Category: Ägypten

Von Al Jazeera

Repression of students’ dissent is uniting ultras groups and student activists from across the spectrum.

Protests continued on university campuses across Egypt following the court verdict that cleared ousted President Hosni Mubarak of charges of killing protesters during the January 25 uprising.

The protesters comprise a broad mix of Islamists, liberals, leftists, independents and other non-affiliated students. The scale of protests prompted state-owned news website Al-Ahram to describe it as Egypt witnessing “a university uprising”.

But it was one group of activists that has given a sharper edge to many of the ongoing protests on university campuses across Egypt since the new academic year began on October 11: Ultras Nahdawy.

Continue reading “‘Ultras’ fuel Egypt’s campus protests”

Von James M. Dorsey

The Egyptian football authorities are expected to ban militant football fan groups in another move of labeling opposition forces as violent threats to their power.

An expected decision by Egyptian football authorities to ban groups of militant football fans as terrorists builds on Arab autocrats’ labeling of legitimate, democratic opposition forces as violent threats to their grip on power.

By leaving youth with ever fewer, if any, options for venting pent-up anger and frustration, it risks pushing them toward violent, militant Islamist groups.

In banning the ultras – groups of fervent, well-organized, street battle-hardened football fans – authorities would outlaw a social force that rivaled in appeal the Muslim Brotherhood that was criminalized last year as a terrorist organization with the military coup that toppled Mohamed Morsi, the country’s only democratically elected president.

Continue reading “Egypt’s banning of ultras constitutes effort to outlaw legitimate opposition”