was met with criticism and anger last week as many considered it inappropriate, and some even suggested that it appeared to be a portrayal of sexual harassment. The incomplete statue has already undergone modifications.

One of the the most striking of these public artworks was an ill-conceived recreation of Queen Nefertiti’s head in the town of Samalout, in the governorate of Minya (see image at top right), last year. The ancient Egyptian queen is internationally remembered, among other attributes, for her beautiful face and delicate features, but the Samalout likeness failed to live up to this legacy, earning itself names such as "Frankenstein."

So provocative was this version of Queen Nefertiti that Samalout authorities decided to tear it down in July 2015, after widespread ridicule on social networking sites.

Another memorably lackluster statue is that of Colonel Ahmed Orabi Pasha, leader of Egypt’s armed resistance movement (1879-82) against British forces, erected in the Nile Delta Governorate of Sharqiya. Also widely mocked, it depicts a green-painted likeness of Orabi riding a cartoonish white horse, mounted on a multicolored concrete base.

Last month municipal authorities in the village of Hurriyet Razna, Orabi's birthplace, ordered that the whole statue be repainted.

Privately owned Youm7 news portal reports that Sharqiya authorities may also impose penalties on those who distorted the statue, and will move to beautify the public square in which it is found so as “to restore its aesthetic appearance.”

Along the Cairo-Ismailia Desert Highway can be found a public sculpture of a bronze male athlete flexing his biceps. It was recently repainted brown, with white paint used just for his hair and swimsuit, and the result, some say, looks like a statue of an aging man in white underpants. 

Social media filled with derision about the botched paint job, some calling the statue "a giant in his underwear," while others suggested that it should be featured in Egyptian underwear advertisements.

There was also the unusually colored statue of popular folk-inspired musician and composer Mohamed Abdel Wahab in Bab al-Shareya, his birthplace. Its shiny brown suit and golden face and hands were the subject of criticism early this year, to the extent that it was reportedly repainted by school students in February.

Critics were quick to point out that, despite its makeover, the statue's face more closely resembles that of the ousted President Hosni Mubarak than Abdel Wahab's.

The fiberglass statue was lightly damaged after falling off its base in January 2014, apparently after several banners tied around it neck led to the statue being blown down during strong winds.

---

A version of this story was published in The Guardian.


*Photo of sexual harassment statue by Mahmoud Ahmed, courtesy of  the Associated Press.

Free the jailed members of satirical YouTube group

Human Rights Watch 

Egypt: Free Satirical YouTube Group

Video Performers Who Mocked Government Risk Terrorism Charges 

June 23, 2016

Egyptian authorities should drop their investigation into six young men who posted satirical videos commenting on Egypt’s politics on YouTube and release four of them, who have been detained since May 10, 2016. The investigation appears to be based purely on their satirical videos and violates the right to free speech.

Prosecutors are investigating the men, of a group called Street Children, after the Interior Ministry’s National Security Agency alleged that they are “instigators against the ruling regime” who plotted to use “the internet, social media sites and YouTube” to spread video clips that would undermine the country’s stability by inciting citizens to protest. Prosecutors also investigated the four men in custody about terrorism-related accusations. On June 20, the East Cairo Public Prosecution Office sent the case to the Supreme State Security Prosecution, saying it was out of its jurisdiction.

“Egypt under Sisi is losing its legendary sense of humor when it locks up young men for making satirical videos,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East and North Africa director. “This kind of blanket repression leaves young people with few outlets to express themselves or joke about their daily hardships.”

Security forces arrested Ezz al-Din Khaled, 19, the group’s youngest member, on May 8. A judge released him on bail of 10,000 L.E (US$1,125) on May 10, after prosecutors charged him with inciting protests and using online platforms to insult state institutions. Security forces arrested Mohamed Dessouky, Mohamed Adel, Mohamed Gabr, and Mohamed Yehia on May 10 and are holding them in Cairo’s Heliopolis Police Station on suspicion of the same charges. Prosecutors most recently renewed their 15-day detention order pending investigations on June 18.

Under international law, a judge, not a prosecutor, should promptly review any arrest. However, Egyptian law allows extended periods of pretrial detention without judges’ orders. The sixth member of the group, Mostafa Zein, is under investigation but has not been arrested.

The week before the arrests, Street Children released a satirical music video in which they mocked President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and called on him to leave office.

Their lawyer, Mahmoud Othman, of the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, an Egyptian human rights group, told Human Rights Watch that East Cairo district prosecutors have interrogated the four detained men about additional accusations. They include establishing a group that calls for resisting the authorities, disseminating false news to undermine public order, and inciting to overthrow the “ruling regime.”

These accusations, under penal code articles 171 and 174, carry possible 5-year prison sentences. The lawyer said that prosecutors also threatened to use terrorism charges, including articles 86 and 86 bis, which might lead to much longer sentences.

Prosecution reports reviewed by Human Rights Watch showed that prosecutors are relying heavily on a two-page National Security Agency report on Street Children, written by Major Ahmed Abd al-Rahman on May 6. The report, reviewed by Human Rights Watch, cites “trusted confidential sources” who identified the group as “instigators” who “distort the words of some national songs and replace them with verbal abuse against the state.”

As is often the case in National Security reports, Major Abd al-Rahman did not describe the sources, and prosecutors have not questioned the officer further, said Othman, the lawyer. Based on the memo, the Supreme State Security Prosecution granted National Security officers a warrant to raid and inspect the men’s houses and arrest them.

The prosecution reports also showed that prosecutors questioned the four men about “indirectly” inciting “terrorist crimes” and indirectly disseminating terrorist thoughts by participating in videos that contained terrorist ideas.

