Forum	Title	Content	Member	Sex	Country	Date/Time
Middle East and North Africa	Cousin marriage (Egypt)	I wonder why you attack Sarah and Adnan, coz they have no any issues against any one, but, as a VJ member, he or she is trying to help. Please let's respect the opinion of all VJ members. well, all except her opinion of course, right?	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-03-03 03:29:00
Middle East and North Africa	Cousin marriage (Egypt)	Does Egypt require the "celibacy certificate" showing you're unmarried, like they had in Morocco?	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-02-19 13:16:00
Middle East and North Africa	Baby in 2014 :)	Congratulations! Any names picked out yet?	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-08-14 00:31:00
Middle East and North Africa	Stress and life in the US	avoiding the "mena imported son syndrome" is crucial. these are grown men. treating them as such doesn't always guarantee they will act like grown men, but there's no upside whatsoever to treating them like petulant teenagers	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-08-06 10:41:00
Middle East and North Africa	CR1 interview-Need to fix my certification of marriage	people have tried to, by posting further questions about the details of your situation to see if they can help, but you haven't answered.  Where did your first marriage take place? Didn't you have to have a divorce certificate to marry your current wife in Morocco in the first place? Did they just not record it?	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-07-18 16:49:00
Middle East and North Africa	CR1 interview-Need to fix my certification of marriage	Where did your first marriage take place? Didn't you have to have a divorce certificate to marry your current wife in the first place? Did they just not record it?	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-07-14 14:04:00
Middle East and North Africa	MENA Films & Documentaries	No. The film with Hiam Abbass, about the Palestinian lady trying to save her lemon grove from being destroyed, is based on a plot idea developed by the director, Eran Riklis. The book by Sandy Tolan is about a dispossessed Palestinian who goes back to visit his former home, now occupied by Jewish immigrants, and the relationship that develops between the two. too many lemons for me to keep track of apparently yes then, there needs to be another. and with some way to include hiam abbass, because i like her very much.	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2012-06-14 12:24:00
Middle East and North Africa	MENA Films & Documentaries	These look nice I loved the book called The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan... I wish they would make that into a film. I think they are one and the same. Isn't the film with Hiam Abbass based on that book?	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2012-06-14 03:45:00
Middle East and North Africa	BOOM! Terrorist attacks in Egypt	Perspective ? July 30, 2013, 1:02 pm On the Selling of the Egyptian Coup to Liberals   How the mass killing of Islamists is being justified in America By Ken Silverstein Immediately after the Egyptian military ousted Mohamed Morsi on July 3, supporters of the army?s actions began circulating a YouTube video of twelve-year-old Ali Ahmed, a well-dressed and articulate young man whose comments they cited as evidence that the overthrow of an elected president wasn?t a coup but a shining example of democracy. The video, which went out under titles like ?12 Year Old Egyptian Explains Revolution in Minutes,? ?Egypt: The Next President,? and ?Brilliant Egyptian Boy Explains What?s Happening in His Country,? had been filmed six months earlier in Cairo by a news outlet called El Wady.   Who can resist adorable little Ali Ahmed? He comes across as an ardent champion of democracy and gender equality; indeed, it?s striking how deeply he seems to care about these issues. ?We didn?t get rid of a military regime to replace it with a fascist theocracy,? he says. ?The social objectives of the revolution are yet to be achieved ? economic empowerment, freedom and social justice.? Let?s pretend that these are genuinely Ali?s spontaneous thoughts, and that he wasn?t coached by adults or merely parroting their sentiments. It?s obvious from the video that he comes from Egypt?s tiny upper class, which under normal circumstances interacts with poor Egyptians only rarely. As a commentator on Egyptian social life, he has all the credibility of Richie Rich being interviewed on CNN about the plight of the American working class. Worse, though, is the way people in Egypt and America are using him to try to justify what was clearly a military coup as part of a democratic ?revolution,? in turn legitimizing the subsequent mass killings of Islamists by the Egyptian army. This is especially pathetic when the supporters are Western liberals, who have deluded themselves into believing ? as some once believed that military intervention was a route to democracy in Iraq and Libya ? that American-style secularists have significant popular appeal in Egypt. The truth is that the secularists beloved of the American political class have little support among Egyptians. Mohammed ElBaradei, who settled for the post of vice president after the military initially chose him to lead the ?interim? regime, had returned to the country after the mass demonstrations that led to the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in 2011. ?If [people] want me to lead the transition, I will not let them down,? he said at the time. But the people didn?t want him to lead. Though he declared his intention to run for the presidency, he withdrew when it became clear he didn?t have anywhere near the support he would need to be elected, and Morsi ultimately won the race in 2012.