Down a dimly lit corridor, in the only burn-unit hospital in Yemen lie the severely burned bodies of Sultan Ahmed Mohammed and Nacer Mabkhout al-Sabooly. They’re conscious, but barely able to speak out loud. Sultan, tells me his name and mutters just one sentence before closing his eyes.

“The plane struck me,” he said.

I met the two last September. They were victims of an attack that officially never happened. At the hospital, Abdelrahman Barman, an attorney who runs the Yemeni human-rights organization Hood, that advocates for the rights of drone victims, explained to me how this mini-bus driver and his cousin from a rural town in Central Yemen ended up barely conscious in a hospital in Sanaa.

“There was a mini-bus full of 14 people, including a woman and her two children,” Barman said. “They were headed to the city. Two of the airplanes-without-pilots arrived, one of them came low enough that the passengers of the bus could see it, and it released the first missile. After it hit the car there were still some people alive, and then the second missile was launched and it killed everyone except three.

Immediately after the strike the Yemeni government announced that it had killed al-Qaeda militants. Families of the civilian victims, in coordination with Hood, threatened to bring the burned corpses of the victims – which included two children and their mother – to the presidential palace. Soon after, the Yemeni government changed its tone. An official from the President’s office called the strike an “accident.”

This was a rare confession by Yemeni officials. But the US government has never officially acknowledged its role in conducting any drone strikes in Yemen, much less disclosed how many civilians have been killed. But according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, drones have killed more than 1,100 people in Yemen alone.

But no one’s really sure. “Yemenis feel that they’re no longer feel safe in their homes, roads and marketplaces,” said Ibrahim Qatabi, a Yemeni-American human rights activist and a legal worker with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York.

He said that while its difficult to know for sure the number of civilians killed, one thing is certain: the impact the program has had on life in general in places like Southern Yemen, where drone strikes can occur weekly, is profound.

“They (Yemenis) have the feeling that any of them can be killed at any given time for crimes they didn’t commit, that there’s no rule of law that can protect them. They feel unsafe,” Qatabi said.

Many critics of the US’ covert drone program say people in Yemen today live with a collective sense of insecurity, waiting for disaster to rain down on them from the heavens at any given time.

And that, said Naureen Shah, tears apart the fabric of society. She’s director of the Human Rights Clinic at Columbia University Law School, and author of a report called “The Civilian Impact of Drones.”

“People are afraid of sending their children out to go to school, they’re afraid of going outside and maybe engaging with the community because of that fear. There’s a deep psychological impact on people because of the sound of drones flying overhead,” Shah said.

Under international law, governments are supposed to investigate attacks that kill civilians. But because the drone program in Yemen doesn’t officially exist, the US doesn’t acknowledge the strikes. So, no drone strikes, no dead civilians, and no compensation to survivors or the families of victims.

As a result, Ibrahim Qatabi said Yemenis lash out, looking for justice.

“What happens usually if the tribe is strong enough they will block roads to main cities, prompting the government to send some sort of mediator or government official and tribal leaders to go and work out some deals with the families of the victims,” Qatabi said.

Qatabi said that oftentimes, tribes who never had any affiliation with Al-Qaeda or any animosity towards the United States, may attack US targets to avenge the killing of their family members. Many in Yemen say that the drone war is having the effect of creating more militants than it is killing.

That point is hotly contested in the halls of Washington. But Naureen Shah, of the Columbia University Law School, said what is certain is that in places where drones are used regularly, people believe the US views their lives as disposable.

“Because the program is not being acknowledged because there’s no recognition of the harm people come away with nothing,” she said. “We’re not just talking about losing the chance at compensation, but possibly offering some dignity and recognition to the families that have been left devastated.”

Nacer can relate. He’s the mini-bus driver who survived the September 2nd drone strike in Walid Rabiaa that killed 12 civilians. His legs were so badly burned in the strike that he can no longer drive, or earn a living.

I recently reached Nacer’s brother by phone in his village in Central Yemen, to see how the survivors were getting on with life. Ahmed al-Sabooly told me that the Yemeni government provided Nacer and Sultan with just enough money to travel to Egypt to get treatment for their injuries, but not much else has been done since then.

Thank God they are okay now,” Sabooly said. “In terms of their health, they survived, but they of course feel they have been oppressed. We still don’t know why they were targeted. It was a complete shock, and no one knows why this happened except for God.”

A person involved in criminal things should be afraid, he told me, but an innocent person shouldn’t have to live in fear like this.

He had gone to Haiti and Sierra Leone, and he was committed to covering the Arab uprising.

From Tunisia, he went on to Libya, Egypt, and then Syria.

On February 21st, 2012, he arrived in Homs late at night, as the city was under heavy shelling.

He reached a house which had been improvised as an underground media center in the besieged neighborhood of Baba Amr.

