So, here I am, preparing for my trip back to Cairo, when people start sending me messages and e-mails about The Akon concert in the Cairo Opera. Now, I didn't know he was singing in Cairo to begin with, let alone fathom the concept of whose bright idea was it that this man should be allowed to sing in the Egyptian Opera..but whatever. My people are silly, and they do irrational shit like allow Akon into the Opera House. Anyway..

The news is however that the concert was a very rare breed of disaster, which makes my heart just sing a little bit. The man was slated to show up at 9 M, but showed up at 1 am instead; The people who paid 1000 LE per VIP ticket ended up being sent to the Hospital because the VIP Lounge collapsed before the show even begun; He shows up finally all drunk, sings for half an hour, and then attempts to do some crowd surfing(very bad idea), and then he starts calling for help in his mic because the crowd apparently kidnaps him and take him all the way to the parking lot and then put him on a car, which he ends up destroying and then ends the concert… Yeah… Sounds like a great time.

Now, I wasn't there, but if you were, please share your view of the disaster in the comments section, because that shit sounds positively hilarious! 

A young, 27 year old Egyptan male who is fantastic on paper but so-so
in real life is seeking the following traits in his life partner:

She needs to be a redhead ( FIREBUSH!). She needs to have big eyes.
Like Zooey Dashnal Eyes. She needs to be smart but not nerdy, fun and
unpretentious. Deep down has a warm heart and a loyal spirit, but also
a mean streak to make things more interesting. I don't need a victim to
defend and protect. I want a woman, who, when the world is ending, will
grab a gun and help me rob the Lexus dealership!

She has to be artsy. I want someone who will look at the world through
an artist eyes, and provide me with a truly different perspective on
life. She has to be one who does installation arts and body paint and
build sculptures using mud that we can wrestle on and have sex covered
in. Also, she has to be a pyromaniac. I need someone to burn the world
with.

She needs to have no ideological inclinations or political leanings,
although nihilistic anarchism is acceptable. She needs to hate society,
and its norms and rules, and punch any girl i know who would put what
society thinks over her own happiness (I will punch the guys who do
that). She would need to figure out what it means when a Japanese
Vibrator sends her a coded telepathic message that- when
deciphered-states that a single cloud floating alone in the sky
contains no duck sauce. Her family has to be either totally awesome, or
completely dead, because my side has enough drama for the both of us,
and the morgue doesn't need anymore dead bodies.

She needs to love magic and hate Broccoli. She doesn't have to have the
same musical tastes as I do, but emo and 80's pop music (with notable
exceptions) are grounds for separation. Bonus points if she only likes
incredibly talented eccentric underground artists that will fill my
world with music instead of over-produced crap that I am programmed to
like.

She needs to be a relatively easy orgasmer (Women who have difficulties
orgasming with partners need not apply, at all. Go kill yourselves!)
who loves kids and hates condoms. She needs to be open to the idea of
living in Lebanon, Kenya, Thailand and Brazil before we hit 40. She has
to love to travel and try new things. She also has to love alcohol and
knows how to roll a mean blunt. Knowledge in pick pocketing and picking
locks a bonus. She must love poetry over Journalism, fiction over
reality, and Joss Whedon shows over CSI crap. She also must have
ridiculously high metabolism. And be a religious follower of XKCD!

Curly hair is a plus.

If you know someone who fits the bill, please send her over now and
don't expect a Thank You call for the next 6 months at least. We won't
have time, because we have adventures to go on, you boring dull
miserable lot.

Ok, when the NDP MP for Al Hussein area Haidar el Baghdaddy went on the air and accused "The Taliban & Iran" of being behind the Hussein bombings, I fell on the floor laughing on hos stupid that statement was. First off, the Taliban, not exactly a terrorist organization. More like a terrorist militia, that is more concerned with Pakistan and Afghanistan than anything else. So, for them to come all the way to egypt to blow shit up..meh..don't buy it. As for Iran..yeah..the Shia islamists just tried to blow up Al Hussein. The same Shia islamists who had a decree banning the insulting of the "zionist collaborator" King Hussein of Jordan, because, well, his name is Hussein. Makes sense that they would try to blow AlHussein area up. Totally.

