Lina Attalah and Mohamed El Dahshan of Al-Masry Al-Youm followed up on my post about the Magen Abraham synagogue that was turned into an NDP office in Hadayeq el-Quba. They did a very good job in finding answers to many of the questions regarding why this building is in such a horrible state.

“This temple was built by the Adda family,” says Carmen Weinstein, president of the Egyptian Jewish Community Council (JCC).

"The Adda's were a Jewish Egyptian family of industrialists and bankers, who contributed to the growth of the Egyptian economy in the 1940s. I wish the state would preserve this temple, which is unique in this part of the city." For Jewish communities in Egypt before 1952 it was customary to erect neighborhood synagogues. "In each neighborhood, the local Jewish collectivity built a synagogue," says Weinstein, who also points out that while 29 synagogues once existed in Cairo, only 13 remain.

When contacted for more information about the building, Cairo Governorate officials expressed surprise with respect to the building's unusual status, and gratitude that Al-Masry Al-Youm reporters brought the matter to their attention. According to one governorate employee who wanted to remain anonymous, the building is recognized in the district's files, but has no licenses or ownership documents.

"This means that no measures of demolition, or restoration, have been taken with respect to the building. Nevertheless, the Hadayeq el-Qubba district headquarters believe the construction to be stable and safe," he says. "Since there has been no ownership documents for the synagogue, the government has put its hand on it."

In April 2008, in Hadayeq el Qobba I stumbled upon this synagogue which was turned into a public affairs office, NDP office, a nursery and a small mosque.

Taking photos is strictly prohibited. But I managed to snap some shots while claiming that I am studying architecture and interested in the building style.

This is apparently the most looked after synagogue in Egypt. Thanks to Farouk Hosni. Probably the next president of the UNESCO.

UPDATE: Yes, it is "the most looked after" synagogue as in the wooden floors are in a horrible shape, cables coming and going everywhere, horrible neon lights, overstuffed filing cabinets piled over each other rusting, broken window panes replaced with cardboard and the whole sanctity of the place, that was once there and can be vaguely felt radiating from the large dome and the star of David windows, is replaced with a grim dark grey Mogama3 feel.

UPDATE 2: Lina Atallah and Mohamed El Dahshan of Al-Masry English went and investigated this synagogue: The curious case of a Cairo synagogue.

On October 2008, in Samalut, Menya, few hundred kilometres from Cairo, a pregnant 36 years old woman was woken up, terrified, early in the morning along with her husband and their 8 years old son, by 5 police officers looking for her brother-in-law. Mervat was kicked by police officer Ahmed Anwar in her stomach, she fell and in 10 minutes she died. Her 8 years old son, Sayyed, witnessed the assault and the death of his mother in their own home by a group of strange men who call themselves Mabaheth.

In their village, news of the incident spread quickly and on the same morning she died, riots erupted. Two police officers were injured and a police car was damaged. 18 people were arrested after the riots.

Hassan Sayyed Reyad, widow of Mervat Abdel Fattah, speaking in the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre. Photo by Sarah Carr.

Mervats' death was no accident, pregnant women don't die from falling and so I assume that the kick was pretty damn hard. However, her assailant, police officer Ahmed Anwar, received a sentence of 1 year in prison last April. Her brother-in-law, who was convicted of hiding stolen goods was cleared of his charges days after she was killed. The Human Rights lawyer involved in the case said that the presence of police inside her house was illegal and the police tried with the prosecution to cover this up.

I said this earlier and unfortunately I did witness a part of it on Youtube and Vimeo and it is horrible.

• Sign a petition against the killing.

I know petitions are of no value when it comes to changing policies here. But they make you feel a bit better.

Or perhaps not.

Sorry to bring this to your attention again, it is very depressing.

UPDATE: Thanks to Lobna for pointing out that I am challenged in arithmetics! The title of this post should be either 300 thousand or 300,000.

Here is a link to latest responses on Twitter on the Egyptian decision to kill all the pigs. For sure an unprecedented decision like that is making a buzz around the world. Read what other people are saying. The least description of it is that it is an overreaction.

Killing 300,000 thousand innocent Egyptian pigs to prevent the swine flu from jeopardising our health is the most gruesome act of unjustifiable killing of animals I will ever witness.

The swine influenza type A (H1N1) is now a human transmissible virus of swine origin i.e. it spreads from a sick person to another healthy one through coughing and sneezing. Although, it originated from pigs in Mexico and infected humans the role of pigs in the spread of infection now is minimal, specifically non-infected pigs in Egypt.

I am not a specialist in matters of public health and how infections spread. But there are stuff that if you thought about for a second or two will really makes sense.

Swine flu will enter Egypt through its borders and not from pigs. The funds that will go in compensating farmers can be better directed to improve the appalling sanitation of the pig farms and the conditions of their farmers not to the eradication of a local variety of an entire specie.

This virus is susceptible to two types of anti-viral treatments, which is a great thing to start with. This means that if the medicine is available and cases are diagnosed early on. We can minimise the fatalities.

The decisions to kill huge amounts of birds in south east Asia during the early outbreak of the birds flu was justified by the fact that the disease was spreading between birds, birds can fly and thus spread it quickly across the globe and the disease spread from birds to humans and not human to human as the swine flu. Killing birds and other attempts to control bird flu was of limited success.

I am not also sure that there is a standard procedure that will ensure that pigs die in a merciful way nor a procedure to deal with the tons of corpses that will result. Which in itself might spread other diseases.

Three days ago, an artist spray painted a stencil graphic on the grounds of down town Cairo by night, which next morning alarmed the state security and prompted wide questioning of people. Possibly on that same night and by coincidence Mo'men, a fast-food chain, stuck small stickers. What Mo'men did was just an ad campaign that has nothing to do with the stencils.

State security investigations (SSI), the ears, nose and throat of the system. Mubarak's iron fist. Started looking for eye-witnesses who can give any clue that will help catch the perpetrators. El Youm el-Sabe3 newspaper first reported the incident along with photos of the graphics.

Certainly for people who are keeping us safe from the eminent Hezbollah threat, this is an inexplicable act of derailment that must signify terror.

El Youm el-Sabe3 reported that officials armed cleaning men with necessary equipment to remove the spray painted graphics. The graphics were, ladies and gentlemen, of a cleaning man without a head. Was the artist — in what could be the cleverest forms of urban art tricks — depicting the officials who are brain dead enough to clear his paintings?

The SSI, in possibly their first successful intelligence gathering mission, managed to find the artist and the man who helped him. They interrogated him, thankfully in Qasr El-Nil police station and not in one of their underground torture dungeons. The man was released the next day from the prosecutors office without charges (he had to pay 100 EGPs bail).

Living in a police state that has zero graffiti artists I would have understood a reaction like this to a graphic depicting a hammer and sickle, Hezbollah, a cross or Kefaya's logo. In any case, this is not the first time someone sprays something on the walls of this city and for some reason the government officials are still unconcerned over April 6 stencil and graffiti everywhere.