Egyptian activist risks her life after posting full frontal nude shot online sparking outrage among Muslims

 

Wearing nothing but a pair of stockings, red ribbon in her hair and a pair of flat red shoes, the black and white shot would not look out of place in a nude photography book.

But this is no ordinary art project. It is the work of a feminist Egyptian activist who is making a bold and potentially dangerous statement.

Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, a 20-year old university student from Cairo, has sparked outrage in the Middle East with the controversial full-length image, posted on her blog last week.

It has since received 1.5 million hits and thousands flooded the site with insults. Some denounced Elmahdy as a 'prostitute' and 'mentally sick' or urged police to arrest her.

Elmahdy's posting is almost unheard of in a country where nudity is strongly frowned upon - even as an art form and could lead to her being jailed.

Most women in the Muslim majority Egypt wear the headscarf and even those who don't rarely wear clothes exposing the arms or legs in public.

On her arabic blog, Aliaa defends her actions, writing: 'Hide all art books and smash naked archaeological statues.

'Then take off your clothes and look at yourselves in the mirror, then burn your body that you so despise to get rid of your sexual complexes forever, before subjecting me to your bigoted insults or denying my freedom of expression.'

But her attempts at protesting limits on free expression may have backfired.

Rather than garner support from the Liberals hoping to win the November 28th election, they are keen to distance themselves from the blogger.

They fear she will taint them in the eyes of deeply conservative Egyptians and, ruining their chances at competing with fundamentalist Islamic parties.

Egypt, a nation of some 85 million people, is polarised between Islamists and liberals ahead of the elections, the first since the February downfall of former President Hosni Mubarak.

Members of the most hardline Islamic movement, the Salafis, have warned voters that liberals will corrupt Egypt's morals.

'This hurts the entire secular current in front of those calling themselves the people of virtue,' Sayyed el-Qimni, a prominent self-described secular figure, said referring to Islamists.

'It's is a double disaster. Because I am liberal and I believe in the right of personal freedom, I can't interfere,' El-Qimni said on Egyptian TV.

The April 6 movement, one of the most prominent liberal activist groups that led the 18-day uprising against Mubarak, issued a statement denying claims by some on the web that Elmahdy is a member of the group.

The posting prompted furious discussions on internet social media sites, with pages for and against her put up on Facebook.

One activist, Ahmed Awadallah, praised her in a Tweet, writing, 'I'm totally taken back by her bravery.'

A supporter, who identified himself as Emad Nasr Zikri, wrote in a comment on Elmahdy's blog, 'We need to learn how to separate between nudity and sex.'

He said that before fundamentalist influence in Egypt, 'there were nude models in art school for students to draw'.

Some 100 people liked his comment.

Elmahdy and her boyfriend Kareem Amer, also a controversial blogger, have challenged Egypt's social conventions before.

Earlier this year, they posted mobile phone video footage of themselves debating with managers of a public park who threw them out for public displays of affection.

Amer spent four years in prison for blog posting deemed insulting to Islam and for calling Mubarak a 'symbol of tyranny'.

See: http://arebelsdiary.blogspot.com/?zx=4dce43e459aa7dcf

 

Who is the next victim of NFF's fighting spirit?

This is a guest report from Pat Omorodion

NFF give us this kind of smiles not fighting all

Hi all, a couple of weeks ago, I wrote via this medium, advising Emeka Inyama not to bite the same people that joined him in crying for his mandate that was almost stolen by the same men at the NFF he was now defending. I felt it was too early for him to start derailing. But again, yesterday I saw something from him, I still doubt he made those statements, calling Chief Segun Odegbami names.

I feel strongly that those words were crafted by Demola Olajire, I know how he writes. He has written same about Onigbinde, Amiesimaka and even my own boss in the office, Ikeddy Isiguzo who at one time or the other, voiced their opinion on football administration. So it is very sad if Inyama could allow himself to be used by the NFF to abuse Odegbami.

