No! Not under my name

On this Friday, and after almost two weeks of protesting by the Egyptian Youth against the Egyptian Military Council, the Muslim Brotherhood has called for a day long protest. No, not to end Military rule in Egypt, and no not to postpone the elections, but the demonstration has been called for the “Victory to Jerusalem”!

As a reaction to this, Palestinian youth have started the “Palestine is stronger with a free Egypt” campaign in which they post the following statement on their respective blogs:

“نحن، مجموعة من الشباب الفلسطيني، نرفض ان يتم الزج بالاقصى وبفلسطين لضرب الثورة المصرية العظيمة

فيما تشهد مصر، جولة جديدة من الثورة، يقودها شبابها الابطال، رافضين ان تسلب ثورتهم من العسكر، ومقاومين للقمع الوحشي الذي يتعرضون اليه، قرر الاخوان المسلمون في مصر، اعلان الغد مليونية “انقاذ الاقصى”، إننا نرى في هذه الدعوة التفافاً على كل الحركات والفئات المصرية التي أعلنت الغد مليونية “اسقاط المشير”.

للاخوان المسلمين الحق ان يقرروا ما يشاؤون في الشأن الداخلي المصري، لكننا نرفض أن يتبعوا ما اتبعه الطغاة العرب في استخدام فلسطين كحجة لممارسسة قمعهم واستبدادهم. لا يمكن لتحرير الاقصى وفلسطين ان يتم من خلال الدوس على كرامة الشعوب العربية.

نشد على ايادي أبطال التحرير وكافة المدن المصرية

فلسطين أقوى بمصر حرة وكريمة

We Palestinian youth refuse to use Al-Aqsa and the Palestinian cause as a tool to hit the great Egyptian revolution.

Egypt is witnessing a new wave of revolution lead by the brave courageous Egyptian youth who rejects SCAF’s hijacking their revolution. As the youth are resisting the oppression by the security forces, the Muslim Brotherhood called for a million man march in solidarity with Jerusalem.

We consider this invitation a detour on all Egyptian movements and sectors who announced tomorrow Friday a million man march to bring down Marshal Tantawi.

The Muslim Brotherhood has the right to take their decision in internal Egyptian issues. But we refuse MB taking the lead of the Arab tyrants who systematically used the Palestinian cause as a tool to practice their oppression.

The freedom of Al-Aqsa and Palestine does not come from stepping on the dignity of the Arab people.

We are in solidarity with the heroes of Tahrir square and all the Egyptian cities.

Palestine is stronger with a Free Egypt”

Palestinians after decades of struggle and decades of Arab appropriation of the struggle for their own interests, are making a stance, saying No! no more, not under my name.

Say No To Sexual Harassment

In early October I received an e-mail with the title “Say No To Sexual Harassment”, in it was a call for a meeting to combat sexual harassment in the streets of Ramallah. Being a victim of sexual harassment in the street and someone who advocates for both human and women rights, I had to go. I was among 70 other participants who were eager to tackle this issue. What came to me as a shock at the time, was the accounts of people confirming the fact that sexual harassment has seen an increase in Ramallah during the two years that I had been gone.

The meeting started of with a call for action, and various accounts of harassment that served as a confirmation to the need for action. Finally, after much discussion amongst the participants, including representatives from women organizations such as Sawa, Women’s Afairs Technical Committee and Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling, we decided we were going to take action. We started off by creating committees that would work towards launching a full on campaign against sexual harassment in public spaces.

Having worked on crisis mapping in the past, I figured it could be used as a great tool, basically we would be crowd-sourcing the incidents and data on to a map. Once I suggested the idea, many participants sounded excited, indicating that a similar project had been running in Egypt for years. (Harassmap was started by both Rebecca Chiao and Engy Ghozlan to document sexual harassment in the streets of Egypt. I must say that I am very grateful to Rebecca for extending a helping hand, and giving us much needed advice and tips on how to process with our own map.)

The map itself would use the well known Ushahidi platform and link to FrontlineSMS. FrontlineSMS allows us to receive reports via SMS, and we’re given the option to immediately respond with an SMS giving tips and advice on how to deal with sexual harassment. The goal behind this map is to document incidents on the spot, identify hotspots in Ramallah and hopefully use it as a way to build a community willing to combat this horrible phenomenon.

So now a month later, the group has shrunk slightly, but many of us are still powering through. Since our initial meeting, many local organizations have shown interest in our initiative and have offered to help with our campaign. As for the map, well it’s in the process of being tested, we’re hoping to launch the map by the end of this month just in time for the 16 days of Action against Gender Violence. Till then stay tuned to receive more updates on the map and the initiative

Screenshot of the map:

Palestinian Internet is down!

This morning I had problems going online, I figured it’s not that big of a surprise when it comes to Internet and Palestine. As the morning hours passed, I realized I wasn’t the only one with problems connecting to the Internet. It seemed everyone in Ramallah couldn’t go online. I found out a few hours later and by a statement from the Minister of Information Communication Technology that Palestinian networks have been facing cyber attacks originating from 20 different countries. There are no details as of yet about the type of attacks or the origins. Awaiting further news on this matter.

This maybe the first incident in which the entire Palestinian network is targeted, however hacking is not a new phenomenon in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict that has roots going all the way back to over a decade ago.