Category Archives: Viva!

Poland ex-President Lech Walesa leads fight against judicial reform

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Leading Polish intellectuals, including a former president, are speaking out against the country’s judicial reforms. Fearing Poland’s democracy is at stake, they have urged the European Court of Justice to intervene.

Net Neutrality Rules Died Today –

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Though the FCC voted to kill net neutrality last December, the formal repeal didn’t take effect until today. Moving forward, the FCC no longer has the full authority to police bad behavior by broadband monopolies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast, thanks to the Trump FCC’s decision to gut classification of ISPs as common carriers. And while ISPs claim that the FTC is well suited to jump in and police any potential abuses, legal experts have argued that’s largely nonsense, since the FTC’s authority over ISPs is severely constrained.

But while ISPs think they’ve scored a major victory here by convincing Ajit Pai and the Trump FCC to ignore the public, ignore the experts, and cuddle up to telecom duopolies, this policy middle finger aimed squarely at consumers is likely to result in a policy and political backlash they’re going to be navigating for years.

To start, activists today will rally to gather support for an effort to use the Congressional Review act to reverse the FCC’s repeal with a majority vote in the House and Senate. The Senate already voted in favor of the effort, which now faces tougher odds in terms of getting a House vote and avoiding a veto by President Trump.

But that’s not the only effort underway to fight back against the FCC’s obvious regulatory capture.

Should the CRA reversal fail, the next best option rests with the courts and the numerous lawsuits that have been filed against the FCC for ignoring the public interest. Those suits will lean heavily on the administrative procedures Act, which requires the FCC to prove that market conditions were dramatic enough to warrant such a major reversal of an extremely popular policy. The court battle will also highlight how the FCC turned a blind eye to identity theft and fraud during the public comment period (which was the public’s only real chance to express disdain for the FCC’s policy).

Should that legal battle fail, there’s still the option of restoring the rules once the Trump era ends, whether that comes in the form of new FCC rules or a new federal law. That’s of course going to rely, in part, on angry consumers showing up at the midterms and voting out House and Senate ISP marionettes like Marsha Blackburn that have repeatedly prioritized monopoly profits over competition, consumers, and the health of the internet.

Knowing full well a political backlash looms, ISPs have been pushing for a bogus net neutrality law of their own they’ve crafted in a ham-fisted attempt to pre-empt any efforts tougher rules from being passed or the FCC rules from being restored (that gambit’s going poorly so far).

Meanwhile, more than half the states in the nation are exploring state level rules in the wake of federal apathy. These efforts range from executive orders banning states from doing business with ISPs that violate net neutrality, to new state laws in places like Oregon and Washington that in some instances go even further than the FCC’s federal-level rules did.

So while supporters of net neutrality may be currently frustrated by the Trump FCC’s grotesque fealty to some of the most hated companies in America, the decision to screw consumers in such a ham-fisted fashion will result in a backlash that these ISPs are going to be feeling for the better part of the next decade.
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It’s Brexit crunch time. Theresa May’s no-deal disaster is not an option | Keir Starmer

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This is the most important Brexit week since article 50. All MPs – Tories included – must back the Lords’ amendments to the withdrawal bill

• Keir Starmer is a Labour MP and shadow secretary of state for exiting the EU

Theresa May has just faced yet another torrid period of Tory revolts over her Brexit strategy. David Davis was on the verge of resignation. Government MPs were publicly rejecting her customs backstop fudge. And Boris Johnson became so exasperated that he was telling his supporters that he wanted Donald Trump to take over the negotiations.

Related: EU withdrawal bill: full list of proposed amendments

Continue reading…

Quick Hit: ICE Prevents Detainees from Observing Ramadan

As though ICE could get worse, this week at The Intercept Maryam Saleh reports on one immigration detention facility’s blatantly Islamophobic campaign to prevent Muslim detainees from observing Ramadan.

