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Sunday, 27 May 2018

Mo Salah injury, YouTube “ban” and Abbas detention dominate a busy weekend for Egypt in the international press

Mo Salah’s injury in last night’s Champions League final, a potential one-month YouTube ban and the detention of activist Wael Abbas dominated a busy weekend for Egypt in the international press. We have chapter and verse on Salah and YouTube in Speed Round, above.

Blogger and activist Wael Abbas was detained after the State Security prosecutor ordered him held for 15 days pending investigations of charges that include allegedly publishing fake news and being involved with an illegal group. “In recent weeks Egypt has stepped up a crackdown on political critics, arresting a series of prominent activists, which has drawn international attention,” Reuters says.

US Vice President Mike Pence raised concerns about the arrest of activists in a call with President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, the White House said in a statement. The call was made to thank El Sisi for the release of more than 300 prisoners, including US citizen Ahmed Etiwy.

The rebound of Egypt’s economy is an important development for the United States, which needs a stable Arab ally to act as an “effective partner” in the region, the Heritage Foundation’s Anthony Kim and Patrick Tyrrell write for the Daily Signal. Overall economic freedom has improved, while the new investment and bankruptcy acts play important roles in making Egypt an attractive destination for US multinationals to invest. Nudging Egypt further down that path is beneficial to the US, Kim and Tyrrell say.

The Rise of the Muslim Woman Tech Entrepreneur, an opinion column in the New York Times, name-checks Cairo’s Samira Negm of Raye7 (the car-pooling app) and Amira Azzouz of Fustany in a piece that concludes, “Globalization and technology have at times had a harsh impact on parts of the working class in the United States and elsewhere in the developed world in recent years. On the other side of the world, those same forces have empowered mns of women, with far-reaching consequences for their families, communities and countries.”

A Florida man (we’ve always wanted to write that) has been arrested for allegedly threatening two Egyptian Muslim students with a switchblade and a stun gun at a McDonald’s, the Washington Post reports. “Get out of my country, you do not deserve to eat here,” John Jay Smith reportedly yelled at the students. Prosecutors are considering filing hate charges against Smith, who is already facing charges of assault, battery, and burglary (watch, runtime: 02:06).

Other stories on Egypt include:

  • NPR’s Jane Arraf sat down with one of the young men who raised a rainbow flag at the Mashrou’ Leila concert last September. He has sought asylum in Canada after “his family and his life have been destroyed.”
  • Egyptian feminist Nawal El Saadawi urges women to “organize themselves and fight” in an interview with Reuters.
  • Egyptian women will be allowed for the first time to sit on major mosque boards, Gulf News reports, quoting an Endowments Ministry official.
  • Egypt has reportedly banned preaching at 20k storefront mosques this Ramadan in what’s being positioned as a clampdown on extremist rhetoric, according to Religion News Service.

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