Marines and Yemeni Paranoia

We have been absent for a while, but that doesn't mean that events haven't kept up their speed in the region. Speaking of events in the region, no one can forget this past week, when over a dozen American embassies were damaged by those protesting the anti-Islam movie "Innocence of Muslims." The embassies in Cairo and Sana'a were actually raided, and the consulate in Benghazi, Libya destroyed.

Following the raid last Thursday of the US embassy in  Sana'a, Washington decided to send in some extra marines for security. Although some Yemenis think that only Yemen will receive some unwelcome American marines, their country is not the only one...in fact, extra security is being sent to other embassies in the region as well. Users on YE1, Yemen's biggest online forum, are freaking out about the marines, and they have been all weekend.

On the Yemen Revolution's Facebook page, people are also going nuts over the marines. Yesterday we saw a photo of a marine drill sergeant talking to some Yemeni uniformed personnel labeled "Photos of Marines' Arrival in Sana'a." Nevermind that the marines coming to Yemen would most likely never be wearing a drill sergeant hat, which is worn at book camp only (according to the movies we've seen?)...the ridiculous photo also included a backdrop of tall, green pine trees. Has anyone ever seen a tall pine forest in Sana'a, or anywhere in Yemen?

The facebook page has constant updates throughout the day, dozens in fact, so much that it's hard to follow. Today, this picture was posted:

The accompanying text reads:
"Sources: Sheraton hotel sold to the American embassy, First pictures of Marines in Sana'a. Sources revealed that dozens of American marines have spread around the embassy vicinity in the past few days."

According to Yemenis, Americans just bought one of Yemen's biggest and most important hotels. 

Arab Traveler and His Wife Hide Their Baby in Bag to Enter UAE

The منوعات / munawa3at (miscellaneous) section of Al-Quds Al-Arabi usually has some entertaining stories. You're trying to read the serious news, and you get distracted by some tantalizing story with a picture that steals your attention. This story is the perfect example:

Photo Al-Quds Al-Arabi. (God knows where they find these photos)

A man and his wife tried to hide their baby inside a suitcase in order to get into the UAE. They were flying into Sharjah airport and didn't have a visa for their son. How old was the kid? 5 months old. The parents were arrested and charged with attempting to enter their son into the UAE illegally. In addition, the parents were charged with putting their son's life in danger (due the harmful effects of x-ray and metal detectors on infants). According to the story, the mother claimed that she agreed to put their baby in the suitcase only after her husband convinced her that it would not harm the baby.

As usual, the most interesting part of this story can be found in the comments section. Most of the commentors condemned what the parents did, but even more were quick to mention motivating factors. Almost all of the commentors criticized the UAE immigration authorities:

فعل شنيع حقا ولكن الاشنع منه تلك الدول التي تحولت الى اداة لظلم الاقارب ....ان يستصدر تاشيرة لحفيده وحتى الابن ايستطيع زيارة اهله المقيمين قبل ولادة وزير الداخلية او المسئول الذي يعتمد على المزاج في اتخاذ القرار.
 - One noted : "An ugly act, but even uglier is are those countries that...give a visa to a grandson or the son, and their parents can't visit them, and it all depends on the mood of who is making the decision."

لماذا يحتاج هذا الطفل أو أبيه الى تأشيرة، أليس هو عربي. اذا كنت مقيم في اوروبا فلا تحتاج الى تأشيرة الى معظم دول اوروبا. أنا سافرت الى الأمارات قبل خمس سنوات وحصلت علي التأشيرة في المطار لأني أحمل الجنسية الألمانية ولم تكن معي جنسيتي الأصلية- الفلسطينية
- Another noted: "Why does the kid need a visa to visit, isn't he an Arab? If you live in Europe you don't need a visa for most of the European countries. I traveled to the Emirates 5 months ago and got a visa at the airport because I have German citizenship, and I didn't present my original citizenship, which is Palestinian."

