A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Friday, January 8, 2010

The Aftermath in Upper Egypt

UPDATED: Pakinam Amer's Twitter feed, already cited below, has been full of rumors of Coptic retaliation against Muslims; she's wisely advising posters to be cautious since explosive rumors spread so readily in these situations. That feed is worth watching. (Also: #nagahamadi.) Vendetta has a long history in Upper Egypt, as I've noted. Also updated: while their current online postings don't add anything not found elsewhere, the weekly Coptic newspaper Al-Watani, which has been around since the Nasser era, should have a new issue Sunday. Their website is here; some pages are translated into Engish or French, though not always right away.

I usually don't post over weekends, and probably won't much this one, but if you want to follow the Nag Hammadi story further, as The Arabist also notes, Al-Masry al-Youm's English language site's reporter, Pakinam Amer, has been posting a series of good reports on Nag Hammadi's aftermath, such as this one, and Amer is also tweeting: the feed is here. Right now her coverage seems to be better than some of the Arabic coverage. The government has now arrested three suspects in the killings. And Al-Ahram has discovered the story since it is, of course, due to the brilliance of the State Security Forces that they were identified.

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