Saleh reports that ICE agents arbitrarily deny detainees’ request to be placed on the facility’s Ramadan list, deny fasting detainees adequate nutrition, discriminate against detainees who wear kufis, and deny or delay their requests for Qurans. (Unsurprisingly, detainees who ask for bibles are accommodated immediately.) Saleh writes:

Ramadan is, in many ways, a community affair: People tend to gather with friends and family for iftar, the meal eaten to break the fast, and spend their nights praying together at a mosque. Immigrant detainees, separated from their families, are not only denied that community experience, but at Glades, they’re also facing discriminatory treatment even if they’re included on the Ramadan list, the advocates charge. Several of the detainees have reported that their food is not halal and the portions are not sufficient after a long day of fasting. Those observing the fast are required to eat leftover meals, which means that, depending on when lunch is served, the meals have possibly been out in the open for more than eight hours by the time of iftar. Some detainees reported being served food that was hard to swallow, cold, or rotten.

By preventing Muslim detainees from observing the holy month as a faith community, the discriminatory treatment contributes to the intense social isolation imposed on detainees. This, in turn, can have a dehumanizing and demoralizing effect. As Yusuf Saei, a Fellow at Muslim Advocates, is quoted as saying in the article, such treatment is not only a violation in and of itself; it also discourages detainees and makes them less willing to fight their cases.

Read the full article at The Intercept. Also check out some of our immigration  coverage. Cover image: Glades County Detention Facility, The Intercept. 

Monday Open Thread | Yes…the Demons Are STILL After Obamacare

This came through last week.

Trump’s Justice Department says the ACA is unconstitutional

The Justice Department will not defend the Affordable Care Act in court, and says it believes the law’s individual mandate — the provision the Supreme Court upheld in 2012 — has become unconstitutional.

Why it matters: The Justice Department almost always defends federal laws when they’re challenged in court. Its departure from that norm in this case is a major development — career DOJ lawyers removed themselves from the case as the department announced this shift in its position.

The details: The ACA’s individual mandate requires most people to buy insurance or pay a tax penalty. The Supreme Court upheld that in 2012 as a valid use of Congress’ taxing power.

When Congress claimed it repealed the individual mandate last year, what it actually did was drop the tax penalty to $0.

So the coverage requirement itself is still technically on the books. And a group of Republican attorneys general, representing states led by Texas, say it’s now unconstitutional — because the specific penalty the Supreme Court upheld is no longer in effect.

The Justice Department agreed with that position in a brief filed Thursday night.

DOJ said the courts should strike down the coverage requirement, as well as the provision of the law that forces insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions.

 

From the LA Times:
Got a preexisting condition? The Trump administration wants insurers to deny you coverage

In its latest effort to undermine the Affordable Care Act — and in the process, raise premiums for many Americans — the Trump administration is urging a federal judge in Texas to throw out the law’s protections for people with preexisting conditions.

In other words, the administration wants insurers to be able to deny coverage to the people most in need of it, or to charge them considerably higher premiums than they’re allowed to charge today.

This is jaw-dropping. Even Republicans who’ve complained about Obamacare have been loath to undo the protections for people with preexisting conditions who are not covered by large employers’ health plans. That’s because the public supports them, and unequivocally so.

A Kaiser Family Foundation poll in June 2017 showed that 70% of those polled, including 59% of Republicans, wanted Washington to continue barring insurers from charging people with preexisting conditions more for their coverage. Federal law has long provided such protection for people with health benefits at work; the ACA extended it to people shopping independently for insurance.

But then, the administration has done just about everything in its power to toss older, less healthy people under the bus if they’re unfortunate enough not to be covered by employer health insurance plans.

From Andy Slavitt:

Before I get into it, I have to stop and just repeat this another way:

The DOJ, responsible for upholding the rule of law, is not defending the people in a frivolous lawsuit to say that wi5out the mandate, the rest of the ACA can’t be enforced. 2/

— Andy Slavitt (@ASlavitt) June 8, 2018

NEW- CLARIFICATION OF WHAT TRUMP WANTS INSURANCE COMPANIES TO BE ABLE TO DENY OR UP-CHARGE FOR:

-Asthma inhaler
-Mild anxiety
-Alcoholism
-Toe fungus
-Being 50
-High blood pressure
-Birth control

Individual coverage for cancer, diabetes, a transplant, epilepsy wouldn’t exist https://t.co/CRFEYwEP45

— Andy Slavitt (@ASlavitt) June 8, 2018

300,000 people in each Congressional district have a pre-existing condition. Thursday Trump filed papers to end their guaranteed access to insurance.