هذا الرجل قام بهذا العمل بسبب قسوة قوانين دول الخليج و نظام الكفاله الجائر فيها .لو ان الانسان له حقوقه في تلك اللمالك لما اضطرت هذه الاسره الى محاولة تهريب ابنها و تعريضه للخطر. ليت دول الخليج تكون اكثر لينا مع العرب و تساويهم بالاوربيين على الاقل و هو دخول البلاد بتاشيره تأخذ في المطار مثلا
Another noted: "This guy did this because of the harshness of laws in the Persian Gulf countries and the system of Kafala (system used to bring in migrant workers, requires every person to have an in-country 'sponsor' who monitors them). If people had their rights, they wouldn't be forced like this family to try and smuggle their kid and expose him to danger. I wish the Gulf countries would treat us more like Europeans at least, who get their visas at the airport."

مع كل أسف لا زلنا بعيدين عن الانسانية و المال لم ينفع. الامارات بلد هجرة و يجب أن تكون هناك حلول لمثل هذه الحالات الانسانية.
Another noted: "I'm sorry, but we are still far from humanitarianism here and money doesn't make a difference. The Emirates is a country of immigration, and they should have solutions to these types of humanitarian situations!"

لو كان عايش في فرنسا مثلا لكان لرضيعه بطاقة اقامة أوتوماتيكيا وكلن تحصل ابنه على كل الحقوق مثل أبيه تماما واحنا دائما ننتقد الاوربيين مع أنهم والله مقارنه بالخليج أحسن بكثييييييير
Another noted: "If  he [the kid] was living in France, for example, he would get a residency card automatically and he would have all of his rights just like his father...we always criticize Europeans, but really, compared to the Persian Gulf they are ALOT better."

A Girl Abducted...Wait, Was She Saudi???

Any serious observer of Arabic media has gotta check out a few sources on a daily basis. If you're checking out traditional media, there's some heavyweights that are required daily reading....we'll list in order of preference: Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Al-Arabiya, Al-Jazeera, Al-Akhbar, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat. Al-Quds Al-Arabi is pretty independent and thus has the best opinion pieces and overall news. Al-Arabiya maintains a pro-Saudi line with a Gulf focus, but usually has some pretty entertaining regional news not carried by other sources, plus their website is fun.

Today on Al-Arabiya we happened to notice a story about a kidnapping that had apparently captured Saudi public opinion for years:

The story discusses the sentencing of two Egyptians who kidnapped a 9 year old girl from the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, Saudi Arabia. According to the story, the Egyptian couple (a man and a woman) abducted the girl and kept her captive for 3 years and 6 months. During this time, the couple tortured the girl and one of them raped her repeatedly.

As we all know, Saudi Arabia is governed by strict Islamic law. The punishment for this couple's crimes: an immediate death sentence, which occurred yesterday. Apparently, the couple was caught when they tried to sneak the girl out of Saudi Arabia, where they were living. Asked about the sentencing, the victim, Radia Abdel Ru'oof, stated that she was happy with it, noting that it is her right to see such a sentence.

Summary:
Two people kidnap and torture a girl. They are sentenced to death. Do you think most Arab readers have a problem with that? If you guess "no," then you're right. Dozens and dozens of readers in the comments section praised the judgement, with notes like: كويس انهم يقتلو "They were killed...good." Or الحمد لله اولا واخر ثم الشكر لقادتنا واسود نايف وسلطان الله يرحمهم   "Thank God firstly, and then thank our leader [Saudi princes] Nayef and Sultan may God have mercy on them." One comment notes that the girl sold fabrics with her parents outside the mosque.

However, the interesting part of the comment section (totaling 276, up from about 150 six hours ago) occurs when the majority of users start asking about the victim's citizenship - they want to know if she was Saudi. Among the first 37 comments, over a third mentioned the victim's girl's citizenship (Afghani) or ask about it. Finally, a reader on comment number 37 notes that "This is a real crime - the citizenship of the girl isn't important at all, evil is present every society and you all should avoid focusing on that point."

Between comments #38 to #77, an additional 13 people note that the girl was an Afghan or Pakistani and not Saudi. It's really startling to see how many people make an effort to note that no, don't worry, this girl wasn't Saudi. The comments also may have something to do with the fact that the article revealed the victim's name openly...if a Saudi woman was raped and her name was revealed, that may drastically hurt her chances at marriage. That fact may be why Saudi readers asked about her nationality...or maybe they just didn't care unless the girl was Saudi.

