Casablanca - Moroccans were introduced on Friday, May 23, at the Hassania School of Public Works (EHTP) in Casablanca, to the new 20 distinguished Moroccan leaders who would carry the torch and lead the way to multidimensional development in Morocco.

Organized by the Tariq Ibn Ziyad Initiative (TIZI), the second edition of the TIZI AWARDS celebrated the new 20 young Moroccan talents, who will later receive training on leadership at the prestigious Harvard University, in the Maerican state of Massachusetts.

The event was opened by former Minister of Commerce, Industry and ICT, Mr. Ahmed Reda Chami, who highlighted the challenges of leadership for an emerging country like Morocco.

The event also featured a roundtable that brought together many celebrities around the theme, “Moroccan leaders, where are they? Who are they? What do they do?” The fields of leadership addressed during the round table were sports, social action, arts, business and politics.

Prominent Moroccan personalities took part in the event: Mr. Majid Kaisser El Ghaib, Former High Commissioner of the State and a community actor; Hakim El Marrakchi, CEO of the Maghreb Industry and an active member of the CGEM; Aziz Daouda, an important Moroccan sports personality, and Sahbi Chtioui, famous Tunisian sculptor who has been living in Morocco for several decades.

A dazzling piano performance by the virtuoso Moroccan pianist Marwan Benabdellah kicked off the TIZI AWARDS ceremony, in which Morocco’s new distinguished leaders were revealed and celebrated for their remarkable achievements in several fields.

The 20 leaders were grouped into five categories: Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Social & Civic Action, Political Action & Public Management, Art & Design and Sport.

Below are brief presentations of each of the 20 distinguished TIZI awardees:

Category: Political Action and Public Management

Based in New York, Bennis Samir, 37, is a political advisor at an Arab diplomatic mission to the United Nations. Along with his brother Adnane, he co-founded Morocco World News, a digital news outlet, first of its kind, which aims to improve Morocco's image abroad and defend the strategic interests of Morocco at the head of which is the question of territorial integrity.

Soukayna BENJELLOUN, 26, is an architect and planner living in Tangier. She aims, through her work, to democratize the marketing of cities by first democratizing artistic taste and access to architectural studies in Morocco.

Ghali Bensouda, 22, is a blogger and political activist. He is the President of Cap Démocratie Maroc. Bensouda has supported many causes through his writings: Release of political prisoners, support of journalists, Advanced Democratization in Morocco.

Category: Entrepreneurship & Innovation

Fatim -Zahra Biaz, 32, is the founder of the New York Lab. She decided to devote herself to the development of entrepreneurship and the digital realm in Casablanca. She has suggested a model for promoting Moroccan entrepreneurship, which would enable it to meet the challenges our society.

Chaqor Youssef, 37, is an engineer from the Mohammedia School of Engineers. He created the first enterprise specialized in the collection and recycling of used cooking oil in Morocco.

Fatima Zohra OUKACHA, 33, is the founder of the company TransWorld Protection and Co -founder & President of CEED Morocco, which has helped more than 70 entrepreneurs in the creation and development of their businesses.

Nawfal CHAMA, 31, another young Moroccan leader passionate about entrepreneurship, co-organized the Startup Weekend in Morocco. He works on the promotion of the culture of entrepreneurship in Morocco.

Tarik Fadli, 33, has worked on the development of a solution to paperless signing in Morocco, the certification of copies and the installation of civic IT solutions for the sustainable development of a quality public service for Moroccans.

Category: Media and Social Networks

Abdellah Turabi, 38, holds a graduate degree in Political Science. He was the managing editor ofZamane magazine, and is now director of the weekly magazine Tel Quel.

LARAKI Mohamed, 38, created, in 10 years, one of the largest media groups in Morocco and North Africa, and has developed several media platforms: Plurielle, Sport hebdo, L’Officiel femmes, L’Officiel Hommes and H24 info.

Category: Social & Civic Action

LAZIRI Maha, 24, is the president and co-founder of Teach4Morocco, an organization that works to expand access to primary education in remote areas of the country.

MAMDOUH Ayoub, 30, graduated from the Ecole des Mines de Paris. After 5 years in an American multinational, he currently works as a consultant in a large strategic consulting firm. He has been actively participating in several projects targeting the Moroccan civil society, including a project launched by the governor of Casablanca aimed at the improvement of the living conditions in Morocco’s economic capital.

OULMIDI Anas, 24, is an internal physician and the President of the association “Lueur d’espoir,” represented in 10 Moroccan cities (Casablanca, Oujda, Fez, Agadir, Safi, Beni-Mellal, Kalaa, Zagora and Paris). Anas is also the Secretary General of the addiction treatment center in Marrakech.

Category: Education & Research

Omar Saghi, 33, graduated from the Institut d’Eudes Politique of Paris. He holds a Ph.D. in political science, and is also a writer, and a scenarist. He is also a member of the Circle of policy analysis at the Abderrahim Bouabid Foundation, and a columnist in some major Moroccan magazines, such asLe Soir-echos and Telquel.

