Tom in Egypt // توم في مصر

I'm afraid this post contains expletives. Not about the football, mind. The football scarcely merits comment, except to say I've never seen an English defence made to look so porous.

English football fans are notorious around the world for their despicable conduct. For some reason it brings the worst out of us, as a nation. I'm lucky enough only to have witnessed such behaviour on a handful of occasions. Sadly, today that list grew.

I don't meet many fellow Englishmen here in Cairo - it's mainly Americans and continental sorts I run into around and about. I was pleased, then, to see a compatriot greet me as I sat down to watch the match in a trendy and peaceful garden cafe in the leafy suburb of Maadi.

As Rooney and Defoe kicked off, a gentleman with a shock of hair which hardly looked his own asked if he could make use of one of the empty chairs at our table. I obliged - the more the merrier.

When an offside Miroslav Klose breezed past the hapless Matthew Upson to fire home Germany's first, the strange-haired man raised his fists and cheered. A German equivalent of "get in!" The Englishman and I exchanged glances, shellshocked and in awe of Upson's pathetic effort at "defending".

Minutes later, Podolski slotted home the second, and the German cheered again. His ecstasy must have been directly disproportional to my dismay. This was too much for my countryman. Concepts of stiff upper-lipped sportsmanship went out the window as the Englishman, maybe a little younger than myself, began a foul-mouthed tirade. "Stop screaming in my fucking ear! Just shut the fuck up." Turning, he moved to within a few inches of the German's face and let out an ugly shout, demonstrating his grievance. "How do you like it? I'll give you something to fucking scream about."

The stunned German tried to reason with him - it's only a game, just because you're losing... Upson made amends for his earlier mistake to make it 2-1, and once again the offensive youth turned, screaming in the German's face, nose to nose. The German sat peacefully, barely remonstrating, which seemed only to inflame the Englishman. As waiters and customers tried to calm the situation and prevent the young man from becoming more physically aggressive, I wanted to curl into a ball and hope no one would remember that I too was English. It was all I could do to meekly ask the waiters to turn the character out on his heels, and pray for any Germans celebrating their team in England. The waiters offered to reseat the Germany supporter. He politely declined.

As the screen showed replay after replay of the goal that never was, the German went out of his way to placate the young Englishman - it was a goal, it's clear, I'm sorry. The graceful self-deprecation continued throughout the match, and as the third and fourth went in, it was a more muted celebration shown. Fists in the air, but tight-lipped.

As the German left the match, I tried to apologise for my countryman's behaviour, but he didn't seem to listen, only extending his condolences about the margin of the result.

What it is about football, about England-Germany matches in particular, that leads us to such indignity is not entirely clear to me. There is simply no reasonable justification or explanation. I'm not sure I've ever felt quite so ashamed, embarrassed in front of my foreign colleagues and the gentle Egyptian waiters.

If, by chance, the Englishman I ran into today is reading this: You should be deeply, profoundly ashamed of yourself. I sincerely hope our paths never again cross, either in this crazy city or another. You have single handedly lost me my appetite for football at the time when it should be most celebrated.

Leaving the match, I felt sick to the stomach. And not at the result.

Here's my latest piece for Meedan on HuffPo, I'm pasting it here in its entirety as I think it's a pretty important event - check out the photo linked below (not the one in the actual post) and on my Facebook.

It's good to finally see ElBaradei getting his hands dirty as it were and actually standing alongside Egyptians in protest: judging from the shrill tone of the Gomhoreyya piece below I think the turnout stung the government. How they can claim only 400 people turned out, even in light of photos showing many, many more EVERYWHERE online is an absolute mystery. One of the pieces I linked to is particularly interesting, from the state mouthpiece Al-Ahram. Here the writer seems to be criticizing the police for not coming up with a credible explanation for how Said died, but also notes how the family's narrative spread like wildfire over the internet and quickly became the accepted version of events. It seems the writer at Gomhoreyya wasn't paying attention and decided to opt, once again, for the incredible lies rather than the painful (for them) truth.

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The death of a young businessman in Alexandria, Egypt, reportedly at the hands of two police officers, has led thousands to the streets in protest against police brutality, writes Tom Trewinnard.

Since news of Khaled Said's death broke several weeks ago, gruesome pictures of his mutilated skull have appeared on many blogs and Facebook pages juxtaposed with images of Said looking youthful and fresh-faced - stark visual evidence lending credence to Said's family's allegations that their son was beaten to death by two local police officers.

Mamoun al-Bassiouni, in an unusually critical article for pro-governmental daily Rose Al-Youssef, writes:

لا يوجد ما يقنع أو يبرّر ما تردد أن يقوم اثنان من المخبرين بدفع رأس متّهم في شريحة رخامية داخل المحل الذي ذهب اثنان من المخبرين، للقبض عليه فيه ! وهو ما أدي إلي إصابته وتلطيخ وجهه بالدماء، ثمّ يقومان بسحله إلي داخل مدخل إحدي العمارات المجاورة ويضربانه بقسوة ويخبطان رأسه في الباب الحديد حتّي كسرت أسنانه وصمت نهائيّا وفقد حقّه في قدرته علي الصراخ .