A few other Western journalists were there, including American reporter Marie Colvin.

Here is Ochlik that night, surrounded by Syrian rebel fighters.

French Photojournalist Rémi Ochlik with Syrian Army Fighters one day before his death in Homs, Syria. (Photo: WikiCommons)

The very next morning, the house came under rocket fire.

Colvin and Ochlik did not make it out of the house in time.

They were killed by a rocket explosion as they were trying to escape.

Ochlik’s photographs of the Arab Spring have been collected into a book titled “Révolutions.”

It was published by Karim Ben Khelifa, a Belgo-Tunisian photojournalist who was a friend and colleague of Ochlik’s.

He runs a crowd-funding platform for visual journalism called Emphasis, which published Ochlik’s book.

The subheading for “Révolutions” is a phrase in Latin: “In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni”

It’s a well-known a palindrome.

It means: “We Spin Around the Night Consumed by the Fire.”

Rémi Ochlik posted that phrase on his Facebook page at the beginning of the Tunisian revolution.

His friend photographer Arnaud Brunet says Ochlik had a hunch very early on that this rebellion was going to reverberate across the Arab world.

Photographer Rémi Ochlik who was killed last year in Syria at the age of 28 (Photo: Corentin Fohlen)

Many journalists have died covering the Arab uprisings.

Last year, 17 were killed in Syria.

One of them was award-winning French photojournalist Rémi Ochlik.

He was only 28-years-old.

Ochlik documented the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.

Then last year, he headed out to Syria.

He made it to Homs late one night, as the city was under heavy shelling.

The very next day, on February 22, Ochlik was killed when a rocket hit the house he was holed up in with several other journalists.

American reporter Marie Colvin also died in the attack.

Ochlik is remembered by his colleagues as someone who felt invested in his mission: to tell the stories of the people at the heart of the conflicts.

One of his friends and colleagues is Belgo-Tunisian photojournalist Karim Ben Khelifa.

He runs a crowd-funding platform for visual journalism called Emphasis and has just published a book of photographs by Rémi Ochlik.

It’s called “Révolutions” and features Ochlik’s images of the Arab Spring.

Karim Ben Khelifa says it’s difficult to explain the urge many photojournalists like him have to risk their lives in war zones.

And in spite of the hardship of losing such a young and talented friend, Ben Khelifa says Ochlik’s decision to go to Syria was not a mistake.

“It is sad, but this how he decided to live and this is how he decided to die. And I think we can only be inspired by the commitment he had to the people.”

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a coproduction of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH in Boston. Many journalists have died covering the Arab uprisings. Last year, 17 were killed in Syria alone. One of them was award winning French photojournalist Remi Ochlik. He was 28 years old. Ochlik documented the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, then last year he headed out to Syria. He made it to Homs late one night as the city was under heavy shelling. The next day, on February 22, Ochlik was killed when a rocket hit the house he was holed up in with several other journalists. American reporter Marie Colvin also died in the attack. One of Ochlik’s colleagues is photojournalist Karim Ben Khelifa. He’s just published a book of Remi Ochlik’s photographs from the Arab Spring. It’s called Revolutions. Ben Khelifa describes himself as a conflict photographer.

Karim Ben Khelifa: I’ve covered a lot of countries the last 15 years and like most of us doing this job, I think Remi had a sense of purpose. He’s been photographing with a lot of emotions and managed to channel those emotions into his photography. He was someone good, he was someone young, passionate and compassionate. And as I explained for Remi, I think that’s valid for a lot of us is the remediation we have there is very unclear, but we feel we need to go there. We feel we need to photograph. We have this ability to transport people into stories, into realities. And photography is such a strong medium that you can speak to people in Japan, in Africa and here in the US. You can speak to basically anyone with photographs. So I think it’s very important to record and document what’s happening in the world and not everyone is able to go to war. So for the people who have that ability, they should do it. They should do it for the sake of the others.

Werman: Now you spoke with Remi a lot about what motivated him. If you had to describe him, what kind of guy was he?

Ben Khelifa: Someone very shy, someone very humble, extremely humble. He would hate to be in the center of the attention. As a star, Le Monde was contacting journalists on the ground in Libya just to see where the experience there. Le Monde is a big, big newspaper in France, very serious. And when they called Remi Ochlik to give his account he just said is it to talk about me or is it to talk about the Libyans? And it was about him, about his experience. And he said sorry, I’m here for the Libyans. So if you want to talk about them, I’d be happy…so it shows that the young photographers would pull out this kind of opportunities to talk about himself and his work, it was about the people and I think that’s a quality you need to have to do that.