MOULINE Nabil, 33, holds an MA and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Sciences Po Paris. He is responsible for research at CNRS-EHESS and a member of several research teams in Morocco, the Arab world, Europe and the USA.

Category: Arts, Culture & Design

BENABDALLAH Marwan, 31, is a virtuoso pianist who was present in Morocco during several events, and has also performed on the day devoted to Morocco in the World Expo in Shanghai. He also performed in the closing ceremony of the World Economic Forum, held in Marrakech in 2010. Benabdallah Marwan has become the main representative of Morocco on the international concert scene.

Younes Duret, 33, graduated in Industrial Design. He creates everyday products for restaurants, cafés and hotels, which artistically and adeptly fuse Moroccan and Western culture, tradition and modernity.

BENALI Abdelkader, 38, is Moroccan-Dutch writer and essayist, originally from Beni Chiker. He wrote eight novels translated into several languages, and now lives in Amsterdam, where he worked on the production of a documentary on women in the Rif.

Category: Sport

Nacer IBN abdeljalil, 34 years, carried the Moroccan flag on the world’s highest mountain summit, that of Mount Everest, and he intends to wave it soon in the two polar opposites of Earth (the north and south). Today, Nacer is involved in various social activities for people from underserved areas.

Amine ZARIAT, 24, is former basketball player in the national team. He has created TIBU Association, organized the fourth edition of the Grand International Basketball Tournament and founded the first Basketball Academy in Morocco.

To these 20 distinguished Moroccan leaders were offered a package of encouraging awards: (1) a trophy at the 2014 TIZI Awards ceremony in testimony to their remarkable achievements; (2) media coverage of their projects by TIZI’s media partners; (3) a 20-hour introductory seminar on personal leadership and political leadership; (4) the provision of a mentor to support the forging and strengthening of their professional career; and (5) a scholarship comprising a training on executive leadership policy at the prestigious Harvard Kennedy School—a grant funded by a Moroccan institution.

Tariq Ibn Ziyad Initiative principally aims at fostering political action, promoting leadership and providing training for young Moroccan leaders. The initiative emanated from civil society and has since been widely supported by Moroccan youth.

Rabat – The Moroccan National (HIgh School) Debate Team competed and won this weekend against Morocco’s best university teams.

In a full day tournament this past Saturday, hosted by The Great Debaters of Morocco in Rabat, five young debaters pulled off a stunning victory, a glimpse of things to come in Thailand.

The Great Debaters of Morocco, Morocco’s first national debate association, has been running a national University debate tournament for the past two years. The organization, founded by Rajae Boujnah and Younes Ahaddad, encourages political, social and cultural debate among Moroccan youth, and works to expand the limits of dialogue and discussion in Moroccan culture.

The tournament this weekend was hosted at L’Ecole Nationale de l’Industrie Minerale, Morocco’s premier school of architecture. The most prestigious universities in the country competed for the golden cup: ENSA Tetouan, INTP, ESI, and Cadi Ayyad University are the foes that the Moroccan National Debate Team faced.

The five debaters from the Moroccan National Debate Team were by far the youngest competitors at the tournament–Rim Belkouadssi, for example, just turned fifteen years old! They were also the only high-school team in a tournament that represent the best of the best Moroccan universities. But the team more than held their own, beating three university teams to take home the silver medal at the national university debate championship and the gold medal for best coaching.

That this young team should so successfully compete against Morocco’s finest university teams speaks volumes about their debating potential. Saturday’s win makes them officially the best high school debate team in the country, and the second-best university debate team! In fact, their competitors were so impressed by the performance that they all came to the team after the end of the competition to shake their hand and congratulate “the best team at the tournament.”

Congratulations to Yassine Youssfi, Zakaria Jebari, Rim Belkouadssi and Ghali Bengebara, Morocco’s best young debaters. This is only a preview of things to come, so stay tuned for more victories–both at home and abroad!

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Tangier - At an international conference on human development methods and evaluation approaches to equality for new generations, Roberto Benes of UNICEF’s MENA Regional Office praised Morocco’s leadership in the field of equality, social protection, and improvement for disadvantaged social groups, according to Maghreb Arab Press.

Speaking on Wednesday in Rabat, Benes said, “UNICEF is happy to support efforts by Morocco in human development and fighting poverty through social policies.”

A number of experts on the subject attended the international conference, calling upon participants to share their experiences and strengthen cooperation. Practitioners came from Sub-Saharan African countries to share their knowledge and expertise in evaluating human development, fighting poverty, and implementing public policy.

The evaluation of public policies is “crucial to ensure the effectiveness of public spending,” said UN Resident Coordinator in Morocco, Bruno Pouezat, in a statement to Maghreb Arab Press.

