Hundreds of mourners bid farewell to human rights activist and leftist lawyer Ahmed Seif El-Islam in a big funeral.

For hours we did not know if Alaa and his sister Sanaa were going to attend their father’s funeral or not. At 2 PM I knew that Alaa and Sanaa are going to attend their father’s memorial service next Saturday but there was no confirmed news that they were going to attend the funeral.

Later we knew that they would attend the burial. Yes Alaa and Sanaa attended the burial.

During the burial Alaa Abdel Fattah told the mourners that his father was martyr and that we all knew who killed him.

Here is a heartbreaking photo gallery for the funeral after the break.

Here are video clips from the funeral.

I took those photos last Ramadan at some café on the Nile in Zamalak. This is one of my attempts to take photos without tripod at night using my hands without any shakes.

I love the colored light reflections on the Nile , it is more than beautiful especially where you are standing on the bank of the Nile.

Many people are speaking now that Egypt is on the right track of democracy and when I hear this I wonder where that democracy path they are speaking about already !!

I do not think that we are on the path of democracy at all in Egypt and there are many indicators that we are on the opposite direction starting from the laws issued to regulate the so-called for political life.

Starting with the Protrest law or rather the anti-protest law issued last November and caused the imprisonment of thousands so far. 

That law does not affect protesters alone , in fact it affects political parties also because it regulates political assembly. Now parties need to be granted the permission of the ministry of interior if it wants to organize any sort of public assembly or public meeting. 

I donot think that the MOI will approve opposition meetings  in the streets during the elections for instance. 

In new born democracies such law does not exist , of course the government insists that our current protest law is not different than protests laws in the states or European countries forgetting the simple fact that those countries are established stable democracies not corrupted failed states. 

Parties and public figures as well foreign countries have been demanding for months the president and the government to cancel the law or amend it but they proudly keep it as it is legal weapon against street movements. They keep it as it is when it violates the constitution they put earlier this year. 

Of course this is not the only recent violation for the new constitution. According to the constitution we  should have parliamentary elections within adopting approving that constitution and now we ask ourselves : When will we have parliamentary elections ?

Moving to the parliamentary elections law , the law that would kill a new born partisan life in Egypt and make us return to the same old Mubarak's parliament. Insisting on having the majority of the seats based upon the single candidate system means the return of money power in the elections as well tribalism and big families' power in areas outside Egypt. It is worth to mention all the Mubarak 's remnants aka Felouls in parties are supporting this system. 

The partisan list candidacy system could have rebuilt once the partisian life in Egypt but what can you says !!?? 

To be honest remembering el-Sisi's first big major interview on ONTV and CBC , one must have expected this to happen. The man said it frankly that tribalism and big families were important to the parliament. Needless to say there are calls to postpone the parliamentary elections in the media now in Pro-regime talkshows. 

By the way El-Shorouk newspaper claimed that the constitution would be amended to give el-Sisi more powers than the parliament or in other words we are returning back to the presidential system. 

These are the protests law and parliamentary elections law , now we got also the NGOs law which is rejected by almost all serious NGOs and human rights organizations. This law will restrict the work of NGOs and human rights organizations in Egypt. I do not understand how the government and the MOI will allow NGOs and human rights organizations that work with tortur victims for God's sake. 

Even the state's National council for human rights proposed that it should be delayed till electing a new a parliament. This law does not violate the constitution as far as I know but it violates international agreements Egypt already signed. 

Now the new academic year in State Universities is postponed to October. Of course the ministry of higher education does not say that it postponed the study because of the fear of protests but it claims that it postponed the study because of maintenance works

Politically affiliated families and groups are no longer allowed in Cairo university starting from academic year "2014-2015"  as well T-shirts with political logos on Campus !! 

Meanwhile the Faculty of arts in Ain Shams University tells the new students to sign a statement that they won't engage in political activities on campus except the ones specified by the new bylaws.

Bani Sawif university made it clear also that it would expel any student dared and insulted president El-Sisi on campus. 

Not to mention there is a bigger debate now about the students unions and the new bylaws that will restrict the freedoms on campus. 

It seems that the regime believes that after over 10 killed students and hundreds of imprisoned students , the students movement will be suppressed. Actually the current regime is doing its best to suppress this movement.

This is not democracy . This is not how you pave the way to democracy in a transitional period. This is how you establish totalitarianism.

Anyhow I should stop complaining when we got bigger issues in the country , I mean since early morning Egypt reached the peak of power outage this summer with our grand nationwide power outage that started from 6.30 am Thursday morning in Cairo and spread all over the country. The power outage affected Cairo , Giza , Suez, Alexandria and various parts of delta and nearly 5 governorates in North Upper Egypt. 