My first question to Inyama or Olajire is, has it become a crime to criticise the NFF, a body run by the tax payers money? Second question, has both men achieved what Odegbami hasn't achieved, professionally or academically? Patriotically, who between them has served Nigeria more and better? I am ashamed that the NFF is citing Laloko's Pepsi Academy to judge Odegbami's, why not talk about the one they claimed they floated, ironically to rubbish or frustrate Laloko who dumped their technical department job because of their inept administrative machinery which ran contrary to his beliefs.

Is Inyama or Olajire aware that the Odegbami academy they talked about is also a secondary school, where sports and education are supposed to go hand in hand and not their warped idea of an academy where fathers and grandfathers are paraded as little boys, to continue to perpetrate their evil cheating agenda? They should take a trip to Wasimi to see if the school has ceased to exist. They talk as if the NFF is their personal property which no one else can aspire to belong to.

What makes Inyama more qualified to be a member of the NFF than Odegbami? They, yes, Inyama and Olajire, claim Odegbami could not run an academy and wants to run the NFF. How successful are the businesses Inyama was part of, from Sports Link to so many others, including his television programmes which he borrowed tapes from Odegbami's Worldwide sports to run?

For Olajire, how successful was the sports newspaper he ran for his godfather, Amos Adamu in Ikeja in the 1990s. I am afraid the venture never lived beyond a year. They said Odegbami should tell them who he spent money on during the NFF election, why must he do that? Or is Inyama saying he too never spent a kobo on his own election. It couldn't have been because those leeches who make up the so-called electorate couldn't have voted for him because they are mostly cash and carry electorates.

Why would Odegbami not 'chicken out' from the NFF election as they claim, when there was a grand design to install a puppet to please the czar of our football and their godfather whose arse they can lick to get whatever they want. Odegbami, like Ibrahim Galadima, whom they betrayed and pushed out, can never be pushed around and will not do their bidding, so they always gang up to frustrate him each time he offers himself to serve.

I will advise Inyama not to burn his fingers too early as a member of the NFF. He should leave Olajire to do his herculean job of trying to polish the image of the worst NFF in Nigeria's history. Or is he trying to take over from Chris Green who is the unofficial spokesman of the NFF? What has Maigari they installed against Odegbami done with our football since he assumed office? What programme to lift our football has he initiated?

Instead he is busy recycling the same people who ran football aground, making them match commissioners and co-ordinators. It is a shame that Nigeria keeps shutting out her best hands in all endeavours, sports and football are just two of the many.

Any wonder why the country is constantly on reverse gear? This country and her football belongs to us all and not to those who schemed their way into the NFF, so we are free to criticise the NFF. The money used in running that place does not belong to anyone of those occupying there now but it is our common wealth. They have not finished fighting Jide Fashikun, they now want to start another one with Odegbami. Who is next now?

It is time for war!

Proverbs 2:22.

 
I am incurably Ekiti. I have, retained and sustained all the attributes of an Ekiti man, well schooled in all the arts and sciences of life and living. I have never once declared a battle nor war publicly in my life. I declare this today.

War has been called. There is no retreat no surrender. The knell has sounded. Merchants are selling deaths. Buyers are waiting to buy. There is no unsold. It must be sold or bought. There must be spoils of war. Deaths, metaphorical, must be recorded. Let the orphans take to their heels. Those who are still breastfeeding should detour through the paths meant for the women.
I remember that I have gone through these paths alone and shredded all the armoury with loads of money.

As I did when I started the battle of Kiriji against the Sani Abdullahi Lulu board, I will soon come back to tell you the story. They took their N10m back in shame with which they were to buy me (I told the nation on AIT). I sold their skins for the cost they are paying now.

Let him who has ears snitch to the deaf to return home. My spear has touched the air that men breathe, it must drink from the liquid of life before it returns to the sheathe. My spear does not and will never fall. My genre never dies in war. It comes out violently but goes back drenched in valiance with dripping pints of carmine blood, fresh and waiting to clot.

