The road from Sidi Bouzid to Algiers

ALGIERS – Straight from a visit to revolutionary Tunisia next door, I returned to Algiers a month after observing the first marches organized here by the National Coordination for Change and Democracy (CNCD) in mid-February. As the season turns meteorologically, I wanted to see if the North African spring is on its way here politically as well. The series of protests staged over the weekend suggested just such a possibility, but also that the road may be long and difficult.
On Saturday March 19, a group of about a hundred stalwart demonstrators stood on the Place de 1er Mai (First of May Square), at the now weekly gathering called by one section of the recently bifurcated CNCD. They included activists from opposition political parties, women’s rights advocates, and people who were just plain fed up with their lot. This small but resolute troop was surrounded (and vastly outnumbered) by policemen in blue jumpsuits who pushed them around, and attempted to make them simply go away. At one point these cops encircled a small group of women, including a 62 year old wearing a long robe who says she recently lost her housing, and forced them out of the square altogether. Their grievances will be much less easy to dislodge.
I am sorry to see fewer people demonstrating now than in February, and ask an expert on the protests, the journalist Madjid Makedhi, who has covered many of them for the El Watan newspaper, why this is the case. He says the diminished numbers are entirely understandable in light of the massive security presence that has been mobilized to counter the marches. There is even a helicopter overhead. And, as if to underscore his explanation, as we talk he is forced to move from place to place by policemen, all the while explaining that he is a journalist. According to Makedhi,

'Algerians have been separated from politics by these security policies of the government. Today ordinary Algerians can only think about their daily lives, about taking care of their children, and trying to have enough money to satisfy the needs of their families.” But he is quick to point out that, “the fact that people are trying to live a normal life does not mean that they refuse change. It is not that they are against these efforts, it is that the government has installed fear in Algeria.'

Still, the activists refuse to give up.
Cherifa Kheddar, the prominent women’s rights advocate I saw arrested on Feb. 12, has been at every single Saturday protest since then. She was in the First of May Square again on March 19 with her sign calling for the abolition of the gender-discriminatory family code, and carrying a bag full of similar placards for others. However, the authorities ripped them all up. Finding herself empty-handed, she then raised her hand in the victory sign (photo top left), and asked,

'Are you going to try to take my fingers away from me now?'

Why were they still here? Yacine Teguia, from the leftwing opposition party known as the Mouvement Démocratique et Social (MDS), explained to a group of journalists:

'We are sick of seeing young people having no prospect but to kill themselves. Today, we have workers who are threatening to commit collective suicide. We can either get together and express ourselves democratically and develop collective solutions, or we can leave people facing a wall, facing death.'

His concern took me back 48 hours to my visit to Sidi Bouzid, the town about three hours south of Tunis that gave birth to the Tunisian revolution. This remote city with its bustling main street and omnipresent trilingual revolutionary graffiti (“Stand up for your rights.” “Stay strong, Tunisia. The world is proud of you.”) was the setting for the desperate catalytic act of Mohamed Bouazizi.
Bouazizi was the – now-legendary – unemployed man who set himself on fire in front of the provincial headquarters when the produce he sold to support his family was confiscated and he was slapped by an official. He died on January 4, and thereby launched a now truly transnational revolutionary moment. A young man in Bouazizi’s neighborhood tells me he not only poured gasoline all over himself, but drank it before setting himself alight. Looking at the terrible pictures of the 26-year-old completely bandaged in hospital, you can only shudder to think how much he might have suffered. When I visit Sidi Bouzid, Mohamed Bouazizi’s picture adorns the public square downtown. And it is right here that I find (left) other young people on March 17 – three months to the day of the now world-famous self-immolation – with desperate eyes and urgent appeals, seemingly an entire generation of Bouazizis, possessing diplomas that have still not translated into jobs, on hunger strike since March 14 in a tent.
These same young people had started the Tunisian revolution when they took to the streets in December after the suicide, but are still waiting for that same revolution to concretely improve their own lives. They still call for “bread, freedom and dignity.” (“el khobz, el houria wa’l karama”) Importantly, the revolution does mean that they can now express their agony freely, and are allowed to remain here in the public square. Nevertheless, many of them told me:

'I am ready to die.'

Will governments in North Africa – and beyond – save this generation of would-be Bouazizis?
Unfortunately, regional self-immolation did not begin in December 2010. In both Tunisia and Algeria, I am told that people have been setting themselves on fire in protest for the last two years. Mohamed Bouazizi, however tragic, brave and fateful his action, was not the first and certainly not the last...
Just three days after my trip to Sidi Bouzid, on Sunday March 20, I spend the day in Algiers at a protest (right) of teachers and the new National Committee for the Defense of the Rights of the Unemployed. About 600 protestors lined both sides of the street near the seat of the Presidency for hours, singing, chanting slogans (“hukuma degage” or “government out,” borrowed from Tunisia; al hukuma dar al ajaza ,“the government is an old folks home”;“al shaab yourid iskat el chomage,”a bilingual rendering of “the people want to bring down unemployment”; and still other slogans calling on the national and international press to broadcast their demands). They sing “miyat wa khamsa wa khamseen milliards” (“155 billion”), the song written by Amazigh Kateb about the foreign exchange reserves Algeria has from selling its natural gas. As the blogger Amine Menadi from Collectif Algerie Pacifique told me:

'This country is rich but its people are poor.'

Everyone has demands today. The demonstrating teachers want better working conditions. The protesting jobless want decent jobs.
On the other side of the street, waving their Algerian passports, stood a group of now unemployed workers who fled Libya during the current conflict and want to be assisted by the state. More than anything, they all want to be heard. The members of the National Committee for the Defense of the Rights of the Unemployed were supposed to gather at the iconic Martyrs Square. However, when I arrived there this morning I found it entirely shut down by policemen, and learned by phone that in the face of this blockade, they decided to join the teachers up the hill in the Golfe region of Algiers.
At the new location, there were as many policemen in riot gear as there were demonstrators. They lined the street in front of the protestors. (bottom photo) I wonder what the young policemen must be thinking as they stand in the street all day with their youthful counterparts. Fadia Babou, a serious 24 year-old unemployed woman in a corduroy jacket who used to work for a radio station, tells me:

'Really, the young policemen are living in the same situation we are.'