I woke up this morning to find I got no water and later no electricty. Yes many people suffered from water cuts as well because water supply stations in Cairo and Giza needed power and it took hours before they were re-operated by additional diesel fueled generators. 

Of course many houses have got no water up till now because they got roof water supply storage which is operated by electricty . Yes up till that late hours many Egyptians in Cairo and outside it suffer from constant power outages after the major morning power outage. 

The economic losses of the day are far more than anyone estimated for real. The financial losses in Suez where we got Red Sea ports as well Suez Canal itself and heavy industries factories like steel have reportedly reached to one billion Egyptian pound !! Yes one billion and this is one small governorate, imagine Cairo and Giza. 

Already today while in work I tried to order food from two restaurants, both suffered from power outages for hours. Not all the shops and restaurants have bought emergency power generators or even can afford or find diesel easily.

Of course financial losses can not be compared to the human losses, people were scared on the patients in the ICU in public hospitals as well babies in neonatal units. 

The only bright side in that dark outage was that the power was cut for some hours at Egypt's media production city and some TV channels from those spreading hate and lies all the past months were off the air for couple of hours. 

It is unprecedented nationwide outage. We have not seen something since 1990 despite all the outages we suffer from through out the the summer season in the past 5 years. 

For  the record the minister of electricty Ahmed Shaker apologized to the Egyptian people for the power outage , a thing that is considered rare in our Egyptian governmental culture. Shaker announced today that Egypt's electricty production went from 20,000 megawatts to 10,000 megawatts !!! Yes by the half suddenly. 

Needless to say there was technical talk about what caused that huge outage. At first some officials were speaking about what they called " a maneuver" to shift loads that went wrong !! Then hours later they began to speak about some technical malfunction. 

Of course the Pro-ElSisi supporters claim as usual that that devious plan made by the Muslim Brotherhood agents in the ministry of electricty despite the ministry of electricty officials and electric companies "following the state" across the state made it clear that preliminary investigations showed that it was a technical malfunction and not a terrorist attack.

From what I read and understood that outage was going to happen sooner or later. The outage problem in Egypt is not caused only by lack of fuel or high electricty consumption I am afraid but mainly because our electric grid and Electricty power stations are extremely old and need to be upgraded. Those old stations can not take it anymore just like the rest of the infrastructure in Egypt. 

Already before we speak and invest billions in mega-projects , why we should invest first in upgrading our infrastructure.Already I know mega-projects need a strong infrastructure in the first place !?!!

I want to write about ISIS or ISIL or IS or whatever you like to call it but unfortunately I do not have the time now. Thankfully Saudi tweep Abdel Rahman Shehri made an interesting video discussing nearly the same ideas I wanted to discuss about the world's last nightmare.The video is called ISIS is our daughter and please watch it till the end.

By the way all respect to British Muslims who attacked IS for real and without fear.

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The Arab ministers of foreign affairs held an emergency meeting today in Cairo where they declared that they would fight ISISI/ISL/IS with all possible ways joining officially that international coalition forming to fight the pseudo caliphate in Levant.

It is a good decision but one must ask : How will these countries fight IS when their regimes , their dictatorship corrupted regimes helped in founding such organization and feed it with angry fighters ??

How will these countries fight IS and its thought ? I am not speaking about the military police solution that has never put an end in our time to radical terrorist groups and the examples are many worldwide starting with Nazis , Taliban and Al-Qaeda. I am speaking about the social remedies.

Are we going to fool ourselves that IS' radicalism is another product of the Wahabi thought originated in Saudi Arabia and spread throught the Gulf money and media ? Are we going to fool ourselves and neglect the fact that our sheikhs and our political regime reject to modernize the religious discourse as well political discourse for fear they would lose power over the masses ?? Are we going to fool ourselves on how the Shiites are attacks in the mainstream media as agents of Iran and how for decades the Kurds are considered evil Israeli supporters who want to divide Iraq ? Do I need to speak about women's rights in the Arab world ? Do I need to speak about the human rights records of the Arab countries when it comes to freedoms ?

I will speak about my country Egypt : We have still got a sectarian religious discourse in mosques and schools. Just in one year , a film , books and a TV show were banned in Egypt because of so-called public manners and religious traditions. We got a president who declared himself as a protector of vice and general manners during the presidential elections. Dar el-Ifta is still speaking about online chat between men and women.

The media is crying for the displacements of Iraqi Christians and Yazidis when it doesnot dare to speak about the internal displacement of Christian families according to the old traditional judiciary sponsored by the government whenever a fight breaks between a Muslim and Christian !!!

