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Egypt dissent yet to get from Facebook to the streets
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Egypt dissent yet to get from Facebook to the streets
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By Shaimaa Fayed
CAIRO (Reuters) - Internet campaigns for political reform in Egypt are losing traction because opposition groups have failed to channel online voices into a grass-roots movement capable of challenging the authorities.
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By Shaimaa Fayed
CAIRO |
Sun Nov 21, 2010 7:54am EST
CAIRO (Reuters) - Internet campaigns for political reform in Egypt are losing traction because opposition groups have failed to channel online voices into a grass-roots movement capable of challenging the authorities.
Calls for constitutional change by presidential hopeful Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, garnered quarter of a million supporters on a Facebook page earlier this year, but the campaign appears to have fizzled.
The web is among the few public platforms for angry voices in Egypt, where rights groups say an emergency law in place since 1981 has been used to silence critics of President Hosni Mubarak, 82, and his ruling National Democratic Party (NDP).
Just a week before a parliamentary poll widely expected to produce a routine NDP victory, activists and analysts doubt that online dissent can provoke real change without the backing of a popular opposition leader or a unified opposition movement.
"There are (labor) strikes happening on the ground but has the organized opposition managed to interact with them or not? Unfortunately, I have to say, the opposition's performance has been largely dismal," said blogger Hossam Hamalawy.
Facebook campaigns were credited by some for helping galvanize 2008 protests against rising prices and low wages that led to clashes with police in the Delta city of Mahalla el-Kubra. But Hamalawy says the Internet was not the catalyst.
"It was people on the ground not connected to Facebook who rioted...in Mahalla," he said. "The Internet can just provide a platform for solidarity with that movement on the ground."
SCATTERED OPPOSITION
In Iran, social networking sites such as Twitter helped draw huge crowds of protesters onto the streets after a disputed 2009 presidential election. No such scenario seems likely in Egypt for its November 28 poll or its 2011 presidential vote.
"These youth movements are not really tied to any official party," said Sarah Hassan, regional analyst at IHS Global Insight. "When we see one that has a manifesto and a more organized establishment, that could be a real leap."
After initial media publicity for his pro-democracy demands, ElBaradei has mostly shunned the spotlight in recent months.
"I voted for ElBaradei online, on his website," said graphic designer Faris Hassanein, 27. "I even designed posters, but when he didn't do anything for some time, I just lost interest."
The main opposition movement, the officially banned Muslim Brotherhood, faces tough restrictions. Police often round up its members without charge and detain them for long periods.
Without openly confronting the state, the group has used the web to promote its rallying cry "Islam is the solution," despite a ban on election candidates using religion-based slogans.
Many Brotherhood members are young people and university students, said political analyst Nabil Abdel Fattah. "They are the people who use these new (technology) tools the most."
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