But, we all know our police is retarded, and always looking for a scapegoat rather than the actual criminal, and they heard Iranians and Pakistanis, and they went ahead and arrested 3 Pakistanis and one Iranian on suspicion of being involved in the bombings, based on absolutely no evidence or actual charges.But hey, Pakistanis and Iranians.. they must've done it, no? Who else could it be in a Country of 80 million people, supreme majority of them are muslims, uneducated and unemployed, with all kinds of inclinations, ranging from straight out Infidel to hardcore Jihady fuckhead? Must be the one Iranian we found near the Hotel. Must be.

Welad el metnakah!

You need to see this!

I find this to be hot for some reason.

Ehh..because it's a hollow gesture from Mubarak to Obama? Because he
was getting out in 5 months anyway? Because he is still not allowed to
pursue his political rights for the next 6 years, thanks to psycho
egyptian law? Because even though I am happy for him, this really
doesn't change shit when it comes to our country? Hell, if one is
really heartless about it, By condining him a health release, the governemnt looks empathetic and makes us lose the cause celebre that
highlighted how fucked up and tyrannical it is, which is
probably not a good thing for us. But alas, all things considered, I am happy
he got out and that he is united with his family, and I am hoping he
starts running around and causing trouble again. Shananigans are needed
at this point!

News reports are coming in: An explosion rocked the AlHussein touristy area in Cairo. An explosive device went off , injured at least 18 people, and killed at least 4, two of which are foreigners, and one of which is french injured 21 people and killed one french woman. There are reports that a second, smaller bomb went  off an hour later, and another bomb that was found by the police and was getting dismantled as we speak.

The timing of this highly unfortunate and suspect: the government is planning to vote on the Terrorism law- which is the emergency law, but rather permanent- on sunday, and nothing better to justify the passing of such a publically despised law than to have a nice explosion a few days before its passing.Also, a rather comical NDP MP just went on TV and accused the Taliban and Iranof being behind it. The government will of course use this to stick broomsticks up our asses for a long time to come. Fun times lie ahead, people. Fun times!

Update: Photos from the scene. Video report from BBC as well.

Update: There are reports that hand grenades were used. No one knows anything for sure.

Update: And just to calm the Persian haters..the shia wouldn;t do it, not next to alhussein mosque. Hell, those people wouldn;t even insult the late King of Jordan on their television because of his name, u think they would bomb the mosque that supposidly houses his deadbody? U kidding me?

Been super busy this week, but it ends today.In the meantime, check me out on twitter. I am updating there!

The Dilbert blog understands me completely when it comes to this "stimulus package" business:

Our government is preparing to pass something called a stimulus
package. According to the experts, this stimulus package won't directly
stimulate much of anything in the short term, when we need it. But with
any luck it will bamboozle a hundred million morons into thinking their
government did something useful, and that in turn will cause them to
become more confident and spend additional money on cigarettes and
lottery tickets, thus stimulating the economy.

The funny thing
about this scheme is that it might work. The other funny thing is that
no one is trying to hide the fact that the entire plan depends on
bamboozling the aggressively ignorant portion of the population. We
need to get those bozos spending again, and if it requires a fraudulent
stimulus package to get it done, most people seem okay with that.

This
is yet another situation where smart people are ironically incompetent
if left to their own devices. If the world were populated only with the
smart and well-informed, we'd all sit around waiting for someone else
to spend money first, so they can take the highest risk. Eventually
society would crumble and all of us geniuses would be eaten by rats.
But if you throw a bunch of clueless bastards into the mix, suddenly
the economy is supercharged. Money is flying everywhere, confidence
becomes warranted, and the economy flourishes.

Our past economic
booms depended heavily on morons. Those wonderful stimulators of the
economy had to buy stock in perpetually unprofitable tech companies, or
invest in real estate after it was clearly overpriced. Every economic
boom is powered by the clueless. I see no reason why the next one
should be different, except that the government is doing the
bamboozling this time.

I plan to do my patriotic duty by no
longer following the news coverage of the economic stimulus plan. This
will allow me to imagine that all of the pork and special interest
garbage will be removed from the final bill that gets approved. I will
blissfully assume that the economic stimulation will be short term and
effective. Oh, and long term and effective too. And then I, and my
fellow ignorami, will spend, spend, spend our way out of this slump.

You're welcome.

Word. 