Do I need to speak about Shiites or Baha'is in Egypt ? I know about that incident Where there was that young man who was traveling last month to Sharm El-Sheikh when he was stopped and was verbally abused because he is a Baha'i in a security checkpoint. The officer told the young man to convert to Islam.That officer is a representative of the Egyptian state for God's sake !! Egyptian Monuments are destroyed thanks to corruption and there no is outcry in the media like what happened to Iraqi Monuments on the hands of IS

It is not a big secret that ignorance, poverty , injustice and above them dictatorship contribute directly in spreading radicalism and in our case fundamentalism. Frustrated young men who lose their way and get decieved by promises of paradise in the after life instead of hell they live on a daily basis failed countries that once had a great history. Of course when it comes to IS I would add "frustrating sick young men who love to behead people and take selfies with the corpses "

Ironically current Arab regimes like the current Egyptian regime thank God for ISIS. Making the majority of people using media accept the police state and choose security over democracy and liberty for fear of ISIS and its speard. Of course those people will not get none in the end.

Dictatorship police states and Organizations like IS are two faces for one coin.They need each other to survive. It is true that terrorism and radicalism also exist in established democracy but not like in our part of the world.

" You want democracy ? See how democracy worked fine in Egypt , Democracy is an act of blasphemy" I read those words in the old IS' Twitter star Islam Yakan and I see how he and his terrorist organization are using the catastrophe we had last year to attract angry Islamists especially to their side wickedly. It is worth to mention that Yakan and the IS consider ousted MB Mohamed Morsi as an infidel who should be killed because he followed democracy.

In our Islamic history we met many groups like IS that ended and vanished but for some reason I am worried and I take their promises to so-called to liberate Egypt seriously even more now because I know current regime which is built upon Mubarak's regime is actually a fragile old 60 years old regime that tries to survive in a crazy time.

And yes what I want to say that in our part of the world , democracy ,justice and freedom of thought and expression will help in combating sick thought in more powerful way than military campaigns on the long run.

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And I did not write a single post about the so-called New Suez Canal project because I feel I have not fully understood all the project's details technically but I can not keep myself from this.

Egypt's Post authority issued a special stamp commemorating the new canal.The stamp is sold for two pounds.

Amazingly the new canal got the same design of Panama Canal !!!!! The photo of Panama Canal being used to celebrate the new canal.

Ferdinand de Lesseps could not be much happier to see his plans like that !!!

By this is not a new Suez Canal , it is only a new branch to the original canal and it is not the first one of its kind there so I do not understand this craze in the media that reminds me with the Toshka project.

Or to be honest somehow I understand , El-Sisi is simply searching for a Mega-project to associate his name with. The problem is that before spending billions on mega-projects , he should spend millions on upgrading and re-building our basic infrastructure. In fact mega-projects need a strong infrastructure. Historically the modern infrastructure of Egypt whether Electricty to telegrams to railways were all associated with old Suez Canal.

Another point the New Suez Canal bonds issued by the government , I am not amazed about the billions Egyptians are keeping for rainy days as much as I am amazed that nobody in the government cares that the internal debt is increasing madly with those bonds.

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For weeks now the the hunger strike movement started from few weeks in different Egyptian jails by political detainees accused in cases related to the infamous protest law has gained more supporters.

Today it is being escalated with tens of journalists and activists declaring their partial strike at the journalists syndicate demanding the cancellation of the unconstitutional protest law.

More people from activists , journalists and youth are joining the hunger strike as well pro-Jan26 revolution parties " The Constitution party , Strong Egypt Party, the Popular current , The bread and liberty party, Thr Egyptian social Democratic Party, the popular socialist alliance" and movements like April 6 Youth movement and Revolutionary Socialists.

Despite the hunger strike movement originally started earlier this year by detainees like Abdullah El-Shamy " who is free now" and Mohamed Soltan who became an icon , the hunger strike gained media attention with the announcement of Alaa Abdel Fattah that he would start a hunger strike to object his imprisonment. The movement is now called "جبنا آخرنا" {we had enought} quoting the prominent blogger activist who was sent to jail during the time of Mubarak, SCAF, Morsi and now El-Sisi.

Abdel Fattah was followed by other activists and protesters including his sister Sana'a imprisoned in protest law related cases.