The six members of the group, most in their 20s, met at a theater workshop and decided to move their performances to the street to make them more accessible to people who cannot afford the theater, one of their project coordinators told Human Rights Watch. In January, they began posting their selfie-style videos, in which they sing about topics including the Muslim Brotherhood, religious preachers, the value of the Egyptian pound and the decision to cede two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia, and have attracted more than 1.1 million views on their YouTube Channel.

The group is also facing possible accusations of contempt of religion, which prosecutors have used more often in recent months and which led to 5-year prison sentences in absentia for four children in February because of their involvement in a short YouTube video mocking the extremist group Islamic State.

Reports in local newspapers stated that the Alexandria Minor Offenses Prosecution began separate investigations of Street Children based on a report, filed by lawyer Tarek Mahmoud, that accused the group of insulting Islam in their videos. Othman, the group’s lawyer, said that no one has been interrogated on this accusation yet.

Following the arrest of the four group members, journalists, professors, and other public figures began an online petition calling for the four men’s unconditional release and “free rein to freedom of opinion, imagination, and satire.”

Al-Sisi’s government severely restricts expression. Authorities have arrested and prosecuted dozens of journalists and confiscated journalistic material, according to a 2015 report by the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression. In late January, security officials briefly arrested a cartoonist, Islam Gawish, for his satirical comics that criticized the presidency and government policies.

Asked about the government’s troubled relationship with youth activists, al-Sisi admitted during a televised interview on June 3 that state institutions, including the presidency, had failed to create mechanisms to effectively communicate with youth.


The investigations against the Street Children violate international human rights laws. The resolution on the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression adopted by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in 2002 prohibits arbitrary interference by governments in freedom of expression.

Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Egypt is a party, guarantees freedom of expression and opinion. Limitations are permissible only when they are stated clearly by law and are necessary to protect the rights or reputation of others or national security, public order, public health, or morals.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee, the body responsible for monitoring the implementation of the covenant, stressed that “the mere fact that forms of expression are considered to be insulting to a public figure is not sufficient to justify the imposition of penalties” and that “all public figures, including those exercising the highest political authority such as heads of state and government, are legitimately subject to criticism and political opposition.”

“Egypt’s youth have been a driving force for change since the 2011 uprising,” Houry said. “Upholding human rights and free speech is the best way for al-Sisi to begin to repair the government’s relationship with them.”

Sisi's state begins to demolish revolutionary mural wall commemorating Jan. 25 Uprising

Aswat Masriya
Graffiti wall in downtown Cairo to be removed in part

Thursday Sept 17 2015

 
Workers were seen demolishing a part of the wall surrounding the American University in Cairo on Thursday.

"In the framework of beautifying Tahrir Sqaure, the Egyptian government asked the American University in Cairo to either develop or remove its Science building along with its walls on Mohamed Mahmoud street," Rehab Saad, Director of Media Relations at the American University of Cairo, told Aswat Masriya in a phone interview.

"The university decided to demolish parts of the walls and replace them by an iron gate," she added.

Mohamed Mahmoud street, which is a side street from Egypt's famed Tahrir Square, is known for the graffiti on its walls, which includes symbols of the January uprising , the battles on the street, and murals inspired by Egypt's heritage.


*Photos by Ahmed Hamed - courtesy of Aswat Masriya

This is how the "justice" system functions in Egypt

 

 

*Art courtesy of Carlos Latuff

State radio bans popular singer Hamza Namira due to his "critical songs"

BBC News

Egypt radio bans popular singer Hamza Namira for 'critical' songs

November 19, 2014

Egyptian state radio has banned the songs of popular singer Hamza Namira from its airwaves, officials say, because they criticise the authorities.

Human rights activists have denounced the move as part of a systematic campaign to stifle dissent.
They say that anyone who is not singing the praises of President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi is being silenced.

The performer came to fame during the Egyptian revolution three years ago with his songs of hope and freedom.

Mr Sisi was elected in May 2014, almost a year after huge demonstrations enabled him to remove his predecessor, President Mohammed Morsi, from office.

Since 2013 the government has imprisoned thousands of Mr Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood supporters and other opposition figures. It has also used gunfire to suppress Muslim Brotherhood demonstrations.
 
VOICE OF THE REVOLUTION

The BBC's Orla Guerin in Cairo says that Namira was a key voice of the revolution of 2011, appearing before huge crowds in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

But state radio's chairman, Abdel Rahman Rashad, told the BBC that a review had found the performer was not approved for broadcast - as all singers are required to be.

He added that any performer who criticises the authorities should not be on the airwaves.

Namira is the second cultural figure to get into political trouble in recent days.

One of Egypt's best known actors, Khaled Abol Naga, has been accused of treason for criticising the president.

A lawyer is bringing a private prosecution against him for "disturbing national security."


*Photo courtesy of the BBC

 

Actor accused of grand treason for criticizing Sisi's security record

Mada Masr

Actor accused of treason for criticizing Sisi's security record

November 17, 2014 

Lawyer Samir Sabry has filed a lawsuit against actor Khaled Abol Naga for criticizing President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s security record.

Sabry accused Abol Naga of treason, inciting against the Sisi administration and threatening society’s general well-being.

In a video appearance during Cairo International Film Festival, Abol Naga had criticized Sisi and the security apparatus’ performance, one year after the Egyptian people gave the president a full mandate to fight terrorism.

“If you cannot secure [Egypt] without sacrificing the people’s rights, you should not stay in your position. If you cannot do this [securing the country], then leave, go away. It seems that we are going to say it again very soon,” Abol Naga told reporters.