The meeting, held in Rabat, was organized by the National Observatory for Human Development (ONDH) in corporation with United Nations agencies and the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.

Edited by Elisabeth Myers

Casablanca - El Houssaine Ichen, known to friends and family as Houssaine, lives in Tounfite in the Middle Atlas Mountains of Morocco. Houssaine’s family was not able to vaccinate him as a baby because of high costs and, as a result, he caught Polio at the age of three. The disease left his legs paralyzed, changing his life forever.

Houssaine was able to go to an institution for the physically challenged in Khemisset, which at the time was run by the organization Save the Children. He attended this school with the help of foster parents in the UK who sponsored him. He told MWN, “The experience that was life changing for me was that I was fortunate enough to have a chance to learn and be educated. I am very grateful for the opportunity I had.” After finishing high school, Houssaine got his B.A. in Modern Art, a diploma in Informatics Management and a specialized diploma in Informatics Development.

Today, Houssaine has a company called the Disabled Tourist Guide. He started the company because of his love for traveling combined with his frustration with the lack accommodations for people with special needs throughout Morocco. “Traveling is something that I have always loved. Morocco is a very beautiful place with lots to see and discover. I can show tourists around and teach them about our culture, while keeping their vacation fun and safe,” Houssaine says.

The situation with Moroccans who have special needs is not taken seriously and there is a stereotype around people with special needs that they are unproductive in the workplace. Houssaine has surpassed those stereotypes, admitting, “I have overcome these obstacles by proving that I can do anything I put my mind to and I will never give up.” The message Houssaine is trying to spread is very clear – he wants the government to acknowledge the discrimination of those with special needs and for everyone to come to the realization that businesses should hire based only on qualifications.

Houssaine invites any travelers, regardless of the need for special accommodations, to come explore Morocco and have a true Moroccan experience. He says, “I love learning new things and I am always ready for an adventure.” Houssaine serves as an inspiration to everyone. Despite his paralysis and constant discrimination, he created a successful travel company offering tours and accommodations unlike any other tour group. More importantly, he is a voice fighting for those with special needs in Morocco.

Casablanca - Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani education activist, travelled to Nigeria to give hope and strength to the concerned families at an international hotel in Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria.

During her visit, she aims to campaign on behalf of the Nigerian kidnapped girls to appeal for their release and their right to education.

Viewing the abducted girls as her sisters, the young Pakistani activist declared: “ I am going to stand up for them.”

Malala Yousafzai is a 17-year-old activist known worldwide. In early 2009, young Yousafzai anonymously wrote a blog for the BBC detailing her life under Taliban rule while promoting her views on women’s education. In 2012, she barely survived 3 gunshot wounds inflicted by a Taliban hit-man in Pakistan. Activists hope that Malala’s activism in Nigeria will help bring the girls back to their homes.

At a small gathering in the hotel’s conference room, Malala, her father and relatives of the kidnapped girls gathered with the intention of spreading more awareness and putting more pressure on the local government. Malala also granted the families with moral support by talking about her incident and how important it is to speak up for one’s right.

90 days of uncertainty of their daughters’ futures has left a lot of parents on the brink of despair.

According to BBC World News, one father of the abducted girls stated: “Is it because we're [a] poor country people that the government isn't doing anything? Suppose these were the daughters of someone important; would they still be in the forest after 90 days?"

Moreover, parents fear that their daughters will be married off against their will as Boko Haram threatened. Parents are also afraid that their daughters have been physically abused or raped.

Although Boko Harram proposed to free the girls in exchange for the government to release its men from prison, the Nigerian army opposed the deal.

The viral #BringBackOurGirls social media campaign has already reached numerous celebrities and non-celebrities, pressuring the government to bring back the girls in a healthy condition.

By Chafik Mohamed

Oujda - One of the great paradoxes that marks the Moroccan community is the phenomenon of Tramdeen.

Tramdeen, derived from the word “Ramadan” (Islam’s holy month of fasting and praying) describes the anger and aggression that paradoxically accompanies the holy month.

Countless videos, and forum posts attest to the phenomenon. Ramadan, a month that is supposed to promote fasting, peace and good behavior, often promotes the very opposite. Just ask your friends or neighbors—how many times they have seen people become more aggressive—children yelling at their mothers, fist fights in the souq or taxi drivers driving with especial disregard for life and limb?

Of course, Morocco is not unique—Tramdeen hits Muslims all over the world. In fact, if you google “Anger during Ramadan,” you get over 750,000 responses! Why is there such a problem with anger during Ramadan? Well, simple explanations come to mind. People are hungry, and their blood sugar is low. People can’t drink water, and they are thirsty while working in the hot summer sun. Cigarette smokers can’t smoke, adding another major irritant to an already difficult month. Sex, of course, is reserved to the night-time hours, and many businesses (particularly in the restaurant/hospitality industry) hemorrhage profits. All of these factors can, understandably, lead to anger and aggression.