[1] [1] In a post-coup interview with the New York Times in which he defended the arrests of Muslim Brotherhood members and the shutdown of Islamist television, ElBaradei said, ?We just lost two and a half years. As Yogi Berra said, ?It?s déjà vu all over again,? but hopefully this time we will get it right.? In Egypt, only two forces genuinely possess the ability to rule at the moment: the army, by virtue of the bayonet; or the Muslim Brotherhood, by virtue of the ballot. Morsi angered many (including his own supporters) with his actions, but he was also facing down the impossible expectations of a populace desperate for change after decades of military rule, and he had not lost his legitimacy. Parliamentary elections had been scheduled for later this year; those elections were the proper vehicle for a change of government, not a coup. Whether the Muslim Brotherhood would have been defeated in elections is unknown. Western media accounts have said that as many as 33 million people had protested against Morsi before the coup, but as Shadi Hamid, director of research for the Brookings Doha Center, told the Washington Post, that number ?defies what we know of physical spaces.? Certainly huge numbers of people took to the streets to demonstrate against Morsi, but his supporters have also been out in huge numbers, before and after the coup, and unlike his enemies they are risking their lives to do so. This isn?t an endorsement of the Muslim Brotherhood, many of whose policies and ideas I find abhorrent, especially regarding civil liberties. But I am quite certain that General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the man who appears to be in charge now and who provoked last weekend?s bloodbath, is also not a fan of gays and feminists (who didn?t thrive under Mubarak, either).[2] [2] On a past reporting trip to Egypt, I met with female members of the Muslim Brotherhood, and while they might not have classified themselves as feminists as we define the term in the West, they were certainly feminist in their aims. They believed they could work through the Brotherhood to achieve political change, and to improve the status of women in Egypt. We may not like the Muslim Brotherhood, but we can?t have democracy in Egypt without it, and the same holds true for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine. As I wrote for Harper?sin 2007 after interviewing senior officials in the Muslim Brotherhood and Hezbollah, the U.S. government needs to deal with ?radical? Islamists because they are widely supported actors in their countries. The alternative to giving them a fair share of power is mass arrests and executions. Of course, some coup supporters seem to be perfectly comfortable with such tactics. As David Brooks wrote in the New York Times, ?Radical Islamists are incapable of running a modern government. Many have absolutist, apocalyptic mind-sets. They have a strange fascination with a culture of death.? And as theWashington Post noted yesterday, the response in Egypt and abroad, including from the Obama Administration ?has been fairly muted,? despite the fact that a Human Rights Watch investigation found that many of the demonstrators killed over the weekend ?had been shot in the chest or head by live ammunition.? The Post article went on to lay bare the dynamic at work: ?The brutality of Egypt?s once-feared security state helped spark Egypt?s 2011 revolution. Now those security forces are swinging back into action, and this time they are being hailed as heroes by many of the secular activists and liberals who once campaigned against them.? You cannot preach about democracy then accept the outcome only if your side triumphs. In 2006, Hamas won a devastating victory in legislative elections in the Palestinian Authority. The following year, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas dissolved a Hamas-led unity government and swore in an emergency cabinet, leading the Obama Administration to reinstate aid that had been suspended under Hamas? rule. This type of hypocrisy heightens anti-Americanism, sends the message that elections are meaningless, and encourages terrorism.[3] [3] For instance, radical Islamic terrorism in the Sinai appears to have surged since Morsi was deposed. On Sunday, I came across this line from Voltaire in the documentary The Act of Killing: ?It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.? Though the film is about events in Indonesia in 1965, it brought to mind the intellectual contortions of Egyptian-coup supporters who have justified the mass killings of Islamists in the name of democracy. Back in 1965 it was Islamic militias killing Communists in the name of democracy. The common denominator is that the killers were seen as pro-Western ? and so, the trumpets are sounding once again in America.   http://harpers.org/b...up-to-liberals/	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-07-30 23:59:00
Middle East and North Africa	BOOM! Terrorist attacks in Egypt	Why are Egyptian media demonizing Palestinians? Hanine Hassan The Electronic Intifada 23 July 2013 130723-egypt-morsi.jpg Accusations of association with Hamas have been used to smear deposed Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi.  (Ahmed Asad / APA images) On 6 July, Egyptian TV host Shafki al-Moniri, on Al-Yawm TV, apologized to her viewers that she wasn?t in the country a week earlier for the 30 June protests that served as the backdrop for the army?s ouster of President Muhammad Morsi. But she had been eager to fly home as soon as possible to join the celebrations. As her fellow passengers were checking in for their flight to Cairo from Barcelona, she recounted that one traveler ?was very nervous and we didn?t know why he was nervous. We boarded, and a while later, Egypt Air had to offload him.? He turned out to be Palestinian, al-Moniri said. ?The flight attendant explained that there is an order to offload this passenger,? and there was more delay as the passenger?s luggage was located. She said she was sure this wasn?t an action against all Palestinians, but that there must be a question mark over the particular Palestinian removed from the flight. At that moment, al-Moniri said, she felt safe because ?the army and the police forces are wide awake and acting properly.? After telling this story, al-Moniri, overcome with emotion and joy, broke down in tears on camera as she repeated, ?I love you Egypt, I love you Egypt,? and had to be comforted by her fellow TV host. It is unclear if al-Moniri knew that in fact, one of the first acts taken by the military regime that overthrew Morsi on 3 July, was to ban Palestinians from entering Egypt through Cairo airport, leaving thousands stranded all over the world, preventing them from returning home to Gaza through Rafah crossing ? the sole point of entry and exit for the vast majority