In recent weeks, there have been multiplying manifestations of discord – communal guards marching, wounded veterans sitting in, doctors on strike, community meetings demanding change. Many more are planned. One of the young teachers tells me the problem is that each sector is demonstrating separately and there is currently no structure available to bring them all together. He is not hopeful about this as he says all the political parties are discredited and no single forum appeals to everyone.
Notably, both the teachers and the unemployed have come from around the country to be here. Some have travelled over night by bus from Mostaganem, a seven-hour journey. I interview one of them, Dalila Touati (left), a young woman with long blond hair and a degree in physics, who was arrested this past Wednesday March 16 for distributing flyers calling on people to attend this very demonstration, an act which she says was considered tantamount to inciting revolt. She spent 24 hours in custody, was repeatedly questioned by police, and is supposed to appear in court on March 26. Dalila is moved to tears as she tells me she is not political and simply wants decent work for everyone. Her words take me back to the tent of simmering youth in central Sidi Bouzid, when she pleas that young people not have to kill themselves but instead be given the possibility to build a future.
Standing next to her, a 28 year- old man also from Mostaganem says,

'We thank the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions for the fact that there is no police violence here today. The authorities know this situation could explode anytime, and might just do so if a cop touches a demonstrator.'

But he also notes that only one woman came with the group of ten present today from Mostaganem because they were frightened by Dalila Touati’s arrest. He says that everyone will go to her court appearance. I hope he is right. Her unassuming bravery merits widespread solidarity.
Later in the day, I am told that some of these protestors are planning to spend the night on the sidewalk, refusing to give up the fight. They have taken the lyrics of Bob Marley, via the message of the graffiti in Sidi Bouzid, to “stand up for your rights” seriously. However, Algeria’s road ahead may be quite different than that of Tunisia or Egypt. The lingering nightmares of the 1990s, when some 200,000 died in a terrible civil war with the fundamentalist armed groups, are partly responsible for this. According to this week’s Jeune Afrique, the distinction is also partially due to the fact that much more freedom of expression is possible here than in Ben Ali’s Tunisia and this provides something of a pressure valve. The possible impact of the nearby conflict in Libya is a wild card. And Algeria possesses the resources to buy off sectors of the society, for a while at least.
However, one of the biggest obstacles may be a lack of popular belief in the possibility of change.
On March 19, I attended a discussion at the Chihab bookstore of a recent work about Ali Boumendjel, an important figure in Algeria’s independence movement. Boumendjel, a lawyer, died in French custody in 1957 after 43 days of torture. Author Malika Rahal says that generation of activists was able to make the sacrifices they did because of their conviction that another future, beyond colonialism, was possible. Today, notwithstanding recent events in neighboring countries, the belief in the real possibility of an alternative future is shaky.
I interview Boumendjel’s niece, the distinguished professor of medicine and women’s rights activist Fadila Chitour. At the Feb. 12 demonstration in Algiers, she was thrown to the ground and trampled during a police charge. Today she explains to me that many Algerians suffer from what she calls wounded memories, from the sense that so many deaths in the country since independence – in the protests of October 1988, in the Berber spring of 2001, in the terrible 1990s – have been in vain. Hence, there is a pervasive feeling that making sacrifices now will not change anything. This profound disillusionment with politics, which echoes Makedhi’s assessment, makes rallying the population to protest much more difficult than elsewhere. Dr. Chitour is, however, persuaded that change will come to Algeria. She asserts:

'It is ineluctable.'

The optimism expressed by some at this last set of protests – by a brightly smiling young teacher in hijab, by those who traveled over night at a high cost relative to their means to attend – bears witness to this.
However, the big question for Chitour is not whether change will come or when, but how:

'Will it be by peaceful means or not?'

She says that Algerians are terrorized by the idea that blood could flow in the streets again. And so, she and the other members of the CNCD will keep organizing their peaceful protests every Saturday trying to make sure that grievances are channeled non-violently. Meanwhile, the Committee of the Unemployed will meet soon to assess its next move as well.
My fervent hope is that the leaders of Algeria will heed the calls of the peaceful protestors, while that is possible. This will require amongst other things responsiveness to the youth, unity in the opposition and a seizing by all of this “moment of grace” as the Tunisian human rights activist Alya Chamari described this spring across North Africa.
Is there a road that leads from Sidi Bouzid to Algiers?
That remains to be seen. Still, I cannot forget what Chamari says when I ask her if there is a message for Algerians, and others, from the Tunisian revolution:

'You must never lose hope. And you must count on your youth.'

(All photos by Karima Bennoune. A short version of this post appeared today in The Guardian.)

An Algiers Diary

Kudos to IntLawGrrl Karima Bennoune, whose diary from Algiers was published by The Guardian yesterday. Readers who have enjoyed her posts on North African People Power will find much to chew on in her daily analysis of events in Algeria. The diary offers a feminist perspective on the protests in the 1st of May Square and an intimate portrait of the nascent Algerian democracy movement -- in her words, "the sparkling promise of Algeria." Well worth a read!

"Yesterday Egypt, today Algeria"

ALGIERS – In the wake of Friday's historic events in Cairo, over 1,000 peaceful demonstrators defied a ban on protests in Algiers on the Place de 1er Mai on Saturday.
The goal of the National Coordination Committee for Change and Democracy, the organisers of what was supposed to have been a march to Martyr's Square, was to call for an end to the 19-year state of emergency, for democratic freedoms, and for a change in Algeria's political system. Invigorated by Cairo's great event, this Saturday in Algiers they chanted slogans like "Djazair Horra Dimocratia" ("A free and democratic Algeria"), "système dégage" ("government out") and indeed,

'Yesterday Egypt, today Algeria'.

