Middle East Revolutions: Current Bahrain protests getting violent

[Mistress Stowastiq]

Looking for a thread on this but found nothing recent, not even a thread on Tunis's revolution so not sure who wants to know.

The internet just got cut off in Egypt and forgive me because I am not familiar with most of the technological jargon.

Friends and family of Egyptians are trying to maintain contact with them and just recently lost connection. There is a protest planned tomorrow and the communication being disrupted is that which surrounds organization of the protests.

I was mainly following the tweets of Tor Project peeps attempting to help people connect over there and it is entirely frightening to read some of the twitter posts of people begging for help out there.

Apparently the AP posted a video of some one being shot and ten minutes or so after it was posted by AP, the huge internet shutdown happened. There are reporters attempting to broadcast as much as they can.

Protest has also spread to Yemen.

I am looking for an article to post that is more recent but here are some of the tweets [not in order and just some I selected] from Tor and crew people also a person tweeting about her family in Egypt:

@torproject
It is possible that the country of Egypt is wholly disconnected from the Internet at this time. It stops the DoS attack from .eg on us too.

ioerror Jacob Appelbaum
After the @AssociatedPress posted a young man being shot, much of the net in Egypt went down: http://apne.ws/hgEg4d #jan25

Jacob Appelbaum
@ioerror Jacob Appelbaum
I need to borrow some Sat phone and Sat internet uplink for Egypt - please contact me ASAP for in country deployment. #jan25 #egypt

@ioerror Jacob Appelbaum
Someone from TE Data was attempting to Denial of Service The Tor Project; ironically they turned off the internet and it is now over #jan25

@ioerror Jacob Appelbaum
@spanktar It doesn't appear to be the cable or the routing - it appears to be the data passing after the landing. #jan25

@ioerror Jacob Appelbaum
It appears that the ISP Noor was still online via the Palermo SEABONE uplink (noor.palermo9.pal.seabone.net) recently. #jan25 #egypt

@ioerror Jacob Appelbaum
The Milano/SEABONE undersea cable appears to be intact. However the connection appears to have been pulled by TE Data. #jan25 #egypt

@ioerror Jacob Appelbaum
@joebeone Check out http://www.torservers.net/ - they'll run relay or bridges for you.

@ioerror Jacob Appelbaum
telecom-egypt.milano8.mil.seabone.net (195.22.205.6) is the last working hop into Egypt at the moment. Filtered or dropped there. #jan25

@ioerror Jacob Appelbaum
It looks like TE Data isn't just down - it looks like SEABONE was pulled on the Egypt side. #jan25 #egypt

@Farrah3m Farrah
@litfreak nora!!!! just called my neighbor, she says tht its going arnd tht they will send baltageyya with knives to hurt people&rape women!

Farrah3m Farrah
MILLIONS - expected to march tomorrow! #egypt #jan25 #jan28

norashalaby Nora Shalaby
by Farrah3m
@arabist please spread: gasoline is being poured on cars in downtown cairo near by policemen, to blame tomorrow fires on protesters.

^ Just saw info that the car burning might be untrue.

@fieldproducer Neal Mann
Reuters: A top official at the state telecoms regulator declines to comment on the internet being down in #Egypt #Suez #Jan25

Guardian: Protests in Egypt - live updates
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog...sts?intcmp=239


http://hosted2.ap.org/APDefault/*/Ar...71e7e9583c27cb

Jan. 27, 2011 7:18 PM ET
Egypt: Internet down, police counterterror unit up

HAMZA HENDAWIHAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press
SARAH EL DEEBSARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's government has disrupted Internet service and deployed an elite special operations counterterrorism force hours before anti-government protesters expect a new wave of mass rallies to begin.

The police counterterrorism force is rarely seen on the streets. Its officers took up positions early Friday in strategic locations in Cairo, including central Tahrir Square, site of the biggest demonstrations earlier this week.

This week's grass-roots protest movement in Egypt has been fueled by traffic on social networking sites, but Internet outages have become widespread. A major service provider for Egypt, Italy-based Seabone, reported early Friday that there was no Internet traffic going into or out of the country after 12:30 a.m. local time.

Video of the shooting [graphic].
This is the vid posted by AP that the internet shutdowns followed shortly after.
http://video.ap.org/?f=None&pid=oT7q...wok4_irYjJ2R8Z

Raw Video: : Man Shot in Egypt Protest
Violence escalated in two cities outside the Egyptian capital Cairo on Thursday as anti-government protests continued to grip the country and challenge President Hosni Mubarak"s regime. (Jan. 27)

Democracy Now
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/1/2...aten_alongside

Guardian Journalist Arrested and Beaten Alongside Protesters in Egypt Secretly Records Ordeal
In Egypt, running battles between police and anti-government protesters continued into the early hours of Thursday morning. Police have arrested up to 1,200 people, including a number of journalists. Among them was Guardian reporter, Jack Shenker. He was arrested and beaten by plainclothes police on Tuesday night and shoved into a truck with dozens of other people. He managed to keep his dictaphone with him and recorded what was happening as the truck carried them outside of Cairo. We play some of the dramatic audio and speak to him live by telephone. [includes rush transcript]

[Qalbert]

The top official is just in de nile

[ZarakiKujata]

It's a little too hasty to call this a revolution yet, no?