Members of Congress who supported the tax cut set this in motion. Their phones might start ringing. https://t.co/GvjRSAul44

— Andy Slavitt (@ASlavitt) June 9, 2018

If ever you needed a reason to work to flip the House and Senate in 2018, this is it.

The Trump administration is refusing to uphold the law. Your pre-existing condition will not be covered if this goes any further.#SaturdayMorning#AMJoy https://t.co/c5AFYlMk0R

— Holly Figueroa O’Reilly 🌊 BWCS (@AynRandPaulRyan) June 9, 2018

NEW: 👀 Politico reports Trump plans to roll out a new blueprint for HHS. If these turn out to be true, health programs could be relabeled as welfare.

Would require Congress’s support and makes midterms . . . important.

https://t.co/VLZn8exhfJ via @politico

— Andy Slavitt (@ASlavitt) June 6, 2018

In light of yesterday’s news that the Justice Department will no longer be defending the Affordable Care Act, a reminder: the ACA isn’t collapsing. It’s being mugged. https://t.co/TvvtYrIJka

— Senator Angus King (@SenAngusKing) June 8, 2018

https://t.co/TOPb70qXCB

— Andy Slavitt (@ASlavitt) June 10, 2018

Healthcare is WELFARE?

HUH?

This isn’t some political shouting match. They really are coming after you and your healthcare. And they will be stopped if we win, but they will most certainly go through with it if we lose. https://t.co/eoAdPKKiu3

— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) June 9, 2018

Let’s be clear-they want to take away healthcare from everyone, except for those who had it before Obamacare. If you have a pre-existing condition, you will be once again SOL.

The Trump Administration decided to support axing pre-existing condition protections effective Jan 1, 2019.

It shows repeal-and-replace was not their goal. This is pure repeal. https://t.co/ReioE3zmUH

— Andy Slavitt (@ASlavitt) June 8, 2018

Um no…they are only mad that he did this BEFORE the midterms. They aren’t coming out AGAINST what Dolt45 is proposing. Not in strong terms.

Republicans spent Friday fleeing from the Trump administration’s legal effort to dismantle Obamacare. W/ @jenhab:https://t.co/CLoQ84Ng6J

— Adam Cancryn (@adamcancryn) June 8, 2018

So, we have to tell everyone you know. Everywhere you go. Everyone knows someone with a pre-existing condition. Tell them that their vote in November 2018 LITERALLY could mean THEIR LIFE.

This Week in Egypt: Week 23- 2018 (June 4-10)

Nervana

Top Headlines

  • President Sisi appoints Mostafa Madbouly, former housing minister, as new prime minister
  • Egypt, Ethiopia agree to settle differences over Nile mega-dam
  • Libya’s army air raid kills Egyptian al-Qaeda leader in Derna
  • Egypt unveils pay rises ahead of fresh subsidy cut
  • Egypt’s annual urban consumer price inflation decreases to 11.4 percent in May

Sisi and Ethiopian PM Main Headlines

 Monday

Tuesday

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Ebola virus disease and the vaccine….

As the Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) looks to be under control, how much the vaccine has helped remains an unanswered question. But will it be answered with hardly any new cases being confirmed? Let’s have a closer look at the timing of things.

Vaccine versus care, tracing and supportive treatments

The finals days of the EVD epidemic in West Africa which spanned from 2013 to 2016. https://virologydownunder.blogspot.com/2014/07/ebola-virus-disease-evd-2014-west.html-evd-2014-west.html

Don’t get me wrong – having this vaccine is a fabulous and beneficial addition to the struggle to contain EVD outbreaks. What happened from 2013 to 2016 in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia [5] should never happen again.

But a question surrounding the use of the vaccine is whether it actually prevented cases of EVD this time around, or were the central pillars of containment sufficient?[8,11] These pillars were recently described by Médecins Sans Frontières [1] as…

  1. Early care and isolation of people who present with symptoms
  2. Tracing and follow-up of patient contacts
  3. Informing people about the disease, how to prevent it and where to seek help
  4. Supporting existing healthcare structures
  5. Temporarily adapting cultural behaviour to make funerals safe
  6. Outreach activities (pro-active case finding)

#UPDATE: These are the ‘six pillars’ of intervention to contain an Ebola outbreak:

1.Early care and isolation of people who present with symptoms

2.Tracing and following up patient contacts

3.Informing people about the disease, how to prevent it and where to seek pic.twitter.com/G0dDckY3pa

— MSF West Africa (@MSF_WestAfrica) June 8, 2018

These responses were certainly rolled out more quickly in the current outbreak.

