DigiActive.org

Tactic: Student ‘twitters’ out of Egyptian jail

photos of Mohammed Maree on James’ Twitter page

Description: James Buck, a graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley, was in Mahalla, Egypt, covering an anti-government protest when he and his translator Mohammed Maree were arrested April 10. On his way to the police station, Buck took out his cell phone and sent a message to his friends and contacts using the blogging site Twitter.

Tools Used for the Action: Twitter

Outcome: Within seconds, colleagues in the United States and his blogger-friends in Egypt – many of whom had taught him the tool only a week earlier — were alerted of the arrests. (Twitter is a social-networking blog site that allows users to send status updates, or “tweets,” from cell phones, instant messaging services and Facebook.)

Buck sent only one message with his cell phone – “Arrested.” Buck’s friends started to write regular updates on their blogs about his arrest, as they weren’t sure how long he was going to be able to communicate with them. Fortunately, he was able to continue to send updates, and his entries set off a chain of events that led to his college hiring a lawyer on his behalf.

Buck was released from prison the next day, and sent another update saying “Free.” However, his translator, Maree, was transferred to another police station, and has not been heard from since. There are conflicting reports from the Egyptian government about whether Maree was freed and his whereabouts. Buck has now started another campaign on his Twitter page as a way to find Maree.

“James’ case is particularly compelling to us because of the simplicity of his message — one word, ‘arrested’ — and the speed with which the whole scene played out,” said Twitter co-founder Biz Stone. “It highlights the simplicity and value of a real-time communication network that follows you wherever you go.”

Action Alert: Free Esraa and her Companions

What? Join one of the Facebook groups pushing for the freedom of the 3 digital activists jailed in Egypt: Esraa Abdel-Fattah Ahmed, Mahamed El Sharkawi,and Kareem El Beheiri

When? Now!

Where? The Facebook groups to join are divided linguistically. Join the one in the language you are most comfortable with, as you will likely be receiving messages in that language from the group.

Arabic: Free Esraa افرجوا عن إسراء ورفاقها

English: Free Esraa and her Companions! أفرجوا عن إسراء ورفاقها

French: Libérez Esraa et ses Camarades. Free Esraa.

Norsk: Free Esraa and her Companions!

How? Click one of the links above to visit the group you would and then click the “Join” button on that page.

Why? On April 6th we covered the story of Egyptian activists using a Facebook group, 6 April - اضراب عام لشعب مصر (April 6 - General Strike for the People of Egypt), to drum up participation in a general strike on Sunday, April 6. The group’s founder Esraa Abdel-Fattah Ahmed, and bloggers Mahamed El Sharkawi and Kareem El Beheiri were arrested by Egyptian police in connection with the Facebook group and the call of the strike.

Who is organizing the action? There are slightly different officers and admins for the 4 groups, but Egyptians Hany Elkhayat, Samy Harak, Wael Nawara, Manal Fahmy, and Mohamed Zaki Elsheemi seem to be involved with most of them. Dina Ibrahim is the sole admin of the French group.

Campaign: Overview of the Egyptian General Strike

Description of Campaign: As mentioned in our previous post, Egyptian activists organized a massive nation-wide strike on April 6. In our last post we talked about their use of Facebook. Now Global Voices correspondent Amira Al Hussaini gives a complete run-down of the other technologies used by the activists. This is definitely one of the most sophisticated digital activism campaigns to date.

Digital Activism Tools: blogs (both individual and collaborative), Twitter, Facebook, phone banking

How These Tools Are Being Used: From Amira’s excellent post:

Egyptian bloggers worked round the clock telling the world about a workers’ revolt that shook their country, as thousands rioted at a textile mill in Al Mahalla, demanding better pay and protesting against increasing prices. They were also among the first casualties of the unrest, which left two people killed, scores injured and an undetermined number of activists, organisers and mere spectators behind bars. Their coverage came in the form of blog posts, YouTube videos, Twitter feeds, Flickr shots, Facebook messages and all other online tools they could get their hands on. Read more…

Tactic: Egyptians Use Facebook to Organize Strike

See UPDATE after the jump….

Description: Egyptian activists used a Facebook group, 6 April - اضراب عام لشعب مصر (April 6 - General Strike for the People of Egypt), to drum up participation in a general strike on Sunday, April 6. The group currently has over 66,000 members. The page also features several original graphics promoting the strike.

Organizer: It is unclear who first called for the strike, which was originally limited to the the Mahalla al-Kobra state-owned textile factory in northern Egypt. From this strike, a general solidarity strike was devised and several organization became involved in promoting it, including bloggers, members of the progressive group Kefaya (Enough!), the Muslim Brotherhood, and the opposition El Ghad (Tomorrow) Party.