Werman: Now this exhibit at the Art Institute of Boston and book of Remi’s photos, they depict the Arab uprising, the Arab Spring. It’s called Revolutions and you kind of get the sense that he began shooting the revolution in Tunisia as it began, and then he got caught up in it…on to Tahrir Square in Cairo, then Libya and finally Syria. What did he make of the uprising?

Ben Khelifa: I think the uprising no journalist has predicted what would have happened. And the domino effect of all those countries. So he tagged along that story and sticked to it in a very beautiful way. He was with the people. He was feeling their aspiration. He has been through you know, a tremendous experience and huge amount of danger, but he sticked to that story because he wanted to tell the story of those people…and paid the dearest price, his life.

Werman: We’ve seen so many photographs that have come out of the Arab uprising from Instagram to portraits, but what’s really striking with Remi Ochlik’s pictures is his dedication to the craft of photography. I think of the victorious Libyan rebels on the tank, it’s kind of like the light in that picture makes it feel like a painting. Or the man in the violent protest in Tahrir Square on his knees and fingers aloft in peace signs. How much was he journalist, how much was he an artist?

Ben Khelifa: Oh, there is no line there, you know. Art is something that is perceived by the others. It depends on your own motivation. I would never assume that Remi would think of himself as an artist. He was a journalist, he was a witness. Now, if people decide to look at it and find art, and find emotions and classify it this way, it belongs to the people. It doesn’t belong to him.

Werman: Now, there are three photos in the book that were actually recovered from Remi’s camera just after he was killed. They were recovered by photographer William Daniels who was also in Syria. So here are the pictures, I mean these were shot February 21, last year, and on February 22 Remi was hit by a rocket and killed instantly. When you look at these pictures now, Karim, what do you see knowing what you know would happen 24 hours later?

Ben Khelifa: It’s, it’s, it is terrible to put the fate of Remi with his photographs. I don’t think he would have liked people to kind of imagine the story that could go with that, that yes, this is a photograph of a funeral and that his last photograph was photographing other people dying for a cause.

Werman: This one features like 20 men hands crossed just looking at this coffin in the night.

Ben Khelifa: Yeah, and it is a tribute to himself.

Werman: This one, man in a kathia[?5:08] , a red kathia in the dark. You see just the head of his rifle kind of popping up over his shoulder. It’s almost like a ghost.

Ben Khelifa: Yeah, yeah, the last photograph Remi actually did, very haunting for anyone who knew him or anyone who knows that story.

Werman: I mean anyone who knew Remi was deeply disturbed by his death. He was young, a rising star, they say fearless; and many said the future was his. This for example, is from William, photographer William Daniels, who wrote “His death affected me a lot. He was becoming a little famous and I was sure he was about to work with magazines he dreamed of working for, like Time. We were excited about getting to Syria. I thought okay, we’re here, we’ve come for this to be inside Bab Amir, there was no time to think maybe we’d made a mistake coming.” So Karim, what do you think, was it a mistake for Remi to go there to Homs, to Bab Amir?

Ben Khelifa: No, it wasn’t a mistake. I mean everyone going at a war knows he can get injured, can get killed. It’s part of the decision. Remi was definitely not unaware of the danger. It is sad, but this is how he decided to live and this is how he decided to die. And I think we can only be inspired by the commitment he has to the people. He paid with his life, but no, it was definitely not a mistake.

Werman: Karim, thank you very much.

Ben Khelifa: My pleasure.

Werman: The book is title Revolutions. It’s by the late photographer Remi Ochlik. We were speaking with his friend and photojournalist, Karim Ben Khelifa. Thank you very much for coming in, Karim.

Ben Khelifa: Thank you very much to you.

Copyright ©2012 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Rémi Ochlik’s photos of the Arab Spring are on exhibit at the Art Institute of Boston until February 22nd.

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Al Sisi, who serves as defense minister, said the Egyptian state could fall apart if the country’s political forces don’t reconcile.

His warning comes amid a wave of protests and violence that’s left more than 50 people dead.

Cairo has seen a lot of unrest, but some of the worst violence has taken place in the city of Port Said, at the northern end of the Suez Canal.

David Kirkpatrick, Cairo Bureau chief for The New York Times, has just returned from the city.

He tells anchor Marco Werman Port Said is now in a state of anarchy.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman, this is The World. It can’t be a good sign when the head of Egypt’s army warns about a possible collapse of the state, but that’s what General Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi did today. Al-Sisi who is also defense minister, said the Egyptian state could collapse if the country’s political forces don’t reconcile. His warning comes amid a wave of protests and violence that’s left more than 50 people dead. Some of the violence is in Cairo with unrest reminiscent of the anti-government protests that toppled longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak almost two years ago. But some of the worst violence has taken place in the city of Port Said, at the northern end of the Suez Canal. David Kirkpatrick, Cairo Bureau chief at The New York Times is on the line with us. And there’s been turmoil in Egypt for two years, David. Now there’s upheaval barely seven months into Mohammed Morsi’s presidency. Tell us what the situation in the country is like right now. What do you see is happening?