Sisi’s supporters launched a massive smear campaign against Abol Naga on social and private media channels in retaliation. In a phone interview with the privately owned Sada al-Balad channel, Sabry told talk show host Ahmed Moussa that Abol Naga is a homosexual.

“Anyone who slanders his president, state institutions and security is not a man — he is a homosexual,” Sabry said.

Abol Naga responded by threatening to sue all those who defame him.

“My right to sue every media body or other who is a part of the campaign against me for my rightful opinion on Sisi's failure is reserved,” he said on his Twitter account under the hashtag “down with the mentality of the military.”

“The country needs [us] to say it again: Leave,” he added, addressing Sisi.

Abol Naga dismissed the smear campaign against him as a sign that the presidency is “nervous.”

“The igniting campaign against me in the media just because that Sisi was not up to his promise [in fighting terrorism] after one year says only one thing: the regime is nervous. Why?” Abol Naga wondered.

A group of Twitter users created the hashtag #Support_Naga to send out tweets in support of the actor. Some referred to Article 65 of the Constitution granting the right to freedom of expression in any medium.

The Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) issued a statement on Monday lambasting Sabry’s lawsuit and the ensuing smear campaign against Abol Naga.

“Such an incident, which was preceded by the incident in which a complaint was filed to withdraw Bassem Youssef’s nationality for cheap accusations of criticizing President Sisi, is an indication of what we are facing in this period by those who flatter the regime or those who seek fame,” ANHRI said.

Graffiti of resistance on walls of Tunis city

Fuck the system

You've starved us - Anarchy is order

 

Occupy the streets

 

The streets belong to us

 

 Workers' Party

All Cops Are Bastards

 

*Photos by Jano Charbel

Egypt: State-worship mocked in revolutionary artworks

Sada

Photo Essay: Worshiping the Egyptian State

September 9, 2014

Angela Boskovitch

Abo Bakr was an assistant professor of fine arts before the events of January 2011, when he turned the city walls into his canvas and the street into a kind of open-air classroom.

“When you fight with the regime, you fight with yourself and your profession too, because art institutions are really lacking here,” he said.

It’s not uncommon for public museums to be closed for years in Egypt with no planned reopening. The famed Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum has been closed since 2010, when a prized Van Gogh painting was stolen. Twenty-five other museums were subsequently closed due to security concerns raised by the theft, and though some have since reopened, they conduct little public educational outreach and are largely not visited by locals.

Artists and independent cultural actors have stepped in to fill the void with street art projects and independent cultural spaces.

Prior to his participation in Amen, a CARAVAN group exhibition, Abo Bakr’s work has been featured in several other exhibitions and murals since the events of 2011. Egyptian artwork over this period, documented in countless photographs shared by social media users, has created a kind of visual memory of the revolution.

Murals and graffiti have recorded events as they happened; for example, a mural on Mohamed Mahmoud Street done in February 2012 displayed the portraits of those killed in the Port Said football massacre.

And in November 2013, the revolutionaries and artists painted a pink camouflage mural as a commentary about authoritarian leaders who act with impunity, disputing the official narrative that conflated all protesters with supporters of Mohamed Morsi, the deposed Muslim Brotherhood president.

For this sculpture, Abo Bakr took the pink camouflage motif he and others painted last year as his starting point. The figure kneels on a prayer mat designed to resemble a popular board game with the image of an anonymous general at the helm.

“Religion is part of the game of power here in Egypt,” the artist said.

Referring to his sculpture, he adds “I didn’t paint something beautiful, but something that people should see now. This figure represents anyone who worships strongmen.” Abo Bakr’s praying figure prompts viewers to reexamine President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s statements and question how religious arguments are used by political figures to gain popular support.

During media and campaign appearances, Sisi has leveraged the Islamist dialogue with frequent references to God and morality. In his first ever TV interview broadcast on May 5, then-candidate Sisi said he was “an Egyptian Muslim who loves his country, religion, and people” and reminisced about growing up in an old Cairo quarter where Jews, Christians, and Muslims lived together.

The former military head billed himself as the defender of “moderate Islam,” implying that religious discourse of groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood had “robbed Islam of its humanity.”

Before that pre-recorded interview aired, Sisi met with members of the media in a forum on May 3 where he talked of his unwavering faith, saying that God wouldn’t abandon Egyptians after all they’d gone through, and that as president he’d only be accountable to God and the Egyptian people.

Abo Bakr’s CARAVAN sculpture also wears a military-style hat. At the center of it is a triangular sign with an exclamation mark that one encounters on the road warning of dangers ahead—this is intended to jolt the audience. “The idea is to wake people up and link events happening around them,” Abo Bakr explained.

The statue is also peppered with finely drawn small flies representing corruption, a reference to the military-owned companies that operate in nearly every sector without effective oversight or transparency.

Despite the country experiencing daily power cuts, $10 billion in gas revenues had been lost between 2005 and 2011 in corrupt contracts that under-priced exports, and citizens are still paying the price for elite networks of corruption.

Also in keeping with his cartoonist-like commentary, Abo Bakr stenciled the flag of Saudi Arabia as a kind of brand label on his sculpture’s back—referencing the growing influence of the kingdom on the Egyptian state. Saudi-Egyptian joint ventures carry out mega development projects throughout the country, often on state-owned land, and the kingdom has granted Egypt more than $12 billion in much-needed aid after the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi.

King Abdullah’s first visit to Egypt since Mubarak’s ouster came on June 20, 2014—a way to congratulate the former defense minister who once served as military attaché in Riyadh on winning the presidency. When Sisi then visited Saudi Arabia on August 10, he was awarded the King Abdulaziz Necklace, the country’s highest and most prestigious medal.

