al Jazerra focus on bloggers and Egypt

On wednesday night al Jazerra broadcasted a documentary on bloggers in the Arab World, most of it focused on Egypt, but also on Iraq and Morocco.

Interviews with Nora Younis, Wael Abbas and Hossam al Hamalawy as well as Karim al Beheiri and Khadija Hassan Malek , Karim of course is currently in the Burg al Arab prison after what took place in Mahalla on April 6-7th. Khadija´s father has just been handed a seven-year prison sentence in a military court, were 25 Muslim Brothers got prison sentencences between 2-10 years. Khadija together with the other children of the 40 tried Muslim Brothers created the blog Ensa? to tell the world about the case and the ordeal the families of the detainees, and first and foremost to say that ¨we won´t forget¨

Bouthayna Kamel from Shayfeen.com is also being interviewed, and clips from Shayfeen.com and the very good documentary about the organization is shown in the documentary.

Last but certainly not least, the person who showed so much courage to come forward with his story about how he was tortured inside a police station, Imad al Kabir is also interviewed.

It´s very much a story of how the Egyptian blogosphere has matured and developed during the last three years from 25th of May 2005 to Mahalla and beyond, going from blogging alone to playing a significant role in society as an alternative news provider, giving perspective from a vide spectrum on important issues in society and as proven in cases like the mass assaults on girls in downtown Cairo, Emad al Kabir and Mahalla it has grown to citizen journalism.

al Jazeera English has another documentary on Egypt tonight, Saturday at 19:00 GMT, and re- runs on Sunday 0000, 0500 and 1000GMT, it´s called a Nation in Waiting and takes a look on the major events during President Mubarak´s 26 years and seven months in power, which is almost a third of his life, he is also the longest serving head of state since the father of Modern Egypt ruled between 1805-1848. The President celebrates his 80 birthday tomorrow, presumably in Sharm al Sheikh.