David Kirkpatrick: You know, the defense minister was in one sense stating something that we all already know, which is there’s a rising tide of lawlessness in Port Said. It’s probably correctly termed anarchy. And there’s problems here in Cairo too. You know, in Cairo there’s been street fighting sporadically since the revolt against Hosni Mubarak two years ago, but to be honest it’s been fairly confined. But this morning about 3AM that violence spilled out into an attack on a luxury hotel next to the American embassy, the Intercontinental Semiramis Hotel in Cairo. And it’s you know, the heart of the tourist business and the heart of the sort of diplomatic circle. That is a bad sign for stability here, for the tourist industry, which Egypt badly needs to try to recover. In many ways it’s ominous.

Werman: Now, David, you returned from Port Said today. Tell us what you saw this morning on the streets there. Is it different from what’s happening in Cairo?

Kirkpatrick: Yeah, ti’s very different. I mean in Cairo you have again, still relatively localized anti-government protests. In Port Said the whole city has risen up and thrown off the police. The police are cowering inside their stations, nightly battering mobs of protestors that attack them. Last night they were firing live ammunition fairly indiscriminately into the streets. And this morning I went to the site of one of those battles to follow up and I saw bullet holes in some metal trash bins. I found bullets in the street, and also saw a number of bullet holes in the side of the police station. Last night after I’d returned to the safety of the hotel I could hear the automatic weapons from my hotel room. So that’s a sign that things are really getting out of hand.

Werman: So tell us what happened last night in Port Said at the time the 9PM curfew took effect.

Kirkpatrick: Yes, just to put this in perspective, President Morsi has said a number of firm and even Draconian things. He’s talked about a state of emergency, suspending the right to trial, he imposed a 9PM curfew, and he’s called on the military to enforce the law in these three restive cities. But in fact, none of that has worked and at 9PM when the curfew took effect, citizens in all three cities by the thousands poured out in the street in protest, and as we’ve been discussing, in Port Said at least, they proceeded to attack a police station.

Werman: What is the role of the army right now? What is their relationship with President Morsi?

Kirkpatrick: That’s a very good question. As you’ll remember, the generals took power when Mubarak left. They held onto it for about a year and a half. They handed it over to Mr. Morsi in August and it appears they were paid back for that by provisions in the new constitution that granted them broad autonomy over their own institution and within the Egyptian government. So now President Morsi calls on the military to help police the streets, but is he really directing the military or asking them nicely? We don’t know. And then the following day the defense minister warns publicly that unless the civilian political leaders get it together things are sliding towards anarchy. Is he warning Morsi or just reporting the news? Again, we don’t know. People I’ve talked to who are more or less close to the military say that this current group of military leaders truly has no appetite to take on a political role. Neither do they have much enthusiasm for the idea of going out in the streets and forcing people to back down. So they’re really in a bind here. Unless the civilians can work something out, they’re caught between a loss of credibility if they fail to quell the unrest, and a loss of esteem if they use force to quell the unrest. I don’t know what’s gonna happen next.

Werman: David Kirkpatrick, Cairo Bureau chief for The New York Times, thank you.

Kirkpatrick: It’s always a pleasure.

Copyright ©2012 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Women have been organizing to combat these attacks, patrolling the square and rescuing fellow female protesters from violent situations.

But sometimes, the rescuers are being attacked themselves as they try to help.

Anchor, Marco Werman speaks with Salma el-Tarzi a member of Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment, a group of volunteers on the ground responding to the attacks on women in Tahrir Square.

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Marco Werman: The latest protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square have been marked by reports of sexual violence against women there. Unfortunately, this is not new. There were several reports of violence against women in the square during the Egyptian revolution two years ago and many since then too. But over the past year groups of female volunteers have formed to patrol Tahrir Square during protests looking for women in need of help. Often though the volunteers themselves end up being assaulted or harassed. Salma el-Tarzi is a member of Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment, one of the groups helping women in the square.

Salma el-Tarzi: We have several hotlines, we have an operation room and we have several teams on the ground distributed in different areas of the square.

Werman: I imagine though that for every person who’s calling your hotline there are many others who don’t call, I gather. You even witnessed somebody being assaulted.

el-Tarzi: Last Friday we could actually see assaults happening from the location where we were and some of them were not even reported to us on the hotline, but we could see them with our eyes and we tried to intervene.

Werman: Why this spike in these incidents? Why is this happening?

el-Tarzi: We believe that a very big part of these assaults are organized. Sexual assault has always been a tactic used by the system to intimidate to women and to punish women who take part in protests or in manifestations. So

Werman: And what system and who’s organizing these assaults?

el-Tarzi: The system is the same system, the system did not change yet. All what is different is that the head of the system changed.

