"New Egypt" Feature: Military Censors Its Critics (Kirkpatrick)

Even the mildest criticism of the Egyptian military was too much for Mahmoud Saad, a television host on the newly founded, independent Tahrir television network.

“Any institution of the country that takes taxes from us should be open to question,” Hossam el-Hamalawy, a blogger, said in an interview with Mr. Saad.

“No, no, no,” Mr. Saad interrupted. “I will not allow you to say those things on this network.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hossam,” he declared, hanging up.  

The next day Mr. Hamalawy and two other liberal television journalists, but not Mr. Saad, were summoned to a military headquarters for questioning about their remarks.

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Yemen, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Destroying the Protest Camp

Claimed footage of security forces firing on mass crowd in Taiz in Yemen today

1950 GMT: The Italian Foreign Ministry says it has temporarily shut the Embassy in Yemen and withdrawn all staff.

1940 GMT: Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa has called for talks on reform involving all parties as the regime says it will lift a state of emergency on Wednesday.

Al-Khalifa said the discussions would begin on 1 July, according to the State news agency BNA: "The king called on everyone to take part...to push forward reform for development in all areas and to firmly anchor the bases of the reform process." Al-Khalifa had told journalists that the talks would be "comprehensive, serious, and without preconditions".

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Egypt Feature: The Military's Virginity Checks on Protesters (Amin)

 A senior Egyptian general admits that "virginity checks" were performed on women arrested at a demonstration this spring, the first such admission after previous denials by military authorities.

The allegations arose in an Amnesty International report, published weeks after the March 9 protest. It claimed female demonstrators were beaten, given electric shocks, strip-searched, threatened with prostitution charges and forced to submit to virginity checks.

At that time, Maj. Amr Imam said 17 women had been arrested but denied allegations of torture or "virginity tests."

But now a senior general who asked not to be identified said the virginity tests were conducted and defended the practice.

"The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine," the general said. "These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square, and we found in the tents Molotov cocktails and (drugs)."

The general said the virginity checks were done so that the women wouldn't later claim they had been raped by Egyptian authorities.

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The Latest from Iran (29 May): "Death to Deviant Mashai"

2035 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. More volleys this weekend in the political conflict --- former Presidential advisor and current head of IRNA Ali Akbar Javanfekr warns of a "parliamentary dictatorship", while Revolutionary Guards commander Mohammad Ali Jafari says the "deviant current" was trying to make money through the private sector and then using this to influence future elections.

2015 GMT: Khamenei v. Ahmadinejad. More on this weekend's clash between the Supreme Leader's supporters and those of the President, courtesy of Ayatollah Khamenei's representative in Fars Province, Ayatollah Asadollah Imani.

Imani criticised the Minister of Interior, Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, for replacing the provincial governor, Abdollah Hosseini with Farhad Sajjadi. The ayatollah claimed Hosseini had resisted against pressure from the "deviant current" around Ahmadinejad.

A pro-Khamenei website adds that Hosseini had been pressured by Najjar to resign as governor ever since his appointment and had told Presidential Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, "I will not be a 'yes, sir' man."

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Yemen, Syria, Egypt (and Beyond) LiveBlog: The Battle Resumed

2110 GMT: Protest in Homs in Syria in memory of 13-year-old Hamza al-Khateeb (see 1625 GMT):

2105 GMT: Refuting earlier reports, Yemeni opposition tribal leader Sheikh Sadeq al-Ahmar has said that no truce has been reached between his tribe and President Saleh's forces.

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Egypt, Yemen, Syria, & Beyond LiveBlog: Challenging the Regimes

Tahrir Square in Cairo today. See our separate video entry, "Syria Video Special: Friday Protests"

1536 GMT: Security forces attempted to break up protests in Banias, Syria, and protesters respond by throwing stones.

1530 GMT: Besides the armed conflict (and truce) between Saleh and Yemen's largest tribe (noted below), and beyond the massive protests in Sana'a (noted below), there were also large protests elsewhere in Yemen. This video shows protesters in Taiz's Freedom Square chanting "The people want to prosecute the butcher."

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Egypt: Why We Should Still Protest (Sandmonkey)

What I would like to discuss now, is why you, the general public, should go to the May 27 protests.

Now, I won’t ask you to do so for my demands (although it would be nice if you did), nor for those of the protesters ( and god knows there are 7 different demands circulating right now, and many people who are going without a clear set of demands of their own) who are disorganized and divided and have given up on talking to anyone but themselves at this point, nor even to go there to defend the revolution. No, I want to talk to the silent Majority today regarding their set of interests: The Economy, Security and Stability, and why more than anyone, they should be going to May 27 to protest, because , seriously, if those are the three things you care about the most, well, you are getting screwed, and --- just like the days of (former President Hosni) Mubarak ---not by us!

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Egypt 1st-Hand: "The Most Difficult Battle is The Corruption in Society Itself" (Noor)

s time progresses we're reminded that the most difficult battle in this war we call a revolution wasn't the battle to bring down Mubarak, but rather the battle to bring to an end the corruption in society itself. Not corruption in the sense of embezzling money, but rather the corruption of our political, social and cultural values that has sadly been instilled in all of us over the past half century.

And as the weeks go by we see more and more obstacles arising. People call us the chained dog –-- a dog tied up for many, many years whose only desire is to break free of the chain, but when he does he just runs round and round and doesn't know what to do.

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Egypt 1st-Hand: A Twitter Diary of Detention and Interrogation by the Military (Elshamy)

Photo: ReutersWe were usually awaken during this time of the night to observe soldiers torture newly arrived (naked) prisoners.

During detention, an army officer called me a son of a whore. I asked him to leave my mum out of it and he kicked me in the face. 

Everyone with long hair or beard was called a homosexual. Everyone who wore a Kuffeieh was called a "Palestinian faggot".

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Syria, Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: The Long Haul

2015 GMT: Associated Press reports that NATO warplanes have bombed command centres near Tripoli and in Libya's southwest, trying to cut communications links between the Qaddafi regime and his battlefield units.

2005 GMT: Video of a protest in Idlib in Syria during the funeral of a demonstrator killed on Friday:

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