Public Intelligence

A survey of news reports and eyewitness photos from the last six months indicates that tear gas grenades and canisters being used around the world to suppress peaceful demonstrations and prevent political change in despotic regimes are largely made and sold by U.S. companies, often with the consent of the U.S. government. Police and security forces in Egypt, Tunisia, Israel, Bahrain, Yemen and Greece have all utilized U.S.-made tear gas and often other “less lethal” munitions, such as rubber bullets.

Photos of hundreds of Egyptian State Security officers, including the names of more than fifty high ranking officers. These photos were recently removed by Flickr for “copyright violations” after they were posted by protesters that recovered the information from DVDs taken from State Security headquarters.

See also:
Egyptian Revolution Photos February 2011
Egyptian Revolution Photos January 2011
M Soli – http://www.flickr.com/photos/24610655@N08/
Kodak Afgha – http://www.flickr.com/photos/96884693@N00/
Maggie Osama – http://www.flickr.com/photos/maggieosama/
Mahmoud Saber – http://www.flickr.com/photos/mahmoudsaber/
Omar Robert Hamilton – http://www.flickr.com/photos/56458828@N02/

Egypt’s secret police, long accused of torturing suspects and intimidating political opponents of President Hosni Mubarak, received training at the FBI’s facility in Quantico, Virginia, even as US diplomats compiled allegations of brutality against them, according to US State Department cables released by WikiLeaks. One cable, dated November 2007 and published by the Telegraph, describes a meeting between the head of the SSIS, Egypt’s secret police, and FBI deputy director John Pistole, in which the secret police chief praises Pistole for the “excellent and strong” cooperation between the two agencies. (Pistole has since been appointed head of the TSA.) SSIS chief Abdul Rahman said the FBI’s training sessions at Quantico were of “great benefit” to his agency. The cables did not address what sort of training Egyptian secret police received at Quantico, or how many officers were trained there.

Five U.S. State Department Overseas Advisory Council Egyptian Revolution Warnings from January 26 – February 2, 2011.

counterfire – http://www.flickr.com/photos/counterfire/
rouelshimi – http://www.flickr.com/photos/rouelshimi/
erik-n – http://www.flickr.com/photos/erik-n/
darkroom productions – http://www.flickr.com/photos/darkroomproductions/
Omar Robert Hamilton – http://www.flickr.com/photos/56458828@N02/
Nasser Nouri – http://www.flickr.com/photos/nassernouri/
Floris Van Cauwelaert – http://www.flickr.com/photos/flomobile
Photo by Iman Mossad – http://www.flickr.com/photos/imosaad/

The Pentagon on Thursday said it had no plans to halt weapons deliveries to Egypt in coming months despite a popular revolt against President Hosni Mubarak’s rule. While the US administration was examining its economic and military aid to Egypt in light of political upheaval there, military assistance had not been suspended, a spokesman said. “There’s a difference between halting the aid and reviewing it,” said Colonel Dave Lapan.

A 2008 diplomatic cable from the US Embassy in Cairo leaked by WikiLeaks on Friday shows another side to the United States’ relationship with Egypt in recent years. The cable outlines how the State Department helped an Egyptian pro-democracy activist attend a “Youth Movements Summit” in New York and how the unnamed activist presented an “unwritten plan for democratic transition in 2011.” While the United States has received criticism for its support of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime in the face of anti-government protests, the newly released cable indicates that the US was also supporting his detractors. It notes State Department efforts to apply pressure on Egypt in order to have dissidents released from custody. The cable also described meetings that the Egyptian activist held with US members of congress. Among those he met with in 2008 were Representative Edward Royce and current chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. The pro-democracy activist told embassy officials that one of the congressmen even invited him to speak at a congressional hearing scheduled for early 2009 regarding “religious and political freedom in Egypt.”

An Arabic manual for Egyptian protesters circulated via email and in hard copy prior to the protests on Friday January 28, 2010.

These photos are from the last several days, beginning approximately January 26, 2011. Photo credits are at the bottom of the page.   Special attention should be given to the fact that Al Jazeera English and many reporters have released their coverage of recent events in Egypt under a Creative Commons license.
abcharlie – [...]

President Barack Obama’s push for democratic reforms in Egypt has faced resistance from its longtime leader, in part because President Hosni Mubarak believes Washington’s past pressure for change has caused chaos in the Middle East, leaked U.S. diplomatic cables show. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking on Friday as anti-government protests rocked Egypt for a fourth day, said it was “absolutely vital” for Cairo to embrace political and social change as the United States has been pushing for years. U.S. diplomatic cables posted on Friday by WikiLeaks show Obama has guided the United States to warmer ties with Egypt by avoiding the public “name and shame” tactics of his predecessor George W. Bush while urging political reforms in private. But they also show U.S. pressure is viewed skeptically by Mubarak, who believes ill-advised U.S. pushes for reform in the Middle East have produced colossal mistakes, from the ouster of the Shah of Iran to the election of Hamas Islamists in Gaza.

In opening a bold overture to the Islamic world on Thursday, President Obama confronted frictions between Muslims and the West, but he reserved some of his bluntest words for Israel, as he expressed sympathy for the Palestinians and what he called the “daily humiliations, large and small, that come with occupation.” While Mr. Obama emphasized that America’s bond with Israel was “unbreakable,” he spoke in equally powerful terms of the Palestinian people, describing their plight as “intolerable” after 60 years of statelessness, and twice referring to “Palestine” in a way that put Palestinians on parallel footing with Israelis.