of Gaza?s residents. All over the world, Palestinians were denied boarding on Cairo-bound flights and dozens were deported from Cairo?s airport. These actions against Palestinians have been widely justified with constantly repeated rumors ? never backed by evidence ? that Palestinians are interfering in Egypt?s affairs, causing turmoil, and are even responsible for attacks on Egyptian security forces by militant groups in the Sinai peninsula. The allegations have been leveled at Palestinians in general, and Hamas in particular. To further feed the paranoia, on 8 July a speaker on Al Kahera Wal Nas TV made the allegation that toppled President Morsi is ?of Palestinian origin,? an inflammatory and bigoted allegation in the present atmosphere. After the guest made the supposed revelation, the host, instead of asking for evidence, turned to the camera and said, ?we must repeat it, President Morsi is of Palestinian origin.? It is now common to hear members or supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood being denounced as ?Palestinians,? or to hear claims that most of those taking part in the ongoing sit-in by Morsi supporters at Cairo?s Rabia al-Adawiya square are themselves Palestinians, or in some cases, Syrians. Baseless allegations On Tahrir TV, on 6 July, host Ahmad Moussa directly accused Hamas of the killing of 16 Egyptian border guards in Sinai in August 2012, and claimed the evidence would be revealed at an international press conference within a few days. More than two weeks later, no such evidence has been revealed, but the accusation that Morsi has helped Hamas cover up its alleged role continues to be used to justify his overthrow. On the same channel, on 9 July, hosts Mohamed al-Ghaity and Samir Ghatas discussed what they purported was an official Hamas memorandum marked ?top secret? disclosing that ?500 terrorist militants from the al-Qassam brigades, the military wing of Hamas, are ready to destroy Egypt in order to stand by their Muslim Brothers.? Conveniently, they claimed, Hamas was acting under the orders of the prime minister of Qatar, a backer of the Muslim Brotherhood. Al-Ghaity then displayed a document purporting to be from the Muslim Brotherhood to the ?Hamas terrorists.? These documents are impossible to verify and almost certainly fake, but their use in this way has fed the anti-Palestinian frenzy. Meanwhile, Mahmoud Wagdi, Egypt?s former interior minister, told the Ismailia Appeals Court on 8 June that ?elements of al-Qassam brigades affiliated to the Islamist movement of Hamas, in collaboration with the [Islamic] Jihad and the Islamic Army groups in Gaza and the Shia Lebanese party of Hizballah, teamed up during the early days of the 25 January 2011 uprising that overthrew Mubarak to attack Egyptian prisons and release Islamist detainees? (??Exposing? Hamas and Hizbullah?s roles,? Al-Ahram Weekly, 12 June). Hence, on 11 July, Egyptian officials said that an investigation would be launched into allegations that Morsi, who had been detained by authorities during the 2011 uprising, was himself broken out of prison by Hamas, and that proof of foreign intervention on Egyptian soil could lead to charges of treason. Demonization While talking heads on satellite TV have been demonizing Palestinians around the clock, social media have been filled with rumors including that Palestinians want to occupy the Sinai peninsula. Many are as familiar as they are absurd: that the nearly 1.7 million Palestinians in Gaza are causing shortages for Egypt?s population of 83 million by siphoning off food, fuel and medicines. The rumors were undoubtedly fed when, on 17 June, weeks before the ouster of Morsi,ONtv broadcast unsubstantiated press reports that Hamas had sent 3,000 troops into Egypt to support President Morsi. Such wild claims have been used to justify Egypt?s efforts to destroy the tunnels between Gaza and Egypt, a lifeline for Palestinians in Gaza amid the intense Israeli siege. False reports planted in the press travel quickly, as when, for example, The Times of Israelpicked up a report from the London-based, Saudi-funded Arabic daily Al-Hayat citing an Egyptian ?security official? who claimed that the Egyptian army had killed some 200 gunmen in Sinai, including 32 from Hamas. In that, case, at least, there was a firm denial from Israeli, Egyptian and Palestinian officials (?Officials on all sides deny report that Egypt killed 32 Hamas fighters in Sinai,? 11 July). More often, however, such claims have gone unchallenged, as when Major General Osama Askar, commander of the Egyptian military?s Third Army, claimed on 18 July that his forces had captured 19 Grad rockets belonging to the military wing of Hamas on the Cairo-Suez highway. They were, he said, destined for Cairo ?to help the Muslim Brotherhood.? The ?captured rockets,? Askar asserted, ?are capable of destroying an entire neighborhood which indicates that they were on their way to be used in terrorist attacks against the Egyptian people? (?Third Army Commander: Hamas rockets captured in Suez capable of destroying entire neighborhood,? al-Dustour (Cairo), 17 July [Arabic]). Such lurid tales about Hamas are given credence because, although organizationally separate, Hamas grew ideologically out of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is therefore presented as natural that Hamas would come to the rescue of its mother organization. The propagandists also draw parallels with Hamas? rise to political power. Although Hamas won the majority of seats in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, it was by force of arms in 2007 that it secured its position in Gaza against the rival Fatah forces which would not cede power. Egyptian media are telling audiences that this is the model the Muslim Brotherhood ?terrorists? plan to follow. These same propagandists consistently forget to mention that Morsi?s policies towards Hamas and the Palestinians in Gaza did not differ in substance from Hosni Mubarak?s. Full partnership with US With Egypt?s history as the vanguard of Arab nationalism and the Arab struggle against Israel, it may seem shocking that such contempt for the Palestinians ? and lately Syrians, who are being subjected to similar forms of incitement ? could be so loud and pervasive. During his rule from 1956-1970, President Gamal Abdel-Nasser upgraded