Werman: Can you just clarify, so then you believe that the government of Egypt is perpetuating this violence?

el-Tarzi: To a certain extent, yes. This is not new. We have had similar cases and similar assaults during the past two years, and even starting from 2005 where there was a very famous case of a female protestor and the journalist who got stripped and assaulted sexually during demonstrations against a constitution amendment during the rule of Mubarak. So it’s not a new tactic used by the system to intimidate women taking part of protests and manifestations.

Werman: Are you hopeful for the future? I mean you have this organization, on the other hand it sounds like your organization has a huge challenge facing it.

el-Tarzi: It does and I think the positive thing is that finally someone is taking a proactive step to stop what’s happening and to talk about it openly. Despite what happened on the 25th, we keep on receiving phone calls for more volunteers and people who want to help. And this gives us a lot of hope that at least we are starting somewhere.

Werman: knowing the risks and the violence, what brings you and other women back to the square?

el-Tarzi: We are being attacked for being women and not going back to the square and not taking part in this would mean that we got defeated and it means that the only safe place would be at home. And we refuse to stay at home. This is part of the struggle and this is a very personal fight.

Werman: Salma el-Tarzi, a member of Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment in Cairo, thank you very much for speaking with us.

el-Tarzi: Thank you.

Copyright ©2012 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

When the Pentagon moved to lift the ban on women, in many ways it was a case of the regulations catching up to reality. Around 300,000 US servicewomen have served in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. More than 150 have lost their lives in those conflicts with no clear delineation of where the front lines lie.

One country with longer experience of allowing women to serve in combat roles is Israel. More than a decade ago, the Israel Defense Forces started lifting restrictions for would-be female warriors.

It’s about midnight on a rocky hillside in southern Israel, next the border with Egypt. Suddenly, a suspected illegal migrant who has likely crossed from the Sinai desert runs into an Israeli army patrol.

“Who are you and what are you doing here,” an Israeli soldier shouts. “Take the pants off!”

“But I’m cold,” the migrant complains.

“I don’t care! Take the pants off now!”

A squad of IDF soldiers point their assault rifles and order the migrant to strip in the chilly desert air. What follows, is some uncontrollable giggling. Because this is just a drill. And all the participants, including the unidentified intruder, are part of the same IDF unit.

The soldiers taking part in this all-night training exercise are members of the Israeli army’s only all-female combat intelligence company. It’s called “Nachshol,” which means “tidal wave” in Hebrew. Essentially, their job is to go out into the desert and sit – for days at a time – and just watch the border with Egypt.

“Basically, we need to bring from the field the best intelligence,” says Captain Dana Ben-Ezra, the company commander of Nachshol. At 28, she’s already a 10-year army veteran. Ben-Ezra says the company’s job is collect information, “without anyone knowing we’re there. Not even our own forces.”

When I ask her why the army has assigned women to this particular job, Ben-Ezra says, “no offense, but they’re just more intelligent.”

“More patient, more common sense, you know?”

“[Men] are more aggressive, you know how to scream,” Ben-Ezra says. “We know how to do the job.”

The IDF’s all-women “Nachshol” company was formed in 2006. (Photo: Matthew Bell)

The IDF has not always allowed women to join combat units.

In 1995, an Israeli pilot named Alice Miller took the air force to court for denying her the chance to become a military pilot. She won the case. And since then, more combat-related jobs have been opened up for women in the Israeli military.

Now, women can try out for 90 percent of all military professions. Special forces and commando units are still off-limits. But women make up about 4 percent of Israel’s combat forces, according to the military. There’s a potential problem here, says Major Judith Webb. She was the first woman to command an all-male squadron in the British army.

“What I’m talking about is women in the infantry,” Webb told the BBC. “I don’t feel that women have the physical capability of fulfilling an infantry role. I’m not talking about the emotional or psychological or any of those effects, or what effects it may have on men. I’m talking about the physical limitations.”

Abby Chernick does not agree. The 23-year-old grew up in the northeastern US. She took citizenship in Israel after college and then signed up for an extra year of combat service, instead of taking on the kind of less-dangerous and physically demanding role sought out by many women in the Israeli military.

Chernick scoffs at the idea that women should be banned from combat roles in Israel or anywhere else.

“Just a couple months ago,” she tells me during the training mission, “a female combat soldier in the same area that we’re in actually, she shot and killed a terrorist who had come through the fence and was firing on Israeli troops.”

Chernick says, “women have already proved themselves in [military] service in America. And the fact [is] that more women, many, many more women have died in service in America’s army than in Israel’s.”