So, 40 days ago, those Somali Pirates decide to take over an Egyptian Vessel, called the Bluestar, hostage and for ransom. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry took decisive action, and did nothing, saying they have no money. When the people on the ship demanded drinking water supplies, the humanists at the ministry sent a shipment of bottled water that makes the share of each hotsage on the boat two bottles. Oh yeah, and they are still not paying the ransom. Now, the "AlYoum El Sabe3" newspaper reports that the crew has 9 cellphones on board of the ship, so the families of the crew members used them to call the ship and sometimes talk to the Pirates themselves, to the point that they now know the full names of some of those Somali pirates. Supposedly 3 days ago one of the pirates while talking to the parent of one of the hostages, told him that he and his crew of pirates are now expressing deep regret that they kidnapped an Egyptian ship, because it doesn't seem like the egyptian government cares at all about its people and their safety to pay the ransom.

Hehehe

Got freed yesterday. Thought y'all should know. Thanks for those who supported.

Pepsi spent millions of dollars on their new "it looks like the Obama Logo" Logo. But apparently the comparison is a sham, and the truth is far too complex for the average mind to grasp. You see, the branding company that made this logo is comprised of some seriously genius deep-thinkers, who never make any decision lightly, as the 27 page document detailing the Pepsi Logo strategy and its significance shows: Apparently the Logo is inspired by..ok..hold on..let me get that right..Ok..here goes..Magnetic Dynamics; Convention's transformation to innovation; The Vastu Sastra; Feng shui; the golden ratio; the Vitruvian principle; the Renaissance; the Mobius Strip; The Modular; the fuckin Earth itself; the theory of relativity; Iconic Geometry; Emoticons; and the Entire freakin Universe…all are leading to the Pepsi Logo.

Awesome! This is the level of high quality Bullshit I expect from professional branding companies, like the Arnell group. The entire document is here for your viewing pleasure. Love it!

Finally, an answer to who the hell is Louie, Hewey and Dewey's parents are . I mean, Mother. The father is obscured. Also, Grandma duck is called Elvira Coot? Grandma Duck is really a coot? And the Ducks and the McDucks are not the same family?

The mind reels! 

Kadima won most seats, Likud has a better chance at a coalition, and they are both fighting on who gets to duck Lieberman's dick better. Barak, however, didn't win, which is good, because he is a douche. Also, I hear that the peace camp lost, like there was one to begin with. There is of course always the"beast of the apocalypse option" where Kadima and Likud form a "unity government" and rotate PM's. But in the immortal words sprayed in Graffitti on Tel Aviv walls:

Bibi +Tzipi=Zibi*

*arabic word for "My dick" 

The Israeli general election is underway today. It's actually happening right now, and it features some of the most boring and bizzare political players in modern day Israel: You have the boring insecure Barack representing what's left of labor, The pompous inept Netenyahu trying to make Likus (not sure if this is a typo) big again, The Hillary Clinton of Kadima The only-reason-you-won't-vote-for-me-is-cause-of-my-vagina Tzipi Livni-who, to her credit, is the only half decent politician Kadima has right now, and last, but not least, the boy d'jour, the man of the hour, the Russian on a mission, Lieberman. There is also Hadash, which is cute young leftists jews and arabs hugging each other (which is nice, cause the people in their commercials are hot ) and the Green-leaf-Holocaust survivor party alliance, which is trying to use the Holocaust as justification to legalize weed. And to be honest, ladies and gentlemen, if I could convince my Israeli readers to vote for any party, it would be that one. Cause using the holocaust to justify the legalization of Marijuana is nothing short of awesome in my book. Plus, with those people in power, the peace-process is bound to get really really funny. But don't let such musings distract us from the person who everybody is freaking out about: LIEBERMAN.

There are serious causes for concern when it comes to Lieberman, especially with his new pledge of "no Loyalty, no citizenship", which was aimed at those disloyal pesky israeli arabs who won't serve in the military. And the thought of him being part of any Likud coalition government is actually making voters who hate Kadima vote for Kadima. Here is how neurotic the Lieberman fear has become:

This is where the visions start of Foreign Minister
Avigdor Lieberman banging his shoe a la Krushchev against the podium at
the United Nations, crying out for Israel to bomb the Aswan Dam. Or
there's Lieberman as Education Minister, teaching Israeli High School
Civics classes that loyalty tests as a requirement of citizenship are
essential to any functioning democracy. Sometimes I see Lieberman the
Justice Minister, trying to force through poll taxes and Hebrew- (and
Russian-) only literacy tests for the ballot boxes in future Israeli
elections. Or Housing Minister Lieberman, whose first act is to build a
moat around Umm al-Fahm. 