the rights of Palestinians in Egypt, giving them equal status to Egyptians. Initially, even after the 1973 war against Israel, his successor, President Anwar Sadat, seemed to follow the same course. But amid economic crisis, rising unemployment and poverty, Sadat sought a way out in the form of his pivot toward the United States, his neoliberal economic reforms and his 1979 peace treaty with Israel. A whole new class rose, ready to profit from what the Egyptian embassy in Washington still calls the the full ?partnership? between the two countries, at the expense of the poor. Sadat knew that by recognizing his Zionist neighbor, he was going against the will of his people. He and his supporters therefore launched a vicious anti-Palestinian campaign in Egypt, frequently portraying Palestinians as ungrateful betrayers who sold their land to the Zionists and who were dragging Egypt into costly wars. His prime minister, Mustafa Khalil, famously declared: ?No more Palestine after today? (Oroub el-Abed, ?The Invisible Community: Egypt?s Palestinians,? Al-Shabaka, 8 June 2011). From then on, an entire propaganda machine was set in motion against the Palestinians. Chauvinist nationalism As Palestinian scholar Joseph Massad has observed, this campaign had as a motive developing a ?chauvinist Egyptian nationalism in place of Egyptian Arab nationalism? (?Egypt?s nouveaux riches and the Palestinians, Al Jazeera English, 9 August 2012). Palestinians in Egypt began to suffer from discriminatory policies that treated them as a threat to the country?s national security. Younger Egyptian generations were completely misinformed about Palestine and the struggle there. Sadat?s successor, Hosni Mubarak, and his agents in the press occasionally deployed vicious anti-Palestinian campaigns to distract from their misdeeds. The propaganda intensified after the Muslim Brotherhood greatly increased their seats in Egypt?s 2005 parliamentary elections, and Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections the following year. After Fatah refused to hand over power to Hamas, leading to armed clashes and the 2007 expulsion of Fatah forces from Gaza, the Mubarak regime painted Hamas as an even more dangerous foe. Egypt set to work zealously enforcing the Israeli-declared blockade of Gaza. During the January 2011 uprising that eventually toppled him, Mubarak?s media agents actively spread rumors that Palestinians and Hamas were behind the Tahrir Square protests. This ultra-chauvinist stance has at times descended into open hatred. At the height of the conflict between Hamas and Fatah, Egyptian TV host Amr Adib, a former propagandist for the Mubarak regime with ties to his ruling National Democratic Party, saluted Israel on television and said that Hamas should be ?finished off.? On 13 July, the Arab Network for Human Rights Information published a statement from a coalition of Egyptian human rights organizations condemning the surge in incitement to hatred and violence against Syrians and Palestinians. The groups singled out Egypt?s CBC and ONtv, as well as presenters Amr Adib, Lamis Hadidi and Ahmad Moussa, as among the worst purveyors. This incitement, the statement said, would only become more common after the ?silence about hate speech and incitement targeting some Egyptian citizens because of their religious or political backgrounds.? Targeted and humiliated UN General Assembly Resolution 59 (1) of 1946, defending freedom of the press, declares that ?Freedom of information requires as an indispensable element the willingness and capacity to employ privileges without abuse. It requires as a basic discipline the moral obligation to seek the facts without prejudice and to spread knowledge without malicious intent.? These duties are embodied in any notion of journalistic ethics. And yet, sadly, in the current Egyptian media frenzy of rumor-mongering, racial incitement and demonization, no such ethics can be found. The fruit of these years of hateful misinformation are being harvested now, as Palestinians find themselves targeted and humiliated by hate speech repeated by cab drivers, salespersons, students, police officers and even intellectuals claiming to be revolutionaries. Palestinians today feel trapped in a fellow Arab country, fearing false accusations, leading many to avoid the streets, hide their origins and change their accent when communicating with Egyptians. Yet at the same time, support for Palestine and antagonism towards Israel and Zionism remained deep-rooted in Egyptian political culture and national consciousness, demonstrated by waves of public support in the course of the years, during the Sabra and Shatila massacres of 1982, the first intifada in 1987, the second intifada in 2000, and the attack on Gaza in 2008. But the waves of solidarity end as soon as the latest spasm of Israeli violence abates, and too many Egyptians succumb again to yet another full-blown media assault against the Palestinians. Meanwhile, principled Egyptian activists and intellectuals continue to insistently reject anti-Palestinian rhetoric and argue for solidarity with Palestinians, as well as for the centrality of the question of Palestine to Egypt. But their voices are being drowned out in the present national discourse. Hanine Hassan is a researcher and doctoral student studying aspects of mental torture and humiliation under occupation. Her family fled Jaffa, Palestine in 1948 and is waiting to return. She tweets at @hanine09.	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-07-24 23:58:00
Middle East and North Africa	Egypt Declares State of Emergency as Security Forces Evict Morsi Supporters; Dozens Dead, Hundreds I	I'm like totally befuddled- am I missing some posts here or something where anyone has said it's ok or excusable that brotherhood / supporters' violence or vandalism has occurred? I've read some Godawful twisted, morally bereft defenses of military and police force slaughter of anyone and everyone in their path with no impunity here, and those same excuseniks seem to have no concept of scale or grasp of exactly what it means when a massacre like this is perpetrated by a government while other big deal governments essentially cheer them on. But whatever. Coups are cool.	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-08-20 02:55:00