The inclusion of the symbolically painted sculpture in the CARAVAN exhibition is a testament to the work of a new generation of Egyptian artists. “The country’s younger artists are using an international code of language,” explained Josef Danner, who included the artwork of young Egyptian artists in his 2013 poster project that covered billboards around Austria.

“They pick up ready-made images that are part of the collective identity and then rework and combine them surrealistically using new technologies in a way that really shocks the older generation of artists.”

Many younger artists like Abo Bakr say they’ve chosen to leave the constraining hierarchy of art academies and institutions in order to contribute critical media at a pivotal time in history. Ironically, this artwork has now made it back into the more traditional art space.


*Photos by Angela Boskovitch & Amanda Mustard

Accurate depictions of Sisi's dictatorship

Altered image of Dictator Sisi washing feet of Saudi Arabia's absolute monarch - his paymaster - King Abdallah during most recent visit to Egypt aboard his personal jet

Press freedom in Egypt under Dictator Sisi

Dictator Sisi: Building A New Egypt

*Art courtesy of JoeTube, Financial Times, and KAL's Cartoon respectively

Graffiti artists unite against Sisi dictatorship

The Guardian

Graffiti artists unite against Egypt's presidential hopeful Abdel Fatah al-Sisi

Artists from Europe, the US and north Africa support their local counterparts with works critical of the former army chief

 

Thursday May 8, 2014

 

Patrick Kingsley

 

Some of the world's leading political artists are stepping up their efforts to produce street works protesting against the actions of Egypt's likely next president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.

International graffiti stars such as Sampsa, Ganzeer and Captain Borderline and the painter Molly Crabapple have begun to create designs incorporating the slogan "Sisi war crimes" in cities across Europe, the US and north Africa.

The artists say their initiative aims to encourage fiercer international criticism of Sisi's behaviour. World leaders court Egypt's former army chief despite his having ushered in an era of increased oppression after removing the country's former president Mohamed Morsi last July.

"We hope these works will alter the narrative about Sisi," said Ganzeer, one of the Egyptian artists who rose to global prominence following the country's 2011 revolution.

"It seems like Sisi will easily fool the international community that the majority of Egyptians side with him. All the images getting out there are of squares filled with Sisi supporters, with little to no news of the other side, unless it's of [Morsi's Muslim] Brotherhood. But there are people out there who are opposing who are not part of the Brotherhood."

Sisi's many supporters would dispute Ganzeer's perspective, as it is commonly believed inside Egypt that foreign politicians and journalists have sided against the government that Sisi installed last summer.

Ganzeer and his colleagues, however, feel the international community has done little to censure him and is fully reconciled to his expected election as president next month. They believe that more should therefore be done to shake it from its apathy.

"No Egyptian president will be able to survive without the support of international politicians," Ganzeer said.

The Finnish graffiti star Sampsa was the first artist to create anti-Sisi work outside Egypt. Best known for work that promotes fairer copyright law, Sampsa painted silhouettes signifying the bodies of dead Egyptians on Parisian pavements and a building in New York. The French artist Levalet, the Tunisian calligrapher El Cid and others also have works planned, and the Captain Borderline collective, the founders of Europe's largest street-art festival, plan to collaborate with Ganzeer on a large mural in Munich.

  New-York-based Molly Crabapple will draw work inspired by the cages Egyptian dissidents are locked inside at trial hearings. "I'm disgusted with the way that the Egyptian revolution has been overtaken by a murderous military dictatorship that is in many ways worse than [ousted dictator Hosni] Mubarak," she said.

Ganzeer and his fellow Egyptian artists Zeft and Ammar Abou Bakr will continue to create anti-authoritarian works in Cairo, despite working in a context that is increasingly dangerous – a factor other street artists said had motivated them to show solidarity.

"These guys are the pioneers of modern-day political street art," said Sampsa. "The big stars [outside Egypt] don't give a shit about changing anything these days. But the guys down in Egypt, their work has a point. Their political art comes hand-in-hand with activism."

Previously largely free of artistic expression, Egypt's walls exploded with murals and slogans following Mubarak's removal in February 2011 and the graffiti was portrayed internationally as a symbol of the country's revolutionary gains.

Making graffiti was never easy in the months that followed. The authorities often whitewashed the murals and suspicious bystanders sometimes mobbed the artists, but Ganzeer said it had never been as hard as it was now. The increased policing of public space, a new law curbing protests and a more aggressive public have made artists far more wary.

"The output now is much fewer and far between. People are still doing things, but maybe not with the same outpouring we saw in 2011 when there were new pieces every week," he said. Ganzeer was arrested in spring 2011 for posting anti-military stickers in public.

Like many of his colleagues, Ganzeer has often created work against the Muslim Brotherhood, but he now fears being taken for a member of the widely loathed group.

"The moment anyone sees you on the street, you're associated with the Brotherhood, and attacked very easily unless you can persuade them that you're creating something pro-military. So it's very difficult to create opposition work that hasn't just been made quickly."

To protect themselves, he and others have developed a technique that sees them add explicitly anti-authoritarian details to their designs only at the last possible moment.

While painting a recent mural on Mohamed Mahmoud Street, a road leading from Tahrir Square that is famous for revolutionary graffiti, Ganzeer easily persuaded passersby that the cartoon soldier he had drawn next to a pile of skulls was mourning the deaths of innocent Egyptians. It was only when he added blood to the soldier's mouth and then scarpered that the image, entitled The Army Above All, took on a more sinister meaning.