The official version of events as reported in the state media, however, insists that Said died as a result of "asphyxiation". An official autopsy earlier this week also found this to be the case, although the aforementioned image, along with eyewitness reports, seem to discredit this version of events. Writing in the largest of the state-run papers, Al-Ahram, Hazem Abdel Rahman comments on the speed with which the family's story was spread and accepted, and laments the official police response:

 للأسف‏..‏ فإن البيانات الصادرة عن الشرطة حول الحادث‏,‏ عجزت وفشلت في تقديم تفسير منطقي للحادث وما أسفر عنه من وفاة خالد‏..‏ فقد انصب اهتمام الشرطة علي تصوير خالد في صورة مسجل خطر أو بلطجي أو حشـاش أو هارب من التجنيد‏...‏الخ‏.‏ وكل هذا لا يجيب عن سؤال‏:‏ إذا افترضنا أن كل هذا صحيح‏..‏ فهل يجوز تصفيته؟‏!‏

With many critics deriding the official investigation carried out thus far as a whitewash, Mohammed Esmat in independent daily Al-Shorouk called for a more honest and open inquest into the death, and warned of the potential consequences if this does not happen:

الكرة الآن فى ملعب اللواء حبيب العادلى الذى ينبغى ان يفتح تحقيقا أمينا ونزيها فى واقعة وفاة خالد سعيد، وتوقيع عقوبات رادعة ضد المخبرين اللذين تسببا فى وفاته، إذا ثبت ذلك، من أجل فتح صفحة جديدة فى علاقة الشرطة بشباب هذا الوطن الذين سيواصلون بالقطع مسيرة المظاهرات ومسيرة البانجو.. طالما استمرت حكوماتنا فى سياساتها الراهنة، دون ان تعطيهم أملا فى تغيير واقعهم البائس!

As the protests got underway in Said's home city of Alexandria, attendees posted pictures, videos and text updates on Twitter - many choosing to focus on the significant, if brief, attendance of Mohammed ElBaradei, who has taken a leading role in campaigning for reform in Egypt since returning to the country earlier this year. Karima Kamal, writing in Al-Masry Al-Youm before the demonstration, noted the potential significance of the protests:

ربما تكون هذه هى المرة الأولى منذ سنوات عديدة التى يخرج فيها المصريون فى الخارج احتجاجا على ما يجرى فى الداخل بعيدا عن احتجاج الأقباط على ما يعانيه أهلهم فى الداخل مما يعتبرونه تمييزا ضدهم. هذه المرة يخرج المصريون جميعا بصفتهم مصريين ليعترضوا على ما يجرى فى بلدهم بعيدا عن الطائفية وتصنيفاتها

The strongly pro-governmental Al-Gomhoreyya went on the attack against ElBaradei, belittling the protests as part of a political exercise on his part and claiming the number of protesters was insignificant (in spite of photos published online which suggest otherwise):

أعطي السكندريون درسا قاسيا للبرادعي وأنصاره من جمعية التغيير بغيابهم عن المسرحية السياسية التي أعدها مع رفاقه بمسجد سيدي جابر حيث كان يروج أن الملايين سوف يكونون في انتظاره ولم يزد عدد من انتظره علي 400 شخص.

Opposition leaders, however, will be unlikely to see the demonstrations as the "hard lesson" Al-Gomhoreyya describes. They were quick to emphasize that the protest wasn't about politics, but about "expressing indignation at this kind of torture". Ayman Nour, another senior opposition figure and former presidential candidate, summarised the impact of people taking to the street in protest, speaking to Al-Masry Al-Youm:

إن هذه الوقفة جاءت فرصة تتوحد فيها القوى السياسية ضد حالة الطوارئ وتعبيراً عن الحالة السياسية فى مصر والتي أظهرت كتلتين، الأولى لنظام يحكم بشكل منعزل وقوى وطنية تتضامن مع المواطنين فى مواجهة الاستبداد 

Thanks to Ghaydaa, Yaser, Aya and Shaimaa for translations.  You can add your view in two languages on http://news.Meedan.net.

I am still here, in case anyone was worrying. Work is going well, and as ever there's plenty to do - updates for the by now mercilessly neglected Tom in Egypt have thus fallen off the wagon.

A few things to check out:

The Arab-West Report website is slowly but surely making progress - check out the couple of YouTube videos we have posted along with TopNews items, courtesy of new intern Bill Gallo.

For Meedan, I've used translated content from our site to write up a couple of media round ups for the Economist: An "idiotic jihad" (on the attempted Times Square bomb) and Reactions to the raid (on the flotilla killings)

Hopefully these will be a regular feature over at the Economist; they're great fun to write and the translators at Meedan have put in a sterling effort to help me produce them.

Currently missing UK coverage of the World Cup, and UK media savagery of horrendous goalkeeping errors. Bring back David Seaman!