Ikhwanweb :: The Muslim Brotherhood Official English Website

Cosmopolitan Islamism and its Critics

4Shbab is an emerging music-television channel based in Cairo, financed by Saudi investors, and directed towards a global Muslim public. Through its programming and public and private statements of its main producer, Ahmed Abu Haiba, it hopes to articulate a source of entertainment set apart from other music video channels by a religiously motivated practice of selecting material based on moral or ethical criteria...

Islamic Televangelism: Religion, Media and Visuality in Contemporary Egypt

For the three characters of this film and thousands of other young Egyptians, Amr Khaled’s brand of Islamic televangelism is merely one element – however prominent – of the diffuse and variegated..

The Gaza War, Theater and the Big Interview

The military phase of the Gaza war started on December 27, 2008, when Israel launched an attack on the Gaza Strip. It ended on 18 January, 2009, when Israel, and then its opponent, Hamas, each declared a unilateral cease-fire. Israel began a ground invasion on January 3 and withdrew on January 21. The numbers pointed to the disproportionate nature of the carnage: estimates of Palestinian dead ranged from 1,166 to 1,417 while the Israeli figure for their side was 13. Visual images of Palestinian children killed or maimed were carefully omitted by one side in what came to be called the media wars, while for the other, they were a staple...

Commentary - the move away from big pan-Arab channels

The Arab media scene in the last few years of the first decade of the third millennium has totally changed from what we had seen in the first half of the same decade. Pan-Arab channels seem to have given up their place as the most viewed TV channels to national (local) channels. In parallel, news channels seem to have lost their former glamor, unable to compete against the ever-increasing number of sports and movie channels...

The Brotherhood and Politics: This Ain’t Working

Political Islam” : Not really a Useful Term. Often times in the American media, the MB is classified as a “Political Islam” group but this is so misleading. In my view, we have to classify the group as they classify themselves, in their local discourse which would be “a group that seems comprehensive and gradual reform of society through deep engagement with society.” Yes, I know that doesn’t sound as interesting, and its harder to get that concept across in a brief NY TIMES op-ed..

Historicizing Arab blogs: Reflections on the transmission of ideas and information in Middle Eastern

Arab blogs have caught the attention of Middle East watchers. Much of the attention dedicated to them, however, has dealt with their political importance, whether as a mobilizing tool for activists or as an alternative source of news reporting. Blogging is also interesting, ..

Book Review: Media Censorship in the Middle East

This slim volume by Jabbar Audah al-Obaidi promises to address questions of media censorship and the techniques used to bring it about in the Middle East. It delivers a spirited argument summoning the need for an open and unfettered media environment across the region. Identifying an insular and regressive culture as well as poor socioeconomic development as evidence of past failures, al-Obaidi calls on authorities to alter policy in an effort to advance their societies and engage ci..

Repairing American public diplomacy

It is widely believed among academics who study the subject, and among former practitioners, that public diplomacy has not achieved its full potential,[1] and we are hopeful that the Obama Administration will now solve some of its problems. This essay focuses on the most important challenges, which in many ways concern broadcasting to the Arab world...

A new direction or more of the same?

The original incident for which the two police officers were ultimately convicted occurred in January 2006 when 21-year-old ‘Imad al-Kabir, a Cairo minibus driver, intervened in a fight between his cousin and two plainclothes police officers. ‘Imad was taken back to the police station where he was beaten and sodomized with a stick. The whole ordeal was recorded on one of the officers’ cell phones in order to send the clip to local minibus drivers to further humiliate ‘Imad. The origi..

Revolutions Without Revolutionaries? Network Theory, Facebook, and the Egyptian Blogosphere

The amazing thing is that much of this activity can be traced directly or indirectly to actions taken on the Internet – and also that it was facilitated greatly by it. Of course a number of people and organizations had a hand in the day’s events but it is no exaggeration to say that none of us would have found ourselves in the midst of a protest if not for the efforts of one obscure woman from outside of Cairo. She is not the type of person you would have expected to be behind massive ..

Core to Commonplace: The evolution of Egypt’s blogosphere

Many bloggers, furthermore, were able to build credentials via their blogging to get positions freelancing. As several bloggers noted, many of the youth working with independent news media like al-Dustur, AMAY, Ikhwanweb and al-Jazeera Talk started as bloggers then became journalists. Brotherhood bloggers said they felt compelled in many cases to freelance on the side of their studies because the organizaion does not have its own newspaper or channel.lix “The media are the greates..

Core to Commonplace: The evolution of Egypt’s blogosphere

Many bloggers, furthermore, were able to build credentials via their blogging to get positions freelancing. As several bloggers noted, many of the youth working with independent news media like al-Dustur, AMAY, Ikhwanweb and al-Jazeera Talk started as bloggers then became journalists. Brotherhood bloggers said they felt compelled in many cases to freelance on the side of their studies because the organizaion does not have its own newspaper or channel.lix “The media are the greates..

Full Text: Draft Egyptian Broadcast Law

Article 1: 1- Competent Minister: Minister of Information 2- Authority: National Authority for Audiovisual Broadcasting Regulation 3- Board of Directors: Board of Directors of the National Authority for Audiovisual Broadcasting Regulation ..

The Princess and the Facebook Girl

Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, there lived a beautiful princess. Hers was a fairytale existence of spectacular palaces and footmen with gleaming swords and, of course, a handsome prince...

Censorship and social realism at the Cairo Book Fair

The once bustling Nasr City Fair Grounds now stand empty. The hundreds of participating publishers have packed up, the exhibition stands dismantled and the thousands of visitors, scholars, students and families gone home with their new books...

Al Arabiya “Three senior clerics stop their shows on An-Nas channel...”

“A source in An-Nas religious satellite channel, admitted that three senior clerics presenting shows on it stopped their shows following the recent appearance of young cleric Amr Khaled on its screen. The source who requested anonymity said to Al-Arabiya..

Egypt press shows mixed reaction to European Parliament’s human rights move

The European Parliament (EP) convened as scheduled on 17 January and passed a resolution criticizing the human rights situation in Egypt. From the start, Cairo’s reaction was sharp, including the cancellation of political talks with senior EU officials and criticism of "the situation of minorities in Europe"...

Is the Egyptian government at war with its people?

When riot police point rifles loaded with rubber bullets at Egyptians trying to vote we have to ask: Is the Egyptian government at war with its people?..

Is the Egyptian government at war with its people?

When riot police point rifles loaded with rubber bullets at Egyptians trying to vote we have to ask: Is the Egyptian government at war with its people?..

Egypt’s Press: More free, still fettered

The court complex on Galaa Street in Downtown Cairo is one of the more dispiriting edifices of the Egyptian justice system. The graying, corpulent building is a warren of dank and cramped courtrooms, leaking pipes and crumbling walls. The general effect is an atmosphere that would inspire dread in all but the most plucky of defendants...