Here are some numbers and names related to the hunger strike :

• Today September 13 there are 60 detainees in Egyptian prisoners are on full and partial hunger strike.
• Outside the prisons there are 80 citizens who started full hunger strike.
• There is hunger strike movement in Tora prison , Al-Qantar prison, Qena general prison , Fayoum prison, Abu Zabaal prison.
• The most prominent figures in that strike : Mohamed Sultan "226 days- has been transferred to the ICU" , Ibrahim Yamani "154 days" , Alaa Abd Fattah "26 days" , Nouby "18 days" , Sanaa Abdel Fattah "15 days" and Ahmed Douma "15 days".
• There are detained journalists participating in the hunger strike Ahmed Gamal Ziyad "who works in Yaqeen network" and Mahmoud Abu Zaid "Shawkan, the freelance photographer"

Now we got a movement that can't be ignored. In the end I want to say that those young people who are thrown in jail demanding liberty and democracy are dying so we can live in a better Egypt.

Here is a photo gallery from the event at the journalists' syndicate.

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The hunger strike launched by a group of detained of political activists including Alaa Abdel Fattah is stil going strong , even after the release of Abdel Fattah, Wael and Nouby.

Over 100 activist inside and outside the Egyptians prisons as well inside and outside Egypt are on hunger strike now demanding the release of the detainees imprisoned because of the unconstitutional protest law as well its cancellation.

Now I can not ignore the health condition of the hunger strikers. US Egyptian detainee Mohamed Soltan is in very critical health condition according to his family that failed to see earlier this week along with a representative from the US embassy. Supposedly the Tora prison gave them a permit to visit him tomorrow. Now Soltan needs to be transferred to a hospital, a real hospital not a prison's hospital. Mohamed Soltan has been on a hunger strike for more than 230 days now.

Nasserite activist Ahmed Douma who has been on a hunger strike also needs to be transferred to hospital immediately. There are lots of pleas to transfer him but the government is not interested.

Interestingly after the visit of John Kerry and his statement that his talks with the Egyptian regime included amending the protest law , now it became a matter of fact that the Egyptian government would announce amending the infamous law sooner. Yes ministers and officials speak about amending the law shamelessly publicly in Egypt. Some speculate that it will happen within days .I think it has to do with El-Sisi's visit to New York.

Nevertheless that unprecedented hunger strike plays a role as a pressure.

I know this post is not comprehensive as usual but I still got no laptop and I blog using an ipad instead.

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I see this back in Cairo and I wonder what new Egypt they are speaking about when the same old faces of Mubarak regime are renovating themselves in a new presidential cult era.

I wonder what kind of peace , prosperity and growth we will have in Egypt when a police state is being enforced day after day through a set of laws restricting freedoms of expression , media and assembly as well press and NGO funding. Thousands of detainees are arrested because of unconstitutional law and hundreds are sentenced to death in highly politicalized trial and TV shows are cancelled because of censorship while the newspapers are demanded by the president to stop criticizing the government. That new Egypt is quite promising !!

Since when police state or military state has ever brought peace or prosperity or growth throughout history for real not to mention in country suffering of corruption for decades. Freedom and democracy bring peace and prosperity as well growth and we got many examples in the world

These ads and billboards in New York City are allegedly paid by steel tycoon Ahmed Abu Hashima who is in NY also to support the new president. Abu Hashima is really smart , he managed to sort his matters during Mohamed Morsi's rule striking deals now with the Turkish and Qatari businessmen and now he is supporting the Field Marshal strongly in the States.

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The group of hunger strikers from detainees and Prisoners in Egyptian prisons are still insisting to complete their strike despite the regime and media's neglect.

Mohamed Soltan has hit a record in his hunger strike , unprecedented in Egyptian history with 242 days. Of course the price he has to pay for this or rather his freedom is health if not his life. Soltan's life is in extreme danger now. His family could not see him last week at prison and the court adjourned his case as usual refusing to release him for health condition pending the trial.

As he is the son of outspoken controversial MB preacher Soltan does not find a lot of support in Egyptian media outside the young activists-sphere. I am extremely worried about his life now.

Nevertheless sometimes I believe even if there is a huge noise for him like famous activist Ahmed Douma who is imprisoned for breaking the unconstitutional protest law and also on a hunger strike, he would face the same treatment like Douma. Douma's requests to be transferred to hospital are rejected. His request to the court panel of his cabinet hq clashes "December 2011" is also rejected.

Douma has been hunger strike for a month now. Earlier today the ministry of interior "MOI" claimed that he stopped his strike but his wife Nourhan Hafzy denied that. I believe Nourhan more than the MOI with its long history of lying.

El-Sisi claimed that in New York that there were freedoms of expression and media ..etc in Egypt, I do not know what to say that the world is small village now and he cannot fool anyone with slogans that only work with his local supporters in Egypt

Reminder the strikers will continue their hunger strike till their release and the cancellation of the protest law. It is worth to mention after US Secretary of State John Kerry there was a strong talk that the protest law would be amended within days but soon enough we know officially it will remain as it is.