Another Delay for #Shawkan

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

UPDATE, March 26, 2016: For the third time, the trial for Mahmoud Abu Zeid, the photojournalist known as “Shawkan,” has been postponed by an Egyptian court, this time until April 23. The court cited the same reason it gave for the first postponement in December and the second one in February: that it does not have the space to accommodate the hearing. Because he was arrested in a widespread government crackdown, which was known as the “Rabaa Sit-in Dispersal,” Shawkan has been included with 737 other individuals. All face similar charges of offenses against public order and national security, violence, murder, attacking security forces and civilians, engaging in armed conflicts, and destroying public facilities.

In February, Shawkan was confined to a “disciplinary cell” for four days, in other words, solitary confinement. His social media accounts describe a tiny cell, six feet by five-and-a-half feet (take a moment and measure that out), a daily slice of bread, a bucket, no blanket. There is a disgusting irony in placing him in this small cell for any length of time, whether one hour or from December till April 23, when the reason for all three court hearing delays has been the lack of space.
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Today in History: March 26

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

This message to all ARPANET users announces the availability on ARPANET of the Coral 66 compiler provided by the GEC 4080 computer at the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment, Malvern, England. Coral 66 is the standard real-time high level language adopted by the Ministry of Defence.—the first email sent by a head of state, Queen Elizabeth II, on March 26, 1976

Queen Elizabeth II was visiting the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment, a telecommunications research center in Malvern, England, to officially christen, like a new ship, the ARPANET connection that was about to be switched on. ARPANET stood for Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, and it is what eventually became our Internet. A technician named Peter Kirstein, later inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame but not for this moment in history, composed the first royal email and stationed the Queen at the workstation seen in the photo above. All she had to do was hit a few keys and there it was: the first email sent by a head of state, 40 years ago today.
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#ReadRaif: Now More than Ever

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Freedom of speech is the air that any thinker breathes; it’s the fuel that ignites the fire of an intellectual’s thoughts.
 
Many human rights organizations believe that freedom of speech is a basic human right, and they call upon the Arab regimes to reform their policies when it comes to freedom of speech. As a human being, you have the right to express yourself. You have the right to journey wherever your mind wanders and to express the thoughts you come up with along the way. You have the right to believe, and to atone, the same way you have the right to love or to hate. You have the right to be a liberal or to be an Islamist.—Raif Badawi, “1000 Lashes Because I Say What I Think“

If you believe freedom of speech is a precious commodity, “the air” we need to breathe, the most dangerous and assertive act you can perform in the name of that freedom is to keep using it, to keep at it. To keep writing.
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