"A lo ya onibode apomu". No wonder, as a 10 year old, fate threw me to the feral harmattan winds of Zaria in green uniform moulding me for tomorrow. Was it for this fight too? No wonder I paid for the bullet wound, on the neck, from behind without death. For this, my life remains a sacred function. No wonder I ran the green patchy fields where football is played and hailed by all in every spartan space.

I am a child of destiny. I have gone to battles against governments and institutions. Abacha tried, Baba Adamu Iyam, the airforce group captain did, Peter Asum Mbu Ogar, then a Colonel, as Kwara governor fought, my good avuncular friend now late, Rear Admiral Mohammed Lawal tried. I came out.

Like every battle, the one I am entering today will take in more souls. Balzebbub, are you not the one the Yorubas call Sango? It is your sacrifice. Come with me, take your dues. Pick their carcasses and fete.

They tried hard before now. They came after my breathe but took my car. They tied me down with sickness that had no diagnosis. I returned to their shock. They have now taken the gaunt to the physical. Like I defeated them and their immediate predecessors at the spiritual, so this physical shall be. They don't know you can't take a Cherubim & Seraphim like a rat. Lol!

Nigerians. Celebrate and rejoice. I will deliver football independence to you. This Ali Babas will go down. It is a refreshed game I will bring to you. I don't need your prayers. I don't want your support. Bid me welcome when I return from war. Whatever make the hand travel to the mouth and returns, I will return. It is kick off. See you at full time.

DIARY OF A JOURNALIST DETAINED BY POLICE FOR THREE HOURS

Jonathan...these NFF people giving me headache

The Nigerian Football crises has taken a new turn. It is now a crime for one to be a diligent journalist in Nigeria doing a legitimate professional duty. At 6:15pm on the 9^th November, 2011 Messrs Christopher Green, Tunde Aderibigbe and Robinson Okosun, agents of the illegal NFF, employed the services of the Nigerian Police with a lawyer from the CITY LAW CHAMBERS to invade the offices of the national accord newspaper in Jabi-Abuja to arrest the Acting Daily Editor, Mr. Olajide Fashikun.

His offence? He had the effrontery to write FIFA’s Ethics Committee reporting Joseph Sepp Blatter and Jerome Valcke, FIFA’s President and Secretary General respectively. The Policemen stormed the quiet office of the paper to effect the arrest and had to harass the journalists on duty. This is the second invasion of a Nigerian media house by the Police given the recent invasion of TheNation newspaper.

According to the petition written by the illegal NFF, I have defamed them. It made me to laugh so heartily and made the Police to realise that they were running a bad script. The Police would listen to voice whose decibels are deafening. They were twisting all facts upside down. My unpertubed nature vexed them to high heavens. The NFF goons and their lawyer were dictating “he must be arrested and detained. His laptop must be retained until the matter is completely investigated and he must be told to stop writing his inciting articles on his blog.”

At the Inspector General of Police Monitoring Unit on the first floor of the Louis Edet House in Garki area 10, the ‘complainants’ claimed I, Olajide Fashikun, a journalist, published on my blog, www.olajidefashikun.blogspot.com falsehood and maligned their character. I blushed. People who have no juristic personality are talking of defamation!

Two, people who are standing trial for forgery used the Police to re-investigate a journalist who is doing his professional duty. The same cabals who had held Nigerian football to ransom for almost five years and frustrated the efforts of the Federal Government to reform football, are on this new scheme, to truncate the Dominic Oneya reform committee.

The Police feels the Solicitor General of the Federation offered his June 2011 legal advice which declared that the NFF is illegal and not known to Nigerian law as “personal opinion”. I referred to the fact that the illegal members who call themselves NFF even sued the Inspector General of Police (IGP) not in their capacity as NFF but as individuals. They re-frustrated the Federal Government and the IGP from carrying out the orders of Justice Abang’s court which said their election is illegal, null and void and of no effect. They petitioned the Police as individuals against me not as NFF.

