Tribute to Princess Fawzia of Egypt, Queen of Iran (1921 - 2013)

Nov 29, 2014 | Fawzia Fuad of Egypt (Persian: شاهدخت فوزیه‎, Turkish: Prenses Fevziye, Arabic: الأميرة فوزية‎) (5 November 1921 – 2 July 2013) was an Egyptian princess who became Empress of Iran as the first wife of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

She is also known as Fawzia Chirine (or Shirin), having remarried in 1949. Although her royal titles were no longer recognized by the Egyptian government after the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, international protocol dictates that former monarchs and members of former ruling royal families still retain titles obtained whilst a member of a reigning monarchy.

She was the oldest member of the deposed Muhammad Ali Dynasty of Albanian descent residing in Egypt. Her nephew, Fuad, who was proclaimed King Fuad II of Egypt and Sudan after the Revolution, resides in Switzerland.

Egypt Through the Lens - EP 2 - Conflict | Featured Documentary

Jul 24, 2024 | Egypt Through the Lens is a four-part series about how photographers recorded the modern history of Egypt over 150 years – its kings, presidents, politics, conflicts and cinema.

The second episode sees how war photographers captured key moments of Egypt's history, from the earliest British occupation in 1882 to the Arab-Israeli wars of the late 20th century. Acclaimed photojournalist Samir Ghazouli draws on his family's extensive archive to show the development of war photography in Egypt. He reveals iconic images from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the rise of a young Egyptian army officer Gamal Abdel Nasser from war hero to president, the Suez Crisis and both the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli wars, where photographs vividly captured the contrasting emotions of victory and defeat.


Click here for Episode 1.

Egypt Through the Lens - EP 1 - Leaders | Featured Documentary

Jul 23, 2024 | Egypt Through the Lens is a four-part series about how photographers recorded the modern history of Egypt over 150 years – its kings, presidents, politics, conflicts and cinema.

The first episode sees Egypt's rulers captured on camera, from the earliest recorded still images of Egypt's royal family taken in 1836 to the country's first presidents in the mid-20th century. King Farouk's whole life was documented in photographs, from his birth in 1920 to his abdication in 1952. Farouk understood the importance of photographs as a PR tool and tried to control his public image - but with limited success. Gamal Abdel Nasser took his own informal photos, offering a behind-the-scenes look into his presidency in the 1960s. His successor Anwar Sadat was also keenly aware of the power of photography. One iconic picture shows him in a traditional jalabiya, sitting on a rural porch sharing pastries with farmers, aimed at showing the president as a man of the people.

Heat Waves Are Pounding Egypt, and Often There’s No A.C.

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Daily power cuts have been plaguing Egypt during an extraordinarily hot summer. Now the blackouts may be temporarily suspended, but the damage to confidence in the government has already been done.

Egyptian summers have always been hot. But it has not always been this hot, with temperatures barely dipping below 100 degrees in Cairo since May, testing tempers and massacring houseplants. And it has never been this hot at a time when the government has imposed power cuts on most of the country for more than a year, plunging millions into sweaty, un-air-conditioned misery for hours each day.

Since last summer, when energy shortages forced the government to impose the daily power cuts, the blackouts have become such a fact of life that local media has taken to publishing regular tips for what to do if stranded in an elevator as the power goes off. At least nine people have died under such circumstances, according to local media reports.

“Pound on the door and don’t panic,” suggested a recent headline in Al Masry Al Youm, one news outlet. But it had little advice for fish sellers who struggle to refrigerate their wares, farmers whose chickens are dying en masse, people with little cash to fix shorted-out appliances or students studying for the all-important college entrance exams by flashlight.