But for some reason Tramdeen does seem to hit Morocco especially hard and with pernicious violence. For example, last Monday in Fez, a young man was stabbed to death by his neighbor. 

It is sad to think about the violence that accompanies Ramadan in Morocco, because of course Ramadan is all about self-control and rising above your anger, not giving in to it. The Prophet (peace be upon him) teaches us that Ramadan is the month of forgiveness, in which the gates of heaven are opened, and the doors of hell are strictly closed. The gates of hell and heaven, when interpreted metaphorically, also mean our own personal angels and demons: Ramadan should be about unleashing the best that is in us, and keeping the demons of our anger locked away behind the gates of faith.

So really Tramdeen is the polar opposite of what Ramadan means. Ramadan is a test of spiritual strength, of patience, of overcoming anger. Unfortunately Moroccans are failing that spiritual test, as  demonstrated by our full hospitals and our streets filled with fights and curses. 

So this Ramadan instead of opening the gates to our inner demons let us focus on the true, holy meaning of the fast: self-control. Let us encourage the angels of our better nature.

Edited by Ilona Alexandra

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New Jersey - Images found on the popular blog Humans of New York are familiar to many of us: A man wearing dreads talking about his relationship with his father in Central Park. A woman sitting against a wall perhaps waiting for a train at Grand Central Station and even a  group of Muslims praying on a soccer field in Jamaica, Queens.

However as of Aug. 7, creator and photographer Brandon Stanton isn’t in the Empire State anymore, but traveling 25,000 miles on a tour to ten different countries to raise awareness for the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. As part of the initiative, Stanton will help focus on eight objectives from ensuring environmental sustainability to eradicate world poverty and hunger.

Stanton traveled to the city of Erbil first where the Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking religious minority in Iraq, are escaping attacks by ISIS militants. His photos mark a shift from recognizable sidewalks and park benches to red dirt, open markets, and even a different take on microfashion.

In one image, Stanton reveals a slice of life from a young Syrian refugee who left behind a college career for shelter and work in Iraq. In another, a man in Jordan is seen standing along side a decoratively adorned camel.

For some, these pictures humanize the unrest in places like Iraq where visions of corruption, death and destruction are overflowing.

Rabat -  Jailed Moroccan student and far left activist, Mustapha Meziani, died on Wednesday after 72 days of being on a hunger strike in Fez. Moroccan human rights activists are blaming the government for his death.

Mustafa Meziani has died after 72 days of a hunger strike in protest of the government’s decision to refuse his demand to be reinstated at the University of Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah in Fez.

The Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH) has blamed the Moroccan government for the student’s death and earlier this week condemned the Moroccan authorities’ negligence over the health conditions under which Mustafa Meziani was detained.

On July 10, Mustafa Meziani was arrested and put surveillance over his alleged involvement in the murder of Islamist student, Abderahim El Hassnaoui.

El Hassnaoui had been killed on April 25 during a bloody clash between students from two opposing factions, Al-Tajdid al-Tollabi (OREMA) and Annahj democrati Al Qaidi (or the Democratic Way), on the Fez-Dher Mehrez college campus.

Meziani had reportedly denied these charges, and had claimed that his detention was punishment for his activism with the far left group Annahj democrati Al Qaidi. He had decided to go on a hunger strike on July 3 to protest his detention and his exclusion from the university, as well as to demand his right to be reinstated at the university.

Meziani was transferred to a treatment room in critical condition on August 4 due to loss of hearing and sight and generally deteriorating health.

After Meziani died, Maghreb Arab Presse (MAP) quoted the Fez prison administration as saying that it had done "everything possible to convince him to stop his hunger strike, after he knew that his demand to reinstate to the university had been refused, but in vain.”

Meziani’s death has stirred controversy on social media. The activist community has harshly criticized the government. Some of them have accused the Moroccan authorities of persecuting activists who adopt different ideologies to the state institutions’ ideology.

A statement issued by the Moroccan Association of Human Rights accused the state institutions of negligence regarding Meziani’s demands. It blamed the head of the government, Abdelillah Benkirane for his death.

“We sent an open letter to the head of the government describing Mustapha Meziani’s dangerous health condition before he died, but in vain. It is as if a human being’s life is worth nothing to the Moroccan state, which claims that it respects Human Rights.”

© Morocco World News. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten or redistributed

By Ouassima Boujrad

Fez - Some amazing women come from Morocco and Khaoula Morchid is one of them.

She is the founder of Future Moroccan Entrepreneurs, and is a 20-year old Moroccan girl. Born and raised in Marrakesh, she decided to take a special path outside of what is seen in Morocco as the norm for an outstanding student who has always been the first in her class, school and region of Marrakesh Tensift Elhaouz.