Interestingly though, Lieberman seems to be reveling in such controversy, and is not trying to make any real friends, anywhere. He is actually going for more enemies, so consistently, it's awesome. He started a fight out of nowhere with the ultra orthodox Zionist Shas party, saying that the "no loyalty, no citizenship" thing applies to you too, Hasidic boys (If I thought he cared about it, I would say he was doing it in order to fend off accusations of racism; be all like "see, I am a dick to jews as well"). And suddenly, ladies and gentlemen, you have a situation that's never bound to happen ever again: Shas and the Israeli Arabs, with a common enemy. Awesome. Some ultra Orthodox jews are even capitalizing on that, with the United Torah Judaism party distributing flyers saying "No to racism, Haradim for equality".

Some of the party's flyers label rival party
leader Avigdor Lieberman a racist, and state that "Arabs and haredim
fight racism – vote United Torah Judaism."  

[...]

United Torah Judaism's elections
headquarters said that "the party is trying to recruit as many votes as
possible. We appeal to the Arab voters who care about matters of
chastity and family honor."

Knesset Member Moshe Gafni added that "we
are against racism and for the Torah, and the Torah clearly says 'Do
not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens,
because you were aliens in Egypt,'" (Exodus 23:9)

Yes, calling Israeli arab voters aliens. That's reaching out. 

And now, even Shas is fighting back against Lieberman, accusing him of wanting to divide Jerusalem and give the arab neighborhoods to the arabs , open pork stores and allow gay marriage. In Shas' world, Lieberman is Dennis Kucinich. He is both a racist rightwinger and immoral pinko lefty, all at once. No wonder the guy has high appeal this election. But here is the funny idea: what if israeli arabs do meet the challenge of Lieberman, and do agree to join the Israeli military, thus proving their "Loyalty"? You know, cause it kinda happened before, in 1954?

On July 9, 1954 the State of Israel issued
an order for the army enlistment of "minority groups," which applied to
about 4,500 Palestinians. Back then too, there were those who hoped
that imposing an army service duty on the Arabs would prompt them to
quickly depart.

Yet then, the most terrible thing happened: About 90% of those
Palestinian youths quickly and joyfully reported to the army's
induction offices. They were willing, and even excited, to serve in the
army. This caused a great scare among top defense establishment
officials. "Oy vey," they said, while staring at each other with a
horrified look, "what shall we do now?" And the enlistment of Arabs,
which barely got underway, was annulled for generations to come.

And if this scenario happens again, down would go his ingenious plan. One wonders if he has a back-up one.

This is gonna be a fun day. I can't wait to see how it ends. 

Not for the Faint of heart. But if you can handle, go here!

That's why!

State Secuirty must be totally out of its fuckin collective mind. Here is the update on the Philip Rizk abduction, recieved as  an e-mail from Philip's sister:

Monday Feb. 9th 5:40 am

At 1:30am when we had just gone to bed
the doorbell rang. 5 plain clothed men and two in full riot gear and
machine guns stood outside our door. They wanted to enter to search the
house. We found out that they were looking for evidence against Philip.
Two men entered and began searching through the papers of our home
office. In the meantime we contacted a German Embassy official and a
professor from AUC as well as some friends. They all came immediately
many others were awake and praying.

The police left but
returned soon after to ask my father to go with them and write up a
report about the fact that they had searched our home. Of course, we
did not trust them. Then they insisted to pass by his office where they
would continue the search. In the meantime Amnesty International had
contacted us and an wonderful lawyer arrived just in time to firmly
tell the secret police that they could not take any further actions
without a police warrant. We closed and locked the front door and
settled in to see what would happen next. The secret police was waiting
downstairs for orders that never came. At 5a.m. they finally left.

So, as a recap: They arrested the kid without a charge, kept him arrested for three nights, came to his family's house at 1:30 am to search it without a warrant. When they found nothing they tried to take the father as well. Finally stopped at 5 in the morning and left. Wow, nonviolence activism scares them that much, huh?

My thoughts and prayers are with them. Yours should be too! 