After importing several emergency cargoes of natural gas, the government said the blackouts would stop from this past Sunday until mid-September, when it said they might be reinstated. » | Vivian Yee and Emad Mekay, Reporting from Cairo | Monday, July 22, 2024

King Farouk of Egypt

Dec 31, 2023 | King Farouk of Egypt’s life was a brutal lesson that “the bigger they are, the harder they fall.” From birth, the ruler’s whole world was a procession of luxury, debauchery, and extravagance, but this mass of privilege slowly corrupted the spoiled boy into a cruel, twisted man. But oh, did Farouk ever pay for his sins

How Egyptian Police Hunt LGBT People on Dating Apps - BBC News

Jan 31, 2023 | Homosexuality is highly stigmatised in Egypt, and a BBC News investigation has revealed how violent criminal gangs are finding, abusing and extorting people from the LGBT community they meet online in Egypt.

Using masking technology to hide the identities of the people he meets, Ahmed Shihab-Eldin navigated the complex online and real-life world of people who identify as queer and who have been repeatedly targeted by a gang with violent viral video humiliations and police arrests.

"A Near-death Experience": UK-Egyptian Activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah Nearly Dies on Hunger Strike

Nov 18, 2022 | The family of imprisoned British Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah visited him on Thursday for the first time since he ended his full hunger and water strike, which they say occurred after he collapsed inside his prison shower last week. El-Fattah had intensified his strike on the first day of the U.N. climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh to draw international attention to the country's human rights violations and protest his seemingly indefinite imprisonment. We go to Cairo to speak with his aunt, Ahdaf Soueif, who was among the visitors and says El-Fattah may resume his hunger strike if the British government does not more aggressively demand his release. "It really breaks my heart to think of him going back on hunger strike when he is so thin and so weak," but the campaign so far "has left no one in any doubt that Alaa should be free," she says.

World leaders at Cop27 Urged to Press Egypt over Prisoner Alaa Abd el-Fattah

THE GUARDIAN: Global spotlight on host country has heightened scrutiny of human rights record, with Biden due to meet Sisi

An Amnesty International protest about Egyptian human rights, in Rome this week. Photograph: Riccardo Antimiani/Ansa/Zuma/Rex/Shutterstock
As Egyptian officials strive to control the narrative and isolate the case of the detained British Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, pressure is mounting on world leaders at Cop27 to acknowledge Egypt’s poor human rights record and raise his case.

The Egyptian authorities have engaged in a sweeping public relations campaign to try to discredit Abd el-Fattah, including a digital campaign depicting him as a threat to national security.

A visibly shaken Sameh Shoukry, Egypt’s foreign minister and Cop27 president, told CNN that “this is a judicial matter, the person in question has had a fair trial … there should be respect for the judicial system.” Shoukry also cast doubt on Abd el-Fattah’s dual nationality, after he gained British citizenship while in prison last year. » | Ruth Michaelson | Friday, November 11, 2022

Related articles in French and English here.

The Guardian View on Egypt’s Abuses: Justice Needed for Alaa Abd el-Fattah – and the Others

THE GUARDIAN – EDITORIAL: The treatment of the British-Egyptian democracy activist is a travesty, and emblematic of the regime’s brutality

Sanaa Seif, the sister of Alaa Abd el-Fattah, at a protest in London last month. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
Only the Egyptian regime knows the fate of Alaa Abd el-Fattah. It wants to keep it that way. The jailed British-Egyptian writer and democracy activist, a figurehead of the 2011 revolution, began refusing water on Sunday – six months after launching a hunger strike that has seen him consume no more than 100 calories a day. On Monday, his mother waited in vain outside the prison for his weekly letter. As of Tuesday evening, his family was still demanding proof of life, fearing he may die before the end of the Cop27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, which has finally propelled his case to international attention. They are also concerned that he may be tortured through force-feeding. » | Editorial | Tuesday, November 8, 2022

Related article here.

Alaa Abdel Fattah: British-Egyptian Activist's Life at Acute Risk - UN

The UN said Alaa Abdel Fattah was one of a number of Egyptians "arbitrarily deprived of their liberty". | ANADOLU AGENCY
BBC: The United Nations human rights chief has called on Egypt to immediately release jailed British-Egyptian pro-democracy activist Alaa Abdel Fattah.