Khaoula attended Ibn Toumert Secondary High School and finished the first year of Sience and Maths Baccalaureate [the 11^th grade]. While also taking English classes at the Center for Language and Culture, she found a poster about the African Leadership Academy (ALA). After a selective admissions process, she left Morocco in 2011, to attend ALA where she had the chance to develop her entrepreneurial leadership skills by going through a rigorous curriculum and by holding various leadership positions such as the CEO of a student run enterprise, the chair of the ALA student government, the head of the ALA delegation to Harvard Model United Nations and Georgetown MUN in Qatar.

Khaoula is currently studying at the University of Notre Dame in the U.S. as part of the prestigious Hesburgh-Yusko Scholars Program which is a “comprehensive merit-based scholarship and program that seeks to attract, encourage, and equip extraordinary students who will have a transformational effect” worldwide. She has developed a passion for entrepreneurship and development. This made her spend this summer working on sustainable development projects in Germany and Bangladesh where she met Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus.

After her return to Morocco for summer vacation, she organized the 4^th edition of Future Moroccan Entrepreneurs (FME) on August 11 -14, 2014 in Marrakech, an initiative she founded with some of her classmates while she was at ALA. FME is an entrepreneurship and leadership program that aims to create a proactive generation of leaders who take action to address their society’s needs. Khaoula says that Moroccan youth have a lot of potential and can help change their country if they move from talking to acting by “making their ideas a reality” and she hopes that the spirit spreads through FME and other initiatives.

Khaoula is eager to continue learning inside and outside of the classroom through conferences she attends with delegates from all over the globe (Three Dot Dash in New York, World Business Dialogue in Cologne and others). She looks forward to returning to Morocco to apply the knowledge and experience she will acquire in her years abroad in shaping the way entrepreneurship works in Morocco and the whole African continent.

Finally, Khaoula has earned various awards, given by the African Leadership Academy, including: Self Leadership Award, Most outstanding EL Journey (Entrepreneurial Leadership), Leadership Award ("For the student who has demonstrated practical Leadership in the ALA community"), and The Best Mathematician Award for the years 2012 and 2013.

This event is part of a national tour being held in the largest cities in the Kingdom of Morocco, including Casablanca and Tangier. The purpose of these events is to make young people aware of the importance of social entrepreneurship as a key to success for the social development of their community.

Yunus & Youth is a global movement inspiring young people to join, explore and pursue the unconventional paths of social businesses by understanding the business environment in Morocco. Through its program, including the national tour, trainings and online classes, the Yunus & Youth Morocco has shown its potential to reach young social entrepreneurs, leading their own social enterprises and to help them improve their capacity, ability and situations.

Sara Chellaoui, the Hub coordinator of Morocco, in an interview with Morocco World News, has insisted on the importance of social entrepreneurship as the main pillar to assist in the development of our country.

She said: “Social entrepreneurship is very important and needed in Morocco, we have many social challenges that we can tackle effectively using this new concept of business.”  Her statement has made it clear that Yunus & Youth is envisioning a global network of young people implementing sustainable, social business solutions to fight the world’s most pressing social issues.

Internationally, Mrs. Chellaoui’s organization offers fellowship programs of six months to encourage and monitor young entrepreneurs to build their own projects effectively.  From 90 applications, only 17 young entrepreneurs have been offered this fellowship.  These projects will receive instruction and assistance from experts and specially trained mentors from Yunus & Youth.

During the workshop in Fez, Mrs. Chellaoui and the participants have agreed on the key points that are to change the mindset of Moroccans about the concept of social entrepreneurship and help to build a strong network. “For [the] Moroccan chapter, the challenge so far is to build a solid network of supporters around Yunus and Youth,” said Mrs. Chellaoui.

Judging by the grand efforts made by the participants of this program, the future social entrepreneurship looks extremely promising. However, more and more encouragement and support are required to transform Moroccan society from a passive consumption mode to an active one.  Morocco of 2014, needs this kind of enterprise to bolster and lead itself toward the ultimate phase of development.

Rabat - A Moroccan beauty queen is believed to be involved in one of the biggest child pornography and human trafficking schemes in Egypt according to Egyptian media outlets.

The unidentified Moroccan beauty queen has reportedly been accused of funding a fake association that exploits homeless children in the production of child pornography, as well as using them as human shields in several political demonstrations and conflicts with the police.

According to Egypt’s Yaoum7, the fake association that goes by the name “Biladi” or my country was co-founded by an American woman and her husband. The American couple are said to have stripped over 20 children and videotaped them naked in a minor pornographic production.

On Sunday, the Egyptian police detained the associations’ main financier for investigation. “She admitted to having received funds from a Moroccan beauty queen,” Yaoum7 reported.

The Associations’ financier said that she had received moral and financial support from the Moroccan beauty queen, without revealing her name or the details.

The Association’s co-founders, Aya Hijazi, 27, and her husband Mohamed Hassanine, 26, admitted to detaining over 20 homeless children in their Cairo-based house.