The US and Israeli militaries are very different in a lot of ways. Israel is the only nation that has mandatory military service for both men and women. Though about half of all Jewish women in Israel do not serve in the military, with many opting to receive a deferment on religious grounds.

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EGYPT INTERVIEW
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Writer and activist Nahla Samaha was among them.

Samaha didn’t march on Tahrir Square two years ago, she was giving birth at the time to her twin girls. She did, however, watch the revolution unfold from her hospital room in Cairo.

“I actually thought why were these people wasting their time demonstrating or protesting? It’s not like it’s going to get them anywhere.”

She continued to watch the revolution unfold from her TV set until last December when she watched the clashes at the presidential palace.

“That’s when I decided to take to the streets.”

Today, Samaha feels split about her dual roles as activist and mother. She talks with anchor Marco Werman about that divide and whether she and her family will stay in this new Egypt or leave for a more stable life.

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. Egypt today marked two years since the start of its revolution. Once again thousands of anti-government protesters marched to Cairo’s Tahrir Square, but this time they chanted against Egypt’s new Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, and demanded quicker democratic reform. Writer and activist Nahla Samaha was among the protesters in Tahrir Square today

Nahla Samaha: The atmosphere was amazing. People from all walks of life.

Werman: Young people? Old people? A mix?

Samaha: Young people, old people, even some people brought their toddlers. Senior citizens, rich, poor.

Werman: What about the reaction from passersby who were not taking part in the demonstrations?

Samaha: As we walked through streets with residential buildings, and all the residents were looking out their windows and balconies, we would chant up to them, “[foreign language],” which means “come down, come down,” asking them to join as well. A lot of people in the balconies were waving flags, applauding us, so there was a general sense of support.

Werman: Nahla, two years ago you were not protesting, but for an activist you have a pretty good excuse.

Samaha: Two years ago I was delivering my twins in a hospital here in Cairo, and I was watching on TV at the hospital, and I had no idea what was going on, and I actually thought, you know, why are these people wasting their time demonstrating or protesting? It’s not like it’s going to get them anywhere.

Werman: What was the turning point then for you? When did you get involved?

Samaha: All my friends were going to the [foreign language] during the core time of the revolution. It was everywhere, on all the political talk shows, social media, so there was no way of avoiding it. And then during last December’s clashes at the [foreign language], which is the presidential palace, we were actually watching it on live TV, watching the violence up close. That’s when I decided to take to the streets.

Werman: So how did it feel marching today?

Samaha: On a regular day walking down the street I might be slightly on the defensive. I don’t interact much with Egyptians on the street from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. There’s a great divide between the social classes in Egypt, but a demonstration or a march brings together people from different social classes, eliminates all these differences, and unites us all in one desire to live freely, democratically, and not in fear.

Werman: So Nahla, your twin girls are turning two. When you look to their future in Egypt, what do you see?

Samaha: Unfortunately, I’m not too optimistic about the immediate future. They are my priority, and if they cannot get the kind of quality of life and safety and security and education that I would like them to get here in Egypt, then we will most likely try to find a good life somewhere else.

Werman: So if you do leave, what will you tell your daughters, say, in 20 years, when they ask you why you didn’t want to stay in your country of birth?

Samaha: What I will tell them is what my parents told me when at some point we left as well, and I had moved to Canada as a young kid, because I wanted to give you a better life. Whether it was the right or wrong decision, it was the best decision I could make. I really am hoping I don’t have to leave, because as much as things like education and health care are better in other parts of the world, there is nothing like being in your own home country, you know?

Werman: Yeah, it may sound easy to say right now to them, but those are really complex considerations.

Samaha: Definitely, especially coming from our culture, living somewhere else, where you have to sort of reconcile two different cultures, one outside the house and one inside of the house. It’s difficult for child growing up, having been through it myself, but this might be a choice my husband and I will have to make at some point.

Werman: Nahla, thank you very much for speaking with us.

Samaha: No problem, not at all.

Werman: That was Egyptian activist Nahla Samaha speaking to us from Cairo. You can see her video from today’s demonstrations in Tahrir Square at TheWorld.org.

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This Friday, Samaha marched to Tahrir Square and sent these videos:

Two years later, people like Hafsa Halawa are realizing how difficult that transition can be.

While making coffee for a visitor with her gleaming new espresso machine, the 26-year-old admits she’s not your typical young Egyptian. She grew up in England, and now lives back with her family in a wealthy, gated community outside of Cairo. She wasn’t in Egypt for the revolution; she was attending grad school in the UK.

“My revolution,” she joked, “was on the phone with my parents here, freaking out about them and going to the Egyptian embassy in Britain.”

Armed with a newly-minted law degree, Halawa moved to Cairo a few months after the revolution, excited to help the fledgling democracy. She joined an American non-governmental organization (NGO) called the National Democratic Institute, or NDI, helping Egyptian political parties prepare for the country’s first free parliamentary elections in November 2011.