Volker Türk said his life was "at acute risk" after he escalated a hunger strike and stopped drinking water.

He began the strike in April to protest against the denial of consular visits.

His sister, Sanaa Seif, said: "All we know is that Alaa stopped drinking water 50 hours ago. We don't know where he is. We don't know if he is alive."

"My mother waited outside the prison gates for 10 hours yesterday for her weekly letter. They didn't give her one. She is back at those gates right now," she told a news conference at the COP27 climate conference in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.

"I asked the British authorities to get us some proof that Alaa is alive and conscious. I did not get any response." » | David Gritten, BBC News | Tuesday, November 8, 2022

No 10 Alarm as Boris Johnson Plans to Attend Cop27 Climate Summit

THE OBSERVER: Ex-PM’s Cop27 visit is seen as snub to Rishi Sunak as Labour attacks government’s policy failures on environmental crisis

Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak during a visit to an energy company in 2020. Photograph: Leon Neal/AP
A row over prime minister Rishi Sunak’s refusal to attend the Cop27 climate summit took an extraordinary twist on Saturday night as the Observer was informed that his predecessor but one – Boris Johnson – is planning to attend the event.

Several sources said they had been told that Johnson is intending to go to the crucial meeting of world leaders in Egypt to show his solidarity with the battle against the climate crisis.

Johnson’s attendance would be potentially explosive just days after Sunak took over as prime minister and decided he did not have time to attend.

Johnson’s involvement would be seen as both an implicit criticism of Sunak for not going and an attempt to maintain and bolster his profile just a week after he abandoned his own attempts at a dramatic comeback to No 10. Several sources close to Johnson did not deny that he was set to go. » | Toby Helm and Fiona Harvey | Saturday, October 29, 2022

Omar Sharif Jr. : “One Day I Will Go Home”

Exiled Actor Omar Sharif Jr. says he will return to Egypt one day, but that he's not prepared to “try his luck” just yet for fear of arrest amid a crackdown on LGBT people in his homeland.

Originally published here.

Related video here.

Omar Sharif Jr. | Coming Out in the Middle of a Revolution | 2016

Omar Sharif Jr.'s talk at the 2016 Oslo Freedom Forum. See more talks like this at oslofreedomforum.com and follow @OsloFF for updates.

For your information, this blog, as far as I am aware, has NEVER had even one visitor from Egypt! I get visitors from ALL OVER THE WORLD, but never from Egypt. That repressive government doesn't even allow its citizens to access gay-friendly blogs; and let's get this straight: This website is nothing but a gay-friendly blog. It is NOT a gay blog as such.

Further, I do frequently get lots of visitors from Morocco, and some from Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. I even get visitors from from Saudi Arabia – daily! Kudos Saudi Arabia! But never from Egypt! That tells its own story. – © Mark Alexander

Egypt : When a Search Crosses the Line

THE NEW YORK TIMES: These women crossed paths with the Egyptian justice system./ Each said she was sexually abused by the authorities.

These women were either arrested for speaking out or had gone to the authorities to report a crime.

In each case, they said, they were sexually abused by the officials sworn to protect them.

Whether they are victims of crimes, witnesses or the accused, women who encounter Egypt’s criminal justice system risk being taken aside and stripped, groped, prodded and violated.

This treatment is illegal, but in this authoritarian and patriarchal country, there is almost nothing they can do about it.

The women in these videos, speaking publicly for the first time, described sexual violations that they said were committed in police stations, prisons and hospitals. » | By Mona El-Naggar, Yousur Al-Hlou and Aliza Aufrichtig | Monday, July 5, 2021

Read in Arabic HERE »

Coming Out Story: We're Not in Cairo Anymore [2012]

ADVOCATE: I write this article in fear. Fear for my country, fear for my family, and fear for myself. My parents will be shocked to read it, surely preferring I stay in the shadows and keep silent, at least for the time being.

But I can't.