There were small echoes of Egypt. Thousands of police in full riot gear painted the square blue in their uniforms, attempting to occupy the space and prevent the demonstration, yet the protestors remained, for hours risking arrest and beatings, shouting slogans and singing effervescently. A large group of young men, with the obvious cooperation of the police, entered the scene violently, chanting in favour of President Bouteflika (in power since 1999) and attempting to provoke fights with the protestors. (This was so reminiscent of Cairo, that for a moment, one half-expected a charge of men riding camels like in Tahrir Square.) At one point, these youths rushed the bench where I stood taking photographs with journalists, and we all toppled to the ground. Later, the pro-government provocateurs started throwing large stones.
The single most moving part of the day was the women's demonstration. A group of about 50 of the many women present – a few young women in hijab, many other young women in jeans, older, seasoned feminist activists wearing khaffiyehs and dresses – took up position next to the bus station at 1st of May Square holding a large Algerian flag. (credit for Reuters/Zohra Bensemra photo above)

One of these women, prominent psychologist Cherifa Bouatta (below right), told me on Friday as we watched the celebration in Cairo:

'I have been waiting for this for years. This is the beginning. From the years of terrorism [the 1990s] and what came after, everything seemed lost. Our hopes for a just society were dying. But now the possibilities are fantastic.'

On Saturday in 1st of May Square, she and the other women explored those possibilities. They occupied the street; they called for profound political change; they ululated (what Algerians call "pousser les youyous"; a high-pitched glottal chanting); they sang "Kassaman", the national anthem, and "Listiqlal" (independence), a song of the anti-colonial movement that freed the country from French rule in 1962 at the cost of a million martyrs. Most importantly, they refused to cede to the police. The pro-Boutef youth repeatedly confronted them, and even began shouting in favour of an Islamic state at one point as a confused riposte to the women.
The most surreal moment came as I watched the unyielding female activists attacked by a group of young policewomen in pants and boots – their own career paths only imaginable thanks to the hard work of some of the very women activists they hit and shoved. A young policewoman, the age of one of the students I teach, slapped me for taking a picture as this occurred. The women protesters' only "crime" had been to stand peacefully on the sidewalk of their own capital city singing the national anthem and calling for democracy.
Reportedly, as many as 350 were arrested during the day. Many were roughed up, including the prominent, 90-year-old lawyer Ali Yahia Abdennour, who is the honorary president of the Algerian League for the Defence of Human Rights (LADDH). Cherifa Khaddar, the redoubtable human rights activist and president of Djazairouna, an association of the victims of the fundamentalist terrorism of the 1990s, whose brother and sister were brutally murdered in 1996 by the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), was arrested twice. I watched in horror as policewomen manhandled her – unfortunately, not an oxymoron.
Just before she was arrested the first time, Khaddar (left; credit) was attacked by a group of the young pro-government "protesters", some of whom attempted to pull her clothes off while another attempted to simulate sex with her. A policewoman dragged her away from this melee, only to help a group of male cops throw her to the ground and arrest her, rather than the perpetrators. Later on, at the police station, she found herself in a cell with 20 other women. Together, they continued the protest, chanting and singing:

'My brothers do not forget our martyrs. They are calling you from their tombs. Listen to their voices, you free ones.'

The police became enraged and attacked the women in the cell, dragging one away by her hair. Khaddar was later released.

The situation is fluid. As the protest waned, the square was taken over by a large group of mostly young male protesters, many from the surrounding neighbourhood. Some of them had previously chanted pro-government slogans and insulted the women demonstrators, but now took up anti-government slogans themselves, talked supportively with the freed Khaddar and challenged the police alone. Hundreds of riot police then brought out their guns, marched in formation and shut down the square altogether. It looked like a scene out of the Costa Gavras film "Z".
I hope that what happens in Algeria in the coming period will be watched carefully, notwithstanding the understandable preoccupation with events to the east in Egypt. (Prior IntLawGrrls posts.) The contexts are different, but the struggles are the same. Moreover, the brave Algerian activists of 1st of May Square – women and men, young and old – also deserve solidarity and support on the road ahead. Algerian writer and journalist Mustapha Benfodil said that this demonstration's goal was to turn 1st of May Square into an Algerian Tahrir Square, and that what occurred on Saturday was a very important step in that direction. But he noted that much work remains to be done to that end.
Clearly, the wall of fear needs to be broken down here – perhaps a harder task than elsewhere, given the terrible violence of the 1990s that killed as many as 200,000 people and terrorised the entire society. The opposition needs to be united and organised. Additionally, activists need to build critical links with broader segments of the society to achieve the political change so clearly needed in the country and which the police overreaction only underscored – change that Tunisia and Egypt have proven to be entirely possible.
For now, perhaps it is more accurate to say,

'Yesterday Egypt, tomorrow Algeria …'

(Cross-posted at the Guardian)

Go, 'Grrl! Bennoune honored

Lovely to receive from a university chancellor this fancy invitation -- to a Distinguished Faculty Lecture by an IntLawGrrl!
In this case, the lecturer is Karima Bennoune, named the 2010/2011 Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Scholar at Rutgers University, Newark.

Karima (left) is Professor of Law, Arthur L. Dickson Scholar, and director of the Global Legal Studies Center at that university, where she teaches courses in public international law, terrorism and international law, international women’s human rights, and international protection of human rights. IntLawGrrls' posts by and about Karima may be found here.
She will receive the chancellor's award and give an address entitled "A More Courageous Politics: Muslims Confront Fundamentalism" at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, March 3, at the university's Paul Robeson Campus Center, 350 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Newark, New Jersey. Details here.
Heartfelt congratulations!

North African women's power?

'How many women are there?'

The question, heard on my commuter train yesterday, spoke volumes.
The question referred to this week's anti-government protests in Egypt. But it applied to all the ferment throughout North Africa and the Middle East this young but remarkable new year.
Mass demonstrations in Egypt, which yesterday prompted 30-plus-year-President Hosni Mubarak to attempt an LBJ.
Mass demonstrations as well, as IntLawGrrl Karima Bennoune has posted, in Algeria and Tunisia. Still more in Yemen and Sudan. Plans are on for Syria this weekend.
Then too there was yesterday's trying-to-get-in-front-of-events dismissal of the Cabinet of Jordan, another site of demonstrations, by its king.
The gender dynamics in countries like these are fraught. For that reason, a marker of the true democratic potential of these events is inherent in the commuter's question quoted above. Rephrased, it is:

Are women taking part, and if so, to what extent?