What does the timing look like?

I’ve added to my latest graph of totals (cases, suspected cases, probable cases, confirmed cases and fatal cases). Two new vertical dashed lines indicate when vaccination with the recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus carrying an Ebola virus glycoprotein gene (rVSV-ZEBOV) EVD vaccine began in the Mbandaka region (which sits in the Wangata health zone) and in the Iboko and Bikoro health zones. These lines help tell us some things:

  1. There were 7 confirmed cases of EVD after the Mbandaka vaccinations began and before the Bikoro/Iboko campaign commenced; all within 3-days (23rd to 24th May) after the first shots
  2. There were 3 confirmed cases of EVD after the Bikoro/Iboko vaccinations began; 2 within 2 days (29th and 30th May), and 1 at 9 days later (6th June)

What does the literature say about how quickly the vaccine protects?

In the discussion of a study of the effectiveness of ring vaccination in Guinea, the authors noted that the time to induce protective immunity using this same vaccine, “might happen quickly, within a few days or a week.” If so, the vaccine may indeed have been responsible for the slowing and stopping of confirmed cases days after it was deployed.[2,12] We know for certain that a good immune response is usually in place 28 days after vaccination.[2,12]

The DRC outbreak has been much smaller than that in West Africa. The rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine remains unlicensed requiring individual consent for each dose. Use of the vaccine in the DRC has been accompanied by ethical approval and oversight from the DRC Ministry of Health and has also been part of studies to better understand its effectiveness. Because it is unlicensed, widespread use of the vaccine has not been on the agenda and so numbers of vaccinated people are also fairly small.

Previous studies in macaques found that, if given within a short time after infection, the rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine could provide a prophylactic effect.[3,4] One of these studies suggested that protection may result from an initial non-specific innate immune response that matures into a more specific response,[3] while the other pointed to natural killer cells and non-neutralizing antibody as essential factors with day 6 after infection being a critical time point in macaque studies.[4]

If we look more closely at each of the health zones, we can see some other interesting things.

EVD case numbers in each of the 3 affected health zones. Click on image to enlarge.

The vertical dashed lines show when vaccine rollout began in the health zones. From these graphs, we can see some really interesting differences.

One difference is unrelated to vaccination. There is a very different proportion of fatal cases (PFC) in Iboko (currently at 20%) compared to Bikoro (72%) and Wangata (74%; but low case numbers). Is this low value in the Iboko health zone due to lost fatal cases, cases that could not be tested or to better care? We saw better survival rates in West African treatment units like that in the Hastings Police Training School near Freetown, Sierra Leone where more aggressive support (including intravenous fluids, antibiotics and antimalarials) was provided (h/t @AhmedTejanSie).[13]

In Bikoro, there were no confirmed cases for days before vaccination began, and there have been none since. That means we can’t tell if there was a protective effect. But we will still be able to follow the vaccinated people and determine whether a protective immune response resulted.

In Iboko there were confirmed EVD cases before and a few after. It will be interesting to learn whether those post-vaccination cases were among vaccinated people or in different transmission chains or among known contacts who just hadn’t been vaccinated yet.

In Wangata, like Bikoro, there were no confirmed EVD cases in the days leading up to the vaccination campaign, and none added since. Iboko, which also has had the highest caseload of this outbreak, may be our only hope of answer the question of vaccine effectiveness.

The outbreak slows before treatments get trialled

Graphing the day-by-day doses of vaccine given in the 3 affected DRC health zones. Data from DRC MOH[9].Click on image to enlarge.

Teasing out the role of the vaccine in the DRC-2018 outbreak will be a challenge and with the way things look, the need for another vaccine [6] or perhaps even for treatments,[7] is fading quickly. At least, unless there are plans by the Chinese to vaccinate their citizens ahead of the next outbreak.

