Under ‘emergency’ for decades, Egypt’s special powers mirrored in post-9/11 US By Stephen C. Webster Friday, January 28th, RAW

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/perpetual-emergency-1981-egypt-gave-government-uslike-special-powers/

Under ‘emergency’ for decades, Egypt’s special powers mirrored in post-9/11 US

By Stephen C. Webster
Friday, January 28th, 2011 -- 1:29 pm

Under emergency for decades, Egypts special powers mirrored in post 9/11 US Indefinite detention. Ubiquitous torture. Secret courts. Special authority for police interventions. The complete absence of privacy, even in one's own home.

Astute followers of American politics might think those items a dog whistle, evoking the worst civil liberties abuses permitted by the USA PATRIOT Act and other "emergency" provisions passed in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001.

They are, in fact, just a few of the powers claimed in an Egyptian "emergency" law passed in 1958, that goes even further than the controversial American security provisions.

The law has been used to keep the country under an officially declared "state of emergency" since the assassination of President Anwar el-Sadat in 1981. Prior to that, it had been invoked frequently since 1967, in the aftermath of the Arab-Israeli war.

Egyptians have been campaigning against it ever since.

Criticism of the policies escalated again last May, when their parliament extended the government's emergency powers for another two years.

Authorities promised to limit the law's application to terrorists and drug traffickers: a promise which human rights advocates called into doubt.

In an unclassified diplomatic cable from the US embassy in Cairo, released by secrets outlet WikiLeaks on Friday, American officials acknowledged the many abuses the law had brought on, from torture to caps on personal expression, limits on public assembly and the seizure of publications.

The cable explains:

-- The Emergency Law creates state security courts, which issue verdicts that cannot be appealed, and can only be modified by the president.

-- The Emergency Law allows the president broad powers to "place restrictions" on freedom of assembly. Separately, the penal code criminalizes the assembly of 5 or more people in a gathering that could "threaten public order."

-- Over the past two decades, the vast majority of cases where the government has used the Emergency Law have been to target violent Islamist extremist groups such as the Islamic Group and Al-Jihad, and political activity by the Muslim Brotherhood. However, the GOE has also used the Emergency Law in some recent cases to target bloggers and labor demonstrators.

Provisions of the law were used in recent years to arrest members of the country's minority party, the Muslim Brotherhood. The government has often scapegoated the group as one of their reasons for needing such laws.

Opposition leader and Nobel winner Mohamed ElBaradei, who was placed under house arrest on Friday, had previously suggested they demonize this group simply to perpetuate their enhanced power over the people.

The country was gripped in a series of growing protests since Jan. 25, with tens of thousands of protesters risking their lives to demand President Mubarak, a key US ally, resign power. He's held the country's highest office for over three decades.

Torture and brutality in Egypt's prisons was long known to American officials, another leaked cable revealed Friday.

During murder investigations, police regularly rounded up 40 to 50 suspects and hung them by their arms until they obtained a confession from someone, according to the cable.

Another leaked cable noted that "credible human rights lawyers believe police brutality continues to be a pervasive, daily occurrence in [Egyptian] detention centers, and that [the State Security Investigative Service] has adapted to increased media and blogger focus on police brutality by hiding the abuse and pressuring victims not to bring cases."

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's National Democratic Party was ostensibly reelected in late 2010 by 83 percent of the popular vote, but many elections observers called the election fraudulent. The Muslim Brotherhood and Wafd, the other opposition party, boycotted the election. Voting in December was hindered by violence in many places around Egypt.

Though Mubarak has been in power over three decades, US Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday that he is not a "dictator" and should not resign, in spite of the popular uprising against his regime.

Thanks Orangutan

Al Jazeera English Live From Egypt
Video Live Stream
Video Reports From Egypt

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27365.htm

In pictures: Anger in Egypt
http://english.aljazeera.net/photo_galleries/africa/2011125192646189116....

The Egyptian Army and the Uprising

Graphic videos show protesters clashing with Egyptian police

Graphic videos show protesters clashing with Egyptian police

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/video-protesters-clash-police-egypt/

By David Edwards
Friday, January 28th, 2011 -- 12:26 pm
Shocking and graphic video from around the Internet Friday showed protesters in Egypt clashing with police and demanding the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

Are We Witnessing the Start ...

Are We Witnessing the Start ...
North Africa and the Global Political Awakening, Part 1

by Andrew Gavin Marshall

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22963

The trail behind corruption and 'New World Order'

This article ties-in 9/11 and current events very effectively. Hopefully moderators at 911blogger will see this and post in front page daily news section. Anyway, in the last issue of Flyby News I inserted a summary on Christopher Story's book, The New Underworld Order that explains how and for what purpose such dictatorships and regimes could be taken over by detailing the money trail.

