JO Magazine

Egyptian hijab ads compare women to candy... and men are flies

What is there to say, really? Bloggers have skewered the ad campaign, which seems to be placing the blame for harassment on women.

“Men, it is our responsibility alone to make our thoughts and behavior honorable,” writes The Skeptic (elijahzarwan.net). And Mona Eltahawy posts a long and impassioned story, that details how many times she's been harassed while wearing the hijab.

“At 15, I was groped as I was performing the rites of the Haj pilgrimage at Mecca, the holiest site for Muslims. Every part of my body was covered except for my face and hands,” she writes.

Sal_Rashad probably sums it up in her comment: “why dont they campaign for MEN TO LOOK AWAY!”

The Manufacture of Hatred

In response to a percieved increase in sectarianism and hatred, a group of bloggers in Bahrain, including Mahmood Yousef, (mahmoud.tv) have put together their own code of ethics, advocating free expression but opposing “hate speech,” nationalism and sectarianism.

“As the role of blogs, forums and websites increased, polarization increased accordingly and hatred was incited among citizens of the same nation due to ignorance and political manipulation which led to an alarming rise in sectarian tensions,” the group writes, in their explanatory note. Their goal: “to develop a scheme to stop what could be called the manufacture of hatred.”

It's hard to disagree with the idea. Codes of ethics for newspapers and other publications have been around for ages, and can be argued to have helped raise their standards. But so far, formal attempts to “civilize” the blogosphere seem to have had little impact – perhaps because once you decide some speech is OK and some isn't, its hard to reach any consensus on where to draw the line.

Already, one commenter has worried that the code will create a reason for bloggers to censor themselves, or try to silence others on matters of religion.

“Who is to determine what will be considered “hate speech”, “promoting division”, “national unity”, “sectarianism”, “fair”, etc. etc.?” writes Milter. “A text like that is wide open to interpretation and can be used/abused to suit any purpose.”

Egypt Censorship Watch

The latest from Egypt has been a stir over the Egyptian government’s recent effort to require at least some Internet cafes to collect the mobile phone numbers and personal information of all Internet users.

The Arabic Network For Human Rights Information, (anhri.net) which reports on the new regulations, says that many cafes have now instituted a new login system in collaboration with the mobile telephone company Mobinil. Wireless users must sign in online with their telephone number; a text message with a confirmation code is then sent to their phone, which allows them to use the Internet.

In 2005, ANHRI reported that Egyptian authorities were demanding that cafe owners record Internet users' personal information, and threatening to close those that did not comply.

“Now all are equal, the poor Internet users who should provide their names, id numbers and the number of the computers they use in public net cafes, and the rich who use their own PCs and laptops in luxurious coffee shops, as well as the tourists. All are censored,” writes ANHRI director Gamal Eid on ANHRI’s website.

The measure has received little mainstream media coverage, though it was reported by AFP, which quoted an unnamed Egyptian security official saying that, while the measure was not “official,” the government had indeed asked some Internet cafes to obtain this information from their clients.

About Those Fuel Prices... ?

In Jordan, the stir has been about the price of gas—i.e., with international crude prices falling, why aren't we paying less at the pump? Khalaf thinks it's all a conspiracy.

“It is no secret that this whole thing is a scam,” he writes. “The government gets the oil at deep discounts and charges the consumer full price, plus taxes, pocketing the difference. They refuse to let competitors enter the market, because they are making too much money on this.”

The government has been quick to deny that's it's making any money of brokering fuel sales (except the stated 24 percent taxes, of course), and it turns out the situation isn't much different in other countries.

Slate.com's explainer offers a quick, if curiously facile, supply-and-demand explanation.

“A busy gas retailer will take delivery on a daily basis, so there's some pressure to pass along price hikes without too much delay ... as oil prices start to deflate ... drivers become less invested in looking for a bargain ... As a result, station owners can keep drivers happy by knocking just a few cents off the 'old' price.”

More Facebook Activists Detained

On July 25, nearly 30 more people associated with the “April 6” Facebook group were arrested, during a gathering at the beach.

14 were released, but 15 more remain in detention for charges ranging from blocking traffic to plotting to overthrow the regime, says blogger Wael Abbas (misrdigital.blogspirit.com) in a recent interview with Radio France, available on his YouTube channel.

Menassat (www.menassat.com), which writes about the arrests, also mentions that a draft of a restrictive new mass media law was recently leaked to the local press in Egypt.

Culture Wars: Are Gamers Evil?

Speaking of hate speech, Global Voices Online contributor Filip Stojanovski writes about how the mainstream media tends to portray video gamers as disturbed, marginal outsiders, wasting their lives online and detached from the real world, almost to the point of psychosis.

“Regardless if a person considers oneself a gamer or not, I think they should become concerned by the pattern of discrimination labeling group by group as abnormal, wasteful, and dangerous even,” he writes on his blog.

The motivation for his first post was an article in a Macedonian paper titled, “They leave their girlfriends and their jobs to play.” But it's not a meme restricted to Macedonia. In fact, we seem to recall seeing similar things in local magazines... maybe even this one.

LIFEHACK: Light up your keyboard

Working until midnight—again? Fear not: YouTuber Kipkay posts this helpful video showing you how to convert your ordinary keyboard into a light-up one in about five minutes, using two LED's and some telephone wire. It's a useful innovation for those of you who are always the last ones in the office when they turn out the lights.

Kipkay is also the source of many other useful tricks, like how to break out of those US-military issue plastic flexi-cuffs, which is probably always a good one to know.