The US couple stated during the investigations that they had forced the children to have sex with each other in order to record them in a pornographic film production.

CAIRO — ‘Freedom to the Dream’ gallery founder aims to maintain her friends’ presence outside the prison cell using a paintbrush and a sketch 

As soon as the masses flocked inside the huge, colorful marquee located in the beating heart of downtown to attend the monthly public festival of Al-fann midan, she started stringing up her drawings at one of its corners. Those colorful drawings share the same colors, background and theme but feature different faces.

Ranwa Youssef, an old hand fine artist and political activist, who is based in Alexandria, launched a gallery under the title “freedom to the dream” to feature her friends who were detained following the recently issued protest law.

The protest law was issued back in November 2013 by interim president Adly Mansour, at a time of weekly bloody clashes between the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) supporters and the security forces. The law obliges any rally coordinator to submit a written notice to the interior ministry at least three working days in advance, the fact that provoked political activists from various affiliations to organize more protests, against the law.

91 Egyptians are currently detained under the protest law, out of 40,000 others who are detained since MB regime ouster, according to AMNESTY international reports.

Mahienour El-Massry, an Egyptian lawyer and political activist from Alexandria, often dubbed as the “voice of revolution” has been sentenced to six months for protesting last May.

In the following interview, Youssef who is a close friend of Mahienour, explains how the different security hurdles in Egypt over four regimes have impacted her experience as an artist and active politician.

MWN: When did you start drawing?

Ranwa Youssef: I started drawing since I was studying fine arts in college. However, I haven’t used arts in any form of political expression until the death of our friend Khaled Saeed in 2010.

At that time I started getting the stencils and pictures to draw graffiti for the first time, and as I started witnessing an increasing number of people on the streets few months before the revolution, I felt encouraged to draw more graffiti.

MWN: How did the people and the police in Alexandria respond to that?

Ranwa Youssef: The people welcomed the idea, during the 2011 revolution and through the transitional period afterwards. The security situation was also very loose, we continued doing graffiti even under Morsi’s rule. Now, whenever we start drawing a new graffiti, it gets removed by the police. Which sounds very weird to me, because I believe if a graffiti has some mistakes, it’s part of the people’s culture and part of a historical era that should be reserved, just like the graffiti on Berlin Wall.

MWN: Why did you launch “Freedom to the dream”?

Ranwa Youssef: After the June 30 uprising I started creating my own work and also many people I know got arrested. I chose the name ‘freedom to the dream” to launch a series of portraits for them, because nothing can stop a dream, not even a prison cell. The series of portraits was first published online, but then I felt the necessity to take it to offline galleries, as it helps maintain the detainees presence outside the cells; passersby would start asking about their stories when they see their pictures.

MWN: How do you know Mahienour El-Massry?

Ranwa Youssef: Mahienour is one of my closest friends, we are both members of the Revolution Socialist group, and we have been actively engaged in many political events since 2008. In 2009, we also joined a protest during the attack against Gaza, and then took part in many protests against Khaled Saeed’s death, until the revolution started in 2011.

MWN: What are the most significant changes you have witnessed before and after the revolution during those rallies?

Ranwa Youssef: The number of people. Before the revolution we used to jubilate if the rally was joined by only 300 person. Now millions of people take the the streets fearlessly, without instructions from anyone.

MWN: What happened on the day Mahienour got arrested?

Ranwa Youssef: During the fourth hearing session of the policeman charged with killing Khaled Saeed, Mahienour along with 6 others stood peacefully outside the court in May 2013. We did this countless times before, but on that day there was an order for Mahienour’s arrest.

Mahienour and I believed she should show up, because she is not guilty and we are all against this law, and fleeing will not be the best option.

Usually, after you go to the police station a report is filed, until the they arrange a hearing session for you, but what happened on that day was very shocking.

She got transferred to another district, where another judge sentenced her to two years in jail without investigations, without listening to the lawyers, and without giving her a chance to defend herself.

It does not really matter if the verdict was then reduced to six months because it is based on an unjust law. Mahienour paid a really high price more than anyone could possibly imagine.

MWN: What would you say to those who label the current political detainees as “terrorists”?

Ranwa Youssef: Mahienour always stands up against any form of violence. No doubt that there are many other people who took advantage of our peaceful revolution, on top of them the MB group who collaborated with the old regime and tried to restore their old policies.

But that does not justify the protest law. I believe the only way to “terminate” this law, is to peacefully express our concerns towards it.

This is my second contribution to Al-Fann Midan, I’ve increased the number of portraits. Some of the people I featured earlier have just been released.

By Asmae Nasri

Rabat- Maroc Telecom, a pioneering telecommunications company, paid tribute to 150 baccalaureate students on September 8th.

Sixty-six of the beneficiaries were sons and daughters of its employees. The celebration was held in the company’s social center in Hay Riad in Rabat.