I was so amazed that the Police were rationalizing that FIFA President may have signed regularly all the 18 documents I made reference to and decided to sign the 19^th document of 14^th September (ironically, my birthday) differently. That was where I started losing confidence in the Police. I had already prepared my mind to sleep in their detention centre.

Just three days back, I was joking with two of my reporter colleagues that it was a long time I had been arrested for any report I had written not realizing this was coming to pass in a matter of days after. I left the Police when Jarret Tenebe and Chikelue Iloenyosi were alerted by Harrison Jalla that the Police had arrested me. Jalla got the information from concerned persons who read same from the hungry slaves of the NFF who were celebrating the arrest of their only unrepentant media enemy on the various facebook and other networks.

How on earth can the monkeys in the Glass House whose membership consists of criminals like a dismissed magistrate who was dismissed from the Oyo State Magistracy think I will go down like that. I am blessed to be a journalist and will not cease being a journalist. This is my calling. I have a duty from heaven to achieve. No one, I repeat, no one can stop me.  

At the point when the detention form was filled, the officer in charge, ACP Ladodo, a trained journalist himself, who doubted my evidences, refused to sign the detention order. He told his men: “release him on bail”. I was then told, my laptop and back-up are detained. I was released at 9:30pm. That made my detention a three-hour ordeal.

I got 51 calls from friends and relations who had read on the twitter, facebook, BB broadcasts, etc that I had been arrested. I visited twitter and found out that the girlfriend of NFF’s Sola Ogunlowo, Ronke Ogunleye, sent in: “Jide Fashikun has been arrested by the FCID for supplying FALSE INFORMATION to them accusing NFF of forgery”

Ironically, I never wrote the Police. That was the first puncture I did to the unlearned argument of the NFF lawyer. The same trash Ronke Ogunleye sold like a dummy to her friends on twitter. Like I told her earlier, “when an old woman goes to play in the sand with young kids, they will play with her flat breasts”.

The same NFF had attempted just like the tenure of Sani Abdullahi Lulu to lure me with money to join them. My continued refusal has made me a target. They see all my reportage activities as antagonistic.

Forgery: Maigari, step aside under investigation -Nnodi‏

Musa Amadu...NFF acting Secretary General

*We will sue Jalla, Tenebe, others - NFF

*Why Keshi won't get free hand -Udoh‏

While Channels TV’s Sports This Morning guest analyst, Okonta Nnodi, has called on the President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Alhaji Aminu Maigari, to step aside during the investigation of the allegation of forgery of the signature of FIFA President, the NFF has threatened to sue its adversaries and the Super Eagles spokesman, Colins Udoh has shown why new gaffer, Keshi, will not get a free hand to manage the national team.

Nnodi made the call during the presentation of the popular  breakfast programme saying, “If the norms were right, the leadership of the NFF led by Alhaji Aminu Maigari are supposed to step aside while the inquest into the signature forgery is on.”

Sources close to the NFF President, Aminu Maigari and technical committee boss, Chris Green, who were both invited last week by the police following allegations of signature forgery have called on the Police high command to get to the root of the matter and if there was no forgery those who made the allegations should be charged for character defamation and false allegation.” They were silent on what should happen if the forgery is proved.

“We’re shocked at such allegations but we have visited the police to clear our names and they have indeed seen reason with us but those who made the allegations, no matter how highly placed and who is sponsoring them must face the law, because they have impugned our character and that of the NFF.

The source quoting the NFF buffs added, “If at the end of the day, the Police fail to sue them for false allegations we might be forced to handle the case ourselves, because it was a well publicised matter”.