Last January, I left Egypt with a heavy heart. I traveled to America, leaving behind my family, friends, and compatriots who were in the midst of embarking on a heroic journey toward self-determination. Despite the sound of gunshots in the streets and the images of Anderson Cooper being struck repeatedly over the head on CNN, I left hopeful that I would return to find a more tolerant and equal society. While I benefited from a life of privilege being Omar Sharif's grandson, it was always coupled with the onerous guilt that such a position might have been founded upon others' sweat and tears.

One year since the start of the revolution, I am not as hopeful.

The troubling results of the recent parliamentary elections dealt secularists a particularly devastating blow. The vision for a freer, more equal Egypt — a vision that many young patriots gave their lives to see realized in Tahrir Square — has been hijacked. The full spectrum of equal and human rights are now wedge issues used by both the Supreme Council of the Egyptian Armed Forces and the Islamist parties, when they should be regarded as universal truths.

I write this article despite the inherent risks associated because as we stand idle at what we hoped would be the pinnacle of Egyptian modern history, I worry that a fall from the top could be the most devastating. I write, with healthy respect for the dangers that may come, for fear that Egypt's Arab Spring may be moving us backward, not forward.

And so I hesitantly confess: I am Egyptian, I am half Jewish, and I am gay. » | Omar Sharif Jr | Friday, March 16, 2012

Omar Sharif Jr. »

What Did Ancient Egypt Look Like? (Cinematic Animation)

Watch this Ancient Egypt recreation featuring realistic 3D animation to find out. Get Ancient Egypt

Egypt Protests Continue Despite Government Repression

Angela Joya discusses the return of demonstrations in Egypt against President Al-Sisi. After thousands were arrested and police brutality was unleashed at the protesters, the demonstrations only grow larger.

The Guardian View on Egypt: Sisi Isn’t Everyone’s Favourite Dictator

THE GUARDIAN: While foreign leaders buddy up to Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, his people endure a brutal crackdown on rights

Even before Egyptian authorities warned that they would “decisively confront” any protests that take place on Friday, it was evident that it would require extraordinary courage to answer the call to the streets. Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s regime has repeatedly shown its utter ruthlessness since seizing power six years ago in a coup. Security forces killed thousands of people protesting against the takeover. The country has locked up 60,000 political prisoners. Executions have soared this year. » | Editorial | Thursday, September 26, 2019

Democracy Now! Over 2,000 Arrested in Egypt in Growing Protests Against Sisi, Trump’s “Favorite Dictator”

Demonstrations continued in Egypt Friday, with thousands taking to the streets to demand the resignation of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi over accusations of corruption. Nearly 2,000 people have been arrested over the past week amid protests in Cairo and other cities. The demonstrations were triggered by social media posts by a former army contractor accusing Sisi and other officials of misusing public money. Anti-government protests are rare in Egypt as they’ve been effectively banned since Sisi came to power following the 2013 overthrow of former President Mohamed Morsi and launched a widespread crackdown on dissent. Earlier this week, President Trump praised Sisi as the two leaders met during the U.N. General Assembly here in New York. Trump also recently referred to Sisi as “my favorite dictator.” For more, we’re joined by Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Democracy Now! correspondent and a reporter with the independent, Cairo-based media outlet Mada Masr.

Mada Masr »

Egypt TV Host Mohamed al-Ghiety Jailed for Interviewing Gay Man

BBC: An Egyptian TV presenter has been sentenced to one year of hard labour for interviewing a gay man last year.

A court in Giza also fined Mohamed al-Ghiety 3,000 Egyptian pounds ($167; £130) for "promoting homosexuality" on his privately owned LTC TV channel.

The gay man, whose identity was hidden, had talked about life as a sex worker.

Homosexuality is not explicitly criminalised in Egypt, however, the authorities have been increasingly cracking down on the LGBT community.

They routinely arrest people suspected of engaging in consensual homosexual conduct on charges of "debauchery", immorality or blasphemy. » | BBC | Monday, January 21, 2019