The head of the company’s administrative council, Abdslam Ahizoun, gave the opening remarks for the ceremony. “By giving these scholarships, our company wants to encourage the young students who are thirsty for knowledge to embrace the values of perseverance and diligence,” he said.

Ahizoun reminded the audience that since the inauguration of this “Imtiyaz” initiative in 2005, Maroc Telecom has given 1200 scholarships to Moroccan baccalaureate students from all sixteen regions.

Encouraging youth is one of Maroc Telecom’s priorities. Ahizoun said, “Investing in human capital in order to build a better Morocco is one of our priorities, it is a crucial element in our policy”.

Edited by Jessica Rohan

Taroudant, Morocco - A Tunisian woman based in Paris has received a massive flood of accusations because she has allegedly "burned a page of the Quran with her cigarette."

The Tunisian website Bouyafar published photos of a woman who desecrated the pages of Holy Quran by her cigarette.

The same source said that Khadija Ben Ayed, a Tunisian living in Paris, burned and desecrated the Quran and posted the photos on her Facebook wall.

However, the Moroccan French website Telquel said that “these photos that circulated for a while on Facebook do not belong to the Tunisian question in question.

“These are screenshots taken from a video posted on YouTube in 2012 of a completely different person, speaking in English, and affiliated with an Islamophobic forum,” the same source said.

Rabat - The World Bank (WB) and the British Council (BC) announced today that they will sign a memorandum of understanding on September 30 to promote the importance of social enterprises and launch a new incubation program for social entrepreneurs in Morocco.

With the assistance of a multi-donor trust fund, WB ad BC will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) involving $330,000 US in Rabat, the headquarters of the World Bank, on September 30, 2014, at 8.30 am.

This agreement will allow the partners to promote the importance of social enterprise and launch a new incubation program for social entrepreneurs.

A campaign will be launched in early November 2014 to raise awareness about potential job creation and improved social services resulting from social enterprises. A pilot program will support, assist, and finance Moroccan social enterprises.

The project plans to identify 30 social entrepreneurs with innovative projects, who will participate in a training program in January 2015.

The signing of the MOU will be attended by the Director of the Maghreb Department at the World Bank, Mr. Simon Gray, the British Council Regional Director—MENA, Mr Adrian Chadwick, and the new Director of the British Council Morocco, Mr John Mitchell.

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Marrakech - The Promise pathways, a program financed by the US department of labor to fight child labor, was launched on Monday in Marrakech.

The Promise Pathways project, worth USD 5 million, seeks to reduce child labor in Morocco by increasing access to education for 5,500 children and youth (ages 6 to 17) and by providing livelihood and other social services to 1,000 siblings, parents and care-givers, who are 18 years old and above, in the Marrakech-Tensift-Al-Haouz region.

The project will also conduct policy analysis and raise awareness on the hazards of child labor and will build the capacity of relevant government and non-government stakeholders to better address the issue.

The project will be operating through personal follow-up using an electronic data base called "Direct Beneficiary Monitoring System" to secure efficient and rigorous implementation of the recipients' education and employment plans.

It will be carried out in partnership with several other Moroccan governmental departments and public institutions, as well as sector bodies and non-governmental organizations.

Rabat - Pakistani young peace activist Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for her work in promoting children’s rights, including their right to education. She will share the award with India’s Kailash Satyarthi.

The 17-year old Pakistani activist becomes the youngest winner of the Nobel Prize.

"The Nobel Committee regards it as an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism,” the Nobel committee said in a press release.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2014 is to be awarded to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education,” the committee added.

Rabat - A day after the release of British citizen Ray Cole, his Moroccan friend, Jamal Ould Nass has been granted provisional release, but is still likely to face prison time.

After the release of the Cole amid a strong international campaign supporting his case, social media activists launched the #FreeOuldNass movement to call for the complete freedom for Ould Nass, who was jailed alongside Cole in Marrakech for “homosexual acts.”

The petition called on activists abroad to rally to help Ould Nass and to put an end to “arresting mature people because of their private practices.”

“Ould Nass is not the victim´s real name--this nickname is used in order to protect the victim’s identity; the real name has been diffused to the extremist groups in Morocco and we believe that he is now in great danger; even in case he embraces freedom his life will still be threatened,” the petition said.

Jamal Ould Nass was arrested and imprisoned with Ray Cole for alleged, “gross indecency, homosexual intercourse and possession of pornographic images” on October 2.