As to the 1st part of the question, it seems the answer is "yes."
Although most photos shows seas of men, within can be found islands of women. Women, young and old, with and without head coverings. (In addition to photos accompanying this post, see, e.g., here and here.) Other women reporting on the scene, via all the channels of social networking about which Hope Lewis posted earlier this week. (Some are local women. Some -- like Sonia Verma, tweeting for Toronto's Globe and Mail (far right), and Harriet Sherwood, tweeting for London's Guardian (near right) -- are not.)
As to the 2d part of the question?

How extensive is women's participation, now and for the long term?

The answer awaits further events. In the meantime, IntLawGrrls welcome readers' realtime comments and reports.

(Clockwise from top left: Suhaib Salem/Reuters photo of women at demonstration in Egypt appeared in a photo array yesterday at The New York Times' site; credit for Reuters/Muhammad Hamed photo of Jan. 28 demonstration in Amman, Jordan; credit for Jan. 30 BBC image of Sudan protest; credit for Jan. 15 cover photo from the Paris daily Libération, depicting a protest in Tunisia; credit for Hani Mohammed/AP photo of students chanting at Jan. 29 Yemen protest)

Egypt: From Social Networks to Social Movements

Stronger Signals: But From Whom?
Human Rights Watch is calling on the aid donor governments of the United States and the European Union to send strong signals urging the Egyptian government to stop using violence against its own people (see press release here.) Let’s hope any such signals work. The text of a Joint UK-France-Germany Statement appears here, the text of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s televised interview can be read here, and Friday evening’s statement by U.S. President Barack Obama is linked here. Of course, what matters most are the strong and clear signals being sent by the Egyptian people themselves.
Fluid Situation
The remarkable events in Egypt remain fluid. Thousands of peaceful protesters are demanding democratic change. BBC reports indicate that dozens of civilian protesters have been killed or injured by live fire from police and security forces, which Human Rights Watch condemns as violations of international law.
The protests have been predominantly peaceful and the mood among many ordinary Egyptians is cautiously celebratory and hopeful for the possibility of a democratic future.
There are isolated incidents of looting, particularly in poorer areas where there is no national army presence. Some civilian watch groups are forming to protect neighborhoods.
So far, the national army, made up of conscripted Egyptians from all classes, is believed to remain “neutral.” Many protesters see the domestic police forces as allied with the presidency of Hosni Mubarak.
Beyond Information Control
Whatever “signals” are being sent internationally through diplomatic channels, the Egyptian government has impose blackouts on other means of communication including the internet and cellular access (press release.)
As previous IntLawGrrls posts indicate, information technology and social networks have been central to communication and organizing in recent popular uprisings, mass disaster response, elections monitoring, and political dissent in places like Tunisia, Algeria, Haiti, Iran, Kenya, China, and elsewhere. (See our North Africa series and our posts here, here, here, and here.) Obviously, this is equally true in Egypt.
Ironically, and even necessarily, the rise of new media is occurring just as international old media is suffering from severe budget cuts, the withdrawal of foreign correspondents, and the closure of foreign desks. See, for example, this story about budget cuts to the World Service of the BBC.
From Social Networks to Social Movements
Protesters and their relatives and friends outside Egypt used social networks like Facebook and Twitter to provide up-to-the- minute information about where to assemble and about police crackdowns. They texted, e-mailed, and used Skype to let each other know that they were safe. Smartphones recorded both peaceful events and injuries to civilians on the streets; YouTube posted the video clips. Bloggers, of course, posted everything they could get their hands on. Others stayed glued to the Al-Jazeera television network for round-the-clock visual images of the protests and abuses.
Rather than change their behavior, some governments still try to hide by blocking the internet. But, as discussed on today’s broadcast of CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” creative bloggers, tweeters, e-mailers, social networkers, and even Old School ham radio operators the world over often find ways around government attempts to silence the peoples’ voices.
Knowing About Rights
Oddly, it seems that governments never learn that people already know that they have basic rights . They may not know the names of treaties or declarations or principles. They may not know how to translate international norms into domestic constitutional provisions or state and local statutes. They may not concern themselves with the best ways to balance state and private obligations or how to present legal arguments on the most effective remedies before judicial or administrative bodies. Hopefully, lawyers, judges, and legal scholars working at their direction can assist in that regard.
Still, ordinary people know when they are prevented from saying what is on their minds. They know when their children cannot attend school. They know when only certain favored classes benefit from government programs or from natural resources or job opportunities. They know when women, minorities, and children are scapegoated and mistreated. They know when an election is not really an election. They know when their homes are inadequate or non-existent. They know that they should not be beaten up, tortured, abused, raped, or shot.
Lawyers and human rights activists can, therefore, also work in solidarity with people to ensure that such rights are respected, protected, promoted, and fulfilled by powerful actors. This must be so not only for elites in palaces and high places in Geneva, Washington, London, and Paris, but also in small jail cells, apartments, and streetcorners in Cairo, Kingston, Beijing, Chicago, and Ciudad Juarez.
The Right to Self-determination, the Right to Know, and More
This latest version of a new social movement seems to have taken the international media and pundits by surprise. Yet the hopes and dreams of the people in the streets sound very familiar even though new and unpredictable technologies and consequences may surround them.
People throughout the region appear to be marching for the realization of the full range of familiar human rights (civil, political, economic, social, and cultural) outlined in the International Bill of Rights.
Nevertheless, I excerpt below only a few articles from the International Bill which seem to be particularly relevant to the Egyptian crisis at the moment.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Freedom of Opinion and Expression
Article 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Freedom of Assembly
Article 20
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association…
The Right to Political Participation
Article 21
(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

The Right to Self-determination of Peoples
Article 1
1. All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
2. All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic co-operation, based upon the principle of mutual benefit, and international law. In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.
Helpful Resources on Egypt, Human Rights, and Internet Access
►Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression (main page for UN expert)
►Egypt (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights country homepage)
►2009 Human Rights Report on Egypt (U.S. Department of State, 10 March 2010)
►Egypt (Human Rights Watch continuously updated page)
►"Egypt Women Blog For Their Rights" (BBC News, 18 March 2009)
►Association for Progressive Communications (coalition advocating for increased grassroots digital access)
My heartfelt thanks to Northeastern University School of Law Research Assistants Melissa Joyce and Gil Rochbert and to Northeastern University undergraduate Research Assistant Nicholas Martin.