Middle East and North Africa	Egypt Declares State of Emergency as Security Forces Evict Morsi Supporters; Dozens Dead, Hundreds I	http://www.youtube.c...h?v=1rRPVsacdro	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-08-18 15:34:00
Middle East and North Africa	Egypt Declares State of Emergency as Security Forces Evict Morsi Supporters; Dozens Dead, Hundreds I	heh.    Max Blumenthal ?@MaxBlumenthal57s Egypt's ONTV rebroadcasts Fox News & right-wing militarist Ralph Peters to legitimize Sisi's massacres: http://youtu.be/fb65FOxDg70  Can't edit my previous post, not sure why,   but here is the clip from today:   http://www.youtube.c...h?v=chtGonznBDE   Again, I can't edit it for some reason, but I wanted to include a quote from the above link in case you're not sure if you want to watch it.   He says,   ?We need to get over our narcissism and realize what?s going on in Egypt isn?t about us, it?s about the people in Egypt and other peoples throughout the Middle East struggling against fundamentalist extremists who are our enemies too?people struggling to build modern, decent, tolerant societies.? ?We cannot determine Egypt?s future, the Egyptian people have to determine that? but we should try to play constructively and not automatically assume?ooh, military: bad? peaceful protesters who happen to be thugs : good. I?m appalled at hearing so many Westerner commentators condemning the military and seemingly siding with the Brotherhood?. The Egyptian people want a little bit of freedom, and the Brotherhood came to power and tried to take that little bit of hard-won freedom away, and now you?re seeing the reaction. Again, I don?t like military coups, but the real coup was what Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood did to the fledgling Egyptian democracy. We need to get our priorities straight, and our priorities should be on the side of modernity, tolerance, progress, economic growth, and decency. Not on the side of bigoted, medieval, primitive, hate-filled religion directed against peaceful Muslims above all, because we should remember that the victims of radical, fanatical Islam have overwhelmingly been decent everyday Muslims.?       and today( in the second link) he says,   regarding the President's repeated portrayal of the MB as "peaceful protesters"   "peaceful protesters don't kill policemen, they don't burn churches and attack and kill Christians, they don't kidnap secularists and imprison them in mosques and torture them."   He gets politically controversial after that, talking about if Obama's admin would react differently if it was Christians killing Muslims, and so you can take that or leave it, but at least SOMEBODY in the US is covering the violence from the MB!!!!! They are not innocent, peaceful, democratically-minded protesters!       Edited by sandinista!, 18 August 2013 - 03:32 PM.	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-08-18 15:31:00
Middle East and North Africa	Egypt Declares State of Emergency as Security Forces Evict Morsi Supporters; Dozens Dead, Hundreds I	THE ARMY PULLED THE TRIGGER, BUT THE WEST LOADED THE GUN BRENDAN ONEILL EDITOR How Western liberals provided the moral ammo for the massacres in Egypt. T 15 AUGUST 2013 here is world outcry over the behaviour of the Egyptian security forces yesterday, when at least 525 supporters of the deposed Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi were massacred. The killings were excessive, says Amnesty, in a bid to bag the prize for understatement of the year; brutal, say various handwringing newspaper editorials; too much, complain Western politicians. Such belated expressions of synthetic sorrow are not only too little, too late (hundreds of Egyptians have already been massacred by the military regime that swept Morsi from power); they are also extraordinarily blinkered. To focus on the actions of the security forces alone, on what they did with their trigger fingers yesterday, is to miss the bigger picture; it is to overlook the question of where the military regime got the moral authority to clamp down on its critics so violently in the name of preserving its undemocratic grip on power. It got it from the West, including from so-called Western liberals and human-rights activists. The moral ammunition for yesterdays massacres was provided by the very politicians and campaigners now crying crocodile tears over the sight of hundreds of dead Egyptians. The fact that General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the head of the Egyptian armed forces who swept Morsi from power on 3 July, feels he has free rein to preserve his coup-won rule against all-comers isnt surprising. After all, his undemocratic regime has received the blessing of various high-ranking Western officials, even after it carried out massacres of protesters campaigning for the reinstatement of Morsi, who was elected with 52 per cent of the vote in 2012. Baroness Catherine Ashton, the European Unions chief of foreign affairs, who, like al-Sisi, is unelected, visited Egypt at the end of July. She met with al-Sisi and his handpicked, unelected president, Adly Mansour. She called on this junta disguised as a transitional power to start a journey [towards] a stable, prosperous and democratic Egypt. This was after it had massacred hundreds of protesters, placed various politicians and activists in prison, and reinstated the Mubarak-era secret police to wage a war on terror against MB supporters. For Ashton to visit al-Sisi and talk about democracy in the aftermath of such authoritarian clampdowns was implicitly to confer authority on the coup that brought him to power and on his brutal rule and actions. Meanwhile, the US has refused to call the militarys sweeping aside of Morsi a coup. The Democratic secretary of state, John Kerry, has gone further and congratulated al-Sisis regime for restoring democracy. Kerry said the militarys assumption of power was an attempt to avoid descendance into chaos and violence under Morsi, and its appointment of civilians in the top political jobs was a clear sign that it was devoted to restoring democracy. He said this on 2 August. After hundreds of Morsi supporters had already been massacred. If al-Sisis forces believe that killing protesters demanding the reinstatement of a democratically elected prime minister is itself a democratic act, a necessary and even good thing, it isnt hard to see where they got the idea from. Human-rights groups like Amnesty have played a key role in keeping international eyes off Egypt by trumpeting other, apparently more pressing rights issues, such as Russias continued imprisonment of ##### Riot. Astonishingly, Amnesty has just launched a new campaign called Back on Taksim, which allows Westerners to check in online to Taksim Square in Turkey in order to raise awareness about the heavy-handed policing of the demonstration there and the brutal dismantling of the protesters camps. And the massacre of camping protesters in Cairo? Doesnt that deserve an app, too? Apparently not. Its only secular, left-leaning protesters that Amnesty and its Hampstead-based patrons are interested in, not bearded, Koran-reading blokes demanding the reinstatement of a religious-leaning president. http://www.spiked-on...25#.Ug4quny9KK0 Edited by sandinista!, 16 August 2013 - 08:43 AM.	