Tactical Media Club, Alexandria d’Egitto

Me and my friend Joanne Richardson, filosopher and filmaker, were invited from the Contemporary Art Forum of Alexandria to run a five days workshop/club on Social and Tactical Media. In the workshop partecipated young artists, grafic designers, filmakers and researchers from Alexandria and Cairo. Egypt doesn’t seem to have a big tradition of resistance in the media and internet field, due to the repressive egyptian state policy and to the State control of information, media and the Internet. Egypt indeed have arrested bloggers and closed sites. In february Karim Amer faced the trial for writing blogs criticizing Egypt’s al-Azhar religious authorities, President Husni Mubarak and Islam. He was first detained by the Egyptian authorities for 12 days in October 2005 because of his writings on his blog (karam903.blogspot.com) about Islam and the sectarian riots which took place in the same month in Alexandria’s Maharram Bek district. After he was charged and released, disciplinary measures were taken against him and he was dismissed from al-Azhar University in March 2006. The university’s disciplinary board found him guilty of blaspheming Islam. He’s still under detention. This repression doesn’t seems to go together with the initiatives on freedom of information, digital culture and access to knowledge carried on in the Library of Alexandria. Is this only a cosmetic institutional strategy? Maybe the egyptian society is ready for a political and social change! I will write more impression on Egypt later…