Alexandria

Egyptians head to the polls in Alexandria

By Evan Hill in Middle East on November 28th, 2011

Judge Mohamed Aboul Ela sealing ballot boxes as polls close [Evan Hill / Al Jazeera]

Alexandria, Egypt’s coastal second city, was swept with rain on Monday, but that didn't dampen turnout on the first day of Egypt’s marathon elections for both houses of parliament.

The city is a contradiction, a Mediterranean enclave of creaking pensions-turned-hotels, with stocks of Stella beer in the back rooms, but whose new political face is likely to be thoroughly Islamist.

The Muslim Brotherhood has traditionally enjoyed strength here, and the most prominent of the post-revolution Salafi groups, the Nour Party, was born in Alexandria.

These forces were on display on Monday, as the brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) flexed its organisational muscles street by street, and Salafis expressed calm confidence in their chances.

Tags: Abouzeid Mohammed, Alexandria, Egypt, Mohammed Korayib, Tarek Talaat Moustafa

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Mother of the Revolution

By Alan Fisher in Middle East on May 22nd, 2011

Photo by Reuters

On a sun baked hill in a quiet corner of noisy Alexandria, Khaled Said's grave is unremarkable.

Perhaps the flowers on top are more watered than the others, but the tombstone simply states his name next to a short verse from the Koran. It also has the date of his death, the 6th of June, 2010, the day many here say marked the beginning of Egypt's revolution.

Khaled was 28. He'd gone out to use an internet cafe in the coastal city. It was a Sunday night.

According to one man who says he was there, two policemen walked in and there was some sort of row with them and Khalid. The police started to beat him. Khalid tried to fight back or escape. In the confusion, it was hard to tell. In the scuffle, the young man's head hit a marble table with a sickening thud and blood began to pour from his head.

The police then pulled him out of the cafe.

Tags: Alexandria, Khaled Said, Khalid Said, Leyla Qasim

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Chaos on the Libyan border

By Nick Clark in Africa on March 11th, 2011

As we work our way through the chaotic main border crossing between Egypt and Libya, a man with a megaphone is surrounded by an anxious melee of hundreds of Bangladeshis.

They're gripped by his every word. The man is reading out a list of names - the selected few are allowed to board buses for the journey to Alexandria and a flight home.

They shove and barge their way on board their route to freedom, their bagged and boxed belongings of a life lived in Libya shoved down below.

The rest remain disappointed. They will be here again tomorrow, and, for most, for days to come. Three thousand five hundred have been processed so far, there are thousands more to come.

"There are three planes from Alexandria to Dakar every day," said Rana Jaber of the International Organisation for Migration.

Tags: Alexandria, Libya, Rana Jaber

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