"In 1992, the Illuminati orchestrated the raising of a targeted $27.5 trillion from 200+ international institutions, in the biggest 'secretive' 'private placement' financing operation in world history. The 'mainstream' media unfortunately failed to report this operation - so the general public is ignorant of it. The aim was to provide finance for the imposition of the New World Order, a.k.a., the New Underworld Order, for its use throughout the 21st century. The euphemism for this programme is the 'global security environment'. The consequent monumental 'Global Security Fund', which is managed in Brussels, and is directed on behalf of the global Illuminati's controllers by financial intelligence operatives, now disposes of secret financial resources of approximately $65 trillion for this purpose, probably far more. Equipped with such limitless resources, the directors of the New Underworld Order have now amassed sufficient finance to bribe every leader, ruler, policymaker, intelligence operative and political figure worldwide, for the rest of this century, in pursuit of their aims."

As Lord Acton described:
"Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Inequality In America Is Worse Than In Egypt, Tunisia Or Yemen

SOURCE WITH GRAPHICS:
http://www.infowars.com/inequality-in-america-is-worse-than-in-egypt-tun...
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/01/inequality-is-worse-in-america-th...

Inequality In America Is Worse Than In Egypt, Tunisia Or Yemen

Washington’s Blog
January 29, 2011

Egyptian, Tunisian and Yemeni protesters all say that inequality is one of the main reasons they’re protesting.

However, the U.S. actually has much greater inequality than in any of those countries.

Specifically, the “Gini Coefficient” – the figure economists use to measure inequality – is higher in the U.S.

[Click for larger image]

Gini Coefficients are like golf – the lower the score, the better (i.e. the more equality).

According to the CIA World Fact Book, the U.S. is ranked as the 42nd most unequal country in the world, with a Gini Coefficient of 45.

In contrast:

• Tunisia is ranked the 62nd most unequal country, with a Gini Coefficient of 40.

• Yemen is ranked 76th most unequal, with a Gini Coefficient of 37.7.

• And Egypt is ranked as the 90th most unequal country, with a Gini Coefficient of around 34.4.

And inequality in the U.S. has soared in the last couple of years, since the Gini Coefficient was last calculated, so it is undoubtedly currently much higher.

So why are Egyptians rioting, while the Americans are complacent?

Well, Americans – until recently – have been some of the wealthiest people in the world, with most having plenty of comforts (and/or entertainment) and more than enough to eat.

But another reason is that – as Dan Ariely of Duke University and Michael I. Norton of Harvard Business School demonstrate – Americans consistently underestimate the amount of inequality in our nation.

As William Alden wrote last September:

Americans vastly underestimate the degree of wealth inequality in America, and we believe that the distribution should be far more equitable than it actually is, according to a new study.

Or, as the study’s authors put it: “All demographic groups — even those not usually associated with wealth redistribution such as Republicans and the wealthy — desired a more equal distribution of wealth than the status quo.”

The report … “Building a Better America — One Wealth Quintile At A Time” by Dan Ariely of Duke University and Michael I. Norton of Harvard Business School … shows that across ideological, economic and gender groups, Americans thought the richest 20 percent of our society controlled about 59 percent of the wealth, while the real number is closer to 84 percent.

Sadat murder a sting op?

Look at the connections. It's weird! But true!

Lt. Col. Anderson about US terrorist asset Ali Mohamed:
“I think you or I would have a better chance of winning [the lottery], than an Egyptian major in the unit that assassinated [Egyptian President Anwar] Sadat would have getting a visa, getting to California… getting into the Army and getting assigned to a Special Forces unit. That just doesn’t happen.”
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=ali_mohamed

Remember: Mubarak was put in place because of that murder of Sadat, who wanted peace. Only fundamentalists, either Zionist or Arab or from the MIK, had the motive to reject peace. Mohamed was one of the 1993 WTC terror plotters- first wave of what became "Al Qaida" later. If this does not raise an eyebrow nothing will!

Egypt - January 2011...

John Lennon - America: 2001 - Egypt: 2011 - The World???...

Stop the LIES, Stop the CRIMINALS, Stops the WARS,,, FREEDOM LIBERTY FOR EVERYONE!!!

.

Egyptian and Tunisian People vs US Dominance

Egyptian and Tunisian People vs US Dominance REAL NEWS Jan. 29th

Egypt shuts down al-Jazeera

Today Spiegel Online, Germany reported

that the robbery of the national museum and the freeing of the thousands of criminals and the burning of the NDP-party headquarter were all intentional done by government elements to create fear and the reason to stay on top on this conflict for foreign image.
There were several witnesses who confirmed these allegations. So some sort of "strategy of tension" concept in the making.

"Dictators" do not Dictate, They Obey Orders-Chossudovsky

The Protest Movement in Egypt: "Dictators" do not Dictate, They Obey Orders

by Michel Chossudovsky

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22993