In a related development, Super eagles spokesman, Colins Udoh from his twitter has shown that if the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) were buoyant they may not have employed Stephen Keshi as the coach of the senior national team.
According to Udoh on his twitter handle, "NFF can’t afford foreign coach. Keshi will NOT be given the free hand Siasia got. His confirmation dependent on agreeing those terms." Interpreted, as soon as the NFF gets money, they may bring a white skinned coach to boss Keshi.
However, we are not aware if Keshi agreed to the three-terms that formed part of the conditions Udoh has stated the NFF considered to give the coach the job. Udoh, however, is expected to work with Keshi as media officer of the Super Eagles when he resumes.
 It would be recalled that we had reported earlier the plan to engage Keshi on an interim basis, such that he is programmed to fail and discountenance the competence of local coaches to make way for foreign coaches.
Udoh's revelation may be confirming that the changed positions of the NFF buffs to offer the former Super Eagles captain remains a smokescreen as the aim is still on the burner.

…Which NFF is threatening to sue? – Jalla

President of the National Association of  Nigerian Footballers (NANF), Harrison Jalla, who reported the forgery of the signature of the FIFA President, Sepp Blatter, by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to the police has reacted to the threat from the NFF to go to court for defamation and libel.

According to him in a telephone interview, “which NFF are you talking about? They should first of all go and clear the rubbish of the forgery matter. Do they have a corporate personality that can be maligned or and libeled? They are a non-juristic person. The letter from the Solicitor General of the Federation is too clear even for those who never attended school. They are not known to Nigerian laws.”

“Please tell them, they should face some other directions. Not here. Court? They must have woken from the very wrong side of the bed. I beg, my brother, save your credit. They are not worth burning your credit to seek for this reaction.”

NFF consults spiritualists to cleanse Nigerian football

The leadership of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) may have resolved to ask God to intervene in the downward slide of affairs of the game employing the services of some clergymen who have a contract to start praying for the restoration of the game in the country.

Reports asserted that the Aminu Maigari-led Executive Committee has in the last few days met with several men of God at the NFF secretariat in Abuja, with the sole aim of finding a lasting spiritual way out of the quagmire of crises and strings of losses recorded by Nigerian teams in international football.

According to our source, “these men of God have been brought to come and pray and sanctify the Glass House. All enemies of the board were binded with prayers. They have brought both local and international clergymen. One of them is Rev. Edward Ediakorsa, who attended the NFF emergency meeting where the decision to sack Siasia was taken. He came from the United States of America. Two others who are based in Nigeria had also visited. The pastors have been holding series of meeting with the Acting General Secretary of the NFF, Musa Amadu in his office.

One of the home-based cleric, who is always a part of the Super Eagles team to major international tournaments attributed the failure of the immediate past coach of the Super Eagles, Samson Siasia, to his negative disposition to spiritual instructions. Ediakorsa was quoted to have stated that before the 8^th October, 2011 match against Guinea, which cost the Super Eagles a qualifying ticket to the Nations Cup, he had sent a text message to Siasia on what to do, but the coach snubbed the advice.”

The NFF, it was gathered, was not ruling out the influence of evil forces in the litany of woes that has bedeviled Nigerian football.

When contacted on the latest initiative taken by the NFF Secretary General of the Federation, Musa Amadu, was surprised that “consulting God was being made an issue. In anything you do you must pray for God’s guidance” he was quoted to have volunteered.

Nigeria is a nation where spirituality is employed in the management of the game. Recently, when the nation lost qualifying for the 2012 African Nations Cup by playing2-2 home draw in Abuja to Guinea, Lagos-based prophet T. B. Joshua was blamed for prophesying the result of the game earlier. There were news reports that the same NFF then, brought to camp another spiritualist to counter the prediction of T. b. Joshua. The situation is not too different in the clubsides where a whole lot of money is weekly set aside for spiritual consultation called ‘tactical’.

nation’s soccer ruling body has been under intense pressure following failure of the different categories of the national team to qualify for major competitions, the height of which was the inability of the Super Eagles to qualify for the 2012 African Cup of Nations and Super Falcons’ exit from the women’s soccer event of next year’s Olympic Games.