This post has been a long time coming. Ever since last December actually, where I've given hints of it on my twitter account. I just never got around to writing it, but today is as good a day as any I guess. So there goes it: I think it's time to lift the trade blockade off of Ghaza.

Ok, before you say what you are going to say, I know. I know. Hamas is still in control, and they were voted in by the Palestinian people, and Yeah yeah yeah. Chill out, and listen, ok? And if by the end of this, it doesn't make sense to you, feel free to tell me how much of an idiot I am in the comments section (otherwise, where is the fun, right?). Agreed? Ok, let's go.

Ever since Hamas was voted into power in Ghaza as a protest vote against Fatah (the same reason why the MB won so many seats in the Egyptian parliamentary elections), and democracy in the Palestinian territories has suffered a major blow. The blow became a full on gushing head wound the moment Hamas started its coup, and kicked the Fatah people out, create what got immediately dubbed Hamastan. And ever since that day, the blockade went up and stayed up, and some of us, including me, cheered, thinking it was a fitting punishment for big bad Hamas, and that soon enough there would be a second election, I even hoped for an open revolt, where the Palestinian people would throw out Hamas from power on its fat Jihady ass. In the throngs of our self-righteous indignation and punishment, we forgot that Hamas, now that it is in power, was going to do what every islamist organization in power would do: Destroy the democratic institutions that brought them there, and clamp down to solidify their power big time. And that's what they did.

Stories started trickling out from Ghaza: Hamas beating and arresting Fatah supporters or member, Hamas breaking into the houses of ex Fatah supporters and seizing the weapons there, Hamas stopping the sales of Alcohol all over the Ghaza strip, Hamas demanding control over reporters and what they report, Hamas trying to enforce law and order Islamic style. And as the blockade intensified, and the people got really hungry, Hamas started being the big daddy figure: Every aid shipment would get seized by them and distributed by them; the rest of the food and guns that would get smuggled into Ghaza would do so in tunnels controlled by Hamas, and thus placing more of people's livelihood in their hands. Slowly, but surely, a picture started being drawn: Hamas was surviving, and are using the blockade to make the people- who had no choice thanks to the blockade- more dependent on them. In essence, the anti-Hamas world managed to give Hamas every tool it ever needed to survive, and even strive, with donations coming in from all over the world to "save Ghaza", which, as you can guess by now, went into Hamas' pockets, and some of which back into the hands of the Palestinian population to buy support. Still, the big hope was the upcoming elections, which-even though there was very little hope of having it being realistically democratic at this point- would have such a public outpouring of voters who want change that they would kick Hamas out of Power. Hamas, knowing this, refused to renew and broke the ceasefire before the election with a month, and the rest is history.

Now, given the history and the current political climate in Ghaza, it is safe to say that democracy is dead, and that Hamas is instituting a theocracy. In other words: an Islamist dictatorship, just like the one in Sudan, or Iran or the one that sparked the civil war in Algeria (Not as bad as Afghanistan yet, mind you). And since this is the case, then the people in Ghaza should receive the same kind of sympathy and support that we give to people who are forced to live under Islamist dictatorships, because like it or not, this is the current reality in Ghaza.

Now, as I previously mentioned, the siege has helped entrench the islamist dictatorship in Ghaza, because there is no private market for goods. Without a private market for goods, there are no independent economic power centers. Independent economic power centers are important because they will finance dissent movements. If your livelihood is dependent on Hamas, you know that you can't dissent, or you won't get to eat. But if food is readily available in the market separately from them, and if the economic conditions are well and good, then people will be dissenting more in the open. The people wouldn't accept the islamist bullshit restrictions that Hamas placed on their lives. They will have the funds to run counter propaganda campaigns and form underground opposition groups, they will money to buy weapons to resist the theocracy that took away their freedom, and put them all a hostage in the high stakes political game that was the last Ghaza war.

So, in essence, if you want to get rid of Hamas, you don't use aerial bombings, you don't use IDF ground incursions, and you don't place an economic blockade. What you do is 1) lift the siege of Ghaza , 2) with the condition that fair, internationally monitored elections be held 3 months after the blockade is lifted. Just give the Ghaza two months of free trade and non-Hamas dependence, and I guarantee you will see open and visible opposition against Hamas in the streets.