There were some redeeming comments, such as #95: الانسان هو انسان بغض النظر عن جنسيته وديانته ولونه "People are people, regardless of their nationality or religion or skin color." That's a good man. However, it was overall disappointing to notice that most initial comments focused on the girl's background, and not her well-being or future.

State Department...Still 'Hacking' ?

As we noted previously, the US State Department has been taking part in some interesting activities on Yemeni websites. Originally described as “hacking Al-Qaeda websites,” their activities were actually much less mysterious than originally thought.  We (and others) later determined that the State Dept. operatives simply posted doctored banners and images on Yemeni forums, specifically المجلس اليمني Al-Majles Al-Yemeni or Ye1.org.

Anyway, they’re not finished, and we are following what they’re doing. They’re making some cool graphics, but overall their work remains pretty ineffective at persuading people to dislike Al-Qaeda. When these guys come onto threads with their State Dept logo and signature, the conversation almost always turns from Al-Qaeda to the ills and dark sides of American foreign policy (which here inevitably includes drone strikes that kill civilians).

Here’s the latest example of their work, found Sunday on ye1.org:

The text reads "Ansar Al-Sharia is thirsty for the blood of Yemenis, and relishes in shedding their blood. To Al-Qaeda- the proud tribes of Yemen are on the lookout for you." [In Arabic, Ansar Al-Shar means 'Followers of Evil']

We believe that this parody image is supposed to be a play on an original Ansar Al-Sharia (AAS) propaganda image that was published as part of an AAS public relations campaign last winter:

The text reads "Ansar Al-Sharia: Relief for Yemen after its thirst, Hope for Yemen after its desperation. Proud tribes of Yemen, how then are you sacrificing yourselves for them?" [the Americans, presumably]

 In the original AAS banner above, the group refers to Yemeni tribal elements who oppose them as "Sahwat" صحوات or "Awakenings," harking back to the Awakening Councils of Anbar, Iraq. The groups consisted of tribes opposed to Al-Qaeda and who fought to end Al-Qaeda's influence in their territories. Just as they did in Iraq, Al-Qaeda/AAS tries to label the tribal Yemenis who fight against them as traitors or apostates in order to de-legitimize them and Islamically permit their killing.

So far, reverse image searching shows that the AAS image shows up over 2,000 times on the internet. The State Dept.'s image shows up only once. We'll be keeping our eyes open for more.

More Ahmad Shafiq Hating

The caption accompanying the post: "One neighbor to the other."
Bramjnet, one of the largest (is there a bigger one?) Egyptian web forums on the internet, features a very long thread on the Egyptian elections, with over 27,000 posts and almost 1 million views.

Egyptian Presidential Candidate Ahmad Shafiq Drunk During Interview?

We don't need to elaborate much on this one.....watch the video and see for yourself.

State Dept Hacking Yemeni Sites?

The blogosphere was beset with stories last week of a speech by American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who claimed that the State Department hacked Yemeni tribal websites, replacing Al-Qaeda propaganda that bragged about killing Americans.

Clinton's words:

"Within 48 hours, our team plastered the same sites with altered versions of the ads that showed the toll al-Qaida attacks have taken on the Yemeni people...Within 48 hours, our team plastered the same sites with altered versions of the ads that showed the toll al-Qaida attacks have taken on the Yemeni people," "Extremists are publicly venting their frustration and asking supporters not to believe everything they read on the Internet."

The story was everywhere: Huffington Post, Slate, Washington Post,  Politico, Times of India,  New York Magazine, etc. It was picked up by the AP - everyone carried it. 