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-08-16 08:39:00
Middle East and North Africa	Egypt Declares State of Emergency as Security Forces Evict Morsi Supporters; Dozens Dead, Hundreds I	There has been absolutely no evidence presented that any of the murdered protestors from the camp were involved in any church burnings, or attacks on Christians, or kidnappings, or any of these other claims.   Attempts to cite heinous acts committed in various places by who knows who as some kind of justification for the mass murder of political opponents and protesters is completely outrageous.     Yep. Massacre Of Islamists By Egyptian Military Likely Strategic Post by HAROON MOGHUL Its hard to get a handle on whats happening in Egypt, but my sense is that all of this is deeply political in nature and intent. This is more than just a massacre, its a strategic massacre. By cracking down so violently and indiscriminately on the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters, the military well knows it will initiate a cycle of retaliatory violence on the part of supporters, sympathizers, and opportunistic elements in the Sinai and elsewhere, who get blamed for being the Brotherhood even though theres absolutely no evidence that they are. My proof is both current and preemptive. First, the military has not, as journalist @SarahCarr pointed out, tried to protect Christian churches, which historically get attacked in periods of crisis. The military surely knew there would be reprisals against Christians whove been perceived to be in support of the coup (which disempowered a class of people long brutalized by the army.) Either the military didn't care what happened to Copts, which based on the Maspero massacre is quite probable, or (maybe "and") they wanted Copts to be attacked. Which is to say, they used them as bait. http://www.religiond...KMslclw.twitter	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-08-15 22:59:00
Middle East and North Africa	Egypt Declares State of Emergency as Security Forces Evict Morsi Supporters; Dozens Dead, Hundreds I	Why was this moved into a separate thread? A totally legitimate argument exists for the two issues being interconnected, Ken Silverstein said as much in the article I posted in the other thread. You cannot preach about democracy then accept the outcome only if your side triumphs. In 2006, Hamas won a devastating victory in legislative elections in the Palestinian Authority. The following year, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas dissolved a Hamas-led unity government and swore in an emergency cabinet, leading the Obama Administration to reinstate aid that had been suspended under Hamas rule. This type of hypocrisy heightens anti-Americanism, sends the message that elections are meaningless, and encourages terrorism.[3] [3] For instance, radical Islamic terrorism in the Sinai appears to have surged since Morsi was deposed. But hey, two totally separate issues. It's just ridiculous and crazy to think massacres like last night's, where tents children were sleeping in were set on fire, could possibly inspire any kind of blowback...	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-08-14 12:04:00
Middle East and North Africa	administrative processing in jordan	(He was talking about these giant cowboy boots outside a local mall:) That is the most Texas thing I've ever seen in my life	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-04-15 02:20:00
Middle East and North Africa	This makes me sick...can anyone make sense of this?	Fury over pardon of Spanish pedophile Daniel Galvan Fina forces Morocco's king to reverse course   Rabat: Morocco's king says he is rescinding his pardon of a Spanish pedophile after an unusual bout of protests in the case. It is the first time in recent memory that a Moroccan sovereign has reversed a pardon. "It is clear that the sovereign would never have consented" to his release, given the "monstrous crimes" he committed.  But the Spaniard, named by Morocco as Daniel Galvan Fina, is believed to now be in Spain, and it was unclear whether he will be brought back to Morocco. In a statement late on Sunday, King Mohamed VI said he had asked his justice minister to work with his Spanish counterpart to see how the pardon could be undone.   On July 30, at the request of Spain's King Juan Carlos, the Moroccan monarch pardoned 48 Spaniards who had been imprisoned here, including Fina, who was convicted of raping 11 children.   The palace said in a statement that the king had been unaware of the nature of the man's crimes and had ordered a probe into his release. The investigation should "determine the responsibilities and the failures that led to this regrettable release," the statement said. "The king was never informed - in any way or at any time - of the seriousness of the abject crimes of which the person concerned was convicted," the palace added.   "It is clear that the sovereign would never have consented" to his release, given the "monstrous crimes" he committed, the statement concluded. The pardon sparked outrage in the north African country, which has seen several high-profile pedophile arrests in recent months. Protesters slammed the pardon as "an international shame" with one demonstrator saying the state "defends the rape of Moroccan children". AP/AFP Read more: http://www.brisbanet...l#ixzz2b4ESTngf there's so much wrong here i don't even know where to begin.	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-08-04 23:54:00