Hafsa Halawa at her home in a Cairo suburb. (Photo: Noel King)

“Everyone actually needed help with the same problems. Even the old guard, when it was disbanded, regrouping in a post-revolution Egypt — it’s been proven that it’s a whole host of egos and lack of finance and lack of basic understanding. I always joke that this country’s elites and it’s poor are politically illiterate,” she said.

Because NDI was working with parties across the political spectrum, Halawa didn’t think her work was particularly controversial. But just after the election, she found herself in the middle of a diplomatic firestorm. Egyptian security forces raided the offices of more than a dozen NGO’s, including NDI. They seized equipment and accused employees of spying. At first, Halawa says, she didn’t realize how serious the charges were until she was surrounded by security officers while at work.

“They started berating me and heckling me and screaming at me that I had damaged this country, that I was helping the Jewish, Israeli spies, that I was a Zionist. They had my ID card, so they saw that I was Egyptian. So, they to me: ‘are you not afraid for your country? Haven’t you done enough to your country? Enough. Enough. Enough.’ They kept screaming ‘enough.’”

The raid on the NGOs quickly became an international incident. Nineteen American citizens were charged. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressed the NGO crisis during a Senate hearing in February last year.

“We are engaged in very intensive discussions with the Egyptian government about finding a solution,” Clinton said. “We’ve had a lot of very tough conversations and I think we’re moving toward a resolution.”

After the diplomatic push, Egyptian authorities agreed to let the Americans leave the country.

But the Egyptians, including Halawa, are still on trial. The charges are simple: Because the NGOs were not properly registered to work in Egypt, the employees were essentially receiving illegal funds – in the form of their salaries.

Halawa and her co-defendants are confined to a cage each time they appear in court.

“It sort of has bars and it’s all mesh, mesh, mesh, mesh,” she said. “So not only can you not hear, because there are no microphones in court, you can’t really see a lot either. You have to kind of have your face right up against the mesh cage to see.”

To maintain her sense of humor, Halawa tweets during trial with the hashtag “grumpy defendant.” Egyptian political analyst Said Sadek said that Halawa’s case is one illustration of the challenges facing post-revolution Egypt. The country is now a democracy, but authoritarian values have been ingrained after decades of dictatorship.

“The regime does not allow such people to be challenging them, or exposing the corruption and human rights violations. So they are always being besieged by laws, by police system that even monitors Facebook, Skype, Twitter,” Sadek said.

Even so, Sadek – who teaches at the elite American University in Cairo – added that he’s surprised by how many of his students are willing to follow in Halawa’s footsteps.

“I get many of the graduates who were not interested in politics contacting me these days and asking, ‘What do I do? How can I join an NGO? How can I join a political party? What do I do exactly?’”

The NGO trial has been postponed until March. In the meantime, Halawa is trying to move on with her life, but finding it difficult.

“I’m angry,” Halawa said, “because I’ve spent the last 13, 14 months now, unable to work. NGOs refuse to hire me because I am on trial and it would cause problems for them with state security, even the registered organizations. I’ve had five straight rejections because of the trial. From all kinds: private sector, law firms, NGO’s and the answer is, ‘after trial ends.’”

Halawa said she doesn’t think the revolution has failed. She still has faith that Egyptians — particularly young people — will help shepherd their country toward democracy. She just hopes the trial will finally end, so she can get back to helping them.

It was a concerto called “Tahrir for Clarinet and Orchestra.”

And it was inspired by the gathering of protesters in Tahrir Square. In “Tahrir,” you can hear a sense of fiery revolt and hope. But Fairouz says that hope also came with angst.

After hundreds of protesters were killed in Cairo in the 2011 uprising, Fairouz began writing music for the people who had lost their lives.

“There were very personal stories that were articulated in the square,” he said. “People died. They gave up their lives. And there were tragic stories, when the regime in Egypt in its last breath of life resorted to killing people. They’re not just revolutionary icons. They’re people’s sons and daughters. They’re people’s mothers and fathers. They’re real people. They’re family members. So there were many intimate stories to be told.”

When he received a commission from violinist Rachel Barton Pine for a solo piece, Fairouz dedicated one movement of the suite to the victims.

It’s called “For Egypt.”

Mohammed Fairouz says it’s an intimate letter to the men and women who fell in the uprisings; a lamentation.

“It runs the gamut between loneliness, desperation, anxiety, despair, and even a certain amount of hope,” he said. “It captures all of those elements of dealing with death, and there’s an underlying, eerie serenity to the music. But it is very definitely a piece that tries to move beyond treating these people as a cause, and treats them as human beings. These are human losses. It looks beyond the political, to the realm of the human.”

