WHO: American University Egypt Experts
WHAT: Egyptian political and constitutional crises
WHEN: December 7 - ongoing
WHERE: American University, in-studio, via telephone or Skype
WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 7, 2012) ¬— American University experts are available to analyze and discuss protests in Egypt and the pressure being placed on President Morsi’s fragile grip on power as internal struggles intensify as the December 15 constitutional referendum approaches.
Specifically, American University experts can address:• Whether secular protestors will force a course change of the pro-Islamist government to move more to the center? • Whether clashes between pro- and anti-Morsi forces will intensify prior to the December 15 referendum on the draft constitution and the consequences of further escalation? • How protest leaders such as Mohammed El Baredei and former Arab League leader Amr Moussa will be handled by the government? • How the military will react? • Are human rights violations occurring? and,• Risks the Muslim Brotherhood face as the political crisis continues?
Asiya Daud, professorial lecturer, returned from Cairo where she spent two years as National Security Fellow. Daud’s research focuses on Middle East politics specifically political Islam, peace and conflict in the Middle East, democratization, social media and political dissent, and political economy. Daud also possesses experience working with Egyptian, Syrian, Saudi, Yemeni, and Sudanese grassroots groups, youth activists and refugees behind the democratization movements in the region. Additionally, she has met political activists, political dignitaries, and religious leaders throughout the region. She teaches courses on the Arab Spring and its aftermath and political Islam. Most recently, her research focuses on nation-Building in the Arab Spring nations and the challenges of the new Islamist governments.
Randa Serhan, director of the Arab Studies Program, can discuss organizational structural of the Muslim Brotherhood and who is participating in these current protests (different from those who protested Mubarak). Serhan is a political sociologist who is interested in immigrant communities, nationalism, and citizenship. In her scholarship, she has examined PTSD in post-conflict Lebanon, meanings of refugeeness, and more recently, second generation Palestinian-Americans. The latter was an ethnographic study of a Palestinian-American community for her PhD dissertation.
Shadi Mokhtari, assistant professor, specializes in human rights, Middle East Politics and Political Islam. Mokhtari possesses an extensive background in human rights and women’s rights issues in the Middle East and Muslim World. She serves as editor in chief of the Muslim World Journal of Human Rights and is the author of After Abu Ghraib: Exploring Human Rights in America and the Middle East (Cambridge, 2009) In 2012, she concluded a study assessing Green Movement, clerical and popular responses to heightened repression following the 2009 elections in Iran. Since 2011, she has been looking at how human rights dynamics and discourses have changed in and vis-a-vis the Middle East in the wake of unfolding popular protests and political transitions.
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