(Photo: UN Photo. Boys working in carpet factory in Egypt)

Go On! Religion & International Law

Santa Clara University School of Law's annual international law symposium will be on the topic of "Religion & International Law."
The event will be Friday, Feb. 18 and Saturday, Feb 19, 2011 in the California Mission Room, Benson Center, Santa Clara University.
The Symposium homepage is here. Online registration may be undertaken here (MCLE credit is available). The papers and proceedings will be published in our Journal of International Law.
The Symposium is organized around a series of papers by our main presenters as well as commentary from other experts. The full schedule is here.
Speakers and commentators include (full bios are here):
► Lama Abu-Odeh (Georgetown) (top right)
► Peter Danchin (U. Maryland)
► Haider Hamoudi (Pittsburgh)
► IntLawGrrls guest/alumna Saira Mohamed (Berkeley Law) (top left)
► Anissa Helie (John Jay College of Criminal Law & International Solidarity Network of Women Living Under Muslim Laws)
► Dr. Hisham Hellyer (Warwick)
► Asifa Quraishi (Wisconsin) (middle right)
► Brett Scharffs (Brigham Young)
► Shadi Mokhtari (American) (middle left)
► Dr. Manisuli Ssenyonjo (Brunel University)
► Seval Yildirim (Whittier) (bottom right)
► IntLawGrrl Karima Bennoune (Rutgers-Newark) (bottom left)
The keynote speaker is Robert Steiple, the first ever U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom.
Hope to see you there!

North African People Power: Saturday in Algiers

(Part 2 of IntLawGrrl Karima Bennoune's series on developments in North Africa; Part 1 appeared 1st at IntLawGrrls, here, and, we're proud to say, was reprinted at The Nation, here.)

Today the Algerian government tried to hold back the winds of change blowing westward from neighboring Tunisia by besieging its own capital city.

A peaceful protest called by the Algerian opposition party, the Rassemblement pour la culture et la démocratie (RCD), on the Place du 1er Mai was forcefully disrupted by large numbers of heavily armed riot police. One report claimed that 10,000 police had been deployed. Meanwhile, as many as 42 people were injured, several seriously, and others arrested, including a photojournalist. (photo credit)

Security forces encircled the RCD headquarters on the Didouche Mourad, the main thoroughfare of Algiers, and set up checkpoints to prevent protestors from arriving in the capital from other parts of the county, or from reaching the Place du 1er Mai from other parts of the city. As depicted in this YouTube video, the trapped protestors – and those on balconies above – waved Algerian and Tunisian flags and chanted “Djazaïr, horra, dimocratia.” (“A free and democratic Algeria!”)
Today’s protest had been organized around very specific demands, set forth in the poster below right:

► the lifting of the state of emergency in place since 1992,

► the opening of political space,

► the restoration of individual liberties and constitutional rights, and

► the liberation of those demonstrators arrested during the riots and protests that erupted across Algeria earlier this month who remain detained.

In fact, today’s events but illustrate the importance of those very demands.

The RCD had applied for a permit for this demonstration – and the government summarily denied permission. Hence, the gathering was technically unlawful, putting protestors at risk of arrest. The wilaya, or province, of Algiers put out a widely broadcast statement Thursday calling on the population to show “wisdom and vigilance,” and not to respond to the call to protest. According to these authorities’ Orwellian message, “protests in Algiers are not authorized and any public gathering is to be considered a breach of the peace.” They acted on those pronouncements today.

Many Algerians remember all too well the émeutes of October 1988 when a previous generation of protestors were shot – perhaps as many as 500 in a week’s time – arrested in large numbers, and tortured. And this week the United Nations said that 100 people have died in recent events in neighboring Tunisia. So, there is reason to be concerned about the safety of those who will be involved in what are likely now to be ongoing demonstrations.

In the beginning, the U.S. media and government paid little attention to the protests in neighboring Tunisia. That mistake should not be repeated. The international media should closely follow developments in Algeria so as to let the Algerian government – and democracy activists – know that the world is watching.

Today’s events come amid escalating political tensions in the country.

In recent days Ahmed Badaoui, a trade unionist, was arrested and accused of fomenting rebellion in relation to a text message he sent regarding events in Tunisia. Subsequently, a coalition of political parties, human rights groups, unemployed youth and trade unionists met and agreed to hold a joint protest on February 9, which will mark the nineteenth anniversary of the declaration of a state of emergency in Algeria.
Peaceful protests like these are crucial because real change is needed and demanded by so many Algerians:

► One is the man with desperate eyes whom I interviewed in Algeria in October, a victim of the fundamentalist terrorism of the 1990s, unable to obtain a job, traveling from government office to office unsuccessfully seeking assistance for himself and his children with his collection of ripped documents.

► Or the Algerian artists who last week braved the police in the Rue Hassiba Ben Bouali – an Algiers street named for the nationalist heroine killed by the French Army - to express their opposition to the stifling of freedom of expression.

► Then there are those who live ten to a room in the quartiers populaires with few prospects of getting a job or getting ahead, and without avenues to peacefully express their anguish.

► Or those countless harragas who as a result attempt to flee illegally by boat across the Mediterranean to Europe every year in search of a better life, and too often find an anonymous death on the sea.

► And finally, those Algerian men and women who have expressed the ultimate frustration in recent days setting their own bodies on fire as if to try and recreate Mohamed Bouaziz’s catalytic Tunisian moment.