Another marker of outbreak control is that vaccine administrations have slowed. Today’s data from the DRC MOH included the lowest number of vaccinations (81;[10]) since the roll-out began (averaging around 165 per day). With just over 2,100 vaccinations provided so far, it’s unlikely all of the first batch of 7,500 doses will be needed.  And the second batch certainly won’t be unless things take a dramatic turn for the worse.

The decreasing need for preventative and therapeutic drugs is a good thing for the people of the DRC since it means the outbreak is probably controlled. On the other hand, it means we won’t learn more about what could be useful in treating EVD cases before the next outbreak.

Perhaps some of these treatments will prove useful in clearing our persistent Ebola virus infections. That would certainly be a good thing. If not, then we’ll just go through this whole process again next time; hopefully, more quickly. But at least we’ll have more ducks in a row because we will have learned and planned ahead for all of the necessary steps.

Won’t we?

References…

  1. Democratic Republic of Congo: Fighting Ebola on the ground, a race against time
    http://www.msf.org/en/article/democratic-republic-congo-fighting-ebola-ground-race-against-time
  2. Efficacy and effectiveness of an rVSV-vectored vaccine expressing Ebola surface glycoprotein: interim results from the Guinea ring vaccination cluster-randomised trial
    https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(15)61117-5.pdf?code=lancet-site.
  3. Efficacy of Vesicular Stomatitis Virus–Ebola Virus Postexposure Treatment in Rhesus Macaques Infected With Ebola Virus Makona
    https://academic.oup.com/jid/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/infdis/jiw218
  4. Effective Post-Exposure Treatment of Ebola Infection
    http://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.0030002
  5. post-Ebola syndrome or just chronic Ebola virus disease…?
    https://virologydownunder.blogspot.com/2015/08/post-ebola-syndrome-or-just-chronic.html
  6. China may compete with the West for limited opportunities to test Ebola vaccine
    https://www.statnews.com/2018/06/08/china-may-compete-with-west-to-test-ebola-vaccine/
  7. Ebola treatments approved for compassionate use in current outbreak
    http://www.afro.who.int/news/ebola-treatments-approved-compassionate-use-current-outbreak
  8. Excitement over use of Ebola vaccine in outbreak tempered by real-world challenges
    https://www.statnews.com/2018/05/23/ebola-vaccine-drc-real-world-challenges/
  9. https://us13.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=89e5755d2cca4840b1af93176&id=aedd23c530
  10. https://us13.campaign-archive.com/?u=89e5755d2cca4840b1af93176&id=8564b3ef86
  11. Vaccines Alone Won’t Beat Ebola
    https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/05/vaccines-alone-wont-beat-ebola/561128/
  12. Efficacy and effectiveness of an rVSV-vectored vaccine in preventing Ebola virus disease: final results from the Guinea ring vaccination, open-label, cluster-randomised trial (Ebola Ça Sufft!)
    https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(16)32621-6.pdf
  13. Ebola in Freetown Area, Sierra Leone — A Case Study of 581 Patients
    https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1413685

The post Ebola virus disease and the vaccine…. appeared first on Virology Down Under.

How the IDF is tarnishing the name of the medic it killed in Gaza

The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit published a video it claims shows Razan al-Najjar throwing a tear gas canister into an open field and professing to be a ‘human shield’ — as if that justifies her killing. 

By Yael Marom

The photo of Razan that circulated on social media.

The photo of Razan that circulated on social media.

Razan al-Najjar is no angel of mercy,” tweeted IDF Arabic Spokesman Avichay Adraee on Thursday. Attached to Adraee’s defamatory tweet was an edited video in which a young woman dressed in a white coat and a headscarf, a mask covering her face, throws a tear gas canister during a protest in Gaza. According to the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, the film proves that al-Najjar, in life, was far from the image that has spread on social media after her death.

Since last Friday, when al-Najjar, a Palestinian medic, was killed, the IDF has been dealing with a public relations crisis. The army first announced that her death would be investigated, then declared that the investigation showed she was not shot by a soldier but “wounded by shrapnel,” and then declared that at the very least she wasn’t intentionally and directly targeted.