The secular dictatorship in Egypt has lasted ALOT longer than Tunisia. And the military will likely side with the government and not the protesters like in Tunisia.

[Correction]

The top official is just in de nile

He killed the internet to stem the tides of tootin' comin'

[Elesirdur]

It's going to be an interesting few weeks throughout the Middle East. Demonstrations have been taking place in Yemen too calling for more democratic freedoms and fair and open elections.

I sincerely hope that both the demonstrators and agents of the state don't resort to violence. From everything I heard the Tunisian revolt was all but bloodless. Here's hoping that the disaffected youth of the Middle East can achieve their aims for properly representative government through civil and peaceful means.

[Ksandra]

dunno if I should call my dad or not, don't want him to worry. Please keep my posted, and I'll pray for my family. inb4 athiests

[Olo401]

Dailykos : Middle East Events Mothership

[Elesirdur]

I should also mention that Al Jazeera English will probably be one of the best sources of information and deep reporting on the Egyptian/Yemeni situations. Aside from this, AJE is probably one of the world's foremost news services, up there with Reuters and the BBC in terms of depth and breadth of coverage of events all throughout the world. Perhaps I'm biased being a Canadian with a former CBC broadcast director being the general director of AJE, but it's very interesting to compare and contrast the coverage from your usual media outlets with that of AJE.

Check out http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth...nger-in-egypt/ too

[Dareus]

I think it's cute that the United States was all about liberating the innocent people of Iraq and Afghanistan to bring them freedom and democracy yet the government stands behind the Egyptian government as the the people attempt to gain free media.

[Pirian]

I think it's cute that the United States was all about liberating the innocent people of Iraq and Afghanistan to bring them freedom and democracy yet the government stands behind the Egyptian government as the the people attempt to gain free media.

I think it's cute that you play ignorant in how governments work.

[Antithesis]

Please don't start fucking derailing this thread into shitty political debates.

[Dareus]

I think it's cute that you play ignorant in how governments work.

Sometimes I like to pretend that things could work out differently.

[Salodin]

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comment...in_the_recent/

[ZarakiKujata]

I should also mention that Al Jazeera English will probably be one of the best sources of information and deep reporting on the Egyptian/Yemeni situations. Aside from this, AJE is probably one of the world's foremost news services, up there with Reuters and the BBC in terms of depth and breadth of coverage of events all throughout the world. Perhaps I'm biased being a Canadian with a former CBC broadcast director being the general director of AJE, but it's very interesting to compare and contrast the coverage from your usual media outlets with that of AJE.

Check out http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth...nger-in-egypt/ too

Al Jazeera gets a lot of shit in the US b/c of it being who Bin Laden's tape got sent to during the early days of the War on Terror, but its honestly the best Middle East news organization in the world. If you overlook the fact that for obvious reasons it doesn't report negatively on Qatar, it's fucking awesome.

[Demosthenes11]

The US supports egypt's govt because the leaders of Egypt signed a treaty with Israel. The public fucking hates Israel (as they should), and so if a democracy or really any govt takeover occurs, the only ally in the middle easy for Israel is Jordan.

[Ksandra]

Video of an Egyptian on the phone with CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bes...iref=allsearch

I am worried for my family, but I am so glad this is happening and hope it means a better life for Egyptians overall. when I went there 10 years ago the place was a shithole outside the "tourist" areas. And from what I know hasn't gotten any better.

My family here have said for awhile the internet was going to do wonderful things for Egypt because it is giving people a look at what the rest of the world can do. I am glad they aren't going to take it anymore, though sad at those that get hurt.

[Aurara]

I am worried for my family, but I am so glad this is happening and hope it means a better life for Egyptians overall. when I went there 10 years ago the place was a shithole outside the "tourist" areas. And from what I know hasn't gotten any better.

It hasnt. When i was on semester at sea this summer we had armed security whenever we went out. Was still shitty, esp. in Cairo.

[Elesirdur]

In 5 or 10 years once we start to see some scholarship coming out about the democratic and populist uprisings in the Middle East, I'm thinking that the phrase "mobile phone revolution" will start coming up - if it hasn't already. The use of social media combined with the seemingly endless stream of mobile phone videos of demonstrations, riots, and civil defiance is so energizing. It's no surprise that the governments of these states are trying to control access to social media, the internet, and mobile carriers to minimize the impact - be it organizing or just letting people in on what's happening in the cities - that the spread of information can have on their regimes.

[ZarakiKujata]

mobile phone revolution isn't catchy enough, twitter or youtube revolution flows better and b/c of the association w/ a brand might catch on quicker.

[Cantih]

Welcome to the new decade.
We're living in interesting times.