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By Ismail Frouni

Rabat - “The Orient is watched, since its almost (but never quite) offensive behavior issues out of a reservoir of infinite peculiarity; the European, whose sensibility tours the Orient, is a watcher, never involved, always detached, always ready for new examples of what the Description de l'Egypte called "bizarre jouissance." The Orient becomes a living tableau of queerness.” Edward Said, Orientalism

Visiting the old medina is a phenomenon that completely occupies a researcher’s mind. In the last couple of years, regrettably, the medina looks to be invaded and occupied by untraditionally “modern” equipment coming from without. This universe is given a new look. The traditional values are gradually swept away. It is mournful. The fact is that ceramic and local wares are being substituted by new fashionable clothes, electronic devices and the like. What intrigues me is the increasing number and rampant growth of arcades, grocery stores, shopping centers, and chain stores. Evidently, this computerized society—due to our offspring’s encroachment on new technological devices such as TVs, virtual reality, computers, cameras, video-games, and so forth—will create an alienated and lost generation.

As it happens, I believe that it behooves researchers to dwell on this growing phenomenon; my fastidious observation of various videogame stores and the content of videogames leads me to suggest that videogames constitute a coherent ideology. They, in one way or another, entail certain cultural, and in some cases religious, orientations and values of certain communities—not to mention the deliberate misrepresentation of certain communities, such as Arabs or Muslims. Moreover, these computer games are organized into what is sometimes called “videology.”

Videogames are novel forms of audio-visual media and visual representation. They transcend their anticipated raison d’être. Accordingly, they have an incredible influence on children’s attitudes. “Under Ash,” “Special Force,” “Heavy Fire,” “Desert Strike,” “Prince of Persia,” “Command Conquers Generals,” and “Assassin’s Creed” are some videogames that directly channel the issues of (mis)representation. Recent videogames launched during the Israeli attack and siege on Gaza—where the latter is depicted as being set in a series of tunnels in which hides Hamas—are a total miss. “Bomb Gaza”  is the most outrageous game ever launched by gaming company PlayFTW. Games like this have consolidated the antagonistic interplay of the orthodox binary divisions of, borrowing from Said, the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other.’ Ultimately defining and delimiting the ontology of the Western “Selfhood” is premised upon the representation, and the construction of Eastern “Otherness” as such.

In the academic realm, it is normal that postcolonial critics have been silent on many contemporary issues. As such, video games have not yet provoked substantial concern. Admittedly, research on the psychological effects of video games on our children is very limited. The little research undertaken in media and not just video games in particular, has demonstrated negative effects in relation to stereotyping. On the one hand, video games are a major entertainment medium and enculturation force for today’s young generation. On the other, they are used as an ideological means that inoculate western imperialist discourse into our teenagers’ mind. How cliché that in the last few decades, videogames have added extra layers within this generation, as well as reaching an even wider audience. It is also known that our generation plays games more than reads books, which is yet another cause for mourning.

Being on the issue of video game representation, this paper might forecast some of the potential unforeseen repercussions of these games for Arab youth. Colonial discourse is inevitably ubiquitous: most Western narratives are based on and saturated with interminable binary opposition that privileges the “civilized” Self over the “backward” Other. ...This idiosyncratic mode of existence of the Western “Self” evokes a kind of unremitting resistance or counter discourse on the part of postcolonial subjects, “Other.” As such, we on the 'other side should be at pains to contrapuntally read and immunize this orientalist fever that has sprawled into our culture and we should do without the colonial enterprises. To quote a few lines from the Palestinian American intellectual Edward Said in his 1981 book Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World, " The analysis of the relationship between the Self, the occident, and the “Other,” the orient, is at the heart of post-colonialism."

Instead of scholarship, we resort to journalists making extravagant statements, which are instantly picked up and further dramatized by the media. Looming over their work is the slippery concept, to which they constantly allude, of "fundamentalism," a word that has come to be associated almost automatically with Islam, although it has a flourishing, usually elided relationship with Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism. The deliberately created associations between Islam and fundamentalism ensure that the average reader comes to see Islam and fundamentalism as essentially the same thing.

It is clear that these representations of the “Other” as terrorists, criminals, and killers have generated a kind of discourse. More often than not, this knowledge is produced by scholars, novelists, anthropologists, and in our framework, video game companies. All founders of the orientalist discussion are a far cry from being either scientific or exact. Moreover, video games sublimate a colonialist discourse in the sense that the “Other,” mostly in the incarnation of a terrorist, is treated on the basis of denial, dehumanization, belittlement, tokenism, and exploitation.

Consequently, the onus falls on every cultural and social researcher to develop a critical attentiveness towards our children. Intellectually, it is an appeal against these prejudices and misrepresentations of the populace; at the same time, it is an appeal for third-spacing or subverting the aforementioned binary division, and shunning this glib reductionism and Western essentialism as well. These divisions are reiterating the cryptic orientalist discourses on the Orient. The aforesaid vilifications and reductionist representations blur the boundaries between the West and the Rest and therefore offer no interstice of peace. Undoubtedly, such biased and malicious representations have their finger on advancing the millennial thesis that militant Islam is a danger to the West. This has (mis)led- and will lead- so many people to believe that Islam is a religion of war, violence, bloodshed, and mass murderers who only seek the thrill of the kill. This kind of thinking will have dire repercussions on future generations.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy

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