Middle East and North Africa	This makes me sick...can anyone make sense of this?	I'm more curious about what Spain's endgame is here, the request for Galvan's release came from their king. I can wrap my head around morocco wanting to be their good little puppy a lot easier than I can the Spanish monarch making this request. For what possible reason?	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-08-04 05:42:00
Middle East and North Africa	This makes me sick...can anyone make sense of this?	Photos from the evening's protest in Rabat http://storify.com/c...-pardon-of-span	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-08-03 01:18:00
Middle East and North Africa	What do your husbands do for work when they arrive to USA?	Alhamdulilah we are very fortunate and he works with my dad who owns a few businesses. But i would say depending on if he has a degree (or a transferrable one) maybe try to find work in his area of expertise. If not usually labor jobs. I know it sucks, but it is the way life works. My husband didnt go to school overseas, and he just decided that he wants to go to college! we are very happy for that! just keep calm it takes alot of patience and hard work but eventually it will all work out just have some faith and be sure to encourage him every day. Moving to a new country can leave someone to feel very helpless, even though he has you as a support system it is very hard not to have family around. When the time comes you just have to work with what you get and hope and pray things get better. I dont give a ####### about how bad the economy is... because i personally believe that if you are hard working no matter what happens you can make a living. He has one advantage, I have noticed that the men from america are actually kind of lazy... the men from overseas are used to working 80 hour weeks... so in a sense it does give them a sort of advantage! good luck! Yep, alllll the poors got that way and stay that way because of their own damn laziness and refusal to "work hard". Because of American refusal to work 80 hour work weeks that all the guys "working overseas" are already doing. Brilliant, just brilliant.	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-08-22 11:55:00
Middle East and North Africa	What do your husbands do for work when they arrive to USA?	I'm nitpicky the most about the ! .	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-07-25 01:30:00
Middle East and North Africa	What do your husbands do for work when they arrive to USA?	we have the only dr martens store in the whole country, which renders any arguments about the awesomeness of portland null and void.  and, duh, sandinista! is a double album by the clash, that my husband bought me on vinyl for my birthday years ago.  the possession of a couple of x chromosomes doesn't delete the potential for misogyny either. but yeah for troll accusations from someone who dug up a months old comment to make a pms joke. good grief.	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-07-24 23:48:00
Middle East and North Africa	What do your husbands do for work when they arrive to USA?	Not to mention the entirely wrong hormonal process. Duh and yuck.	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-07-24 21:42:00
Middle East and North Africa	Should the USA strike Syria for Using Chemical Weapons?	I voted for the 2nd option, but am strongly in favor of NGO humanitarian aid. This is where I've been contributing. Www.mercycorps.org/Syria	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-09-06 16:31:00
Middle East and North Africa	Wondering about a specific interview question	Your situation in regards to his having not met them is not uncommon. There have been many, many approvals out of MENA without beneficiary meeting petitioner's children. It's a usually very small and minor piece of the big picture, rather than a big dealbreaker.	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-10-07 17:02:00
Middle East and North Africa	Wondering about a specific interview question	they asked my then fiance about my son's name and age, and if they had met.  the other questions above are not at all uncommon though, in various situations.    adding, they knew full well they had already met, i sent pictures of this occurring. but the questions the COs ask are rarely just about the direct answers, they're looking for all kinds of other clues with body language, etc when discussing bigger issues.  Edited by sandinista!, 07 October 2013 - 04:48 PM.	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-10-07 16:44:00
Middle East and North Africa	Administrative Processing	Status Updated Date change today but case still in AP what is it means can anyone tell me rightly Dunno, but digging this thread up to post this question seems like a good place to learn.	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-09-13 22:06:00
Middle East and North Africa	K1 question?	His work contract, same deal. I imagine the consulates have some idea how work contracts are usually set up in MENA? Hopefully someone with first hand experience with those will answer.	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-10-17 22:10:00
Middle East and North Africa	K1 question?	They took my husband's word for it that I was a student, it was a key part of why I didn't have more visits, etc. if it were me, I'd definitely mention it concisely in the cover letter, and maybe the loan detail sheet on hand at interview if it ever came up.	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-10-17 22:07:00
Middle East and North Africa	K1 question?	She would be fine in regards to "the rules", but what the consulate thinks of long gaps is entirely up to their discretion and whims. People get denials all the time over things over things that are technically ok per the rules, but raise big red flags for the interviewer when assessing relationship authenticity. OP--It's another piece of the bigger picture, and the significance of the long gaps between visits is going to depend on you and your fiance's own unique relationship details. There's not a big, generic pie chart that you can plug different scenarios into and find within a tenth of a percent how big of a piece that issue is. I'm of the "more time knowing each other is really good and important" vs "going and spending a month with a guy after chatting online for 4 months is ideal" school of thought, but there is a wide range of opinion on that here. I had long gaps in between visits and a long gap in between when i first started talking to my then fiancé, and first meeting in person. It worked for us, with the other aspects of our relationship. I had spent a grand total of of 13 days in morocco when we filed, but my husband had letters and such dating back over 3 years to bring to his interview.	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-10-11 17:02:00