In fact, according to the Algerian newspaper El Watan, this week these various manifestations of despair intersected when a group of young harragas set their own boat on fire after being caught by the authorities. Remember Fanon’s “the wretched of the earth”? These are the wretched of the sea. How desperate must a young person be when he would rather burn himself to death than return home?

On the subject of the rash of self-immolations, see the excellent article in the January 21 issue of El Watan by Chawki Amari, Melanie Matarese, Ramdane Koubabi and Ghellab Smail, entitled “Immolation: I burn therefore I am.” It features the testimonies of some of those who have recently tried to incinerate themselves in protest, including a 40-year-old divorced woman struggling to make ends meet, whose mother was humiliated by local officials when she went to request that their dwelling be included in a public works program, and a 34-year-old unemployed man wrapped in bandages who explained that burning himself “was the only way to denounce la hogra (the arrogance with which officials sometimes treat ordinary people), contempt and …misery...”

Algeria fought a bloody, decade-long battle to defeat armed fundamentalism in the 1990s, and many thousands of ordinary Algerians were killed by fundamentalist terrorism. (In fact, the authors of “I burn therefore I am” make a link between that experience of largely unredressed violence and the current waves of self-immolation.) The government often uses the threat of terrorism to justify the continuation of the state of emergency and the prohibition of gatherings in the capital city like the one scheduled for today. Of course, there is a considerable irony to this, as it is the same government which has amnestied all of the perpetrators of the 1990s, to the horror of many advocates for victims. Moreover, it is profoundly heartening that attempts by fundamentalists to rally early January’s demonstrators to their banner failed entirely.

In light of all this, the government of the United States would be mistaken in thinking that the best way to assure its security interests in the ongoing fight against Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in Algeria and elsewhere is to simply overlook legitimate popular frustration in the region.

Unquestionably, the Algerian military has played a significant role in the fight against AQIM. However, it must also be noted that as of now in Algeria there is little to no popular support for AQIM, an organization descended from the remains of the armed groups that brutalized the population in the 1990s. It is especially loathed of late because of its reported involvement in kidnappings, which have also sparked large protests in parts of the country.

Although security is used to justify the stifling of peaceful expression like today’s demonstration, it is actually vital, both for human rights and for real security, that legitimate popular grievances are heard and redressed democratically. This can help to maintain the consensus against AQIM and against fundamentalism as a political alternative, while improving the quality of life for millions. And figures like Saïd Sadi, head of the RCD, have warned that if peaceful protest proves impossible and democratic changes are not made, serious violence could erupt. He argues that there is even more anger in Algeria than in Tunisia.
What happens next depends in part on how many Algerians defy the ban on peaceful protests in Algiers and attend the February 9 demonstration, and on how the authorities respond. The best ways to honor the memory of so many who sacrificed for the country, whether during the 1950s/1960s battle against colonialism, or the 1990s battle against fundamentalism, would be to allow the next “unauthorized” peaceful march to proceed without the repression witnessed today, and to permit such gatherings to be the start of a new social democratic opening in Algeria that creates a better future for all its people.

Imagine a North Africa where a truly democratic Algeria adjoins a free Tunisia…

North African People Power

After more than 23 years in office, Tunisia’s President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, “Zinochet” as he was dubbed, was forced from power yesterday by popular protests.
These protests began after Mohamed Bou’aziz, an unemployed university graduate in the town of Sidi Bouzid, attempted to burn himself to death on December 17 when the produce he sold on the street to earn a living was confiscated. (He later died of his injuries.)
How could Mr. Bou’aziz know what the implications of his desperate act would be in just one month’s time? His sacrifice inspired huge demonstrations that spread across the North African country, organized in part through resourceful use of Twitter and Facebook. These were met with brutality by the security forces, a grim reality that simply provoked more protest. Unarmed demonstrators were regularly teargassed. Many were arrested. As many as 70-80 people were shot or beaten to death. But the protesters marched on.
This largely peaceful, democratic revolution (on the side of the opposition at least) was not led by or inspired by the fundamentalist movements that have tried to claim the oppositional space in many Arab and North African contexts in recent years. It was instead, by all accounts, a largely secular appeal for real political reform and for social justice. As reflected in today's front page of the Paris daily Liberation (above; credit), women, many unveiled, were increasingly visible in the protest marches.
One can hope that today’s initial victory of North African people power will serve as an example of what is possible in other countries in the region. This is what Noam Chomsky has called the threat of a good example. One dictator brought down by popular revolt – no dictator is safe now.
Hope is a powerful, incandescent force. Hope in the political realm has been a rare commodity of late in this part of the world. Bou’aziz’s revolution may have brought that back. But, just as the power of hope should not be underestimated, neither should the danger of hopes unfulfilled.
It is unclear exactly what the future holds for Tunisia now.
Mohammed al-Ghannouchi, the Prime Minister who has also been in power since 1999, has taken over as President since the departure of ousted President Ben Ali, whom Saudi Arabia "'welcomed.'" A state of emergency was declared, with soldiers guarding public buildings, tanks on the streets of Tunis, and prohibitions on public meetings.
The government must respond to the grievances that first provoked these events – creating jobs, meeting human needs, fostering equality of all kinds, enabling freedom of expression and association, institutionalizing real social democracy – rather than simply engaging in window dressing that preserves the Tunisian system with a different figurehead. The international community, and the U.S. government, should support this process.
The biggest external impact of events in Tunisia could come in neighboring Algeria, which I visited twice last fall, and which witnessed scattered, sporadic émeutes – riots – throughout 2010. The country has just experienced a week of widespread, intensive youth protests that seem to have been the result of a similar long-simmering anger over high unemployment, corruption, economic disparities and la hogra, the arrogance with which officials often treat ordinary people. (photo credit) However, the immediate catalyst was likely the sharp increase in the price of staples like cooking oil and sugar at the beginning of the year. See this useful discussion of the possible causes by journalist Chawki Amari writing in El Watan, one of Algeria’s leading daily newspapers.
Some have suggested that the initial disturbances may have been provoked – perhaps by private interests that control the sugar and oil markets and were unhappy over government regulatory action in this arena. It is hard to say. However, even if this were the case, legitimate popular anger clearly took over from there. Some - only some - of the recent protests turned violent with young rioters throwing stones at police and passing cars, burning tires and looting shops.
Unfortunately, the avenues for peaceful protest are stifled in Algeria due to the continuing imposition of a state of emergency since 1992.