Some of you are naturally skeptical, and will think that I am overestimating the amount of hatred in the Ghaza strip against the Hamas rule, but I am not. Fine, don't believe me: Check this poll out by Ynet news:

In Gaza, the poll put Hamas at 28 percent against 33.6 percent for Abbas' Fatah.

And if that's not good enough, since Ynet are lying Zionist jews, how about one conducted by the Palestinian center for Public Opinion, where:

(40.6 %) are in favor of Fateh, (31.4 %) of Hamas.

And

(51.3 %) of the Palestinians are of the opinion that Hamas is navigating the country towards the wrong direction, (46 %) believe Fateh is doing that.

Hamas has lost the public opinion war. In a fair election they would be out on their asses. But no fair elections could take place in Ghaza under the current conditions. Empower the people of Ghaza to have an economic base and resiliency to stand up to the thugs in charge, help them get their democracy back, and I assure you that Hamas would be done with politically before 2010. And hey, if you are having security concernes, don't allow the people to travel out as long as Hamas is in power. Just allow goods to come in. Just allow the Ghazans to live, so that they can tell Hamas to fuck off forever.

Your other alternative is the current masturbatory exercise called the "ceasefire brokerd by the Egyptian government". The best case scenario would entail Hamas and Fatah joining up in some stupid totalitarian fated to fail "unity government", which will fall apart sooner or later and the current scenario will repeat itself. Or, in the worst case scenario, such a unity government succeeds, and you can kiss democracy in Ghaza and the Palestinian territories goodbye forever. After all, we would have a national unity government, why would there need be any elections anymore? And the bonus? Hamas would stay in power forever. How good does that sound?

Since neither one of those last two options sounds even remotely pleasant to me, let's stick to what works: Lift the economic blockade on Ghaza immedietly, under the conditions that a fair and internationally monitored elections would take place anywhere between 3 to 6 months, during which a ceasefire would be held. Parliamentary elections would be held first, followed by Presidential elections. Even if Hamas cheats, we would've provided with the Ghaza residents with enough economic power and money to start an effective resistence against Hamas, something they can't do at all under the current conditions. Oh, also there is the whole looking humanitarian thing and lifting the suffering of the Palestinian people, which can't be a bad PR move for Egypt or Israel at this point. It won't hurt, at least.

What do you think? Who is with me?

Philip Rizk, a german-egyptian filmmaker , was kidnapped by state security two days ago, when he was returning with a bunch of his activist friends from Qaluybia. The car was stopped, and of all the people in the car, he was picked out:

Said said police had detained their vehicle for several hours and
then said they wanted to talk with Rizk. They put him in a vehicle with
no licence plates and sped off. Other policemen then blocked the
activists' vehicle to prevent them from following.

"We don't know where he is, and there is no formal charge," Rizk's
sister said. She added that the German embassy had been notified and
were attempting to locate him.

This was 2 days ago, and there was no word of him, his whereabouts, or whether or not he is safe. This is a guy who, mind you, didn't advocate armed resistance in Ghaza, didn't support Hamas, didn't even demand retaliation for what happened. All his work is about non-violent resistance and activism. And that was enough for the egyptian authorities to make an example out of him.

Yesterday, the following happened:

Phil's parents went to the High Court downtaown Cairo to file a
complaint with the General Prosecutor against State Security for
abducting Philip.

A lot of friends have gathered outside the
Court house to show support and solidarity.The American University is
involved as well as the German Embassy (who was told at first by the
Sate Security that nobody called Philip had been arrested, later they
did acknowledge he was there).

Meanwhile through other contacts
we were able to locate Philip, he is being held by State Security at
their headquarters in downtown Cairo.

Now, even though he is located, even though he is being detained without charges (and what would the charges be? Organizing a peaceful march? Advocating non-violence?), even though he is half german, they still won;t let him out. The German passport is no shield in his case, because he is half egyptian, and thus prosecutable under egyptian law. Ha, egyptian law. What a joke.

I've known Philip from back in school and throughout my childhood. He is one of the sweetest people you will ever meet. He doesn;t deserve this. No one deserves this. No one deserves to be kidnapped by his own country's police, especially not for advocating peaceful and non-violent activism to a problem mirred with violence at all ends. So please, help us release him. If you have a media friend, let him know. If you have a blog, please post about it. Even if you disagree with his position, do it because someone's human rights have been violated, for advocating peaceful activism, no less.

Help us get him out. Please!