Middle East and North Africa	Beginning K-1 process (fiance in Egypt)	The chasm between what responders are actually saying and the OP's replies keeps getting wider and wider. Not to mention coming across as really dismissive and condescending to the posters who have been actually living these experiences, and are beyond just having spent a couple of vacations with their SOs. "Aren't in much of a honeymoon phase"?? You're not even pre-pre honeymoon phase to be grappling with. Not even close. If you've been divorced since May of this year, but have been proposed to by multiple guys, richer, older, closer than the Egyptian wunderkind, that raises multiple alarm bells, as opposed to proving amazing, super woman desirability prowess. Regardless, I hope the discussion continues despite that, because there's some really good points being made here by several posters, and important issues to consider that other readers might benefit from.	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-10-09 17:07:00
Middle East and North Africa	1 year anniversary	It's fun celebrating all the milestones!	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-10-19 16:24:00
Middle East and North Africa	Online application	Fiancé applications are also not for people with husbands. If your "interests" are in "being with your husband" per your profile, then a K-1 is not in your best interest if you wanna live with him in the US.	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-11-04 19:32:00
Middle East and North Africa	i need someone to translate for me two people chatting in moroccan , please?	Yes, I agree its seems sketchy to be asking.  I have a sneaky suspicion one of these two are up to no good (fraud).  Can't really explain the details but it would ease my mind to just have someone translate part of a conversation.  I'm not normally a person who does something like this but I'm worried. And both parties are cool with you having access to their correspondence, and having it interpreted for you by someone on VJ? Being worried, or suspecting something doesn't make it cool to violate anyone else's privacy if that's the case.	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-10-31 17:44:00
Middle East and North Africa	i need someone to translate for me two people chatting in moroccan , please?	Neither of the two chat participants can translate it for you?	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-10-24 08:07:00
Middle East and North Africa	helppppp	Did you guys get married on that same 1st trip? Why was she in morocco in the 1st place? To meet you?  I'm no expert, but if you've known each other since 2008, with your wife spending as much time in Morocco as you say, it's weird that the hold up would strictly be your English skills from 5 years ago and that you guys started out as friends before developing into a different kind of relationship.  I would not be surprised if there's something else the interviewing officer isn't liking with this relationship. Something you might not even be aware of, or realize is problematic. Sometimes that's a misunderstanding, and sometimes it's something legitimately worrisome from their point of view. It's going to be difficult here for people to attempt to help you with the level of  communication and detail you offer here unfortunately. Maybe you do understand what's going on with your denial and how to fix it, and just can't adequately express so here, but i doubt it. This is not what successful denial reversals in Casablanca typically sound like here. But who knows?  still no body got wht m trying to say "stupid reason" ok ill explain she ask me about the first time I  saw my wife...... I said 2008..... then she asked me where?...... I said casa........ and after tht she asked me wht happened after......... I told her we went to a café nd we had a short conversation....... then she said  a short conversation? I said yes because my English was not that good nd also I said in that time we was just "friend "she didn't say anything after tht .....she keep askin  other questions at the end she kept my passport and said we will call u ....I wait for a mounth then they call me to come get my stuff back nut no stamp   is there anything wrong with tht guys thank u	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-11-13 02:52:00
Middle East and North Africa	Processing time different for Middle East?	Sarah, I'm so sorry. I hope you guys catch a break soon.	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-11-20 16:21:00
Middle East and North Africa	For those USC living/moving to Morocco...		sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-11-17 21:54:00
Middle East and North Africa	Changed my name in America, can't go back to Egypt!	This is not likely to get fixed on the Egyptian end. They don't and won't ever care-you didn't follow their rules in regards to name changes, so why should they bother? The American end of things, in dealing with airlines, is a mess too. This goes beyond a marriage last name change. You can get all the guarantees you want from random airline employees, but regardless of anything you get promised, if the employee working the day you try to get on a plane to the US decides not to go along with your paper work, you're stuck in Egypt. There are so, so many variables that can go wrong there. Maybe also post your question in the working and traveling during us immigration forum here on VJ for some further ideas? I would be less optimistic about getting this resolved from the Egyptian end of things than the American side. But this situation could prove to be a whole lot bigger of a headache than having an unusual sounding name in the US	sandinista!	Female	Morocco	2013-11-25 15:20:00