Since Sisi deposed Morsi last July following days of mass demonstrations, at least 16,000 Egyptian dissidents have been arrested, and thousands killed during protests. The crackdown initially focused on Morsi's Islamist supporters before expanding to secular-leaning activists.

The government and a sizeable section of society blame the violence on the Brotherhood, and say strong policing is necessary to quell a wave of terrorist activity. Ministers also maintain the country is on the path to democracy, and use May's presidential election to support their claims.

"This is not going to be an autocracy," Egypt's foreign minister, Nabil Fahmy, told the Guardian on Sunday. "If you're not doing it right, we will hold you accountable."


*Street art by Ganzeer, Sampsa & Ammar Abu Bakr

 

CC on the walls: Graffiti mirrors Egypt's political tug-of-war

Mada Masr
CC on the walls: Cairo's graffiti mirrors political tug-of-war 

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Jano Charbel

Cairo’s streets have been overtaken by a new kind of political rhetoric. A barrage of hastily scrawled “anti-coup” graffiti covers walls, billboards, sidewalks, garbage cans, trees — almost any surface that can be written on or spray-painted.

This new wave of political graffiti is the handiwork of supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi. And it has come to dominate the political graffiti and street art scene that flourished after the January 25 uprising, but went dormant after Morsi’s ouster on July 3.

Protests demanding Morsi’s reinstatement clearly denounce the interim government and the military’s intervention in politics, which demonstrators call a coup. But above all, they staunchly oppose Defense Minister Colonel General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who is the target of most of their graffiti messages.

Anti-coup and pro-Morsi graffiti is perhaps most prevalent in Cairo’s eastern district of Nasr City, where troops forcefully dispersed the largest pro-Morsi sit-in outside the Rabea al-Adaweya Mosque on August 14, resulting in more than 600 deaths, thousands of injuries and hundreds of arrests.

Virtually every street in Nasr City is covered with graffiti denouncing military rule, the “bloody military coup” and Sisi, whose name has been abbreviated to the Roman letters CC.

The most common graffiti messages claim that “CC is a traitor,” “CC is a killer” and “CC is here” — the latter message commonly painted on garbage cans.

The words “anti-coup” written in English are also seen frequently, as are “coup = terrorism” and the popular chant by Muslim Brotherhood supporters: “Depart oh Sisi, Morsi is my president.”

The only form of expression left

On October 6, the Muslim Brotherhood and their allies in the umbrella group that calls itself the Anti-Coup Alliance organized protests across the country. When some tried to enter Tahrir Square, they clashed with security forces and scattered to surrounding neighborhoods, where they also faced off with residents of the areas.

Marching through Nasr City with a small group of around 100 Morsi supporters, one protester swiftly spray-painted his graffiti on a billboard: “Down with military rule.”

The young man refused to be interviewed and angrily demanded that he not be photographed while spray-painting.

Standing by his side, another young Morsi supporter who identified himself only as Mahmoud said, “They’ve killed and arrested us. They’ve censored and banned all our media outlets. And so we are left only with our peaceful protests and peaceful expression.”

According to Mahmoud, “These writings are the means by which we deliver our messages of opposition against the bloody coup.”

Both of them quickly walked away to catch up with the advancing march.
 
But where is the art?

Meanwhile, the street artists of the 2011 uprising appear to have either abandoned their art, chosen to remain silent or been forced underground in the months since mass protests led to the Armed Force’s removal of the former president.

“Nowadays, the politically charged atmosphere is not conducive to making attractive or artistic graffiti and murals,” says Alexandria-based artist Aya Tarek. “Graffiti is presently viewed as being garbage, something that should be cleaned up or covered up.” 

Indeed, authorities have whitewashed older murals and street art commemorating the 2011 uprising and its subsequent struggles — images that had become iconic of the fight and those who lost their lives for it.

For Tarek, the new types of graffiti that are taking the place of the old murals are “more like vandalization rather than art.”

The activists involved in these new graffiti campaigns appear to be more interested in publicly posting their messages than in the aesthetic value of their graffiti. In Cairo, they have produced no murals and very few stencils, forms which became prevalent over the past three years.

The most common stencils include Morsi’s bearded and bespectacled face along with the four finger salute signifying Rabea (four) al-Adaweya, with the letters “R4BIA” beneath the hand.

According to the revolutionary street artist Omar Mostafa, the graffiti painters of the Brotherhood and Anti-Coup Alliance “use quick freehand writings.”

“They don’t produce murals or intricate street art, as they are afraid of being arrested,” he says. “These people don’t have the opportunity to stand by and prepare a time-consuming mural. If they attempted to do so they would be attacked by the populace and arrested by the police.”

It does appear to have become more dangerous to make street art in recent months. On the 40th anniversary of the October 6 War, authorities arrested the anti-authoritarian and anti-Morsi street artist Ahmed Naguib as he was painting graffiti critical of the police near Tahrir Square on Mohamed Mahmoud Street — a veritable open air street art gallery.

A few weeks earlier, on September 19, security forces arrested two members of the Ultras White Knights after they spray-painted messages critical of the police near the Zamalek Sporting Club in Cairo. Security forces also reportedly arrested a number of Morsi supporters while painting “anti-coup” messages, but the total number of these arrests is not known.

But Mostafa doesn’t think the need for speed is an excuse. “They’re using our earlier paint-and-run tactics. Moreover, their graffiti lacks originality and artistic value,” he claims.

Mostafa argues that the four-fingered “R4BIA” insignia, especially its yellow and black colors, was inspired by previous street art associated with the No to Military Trials campaign.

Street artist Amar Abu Bakr agrees that the pro-Morsi camp is recycling previously used ideas and art forms.