We were pretty surprised to hear such news, considering our previous experience with فريق التواصل الالكتروني , the State Dept's Digital Outreach Team. They're the folks who go onto Arabic (and presumably other language) forums to comment officially in the name of the USA. They may not have a lot of resources behind them, which would explain why they have sometimes been rather inept. A great example of that can be found here on Abu Mahjoob forums, where several users demonstrate their frustrations with the team's lack of dialogue and with the fact that they constantly bring up terrorism and Al-Qaeda in any given subject. This team really deserves their own post....maybe later. Anyway, we've never seen the team do anything near actually HACKING into websites. The only offensive action noticed by us here at the blog was a video they made at the beginning of the Arab Spring, comparing Al-Qaeda ideology to the peaceful action of the Arab revolutions by splicing an Ayman Al-Zawahiri video with scenes from Tunis and Cairo. That video was actually pretty awesome. 

It was hard to believe that they had moved on to hacking websites. And we were right - they didn't. Wired got the story right - their piece on the story gives a great summary of what went wrong: either Clinton misspoke or the story was misreported, but either way, State did not "hack" websites, it simply posted their ads on forums. Now that sounds more like the tactics of the good old فريق التواصل الالكتروني. However, making parodies of AQ banners/ads was new....we decided to check it out. 

We looked at المجلس اليمني Ye1.org/vb , the largest Yemeni focused forum, and we would argue, the largest and most active Arabic forum in the game right now. It didn't take too long to find the State Department's handywork. Enjoy:

Image reads: "Ansar Al-Sharia  Al-Qaeda: This is our gift to the Yemeni people, if you are part of the popular committees*, we are Al-Qaeda, we bring mercenaries to steal your sons and destroy your homes."

We're not sure, but we think the above State Dept ad was designed to counter this ad made by Ansar Al-Sharia (Al-Qaeda in Yemen):

Image reads: "Popular Committees: We made your masters cry. How can you be such mercenaries to America? For God we've moved and for his religion we fight. But you, what are you fighting for, you committees of shame?" As you can see, the soldier on the left is clearly meant to be an American soldier. Jihadi authors on Ye1 claim that the popular committees are slaves of the Americans. 

There's more State Dept. images online. We'll bring them to you...more on that in a later post. 

*Note: "Popular Committees" refers to groups of local, tribal forces who are currently fighting AQ in Yemen. They're civilians who are against AQ's rule of territory there...reminiscent of the Anbar Awakening Sunnis in Iraq. 

UPDATE:
More accurately, the State Dept.'s image may have been in response to this particular image from Ansar Al-Sharia:

Taylor Swift in Arabic Music Video

After a late night, we at the blog came home and did what anyone else would do….put on some Arabic satellite TV and relax.  What channel did we put on? Well, after checking out Dream 1, Dream 2, and OTV (the three channels with those best coverage of the most interesting topic currently, the Egyptian elections) we realized that they were playing either soap operas or boring morning religious programing. 

With Arabic satellite, when all else fails, put on the music channels. We checked out Mazzika Zoom, an Egyptian music channel. After a few popular music videos (best of which was طال السهر by Dina Hayek and Tony Hena) the channel showed a rather interesting video by Sandy, an Egyptian singer. 

In Sandy's video عايز اقولك A3iz A2olek "I Want to Tell You," there were a number of things that caught our eye. The overall theme of the music video is not unusual: it's a high school type of scene, with Sandy playing a nerdy-type of student and a blonde/American-looking type of guy playing her love interest. The look of the male character was the first unusual element…most Arabic videos don't include main characters that are obviously non-Arab, especially as a love interest (3aib!). 

Another thing was that Sandy's love interest wears a letterman jacket, an almost exclusively American style of jacket worn during the high school years. When Sandy goes home to her bedroom, we notice she has a Taylor Swift poster on her wall and an Angry Birds doll on her bed.  Her blonde crush (who happens to live next door) has a Cincinatti Bengals poster hanging on his wall. 

What's with all of the American paraphernalia in this video? After some quick Arabic social media research, we learned that her director is American…and that her videos with him have received criticism for imitating the styles of American artists. 

