[Foundation-l] Concern for the safety of Wikimanians in Alexandria

[Mike Godwin]

At Sue's request, and in response to the expressions of concern on  
this list, I've been looking into the question of safety for attendees  
at this summer's Wikimania in Alexandria.   I did not have any  
presumptions one way or the other regarding what the likely answers to  
this question might be.

Primarily by consulting sources I have in DC and in the security  
industry, who helpfully pointed me to online sources as well, I think  
I can walk through some basic issues for those who are wondering  
whether attending Wikimania in Alexandria poses unusual or exceptional  
risks.

The short answer is this:  while there are some parts of Egypt that  
might be problematic for Wikimanian travellers, travel to Wikimania in  
Alexandria appears to be not a threatening prospect in particular.

I'll spell out some of my reasoning below.

1)  If you research Egypt, you'll find that points of greatest tension  
involve the Egypt/Israel border (places like Gaza), which are  
emphatically not where we're going to be.

2) Many countries, including the U.S.A., routinely post updates for  
their citizens regarding risks associate with travel.  In the U.S.,  
there are "travel alerts" (concern about relatively short-term  
threats) and "travel advisories" (concern about longer-term, more  
systemic threats within a particular destination country).  Currently  
(as of today), there are no "travel alerts" associated with any Middle  
Eastern destination -- there are of course many "travel warnings"  
regarding countries whose relationship with the USA is tense. (Take  
Pakistan, for example.)  Egypt, however, currently has no "travel  
alerts" or "travel warnings" associated with it.

Travel warnings:  <http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_1764.ht 
 >
Travel alerts: <http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/pa/ 
pa_1766.html>

3) Despite how it may look to outsiders, the Egypt and Israel get  
along pretty well, under the circumstances. (You can blame/thank Jimmy  
Carter for this.)  There are border tensions, but, as I have noted, we  
are not going to be situated at the border.

4) There is a useful general links for how the USA and other nations  
view the risks associated with travel to Egypt:

<http://www.allsafetravels.com/CountryPage.aspx?countryid=149>  (a  
multi-country listing)

See also http://www.usembassy-israel.org.il/publish/press/state/archive/1998/april/sd2408.htm 
   (an old alert from the US State department, but it gives you an  
idea how much things have calmed down since 1998).

5) Here's a recent report from Ha'aretz regarding border tensions, but  
one of the things you should take away from this article is that Egypt  
and Israel are actually discussing with each other how to respond to  
border problems. And, as I said, we won't be on the border.

6)  Want the fullest possible warning of what can go wrong for  
Americans in Egypt?  You can find it here:  <http://www.travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1108.html 
 >.  But note how much this document references the Sinai and the  
border, which is where we won't be -- we'll be in Alexandria (a city  
of six million people on the Mediterranean Coast), or in transit to or  
from an airport (probably in Cairo, I'm guessing).

7) How to register with the local consulate if you're an American:  <http://www.travel.state.gov/travel/tips/registration/registration_1186.html 
 >.

8) Now, everything I've said with regard to safety talks primarily  
about Americans (that's most of the data I could put my hands on in a  
hurry) and, more importantly, assumes nothing about whether we'll be  
prominent as Wikimedians (or whether the protest against images of the  
Prophet on Wikipedia are going to be generating ongoing conflict).    
But it should be noted that there are Muslims everywhere, not just in  
the Middle East, and it can't be assumed that anyone who's not in  
Alexandria as a Wikipedian is necessarily any safer than if they're in  
(to take an obviously relevant example) Amsterdam as a Wikipedian.

I can't give anyone any assurance that the images-of-the-Prophet issue  
won't heat up, or that the political situation in coastal Egypt will  
remain stable, but the evidence we have now suggests that the library  
at Alexandria is a reasonably safe and stable place to hold a  
conference, in my view.


--Mike Godwin