Reader's corner

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In cold blood

Sir-- This smells of politics throughout. This wasn't something done in the heat of the moment. It certainly looks like a cold blooded massacre. The perpetrators of this should be punished. It is so sad that the sport we love has been dragged into it. May those who died rest in peace. I hope strict action is taken to ensure such incidents do not happen in the future.

Alan Yagher
New Jersey
USA

Planned from the start

Sir-- I really think the game had little to do with the violence. They went armed no matter who won or lost. This was a planned assault for whatever the reason, but the exits should never have been barred so that there was no way of escape for anyone. I would question the ones with the fireworks. I would ask how did such things get into the game in the first place. Maybe you should get machines like in the airports and scan everyone going in. Find who had these things and maybe you can answer who was behind it.

Mike Soisson
Florida
USA

Sounds unreal

Sir-- Some of this story sounds unreal. People being thrown from the terraces. People having knives and machetes. Someone going into the crowd with a crowbar. Is all of that real? These are not the Egyptians I know. But the real blunder here is, once again, locked doors. Why won't we ever learn not to have locked doors? Incident after incident proves this. Once again, people die because of poor security. This should not have happened from the start. My condolences to the families.

Mohamed Ibrahim
Cairo
Egypt

Just a game

Sir-- People, this is a soccer game. This is supposed to be for entertainment. When 74 people are killed and hundreds of others hurt, that's ridiculous. Unless you can control things, fans should be banned from attending.

Mark Lowe
Massachusetts
USA

Parliament photograph

Sir-- 'A historic new parliament' ( Al-Ahram Weekly, 2-8 February) carries a photograph at the top of the page showing the opening session of the parliament in 1924 from inside the hall where the male deputies were gathered. There is no photograph outside the parliament building on that historic day where the women were gathered on the other side of the iron gates -- although such photographs exist in the archives -- protesting against their absence and holding up placards insisting on their political rights along with social and economic rights. Your article wrongly states that the electoral law "allowed all citizens to vote". The electoral law withheld from women the right to vote in contravention of the constitution of 1923 which declared all Egyptians equal before the law with no discrimination on the bases of sex or religion. As most people know, women did not obtain their electoral rights until 1956. And these recent elections brought a total of 10 women to parliament, eight of whom were elected and two appointed.

Margot Badran
Cairo
Egypt

Media warriors

Sir-- Re 'Where is the sense of honour? ( Al-Ahram Weekly, 2-8 February) I grew up in America fed by negative stereotypes about Muslims. In recent years, especially since 9/11 the Western media has pummeled us with similar impressions of Muslims depicting them as terrorists who are on a mission to dominate the world. This article shows the utter hypocrisy of Western regimes and their servile media related to these convictions. The worldwide media war, a war of words and ideas, has led the way for the imperialist conquest to dominate the world. It is important to fight the media warriors and their misuse of language to brand other cultures. One clarification: the term "mujahideen" as used by the Western media also has unfortunately become a negative stereotype. Jihad is simply the process of exerting the best efforts involving some form of struggle and resistance to achieve a particular goal, and is not necessarily violent.

Les Blough
Caracas
Venezuela

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