For example, following the week’s protests, last Sunday, January 9, a civic group called the Intercommunal Association of Aïn Benian-Staoueli tried to hold a peaceful gathering in the coastal town of Staoueli about 20 kilometers outside of Algiers. Their efforts were forcefully thwarted by “preventive” arrests. Algerian writer and journalist Mustapha Benfodil, who was attempting to cover the event, was among those arrested. He later recounted his experiences in El Watan, offering an eyewitness account of la hogra in action. As he notes, those picked up by the police that day were suspected of the rather kafka-esque offense of “attempted peaceful gathering.” (They have since been released – though across the country many young protestors remain in jail.)
While the roots of Algeria’s emergency law admittedly lie in the terribly real struggle with armed fundamentalism that consumed the 1990s and claimed as many as 200,000 lives, and the fight against terrorism in Algeria remains a concern in light of the current activities of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, today’s emergency regulations are often used instead against peaceful government critics who have nothing whatsoever to do with such movements. (During the recent protests, attempts by fundamentalists to rally demonstrators to their banner failed resoundingly.)
In fact, the Algerian government now uses the state of emergency to justify the banning of public gatherings of all kinds.

For example, when I visited Algiers in late November to attend a meeting on a proposed draft law on violence against women, the meeting was declared officially non-authorized the day before it was to take place in the central Hotel Safir. Hence, it was held quietly instead in a small room at a more remote location, with many participants unable to attend. It is shocking that a meeting of women working to stop violence against women requires an official permit. Who exactly is being protected by “emergency” legislation in this scenario?

For Algeria’s democratic opposition, the current challenge is to find a way to translate this month’s explosion of youthful anger into positive political change, and to maximize the jolt of energy from events in next door Tunisia. According to Benfodil, the former task requires the mobilization of civil society, trade unions, academics, the middle class, NGOs and others, “if they truly want to transform this impetuous winter into a democratic spring…”

Some believe that it may be difficult to make a real political transformation as long as Algeria’s government possesses the significant material resources it uses to selectively placate sectors of the population. But attempts to publicly speak out for change continue, as witnessed by a peaceful youth demonstration today in Algiers. And it remains to be seen what the impact of the winds blowing from Tunisia now will be.
While in life Mr. Bou’aziz was given little opportunity to have an impact on society, in death he may have helped to change not only his own country, but the entire region.

(Part 1 of a series)

Bennoune's terrorism critique

Criticism of a decision to represent a "Yemen-based radical cleric" has drawn the attention of global news media.
► Representing the cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, who was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, 36 years ago and is thus a U.S. citizen, are the Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union. At the end of August, the 2 nongovernmental organizations filed a challenge to a U.S. decision to target the plaintiff for assassination. Captioned Nasser Al-Alauqi v. Barack H. Obama, the suit is pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
► Criticizing that representation is a CCR board member, IntLawGrrl Karima Bennoune (below left). As reported in London's Guardian and excerpted at Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish blog, Karima

has gone public with her misgivings at the CCR's decision, reflecting a debate within human rights groups on how to deal with Islamist fundamentalists.
'I support the important work the centre has done on torture and extraordinary rendition,' said Bennoune, 'but I expressed grave concern at CCR offering to represent Awlaki's interests pro bono. Anwar al-Awlaki is not a detainee; he is still at liberty and able to gravely harm others by inciting and advocating murder.'
Bennoune pointed out that Awlaki published an article in al-Qaida's English language magazine, Inspire, in July openly calling for assassinations of several people, including a young woman cartoonist in Seattle and Salman Rushdie. This was at around the time the CCR was offering to represent Awlaki's father, she said.
Bennoune, who is of Algerian descent, also expressed fears that the CCR and the ACLU were in danger of 'sanitising' Awlaki to western audiences.
'Since the inception of the case,' she said, 'there has been increased mystification of who Anwar al-Awlaki is in liberal and human rights circles in the United States. This may in part have resulted from the fact that a highly reputable organisation like CCR was willing to represent his interests, and described him only as "a Muslim cleric" or "an American citizen", and repeatedly suggested that the government did not possess evidence against Awlaki.'

Karima's stance dovetails with that she set out in her recent IntLawGrrls post, On 9/11, Remembering the Other’s Others: International Law & Muslim Fundamentalism, published on the 9th anniversary of the terrorist attacks. As described in the Guardian, Karima's position is further supported by 5 "prominent Algerian non-governmental organisations, including associations of victims of terrorism and women's groups."

On 9/11, Remembering the Other’s Others: International Law & Muslim Fundamentalism