“Nevertheless, this is their way of expressing themselves following the crackdown at Rabea, just as we expressed ourselves through street art and murals of martyrs on Mohamed Mahmoud Street,” after bloody clashes took place there in 2011 and 2012, he says.
 
Sectarian street messages

Despite being victims of violent crackdowns, the Anti-Coup Alliance has also produced more divisive and intolerant messages.

Immediately after security forces forcefully dispersed the Rabea and Nahda Square protest camps, a series of nationwide attacks targeted tens of churches, Coptic homes and properties.

While the Muslim Brotherhood and its political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party, officially denounced these sectarian attacks, pro-Morsi graffiti around the Rabea sit-in carries clear sectarian messages.

Pro-Morsi Islamists condemned the Coptic Pope Tawadros II and the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar for openly siding with General Sisi’s removal of Morsi.

After the military stepped in on July 3, messages of a sectarian nature sprung up around Nasr City: “CC is the dog of Tawadros,” along with “CC is the dog of the cross” and “Down with the pope’s rule.”

Most of these were painted over when sectarian assaults escalated after the August 14 dispersals.
More recently, the symbol of the cross has been replaced by that of the Jewish Star of David, with newer graffiti reading “CC = Star of David” or “CC is the agent of Star of David.”
 
Cat and mouse

Often, graffiti messages from opponents and supporters on both sides are layered as the political fight plays out on the walls of the city.

Anti-coup graffiti is sometimes painted over altogether. In some cases, the letters “CC” are visibly crossed out and replaced with “Morsi.” Other times, words denouncing Sisi are erased while the letters “CC” are left and placed inside a heart shape.

“Wipe it off and I’ll paint it again” reads one message on the walls where pro-Morsi graffiti was whitewashed.

Around the Ettehadiya Presidential Palace, a military stronghold and bastion of pro-Sisi sentiments, pro-army graffiti screams “God damn Rabea” along with an assortment of anti-Morsi messages.

Describing such graffiti as an eyesore, Tarek says, “All these accusations and curses, back and forth, are merely insults written on walls, not street art. I wouldn’t even call it graffiti.”

“I want to re-enter and revive the street art scene, using good materials to make quality art. Yet collective street art events are not taking place because of the current unrest and instability,” she says.

Tarek aspires to create beautiful art on Egypt’s streets to replace the now-prevalent political graffiti which is scribbled on walls, blotched-over and re-painted.

“My work is not political, it is purely artistic,” she says.

Mostafa points out that “the present political situation is unclear and uncertain. The state’s so-called ‘war on terrorism’ and other propaganda is being instilled in the populace — so if we are involved in street art critical of the security forces, then we will be accused of being members of the Muslim Brotherhood, or terrorists.”

He believes there will be a “resurgence of proper street art in the near future when the political situation becomes clearer and more settled.”

Abu Bakr and other street artists are working on a large mural on Qasr al-Nil Street in downtown Cairo. He insists the street art scene has not died.

“People need to know who killed the martyrs, and people need art in their everyday lives — not merely for those who can afford to go to an enclosed art gallery, but for everybody walking or driving past on the streets.”

“We are not hiding,” he says, “Anti-graffiti laws will not keep us from expressing ourselves through street art.”


*Photos by Jano Charbel

Graffiti artists defend murals near Tahrir with 'Quranic verses'

Ahram Online

Graffiti artists defend work in Tahrir Square with 'Quranic verses'

Friday 9 Nov 2012

Popular pro-revolution graffiti artist, Ammar Abu Bakr, uses Quranic verses to mock Friday Sharia protesters after reports his work was defamed by some demonstrators

 

Minor clashes erupted in Mohamed Mahmoud Street near Tahrir Square on Friday between revolutionary Graffiti-supporters who gathered to close down the street to protect art work on its wall from potential vandalism, and Salafist demonstrators.

According to an Ahram Online reporter on the ground, dozens of young protesters gathered at Mohamed Mahmoud Street and attempted to form a popular committee to ban Salafists from entering the street.

The clashes allegedly started after rumors circulated that Salafist protesters erased the graffiti of the Egyptian uprising's martyrs on the street and replaced them with Quranic verses.

According to Al-Ahram Arabic news website, the verses were drawn by pro-revolution graffiti artist Ammar Abu Bakr and his partners on Thursday night.

The graffiti artists used Quranic verses to communicate with the Islamists "in their own religious language," according to Abu Bakr.

One illustration mockingly denounced "those who spread immorality around the world," describing the Friday Sharia protesters as shameful.

Thousand of Salafists gathered in Tahrir square Friday to demand a Sharia-based constitution.


*Photo courtesy of AhramOnline

Belly-dance & song censored from film due to religious anger

Egypt Independent

Song in popular film censored for allegedly insulting Islam

Fri, 02/11/2012

The Culture Ministry confirmed Thursday that it has censored a song in the popular new film “Abdu Mouta” after Islamist groups filed lawsuits against its producer, claiming the song insulted Islam.

Censorship Director Abdel Sattar Fathy will watch the film to make sure the offending part of the song is cut out artistically, and write a report of it, said the ministry.

Saeed Tawfiq, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Culture, said film producer Ahmed al-Sobky had requested the censorship.

“Abdu Mouta,” which is playing in theaters nationwide, recorded the highest one-day revenue in the history of Egyptian cinema, making LE2.5 million on the first day of Eid al-Adha last Friday.

However, the film has sparked an uproar among the Sufi and Shia communities, as it contains a scene in which a belly dancer dances to a song mentioning the names of Prophet Mohamed’s daughter, Fatima, and his grandsons, Hassan and Hussein. All three figures are revered in the Sufi and Shia sects of Islam.