Arab Islamists Seek to Adopt Tactics of Republican Party

Even jihadists follow the Republican primaries. Which is interesting, because I don't think many Americans even follow the Republican primaries. See below

غينغريتش انسحب رسميا قلم يعد امامه اي منافس ومن غير انسحايه فالامر محسوم له

هناك ميثاق في الانتخابات داخل الاحزاب ممنوع الضرب تحت الحزام بين المرشحينيعني من غير المقبول ان يقوم اي مرشح جمهوري خلال فترة الانتخابات التمهيدية الحزبية بكشف فضائح لمنافس له من نفس الحزبحتى لا يستفيد منها الحزب المنافس لو حصل ونال المفضوح الترشيح عن حزبهتصور اخي ديقار لو تم تطبيق هذا الميثاق بين الاسلاميين !!


Translation of key post on a thread called "Mitt Romney Wins Five Republican Primary Elections":

Gingrich withdrew officially, so therefore there's no one left to compete with him, it's settled. There's an agreement in internal party politics- 'bellow the belt' hits are not allowed among the candidates. Meaning that it's not acceptable for one republican candidate, during the primary elections, to expose the scandals of his competitors from the same party. Therefore, if the scandalized candidate actually won and represented the party, the other side doesn't get to benefit from it. Imagine, Diqar, if Islamists followed that rule!!!

Woman's Sunglasses Expose Syrian Regime Propaganda

This one's from over a week ago, but it's good. We meant to post it then, but it's been a busy week.
Check out this still shot of a woman getting interviewed on Ad-Dunia channel, a pro-regime satellite propaganda channel:

We initially saw this photo on Hanein forums, where a user linked to an Al-Arabiya news story discussing the incident. Al-Arabiya, in turn, was alerted to the find by opposition users who discovered the reflection and posted it on Facebook.  We hadn't seen this particular interview, but we've seen many like it on Syria News and on Ad-Dunia channel.

In the brief interview, the woman noted that "Yes, the Syrian crisis has ended, the bloody scenes seen from the opposition and on Arab satellite channels are fake, the Syrian people are living in safety."
From the reflection on her glasses, you can see the numerous soldiers and armed men surrounding her car, making sure that she had the right answer to the "reporter's" questions.

Don't like Hazem Abu Ismail? Vote for His Mother.

For those of you who don't like Egyptian presidential candidate Hazem Abu Ismail, take a look at this  video of a TV interview with him and his mother. [The video is included within the article on Al-Arabiya, and it has English subtitles.]Yes, that's right, the mother whose American citizenship got him prohibited from running for president (at least for now).

We also found the video on YouTube:

You might be surprised, but his mother comes off as....articulate, respectful, religiously moderate, and intelligent. We here at the blog wish his mother was running instead of him. His mother, Dr. Nawal AbdelAziz Nour, presents herself very well, speaking positively of other religions and condemning the Al-Qaeda attacks.

Nour's attitude is in stark contrast to that of her son, who regularly issues streams of lies to the Egyptian people.  An example of that can be found in this video that we found on Bramjnet. Here, Abu Ismail rails against American aid to Egypt, spouting lies such as:

American aid never consists of actual money;  Americans love homosexuality and gay marriage, and American aid is intended to promote that; American aid is tool intended to end American unemployment by giving jobs and factories to Americans in Egypt but disguising it as American aid to Egyptians; Americans give Egypt defective food; Americans throw thousands of tons of wheat into the sea to keep the prices high....the list goes on and on. Watching Abu Ismail's videos really shows that the man is not fit to be a president.

More Syrian Facebook Action

As we noted in our last post, the polls used to name Friday protests on the Syrian revolution's facebook page are significant. So much so that people try to mobilize their own online networks to get the result that they want.

Amal Hanano, writing over at Foreign Policy, published an article today detailing the importance of the polls. The article is good, but it could be better. The author did an acceptable job of describing the online battle between secularists & Islamists for the name of Friday's protests, but she obviously didn't do any research to see what people were saying on social media platforms other than Facebook and Twitter. Hanano writes: 

Last week, before the Facebook polling closed for the name of the April 13 protests -- the day after the U.N. ceasefire deadline, the day in which solidarity was key -- one name was in the lead: the Friday of the Armies of Islam. Yet another divisive (and completely off message) choice. This time, however, peaceful activists were ready to take action and fight back in a battle for the Friday name.

