Calls for change at Al Ahram

One of the most interesting (and hard to follow) phenomena of the moment in Egypt is the proliferation of demands for reform at the level of institutions and workplaces. At all sort of different organizations, workers are demanding the resignation of top officials and the institutions of more equitable pay scales. 

I just did a piece looking at this for the radio show The World. One of the people I spoke is my old friend Sabah Hamamou, who is one of the leaders of an effort to reform state newspapers. She and 300 other journalists wrote a letter of apology to readers for Al Ahram's coverage of the protests. The editors refused to print it so they called a press conferences and read it out loud. They have also created a Facebook group called The Front to Save Al Ahram (there is another Facebook group calling for a boycott of the paper until its management changes). And for an account of an editorial meeting right after Mubarak's resignation in which Hamamou confronted the newly, suddenly "revolutionary" management, listen to the piece. 

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Links for 12-18 December

Automatically posted links for December 12th through December 18th:

• Democracy Digest - Newsletter on democracy developments in Arab world and elsewhere, current issue has article on MB
• BBC World Service | 'Free to Speak' Events - Is new media the only truly independent media in the Arab world today?
• GWOT: Egypt - Negar Azimi on Egypt and the "Global War On Terror"
• Islamist calls for boycott of Egypt billionaire - "An Islamist shaikh on Monday called for a boycott of the companies of telecommunications billionaire Naguib Sawiris for speaking out against the influence of Islam on public life in Egypt."
• YEARENDER: In Egypt, unrest will spill over into 2008 - corrected : Middle East World - In the last few months of 2007, Egypt has experienced a series of massive workers strikes, motivated by none other than poor standards of living and lack of privileges, foreboding the beginning of a possible "uprising" by Egypt's poor.
• Incumbent Regimes and the ?King?s Dilemma? in the Arab World: Promise and Threat of Managed Reform - Carnegie report says political stagnation seen as more likely outcome if regimes not serious about reform
• Arab Reform Bulletin: December 2007 - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Beyond the Façade: Political Reform in the Arab World - New book by Carnegie Endowment
• Le Monde.fr : Le 10 était parfait pour le colonel Kadhafi - On Qadhafi's visit to Paris coinciding with international human rights day
• Anthropologists on the Front Lines - TIME - TIME looks at debates in academic community about Human Terrain Teams
• The Press Association: Army chief among Beirut blast dead - Michel Suleiman successor killed

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