Bahaa Anwar Mohamed, a leader in the Ghad al-Thawra Party and a prominent Shia, said he would file a lawsuit demanding the movie be removed from cinemas completely.

Since the outbreak of the 25 January uprising, Islamist groups have led a broad campaign against what they deem the mockery of religious symbols in art. Liberal and leftist groups, however, insist that art is protected by the principle of freedom of expression.

Preserving Egypt's revolutionary graffiti

Associated Press

Preserving Egypt's revolutionary graffiti

October 7, 2012

Graffiti has been among the most powerful art forms and tools of Egypt’s revolution and the turbulent months since, but it also has proven to be its most vulnerable and ephemeral.

For nearly two years, the slogans, portraits and artwork that went up on walls around the country depicting the goals, heroes and events of the uprising have been erased nearly as quickly.

So a group of artists, photographers and a publisher joined hands to preserve the images. “Wall Talk” - their newly released 680-page book - collects hundreds of photos of graffiti dating from the Jan. 25, 2011 eruption of the revolt against then-President Hosni Mubarak until today. The result is a street history that chronicles image by image the evolution of Egypt’s upheaval, which has yet to settle.

In a sign of the continuing resonance of graffiti, the artists have recently turned to a new target: Newly elected Islamist President Mohammed Mursi.

Last month, a giant mural of revolution graffiti on a street off Tahrir Square, the focus of the revolution’s protest demonstrations, was partially painted over, and within hours, artists refilled much of it with new images, some of them denouncing Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood.

“You are a regime that is frightened by paint brushes and pens, you oppress and stamp on the oppressed. If you were doing the right thing, you would not be afraid of what’s painted ... but you are a coward in your heart of hearts,” reads a rhyming Arabic verse, addressing the president, one of the new images on the street, where some of the deadliest clashes between protesters and security forces took place last year.

But already the whitewashing has returned, erasing a portrait ridiculing Mursi, showing him with a smug smile and the inscription, “Happy now, Mursi?”

“Wall Talk” publisher Sherif Boraie says graffiti was the vehicle that delivered clear, strong and angry messages during the anti-Mubarak uprising and afterward. Now it reflects the depth of frustration over the perceived failure of the revolution to realize its main goals, he said. He sees the latest to go up as even angrier.

“We are in a difficult period, and the youth are very angry, while avenues for expression for them are limited,” he said. “Will the anger continue to simmer indefinitely without boiling over? I don’t think so.”

The book includes a chronology of events of the past two years, but the images speak most strongly to the arc Egypt has taken. The pictures also show graffiti’s increasing sophistication. 

Graffiti was almost never seen in Egypt during Mubarak’s 29-year rule, where police kept a tight grip and where society generally frowns on street art of any kind. But it was the ideal medium for the leftist and progressive youth activists who led the protests against Mubarak.

“It’s an important part of history,” said one prominent artist whose graffiti appears in the book and who identifies himself only by his pen name “Ganzeer,” Arabic for chain. “Many of the graffiti photographed and published in the book have been removed or painted over.”

During the 18 days of massive protests against Mubarak’s rule, much of the work was simply scrawled slogans, like the simple word “Erhal,” the Arabic word for “Leave!” next to images of Mubarak.

After Mubarak stepped down on Feb. 11, 2011, the message and the images changed, with a colorful burst of optimism. There were the clinched fists symbolizing power and images suggesting unity and harmony between the nation’s Muslim majority and Christian minority, with high expectations and a sense of confidence that if people power can bring down Mubarak’s dictatorship, it can do anything.

“It’s just the beginning,” read the English words alongside drawings of women with long hair in the black, red and white colors of Egypt’s flag on one Cairo wall, shown in the book. The exuberant slogan “Hold your head high, you are Egyptian” was found on walls around the capital. One graffito was written on the pavement, reading: “Don’t look down, freedom is ahead of you.”

But very quickly the word on the walls turned to revolt once more - this time against the military council of generals that took power after Mubarak’s ouster and ruled until Morsi was elected this year and was inaugurated in late June. Protests repeatedly broke out against their rule and were met by bloody crackdowns.

Graffiti portraits mocked the council’s head, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi - who was later removed by Morsi - and other generals, unprecedented in a nation where the military has held immense powers since a 1952 coup and was considered above questioning.

Throughout the past 19 months, graffiti has also sought to keep alive the spirit of the young activists’ vision of the revolution despite continual setbacks - including by enshrining their heroes.

Slogans often went beyond current events to encourage change in a society accustomed to dictatorship. “The truth is not cruel, but freeing oneself from ignorance is as painful as going into labor,” one cries out. “Chase after the truth until you are breathless. Endure pain so you can be born again.”

A common theme was elaborate portraits of the “martyrs,” the hundreds of protesters killed in multiple crackdowns. Some shown in the book are idealized, even giving them an angel’s wings. Others depict them casual and smiling, as if they are standing right next to you.

A frequently depicted heroine is Samira Ibrahim, a young woman who went public with accusations that soldiers conducted humiliating “virginity tests” on her and other detained female protesters. One image shows her face, in her conservative headscarf, over rows of soldiers, proclaiming, “Above the military.”

“Graffiti has won us freedoms we had never dreamed of before,” said Mohammed Hashem, a prominent publisher whose office in downtown Cairo has been among the most favorite meeting places for leftist revolutionaries. “It has been the strongest voice of the revolution.”

Ironically, graffiti has also broken into an Egyptian art world long dominated by elites who tended more to traditional landscapes or abstract art.