On Wednesday, April 11, media activists on Facebook and Twitter began a campaign to "rock the vote" for Friday's name. They advocated the secular, inclusive choice, "A Revolution for all Syrians." It was an intense campaign. Usually around 8,000 votes are cast each week, but last week there were more than 30,000. It was as much a battle between Islamic sentiment and secular inclusiveness as it was a struggle between those dedicated to solely an armed resistance, and those who still valued the power of nonviolent activism.

If the author looked a little further, she would find that it wasn't a one sided campaign: Islamists were mobilizing their networks as well. They were doing it on forums and on Facebook. Some on Twittter even ignored the results of the poll, deciding to name the protests "Friday of the Armies of Islam" anyway, regardless of the fact that this name was defeated badly.



While the article does have its shortcomings, at the end of the day, we salute the author of this article for shedding light on the ongoing and dynamic significance of social media to the Arab revolutions.

Even Jihadists Use Facebook Polls

As we mentioned in Wednesday's post, there was some prime social media mobilization going on this week when it came down to naming Friday's protests in Syria. 

Early afternoon on Wednesday, one choice was winning:

جمعة جيش الاسلام: اغيثوا الشام (The Friday of 'Armies of Islam: Come Relieve Syria')

Now, one can interpret that name as they want. For example, maybe the name is referring to gulf countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia who have aided the Free Syrian Army. Maybe it is a gesture to the conscious of the Muslim world in an effort to mobilize Muslims to action. 

We have discovered that among at least some Salafi-Jihadist types (i.e. supporters of Jibhat An-Nusra) that name held a different meaning. The name meant that Syrians would be protesting in support of militant, Islamic action against the regime. Proof of that can be found on Hanein, where one user started a thread begging people to vote for the "Armies of Islam: Come Relieve Syria" option:

كما تعلمون بأن تسمية الجمعة لها أثر نفسي كبير وصدى إعلامي واسع في خضم الأحداث الجسام التي نمر بهاوبعد أن كانت الفرق كبير بنسبة الاصوات إلى تسمية جيوش الإسلام اغيثوا الشام بدأ جمع بني علمان يحاولون أن يحرفوا البوصلة ليجروا الجمعة من بعدها الإسلاميفالرجاء ممن له حساب على الفيس بوك الدخول والتصويت لصالح التسمية الإسلامية

Translation:

["As you know, the naming of Fridays has a lot of influence and a big media echo because of the magnitude of the events that experiencing. There used to be a wide gap in the number of votes given to "Armies of Islam: Come Relieve Syria," but now the 'secularists' have started to get together and try to pervert the results to steal away the Islamic dimension of Friday. So please, to whoever has a Facebook account, go on and vote for the Islamic name."]

The guy's avatar:

- Another user replies "Thanks, I just voted"

- The author replies "Thanks for voting, I hope the other brothers will vote too, it's between two competing names, one Islamic and one secular. Voting closes in three hours."

-A 3rd user replies "Victory to the Armies of Islam. I just voted, God bless you."

-The author replies "May God give you life. The amount of users on this forum (if they all voted) could create a wide gap between the two. So don't give up on it brothers, and don't say the the name doesn't make any difference, because it does."

- A 4th user replies, stating that he voted as well. 

- The author thanks him, noting that "I'm waiting for the rest of the brothers to vote - the voting is getting close, we used to be winning by more than 2500 votes, and now it's less than 1300! It's important."

The stuff is happening in real time. About a half hour later, the author comes back: 

"The difference is less than 50 votes! Unfortunately, in half an hour the results will flip on us and Friday's protest will have some secular name!"

Then a few minutes later:

"It didn't even take half an hour. Now the secular name is winning. God help us. 

Posts on this thread: 9

Number of times the thread was viewed: 132

(i.e. look how many people read the thread, and only a few people posted to let us know they voted)

I'm sorry for all of my posts on the thread, but it gets to me that secularists are winning over Islam, even if it's just a Facebook victory. "

This guy is clearly disappointed. We are pretty happy though - what a great example of cross-platform social media mobilization...or, rather, attempted social media mobilization. 