#رزان_النجار لم تكن #ملاك_الرحمة كما تحاول دعاية #حماس تسويقها فاعترافها بأنها شكلت درعًا بشريًا للمشاغبين المحرضين يثبت كيف تستسغل حماس جميع فئات المجتمع الغزاوي لصالح أهدافها وأهداف #إيران. فهل المسعفون في العالم يلقون قنابل ويشاركون في أعمال شغب ويسمون أنفسهم دروعًا بشرية؟ pic.twitter.com/kJ89kf9PN2

— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) June 7, 2018

The IDF’s chief provocateur in Arabic has now taken the effort to justify al-Najjar’s death to the next level.

[tmwinpost]

The 20-second propaganda video opens with a picture of al-Najjar with angel wings. Then the picture shakes, threatening music plays in the background, and a short clip of a young woman, her head and face covered, plays. The woman is handed a tear gas canister that is spouting gas, and she throws it a few meters. The video then sharply cuts to another time and place — to a clip from an interview with al-Najjar where she explains why she chose to participate in the Great Return March, seemingly saying that she is a human shield.

There is no evidence that the young woman who throws the tear gas canister is in fact al-Najjar. The IDF Spokesperson has not even made the effort to note the date or place the clip was filmed. And even if it is al-Najjar in the video, it is clear that she throws the tear gas canister only a few meters into an empty field — there are no soldiers in the area, and the Gaza-Israel separation barrier is not even visible in the clip. One can reasonably assume that the tear gas canister she throws was fired into Gaza by Israeli soldiers or by an IDF drone. The tear gas canister is spouting gas as she throws it — any reasonable person would try to do the same to avoid suffocating.

In his tweet, Adraee claims that al-Najjar admitted to serving as a “human shield for the inciting disrupters,” proving that “Hamas exploits all of Gazan society for its aims and the aims of Iran.” Adraee asks, “Do other paramedics in the world throw bombs, participate in riots, and call themselves human shields?” In the second half of the edited video, al-Najjar does appear to say the words “human shield,” after which the video cuts sharply. In the original video, however, which is cut out from the version distributed by the IDF, there is second half to al-Najjar’s sentence: “to defend the wounded on the front lines.” Perhaps not the wisest choice of words in the world, but far from the incriminating evidence that Adraee claimed the video showed.

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The IDF Spokesperson published an edited video, comprised of clips that have no discernable connection to each other or to the specific day al-Najjar was killed, in order to justify the killing of the young paramedic, to prove that she was not simply an innocent nurse, and to present her as a terrorist or a potential terrorist.

The video is meant to tell us: it was okay to kill her, she was an Arab. And Israel’s mainstream media outlets, to prove their patriotism and boost their ratings, completely bought the IDF’s spin. They published the clip without question or clarification or warnings that it was not in any way verified, or nothing that it in no way justifies her killing. A broadcaster on one of Israel’s most-watched channels even said, without any proof of this in the video, that al-Najjar threw the tear gas canister “during a violent protest.”

“The IDF’s digital platforms are operational tools in the operational arm of the IDF,” Brig.-Gen. Ronen Manelis told a room full of Israel journalists several months ago. Manelis said openly that the IDF uses its digital platforms “to create deterrence and to blacken (tarnish) the enemy — either explaining that our enemy is really bad and to tarnish his name to say don’t join them, or to deter them.” The provocations of Avichay Adraee are simply part of the IDF’s operational strategy.

At least in Israel, the IDF Spokesperson’s current operation seems to be succeeding, with the generous help of mainstream journalists.

Yael Marom is Just Vision’s public engagement manager in Israel and a co-editor of Local Call, where a version of this article was originally published in Hebrew.

Poet Galal El-Behairy’s ‘Letter from Tora Prison’

Freedom!

Ahead of the expected verdict for imprisoned Egyptian poet Galal El-Behairy, ArabLit — like PEN centers around the world — is sharing a work El-Behairy wrote in prison:

El-Behairy was arrested more than three months ago, on March 3, 2018, on charges related to his most recent book of poems, خير نسوان الأرض, The Finest Women on Earth (2018) and lyrics he wrote for Ramy Essam’s song “Balaha.” A campaign against him called him a spy, and called for his citizenship to be revoked.

In a statement, El-Behairy responded to the charges against his poems.