Purpose of Action: The purpose of the strike was to protest low wages and rising food prices in Egypt, as well as to make a more general show of disapproval of the Egyptian government, led by Hosni Mubarak

Organizing Tools: Facebook, digital images

Outcome: On Sunday, thousands of people participated in the strike in Mahall al-Kobra, clashing violently with police. In other parts of the country, thousands of Egyptians skipped work and school in solidarity with the factory workers, in spite of harsh threats from the government. (source: IHT) It is not clear what role the Facebook group had on participation.

Ease of Replication: Starting a Facebook group is very easy, but coordinating with offline groups is also extremely helpful in getting people to attend a protest.

Here is one of the images posted to the Facebook group. View more original graphics after the jump…

Read more »

Action Alert: Flood the Jail with Mail

What? “Flood the Jail with Mail” campaign in support of detained Egyptian blogger Kareem Suleiman

When?  April 7th through April 21st

Where? From around the world to a jail cell in Alexandria, Egypt

How? Supporters are urged to send their messages of solidarity by mail to Kareem to the following address:

Alexandria, Borg Al-Arab Prison, Room 1 Section 22, Prisoner Abdul Kareem Nabil Suleiman, The Arab Republic of Egypt, Kareem’s address in Arabic (mandatory to be included on the envelope)

Why? “to remind Egyptian authorities that Kareem, bloggers in general and prisoners of conscience over all, are not alone.”

Who is organizing the action? FreeKareem Campaign and the Committee to Protect Bloggers

Kareem Suleiman is an Egyptian blogger and law student who was arrested by Egyptian authorities on  Read more »

Tool: SMS

Tool Description: SMS (short message service) is the technical name for text messaging - notes sent between mobile phone users. Think of it as e-mail for mobile phones.

Activist Application: There are so many activist applications for SMS that we’ve put most of them after the jump. Here they are in brief: organize a protest in minutes, evade censorship by using SMS for communication that you cannot speak or e-mail (only true is some countries), election monitoring, activist security (”If I don’t text you every 2 hours, it means something is wrong), citizen journalism, and more to come….

Ease of Use: Easy. All mobile phones now have SMS built in. Just choose a phone number to send the message to, type the message, and press send. Pricing varies by country and carrier.

thousands of phones, thousands of uses for activists

Read more »

Tool: Can Activists Trust YouTube?

In late November, Egyptian activist Wael Abbas‘ YouTube account was suspended due to videos of torture which he had posted. Though his account was re-activated a few days later, all his videos had been removed. YouTube’s side of the story is that Abbas had violated their terms of use by posting videos of “graphic or gratuitous violence” (many of Abbas’ video depict police torture, including sodomy. ) However, other videos, of police brutality, demonstrations, strikes, sit-ins and election irregularities were also deleted when his account was restored.

Read more »

Tactic: Freedom of Online Speech Wins in Egypt

From Global Voice Advocacy:

Judge Abdel Fattah Mourad, who requested the ban of 51 blogs and websites deemed insulting the state’s dignity and threatening Egypt’s interests, has lost his case. On December 29, 2007, the Administrative Judicial Court rejected the lawsuit and ruled in favor of freedom of speech on the Internet.

“Minor victories give us hope and the ability to continue, and this sentence restored to us confidence that our efforts in support of freedoms in Egypt are not lost in vain,” said Ahmed Seif Al-Islam Hamad, former director of Hisham Mubarak Law Center. “The right of citizens to a free Internet and a free flow of information is now guaranteed by the judiciary in Egypt,” said Gamal Eid, the Executive Director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.

Tactic: We Blog Freedom Slogan

translation: “We Blog Freedom”

I really liked this image from Abdel Monem’s blog, Ana Ikhwan (based in Egypt) so I’ve posted it here. It’s a nice inspirational message for digital activists (and we can all use a little inspiration). It illustrates a longer post (in Arabic) about imprisoned bloggers.  It demonstrates the importance of having an effective slogan for your online campaign.

Campaign: Free Alaa

Campaign: Free Alaa

Web site: The original web site, http://freealaa.blogspot.com, has been deleted.

What was it?: a blog campaign to raise awareness of the imprisonment of Egyptian blogger Alaa Abd el Fattah. The blog began as the center of a google-bombing campaign, called “Google Bombing for Alaa,” but eventually transformed into an informational site about Alaa’s imprisonment.

Read more »