Fairouz says the violin has existed in the Arab culture for thousands of years and is particularly well suited to this musical tribute.

“The violin has this tremendous ability to imitate the human voice,” Fairouz said.

At one point in the piece, the melody becomes particularly plaintive and inflections of the Arabic melodic scale –or Maqam– can be heard in bent notes. Fairouz meant for this moment to be a plea.

“You can almost imagine a mother or a father imploring their child not to go out into the square,” he said, “saying: ‘you’ll not be safe.’ But young people have the idealism to say ‘we want to change, we can’t live in an un-free world for ever, we have to change our society,’ and they go out, and something terrible happens to them, as really did happen to so many young people and old people, and people in the square. They were murdered.”

In the middle of the piece, the music crescendos and gets more intense, seeming almost angry and defiant.

“There’s a sense of ‘how could we let this happen to our own people?’,” said Fairouz. “And in a way, it’s all of these complex emotions that I wanted to capture in this movement ‘For Egypt’ that comment strongly on the role of the artist in this political environment, because we have a tremendous ability I think, and an advantage, especially in music, in that we can look beyond, cut through to the socio-political, right through to the human level.”

Toward the end, the violin solo reaches a quieter mood.

“It winds down, I think, into a place of serenity and acceptance,” said Fairouz, “and to some degree, of hopefulness that, in the end, perhaps all of those people who gave up their lives, did not do it for nothing.”

Mohammed Fairouz: “For Egypt” from “Native Informant”
Performed by Rachel Barton Pine.
The CD will be available on Naxos American Classics, March 2013

START TIME: 6:27

TAHRIR INTERVIEW
EGYPT REPORT
TAHRIR MUSIC REPORT

END TIME: 19:37

MUSIC:
SONG: Deep Like Airline Failure
ARTIST: Proem
CD TITLE: Socially Inept
CD LABEL: Merck

START TIME: 21:00

BURMA REPORT
BALL BOY INTERVIEW

END TIME: 29:29

MUSIC:
SONG: Straight Line
ARTIST: Korazon
CD TITLE: World Kora Trio
CD LABEL: Cristal Publishing
CD #: PM 773 286

START TIME: 32:57

RHITU REPORT
REDDIT COMMENTS READER

MUSIC:
SONG: Je T’Aime
ARTIST: Staff Benda Bilili
CD TITLE: Africa Express Presents…
CD LABEL: Africa Express

KABUL INTERVIEW

GEO QUIZ
SONG: Djarabi
ARTISTS: Toubab Krewe
CD TITLE: Toubab Krewe
CD LABEL: Upstream Records

LOBSTERS INTERVIEW

MUSIC:
SONG: Flower and Bone
ARTISTS: Oki Dub Ainu Band
CD TITLE: Sakhalin Rock
CD LABEL: Chikar Studio

END TIME: 48:58

MUSIC:
SONG: Thanks Mr G
ARTIST: Tania Maria
CD TITLE: Canto
CD LABEL: Naïve Records

START TIME: 50:00

GEO ANSWER INTERVIEW (RIO)
GLOBAL HIT

END TIME: 58:09

Regional Arab indifference toward Palestinians living in Israel is nothing new. As this BBC piece points out, Israel’s Arab citizens were neither mentioned in the founding articles of the Arab League in the 1940s, nor the Oslo Accords of the 1990s.

A community activist told me this morning that many Palestinians in Israel welcomed the acknowledgment from the Arab League about the importance of getting out to vote tomorrow. “Too bad it comes this late,” he added, and that it’s not supported by a broader effort.

Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi has an op-ed today detailing profound concerns about where Israeli politics are leading the Jewish State and the region. She mentions Arab citizens in Israel, but doesn’t echo the Arab League’s call for them to participate in the election.

“Justice seems to have no meaning in the Israeli political lexicon unless it is in relation to Israeli Jewish citizens. This fact can be attested to by the 1.5 million Christian and Muslim Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship and yet face institutionalized discrimination within Israel itself. Incitement against Palestinians is on the rise.”

Spanish, Portuguese and French travelers introduced it to the New World.

Now, it is grown everywhere, but can you name the country where most of the global supply of garlic comes from?

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, more than 18 million tons of garlic are grown in this one country and it supplies more than 75 percent of the global garlic supply.

That is more than the total produced by India, South Korea, Egypt, Russia and even Gilroy, CA, the so-called “garlic capital of the world.”

China is the answer to the Geo Quiz.

All that garlic produced in China generates big profits and some of those profits are illegal. Authorities in Sweden say they have cracked a multi-million dollar garlic smuggling scheme.

Anchor Marco Weman talks to David Murphy who investigates Trade Customs Fraud for the European Anti-Fraud Office in Brussels. He explains why $13 million of the winter root vegetable was confiscated in Sweden.

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