El-Behairy was held for a week without family or friends knowing his whereabouts before he appeared on March 10, reportedly showing signs of torture. While Egyptian prosecution did order a medical examination, according to PEN, the results have neither been made public nor shared with El-Behairy’s lawyer.

El-Behairy’s first court appearance was May 6, and he faced charges of being a member of a terrorist group, spreading false news, abuse of social-media networks, blasphemy, contempt of religion, and insulting the military. The verdict was initially to be handed down May 9. It was postponed to May 16, and is now expected June 27.

English PEN has urged “the Egyptian authorities to release him and the many other writers and activists unlawfully detained in Egypt immediately and unconditionally.” PEN International has also written an open letter to the Egyptian government, signed by PEN directors around the world.

To draw international attention to the case, several PEN centers, as well as Artists at Risk an ArabLit, are publishing a new poem El-Behairy wrote in detention. The translator wishes to remain unnamed, due to potential repercussions against himself and his family. 

A Letter from Tora Prison

By Galal El-Behairy

From the Tora Prison in Cairo

May 2018

 

 You, something

in the heart, unspoken,

something

in the throat, the last wish

of a man on the gallows

when the hour of hanging comes,

the great need

for oblivion; you, prison

and death, free of charge;

you, the truest meaning of man,

the word “no”—

I kiss your hand

and, preparing for the trial,

put on a suit and pray

for your Eid to come.

I’m the one

who escaped from the Mamluks,

I’m the child

whose father’s name is Zahran,

and I swim in your name, addiction.

I’m the companion of outlawed poets.

O my oblivion, I’m the clay

that precedes the law of concrete.

 

In the heart of this night

I own nothing

but my smile.

I take my country in my arms

and talk to her

about all the prisoners’ lives… out there

beyond the prison’s borders,

beyond the jailer’s grasp,

and about man’s need… for his fellow man,

about a dream

that was licit

and possible,

about a burden

that could be borne

if everyone took part in it.

 

I laugh at a song

they call “criminal,”

which provoked them

to erect a hundred barricades.

On our account, they block out the sun

and the thoughts in the head.

They want to hide the past

behind locks and bolts,

preventing him from whispering

about how things once were.

They want to hide him

by appointing guards—

weak-minded foreigners

estranged from the people.

But what wonder is this?

His fate is written

in all the prison cells.

His cell has neither bricks

nor steel,

and he was not defeated

within it.

Outside… a squadron of slaves.

Inside… a crucified messiah.

The thorns above his brow

are witnesses: You betrayed his revolution

with your own hands.

With shame in your eyes, you

are the Judases of the past,

whatever your religion, whatever

miniscule vision you have.

We’ve come back

and we see you.

 

You who imprisoned

the light, that naked groaning.

The light doesn’t care

how tall the fence is;

it’s not hemmed in

by steel bars

or officers’ uniforms.

It cannot be forgotten.

You can take a public square away from us,

but there are thousands and thousands of others,

and I’ll be there, waiting for you.

Our land will not betray us.

With each olive branch

we’re weaving your shrouds.

And the young man you killed

has come back, awake now

and angry.

He’s got a bone to pick

with his killer.

He’s got a bone to pick

with the one who betrayed him,

the one who, on that night of hope,

acquiesced, fell silent, and slept.

His wound has healed; he’s come back,

a knight

without a bridle;

he’s setting up the trial

while an imam prays among us

and illumines the one who was blind;

he’s rolling up his sleeves, preparing

for a fight;

he was killed—yes, it’s true—and yet

he has his role in this epic;

he stands there now

and holds his ground.

 

We’ve returned

to call on God

and proclaim it: “We’ve come back,

come back

hand in hand.”

Again we proclaim it: “We’ve come back,

and we vow

to spread the light,

the new dawn,

the keen-sighted conscience.”

We’ve come back, and we can smell

the fear in in your veins;

and our cheers tonight

are the sweetest of all:

“We are not afraid.

We are not afraid.”

 

We saw a country

rise from sleep

to trample a pharaoh

and cleanse the age

of the cane and cudgel.

We saw a country sing:

those were no slave songs,

no harbingers of doom, rather

songs fitting

for a new kind of steel.

We saw it.

We saw a country

where no one is oppressed.

Suggested actions:

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