The Syrian Revolution Facebook Page

For the first time, you can watch a political revolution play out online. That's what's happening with the Syrian revolution's facebook page, which serves as the primary outlet for the opposition movement. Every day features hundreds of new posts (sometimes even thousands), with videos, articles, cell-phone recordings of regime violence; this site has everything.

It's truly revolutionary (forgive the pun) in that with this revolution, the opposition is using social media as a weapon to respond to actions of the Syrian government. The government has its TV channels, radio stations, and websites. The opposition has none of those, therefore it uses social media to promote and distribute its message. The posting of videos of protests and the violent repression of the regime allows readers to watch the revolution as it's happening - truly fascinating.

While we've seen the Facebook page mentioned on other social media platforms before, today a friend pointed out a particularly dynamic example of the intersections that occur in Arabic social media, and how that interaction can change events on the ground.

Above is a poll issued by the page. The poll asks for readers to vote and choose the name of next Friday's demonstrations. It has become a tradition in Arab Spring revolutions, and especially in Syria, to name each Friday's demonstrations. With the Syrian revolution, that naming now takes place on its Facebook page.  The choices are (from top to bottom):

• جمعة ثورة لكل سوريين (The Friday of Revolution for All Syrians)
• جمعة سينتصر الدم على الرصاص (The Friday Where Blood Will Defeat Bullets)
• جمعة المجتمع الدولي يقتلنا (The Friday of 'The International Community is Killing Us')
• جمعة حسبنا الله و كفى (The Friday of 'God is our Protector, Enough')
• جمعة اوقفوا القتل (The Friday of 'Stop the Killing')
• جمعة جيش الاسلام: اغيثوا الشام (The Friday of 'Armies of Islam: Come Relieve Syria')
• جمعة قاوم فيداك الاعصار (The Friday of 'Resist, Your Hands are the Hurricane')
• جمعة تكالبت علينا الامم (The Friday of 'The UN Has Left Us')

What's fascinating about this week's poll is the that readers took to other social media platforms (in this case, forums) to lobby for their particular choice. 

More info, with links, to come. 

Will the Muslim Brotherhood Kill Persians too?

Check out this YouTube video*. It's a clip from the Spanish version of the movie 300, with fake Arabic subtitles  written below. The Spartans are the Muslim Brotherhood, and the other fighters they meet on the hill are the Egyptian public:

Translation of the subtitles:

Spartan leader: Pick up the pace, to the Parliament! 

Narrator: The Muslim Brotherhood advances, and approaches the Parliament. 

Spartan leader: (encountering a group of other fighters) Greetings, we are on our way to Parliament. 

Other fighters, looking worried: You haven't picked out a presidential candidate yet….what are you waiting for?

How does the Muslim Brotherhood not have a candidate for president?

Spartan leader, looking sly: Because we promised that we wouldn't field anyone for president. 

Other fighters: Don't make excuses, you don't have anyone who capable of being president, of dealing with that position. 

Spartan leader: Are you talking about us?

You! (points to Fighter 1) Who are you going to nominate for president? 

Fighter 1: Abd al Munam Abu-Fatouh

Spartan leader: And you! (points to Fighter 2) Who are you going to nominate for president? 

Fighter 2: Hazem Abu Ismail!

Spartan leader: (smiles) And you! (points to Fighter 3) Who are you going to nominate for president? 

Fighter 3: Abu Al-az Al-Hariri

Spartan leader: That's not a presidential contest, that's a parliament of old men!

Spartans, who has our nomination????

Spartans (collectively shouting): Shater, Shater, Shater!!!

Spartan leader: Khairat Shater….we're committed to the decision of the Brotherhood leadership!!!!

---------------

This video was actually posted by supporters of Khairat Shater, i.e. guys who want him to run for president. If you don't know who Shater is, then you better find out. No doubt he will have a huge influence on the Egyptian presidential election. For background, check out the New York Time's profile on Shater here.

* We found this one posted by one of our Egyptian-American friends on Facebook. This being a blog on Arabic social media, we usually link to where we find content, but for privacy purposes we haven't included it here. 

Hey Women: Satan Can Enter You Through Your Chair

Although the actual footage is from December, this thread just popped up on Iraqcenter. 