The ninth anniversary of September 11, 2001, finds the international community still grappling with the consequences of that terrible day.
Armed conflicts which began in the wake of 9/11 continue in Afghanistan and Iraq, spilling over now into Pakistan and Yemen with often devastating consequences for civilians. Human rights abuses in the “war on terror” remain largely unpunished, but will never be forgotten around the world. Xenophobia directed against Muslims serves as a useful tool for right-wing politicians in the West. And you may have heard that an idiot in Florida has been trying to decide whether or not he will burn hundreds of Qur’ans today.
At the same time, Muslim fundamentalist armed movements akin to those that perpetrated 9/11, like the various permutations of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, or Al Shabab in Somalia or Boko Haram in Nigeria, just to name a few, continue to pose major challenges to human rights in Muslim majority societies and around the world. For a terrifying insight into the worldview of defenders of such movements, see here.
Muslim fundamentalist armed movements often kill civilians indiscriminately, as they did on 9/11, a day to which Al Qaeda chillingly refers as “Holy Tuesday.” They also target artists, writers and freethinkers for assassination, and purvey systematic discrimination against women and religious minorities and LGBT individuals. They seek to impose their version of the Sharia on all Muslims everywhere – this often means advocating practices like stoning women for adultery. (credit for logo at right of the Global Campaign to Stop Stoning) Hence, such movements pose particular threats to international law in the areas of human rights, humanitarian law and conflict prevention, inter alia.
My article “Remembering the Other’s Others: Theorizing the Approach of International Law to Muslim Fundamentalism,” published this summer in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review, challenges international lawyers to develop a critical analysis of Muslim fundamentalist movements and to support the many Muslim human rights defenders battling fundamentalism.
Faced with the current polarized environment, this enterprise is unquestionably a daunting task, and I see the already constricted space for my argument narrowing further. Muslim fundamentalists – and those confused with them – have also themselves been the targets of a range of grave violations of international law by states in recent years, like torture. Racialized discourses and policies directed against people of Muslim heritage have proliferated since September 11, 2001, and are currently experiencing a particularly disturbing revival – what might be called hatredofmuslims version 20.10.
All of this fuels more fundamentalism.
Despite these real difficulties, offering a critical perspective on the contemporary problem of Muslim fundamentalism remains an essential project for international lawyers. As a discipline we in international law have mostly engaged critically with the (admittedly problematic) responses to Muslim fundamentalism, rather than with the phenomenon itself.
► Can we offer an accurate or useful commentary on the responses to Muslim fundamentalist movements if we overlook their existence and impact in the first place?
► Of what use is our critique of the “war on terror” if we are largely silent about one side of that “war”?
In fact, the failure of learned discourse in the United States – including in the field of international law – to name and thoughtfully explain the problem of Muslim fundamentalism actually risks facilitating discrimination against Muslims in general. This omission obscures the fact that contemporary terrorism and the “war on terror” actually revolve around a very specific set of politics and political actors, not around broader religious denominations or religious claims.
Ordinary Muslims or the Muslim religion as a whole must not be confused with specific fundamentalist movements and their adherents, just as most American Christians would not want to be identified with Christian fundamentalist Terry Jones. Yet, the mere critique of Muslim fundamentalist movements themselves is not per se an expression of anti-Muslim bias, just as criticism of the pyromaniacally inclined Pastor Jones is not an attack on Christianity. This, I fear, is a fact that is likely to get lost in the current cacophony.
Actually, Muslim fundamentalist armed groups’ primary victims, as the 2006 U.S. National Strategy for Combating Terrorism acknowledged, are often other people of Muslim heritage. Hence, defending the human rights of Muslims means successfully defeating fundamentalism (and vice versa).
In the contemporary period, Western discourse, including in the field of international law, has sometimes seemed to offer only two choices: the openly discriminatory or flawed characterization (Islam is inherently fundamentalist, all Muslims are fundamentalists and so on), or the one that is too politically correct to even broach the topic of fundamentalism. Neither one is helpful or accurate. What we need is a principled, human rights based critique of Muslim fundamentalism, alongside a principled, human rights based critique of discrimination against Muslims. To paraphrase a brilliant Pakistani colleague, I reject the idea that my choices are limited to accepting either Glenn Beck or the Sharia, and I reserve my right to criticize both. I utterly reject both the would be suicide bombers and the would be Qur’an burners, and neither one can ever justify the actions of the other.
Returning to today’s sad anniversary, I honor the memory of all the 2,976 victims of September 11. They were women, men and children who came from more than 90 countries, from many religious, racial and ethnic backgrounds, and from all walks of life. All are mourned by family and friends. In the current moment, I think about Amenia Rasool (left), a Guyanan-American Muslim woman who worked on the 95th floor of the World Trade Center. (photo credit) I first read about her in The New York Times remembrance section.
I am humbled by the thought of such a terrible death at the hands of Muslim fundamentalists, and compelled by the beautiful complexity of Amenia Rasool’s existence, a life which challenged all simple narratives about what it means to be a Muslim woman in America. Though she had an arranged marriage, she and her husband reportedly shared domestic tasks. She worked as an accountant by day, but in the evening when her chores were done, she was said to enjoy watching taped soap operas and painting her fingernails. All of these things – women working outside the home, dramatic entertainment and use of cosmetics are often prohibited by fundamentalists – sometimes on penalty of death. Meanwhile, many American right-wing racists cannot conceive of a Muslim woman with such a life, nor do those who wave hateful signs in protest against the proposed Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan (“No Islamic Settlements in America”) remember her, even in death. She would have been “the other” to some of these Americans, but was also “the other” for Muslim fundamentalists. It is this complex, multidirectional dynamic that I am trying to name with the title of my article, “Remembering the Other’s Others.”
I am hoping that human rights advocates will remember Amenia Rasool when they conceive of what human rights means in relation to September 11th and its aftermath. This means taking violence by nonstate actors – as well as by states – seriously, as I underscored in my September 11, 2008, post,"Terror/Torture." This means being relentless in demanding accountability for those surviving persons involved in such terrorist atrocities and for the atrocities of response that have followed. This means that we must face up to the menace of Muslim fundamentalism, while (and as one means of) staunchly defending the human rights of Muslims in the United States and beyond. (credit for 2009 photo of protest against Sudanese prosecution of Lubna Hussein for wearing pants)
The task of human rights, it seems to me, must be to create an international community that recognizes the complexity of a life story like Rasool’s, and that protects the Amenia Rasools of the world from all of the kinds of discrimination and coercion and horror and violence they can face – as women, as Muslims, as immigrants, as Americans, as civilians, as people who live these categories as overlapping and intersecting rather than opposing. Rasool left behind four children when she was murdered by Al Qaeda. Let us hope we can make that better world in their lifetime.
A few nights ago, I walked along the Hudson River, transfixed by the beams of the Tribute in Light, streaming upward where the Twin Towers used to stand, in commemoration of the approaching anniversary. (credit for 2009 photo, top left) The powerful illumination filled the sky where the most extreme Muslim fundamentalists had blown a terrible empty hole nine years ago. Despite that grave international crime, and all that has followed, for me these beams of light still reflect the simple promise that we human beings can do better in how we treat one another.