In a first, Ganzeer adapted his graffiti work to traditional tools - oil on canvas, wood or water colors- and took it to a gallery in Cairo’s upscale Zamalek district this week. He called the show “The Virus Is Spreading,” a name he said he chose to suggest the spread of graffiti from being a street art to a genre that could win acceptance and respect.

“It is an art that is totally different from the art sanctioned by the Mubarak regime,” said Ganzeer, whose work is on offer for anywhere between $400 and $5,000.

Another prominent graffiti artist, known by his signature of Sad Panda, exhibited alongside Ganzeer. But he sees attempts to preserve graffiti as, at least in some ways, conflicting with the genre’s very nature. Like Ganzeer, he does not give his real name to the public for fear of retribution.

“Every art form has its rules. When I paint on wall, I commit my art to the street. The street owns it. The street and whoever in it can do what they want with it,” he said. He shot to prominence with his images that always included a big-bellied panda with a sad but pensive face. In reality, he recounts, he was called panda by school friends because he was overweight, and he added the “sad” because it reflects what he describes as his “black disposition.”

“To me, politics is absurd, stupid and sad. It is all about winning power,” Sad Panda said. “But I did take part in the revolution. I cannot be living in a nation that has a revolution and not participate.”

*Photo courtesy of REUTERS

Cairo activists defend revolutionary mural after whitewash by authorities

Associated Press

Cairo activists defend revolutionary mural as city tries to whitewash it

September 20, 2012

Sarah El Deeb

CAIRO—Under cover of darkness, a few municipal workers quietly began to paint over a landmark of Egypt’s revolution: the giant mural situated on a street that saw some of the most violent clashes between protesters and police over the past two years.

The mural, stretching three blocks along a wall off Cairo’s Tahrir Square, has been a sort of open-air museum of the history of the revolution and its goals — with “martyr” portraits of slain protesters, graffiti, jokes, freedom slogans.

Word of the whitewash quickly got out. A number of young revolutionaries showed up to defend the murals. In the dead of night, they began to film the workers as they painted under the guard of police, hoping to embarrass them. They talked with the painters about what the murals meant.

Arab Awakening: Egypt

The scene on Mohammed Mahmoud St. in the early hours Wednesday was a small but telling counterpoint to last week’s angry protests outside the U.S. Embassy, led by ultraconservative Islamists protesting an anti-Islam film. Those protests took place only a few blocks away, on another street off Tahrir.

Together, the scenes point to the political tug-of-war over the identity of the new Egypt, what it now stands for and what can be expressed.

The mix of largely secular activists who launched the revolt last year against longtime leader Hosni Mubarak say the “revolution” will continue until the country breaks with its authoritarian past and brings freedoms and economic justice.

The Islamists, who rode to power after Mubarak’s ouster, have their own vision for Egypt, which they say should adhere to an “Islamic identity” as they define it.

The government says it has launched a campaign to beautify Tahrir Square, the centre of anti-Mubarak protests. But activists see it as an attempt to blot out the calls for continued revolution and to assert its own view that a new and stable system is now in place under elected Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

“They are erasing history,” Gamal Abdel-Nasser, the father of a 19-year-old killed during the early days of anti-Mubarak protests, said as he stood at the mural street. “This is not my government. It doesn’t represent me.”

For some, repainting the wall just underlined the feeling that the Islamists have snatched the prizes of the revolution.

“This is not about the wall. It is about everything happening in Egypt,” said Nazly Hussein, one of the first to arrive at the scene to protest the paint job with a camera, live streaming the workers as they covered murals. “It is about territory they took away from us.”

The anti-film protests, she said, showed how under Morsi’s three-month-old rule progressives were still fighting for basic issues like freedom of expression. She pointed to government crackdowns on strikes and the recent sentencing of a Coptic Christian to six years in prison for insulting Morsi and the Prophet Muhammad.

“Our real battle is about freedom. Now we are fighting about the right to insult the president or not,” she said. “All those (martyrs painted) on the wall died for bread, freedom and social justice.”

After the intervention by activists, the municipal workers stopped the whitewashing at daybreak with only half the mural painted over. Graffiti artists moved in to start putting new images on the now white walls. By late Wednesday night, the municipal workers hadn’t returned to finish their job, amid the media uproar over the mural erasure.

The first drawing to go up was a portrait of a young man sticking his green tongue as a taunt. “Do it again! Erase, you cowardly regime,” was written beneath it.

Graffiti artist Ahmed Nadi painted a new caricature of Morsi, smiling smugly, with the words, “Happy now, Morsi?”

Ali Saleh, a 53-year old security guard at a nearby school, said the murals must stay as a reminder to authorities of the mistakes they committed.

“If we give up the graffiti, this would be the first nail in the coffin,” he said. “We are in for a worse dictatorship than Mubarak’s.”

In an apparent damage control gesture, Morsi’s Prime Minister Hesham Kandil said the whitewashing went against “intent to preserve the memory of the revolution,” and urged artists to turn Tahrir Square into a space that commemorates the revolution’s martyrs.

Many Egyptians just want stability after more than 20 months of turmoil. Some residents of the Mohammed Mahmoud area were happy to see the murals go, ending a reminder of the battles on their doorstep.

“This is ugly,” said Nour Nagati, referring to the graffiti of a man with his tongue out. “Paint me a flower, paint me a tree. This is a symbol of stability. But this provocation will only perpetuate provocation.”

Abdel-Karim Abu Bakr, a passerby, said the time for using the walls for protest was over.

“We had a revolution, we changed the regime. Let’s calm down ... we can’t have a revolution every day.”