In the thread, a user posts a video featuring the famous Egyptian TV presenter Hala Sarhan on NasBook, her popular TV show.  NasBook is a talk show aired on Rotana Masriya (Egyptian Rotana), in which Sarhan hosts famous Egyptian and Arab politicians, stars, etc. to talk about current affairs. As it's on Rotana, the show leans toward a younger look and feel, and it's one of my favorite talk shows to watch. 

In this video, watch as Sarhan discusses a particularly unusual fatwa from a Yemeni sheikh. The sheikh apparently forbids the use of chairs by women, saying that evil spirits enter women when they sit on chairs. He notes that chairs (and anything similar to them, like couches) are an unusual, Western invention, and how can we enjoy an invention from our enemy, the West? He notes that the original followers of prophet Muhammad never used chairs - they sat on the floor, so we should too. According to Sarhan, the sheikh even said that for women, sitting on chairs is equivalent to adultery. 

Interestingly, Sarhan, who is not very overtly religious and pretty liberal in her outlook, doesn't lay into the fatwa with sarcasm as much as I thought she would. She actually interprets it in various ways. In my opinion they're ridiculous, but they are definitely worth noting:

1. She says that originally, she thought the fatwa was an attack on حزب الكنبة (Party of the Couch) in Egypt. The 'Party of the Couch' is a term used to describe apathetic Egyptians that aren't involved in protests or don't actively participate in politics.  She says she thought that the fatwa was meant to get them to vote and prevent them from 'sitting on their couches' during the elections. 

2. She then says that wait, this guy isn't Egyptian, he's Yemeni, so he can't be attacking the Party of the Couch. He must be talking about the Yemeni protestors, who 'stood' (i.e. not sitting) in public squares, protesting their revolution. They never sat until their ruler was kicked out of his throne (the word in Arabic for chair is the same one used for throne). 

3. She then says that this fatwa can be interpreted as a warning to all Egyptian presidential candidates that Satan is calling them to the seat of power, basically noting the dangers of too much power and how, I assume, it can erase gains made by the revolution. 

Honestly, Sarhan's interpretations at the end definitely make this clip worth watching, but I really just thought she was going to rip into this guy. 

Dubai Police v. Qardawi: Reactions

In my last post, I discussed how Dubai's police chief Dahi Khalfan threatened prominent Shiekh Yousef Al-Qardawi for his criticism of Dubai's deportation of protestors at the Syrian consulate in the emirate.

On several forums, it looks like predictable battle lines were drawn: 

Some people criticized Khalfan for what they interpreted as a position against the Syrian revolution, and praised Qardawi for being steadfast in his support of the Arab spring across the region (I guess they all forgot about his conspicuous silence on Bahrain?)

Others noted that Khalfan was simply enforcing the laws of Dubai, where it is well known that you can't take part in protests without getting government permission. Interestingly, Amhed Salama, the user I just linked to, keeps an admiring picture of Hosni Mubarak in his signature block....I guess he's just a fan of authority in general?  Not all proponents of this position are old-Arab-regime types, however, there's some  pro-revolution types also pointing to 

While still in the minority according to what I've seen, some people actually criticized Qardawi for "زرع الفتن"/ "sowing discord" by creating conflicts in the Arab nation. This position isn't as clear, and I haven't seen anyone explain how Qardawi is spreading discord anymore than Khalfan. 

Dubai's Police Chief Threatens Qardawi

According to forum reports on Hanein and some others, Dubai's police chief Dahi Khalfan has threatened prominent Islamic cleric Yusuf Al-Qardawi, with Khalfan saying that he will request an Interpol arrest warrant against the sheikh.

Khalfan's threat comes after Qardawi's appearance on "As-Sharia w Al-Hayat" (Sharia and Life) on Al-Jazeera, in which Qardawi criticized the UAE government for deporting Syrians who protested against the Asad regime at the Syrian consulate in Dubai. You can see the video here below....the good stuff starts at around 2:15

Not much commentary so far. As would be expected, most users are praising Qardawi for his defense of the Syrian opposition.