It started as a day of celebration, with tens of thousands of Egyptians converging on Tahrir Square to mark the first anniversary of Egypt’s revolution, 25 January. The morning crowd — dominated by bearded Islamists — waved flags and strolled peacefully in the Square — flashpoint of the eighteen day uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak last year.
One year to the day pro-democracy activists held mass protests, and the mood in Tahrir yesterday was one of jubilation and fanfare. Two days earlier, Egypt’s first democratically elected parliament convened for the first time, pledging to work to fulfil the goals of the revolution — including securing justice for the families of those killed and victims of violence during last year’s mass uprising; a key demand of the revolutionary movements. The Islamist-dominated People’s Assembly, the lower house of the parliament, also made it clear that the military council running Egypt in the transitional period would face close scrutiny from the newly elected lawmakers.
Meanwhile, in an effort to appease a disgruntled public ahead of protests marking the anniversary of the Revolution, the military council announced the release of 1,959 political detainees, most of them pro-democracy activists who had faced military trials . Prominent blogger Maikel Nabil, Egypt’s first prisoner of conscience in the post-revolutionary era, was among the convicts to be set free. The military authority also said it would lift the state of emergency in place since 1981. It added however that the law would continue to apply in cases of ‘thuggery’. Skeptics worry that the exception may be a pretext for continuing arbitrary arrests and detention of civilians without charge, especially as peaceful protesters have been previously described by military generals as “trouble-makers” and “paid agents carrying out foreign agendas.”
Uncertainty about the future failed to dampen the mood in Tahrir Square, as Islamists celebrated the achievements of the past year, relishing their newfound freedom and leadership role. The Muslim Brotherhood — a long time banned group in Egypt won 38 per cent of parliamentary seats for their Freedom and Justice Party in the recent election. The ultra-conservative Salafist Nour Party meanwhile secured 29 per cent of the list seats.
“We voted them in and now they will take care of our demands,” Manal Hassan , a veiled housewife and mother of three said confidently.
It wasn’t until early afternoon when thousands more protesters — mostly secularists and liberals — converged on Tahrir after marching through the streets from various focal points in the city — that the mood began to shift from celebratory to rebellious. Seeking a new revolt against military rule, the activists began to chant “Down with military rule!”
“We did not come to Tahrir earlier in the day so as to give the Islamists space to celebrate. But it is too early for us to celebrate. We must continue our struggle. Very few of our goals have been met,” said Amr Taher, a student of commerce. His friends nodded in agreement.
“We have walked all the way from Mostafa Mahmoud in Mohandeseen to make our demands clear. We want the military to handover power to a civilian government now,” said advertising agency employee Amina Mansour, 28.
Many liberals feel that little has changed since Mubarak was toppled and say the old regime is still intact. Listing rights violations including military trials for more than 12,000 civilians in the past year, torture in prisons, virginity checks performed on female protesters and intimidation of journalists. Reem Dawoud, activist and member of the “Kazeboon” campaign, launched “to expose the lies of the ruling military council” noted, “A year on, we are still waiting for a free press and an independent judiciary!”
“El Qassas! El Qassas! Justice for the martyrs and their families! ” shouted an elderly activist from the podium, his cries met with cheers and clapping from the crowd below. Before nightfall, an estimated 150,000 protesters had gathered in the Square, sending a strong message to the military authority that “the fear barrier has been broken” and “the rulers are now accountable to their people for the first time ,” as expressed by some Facebook-users in their posts later in the day.
As Egyptians start their second post-revolution year, they are optimistic about the future. “The power is now in the hands of the people for the first time,” author Alaa Aswani said in a televised interview. Confident in their ability to create change, they know it is a matter of time before the military is pushed back to the barracks and power is transferred to a civilian government. And they are hoping for a faster pace of reforms and successful transition to democracy.
“We went off-course for a while this past year because of lack of unity among liberal movements and their inability to reach consensus on the way forward. But now, we seem to have found our way again and are moving on the right track,” said 35 year-old activist Hazem Mahmoud , with a broad smile on his face.
Journalist and television anchor Shahira Amin resigned her post as deputy head of state-run Nile TV on February 2011
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood today announced plans to sue an independent newspaper for allegedly insulting the leader and its female members. Newspaper Al-Fagr published an article on 29 December by Mohamed al-Baz in which he reviewed a book written by Entissar Abdel Moniem, a female ex-member of the Brotherhood who slammed the organisation for their position on women. Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Mahmoud Ghazlan said that al-Baz slandered the group’s leader and its female members, and they would not tolerate defaming “honourable people under the veneer of free opinion.” The paper has also come under fire recently for printing articles against the ruling military leadership.
Egyptians are expected to turn out to the polls Saturday in mass numbers to vote on a package of proposed constitutional amendments. It’s a national referendum that seems certain to make history on several levels.
For starters, it’s the first Egyptian national vote in living memory with any degree of uncertainty about the outcome.
Under former president Hosni Mubarak (and all of his predecessors) elections tended to be stage-managed affairs bearing the superficial hallmarks of a functioning democratic process. Egyptian citizens (who have always been a politically savvy bunch) sensed decades ago that the game was rigged and stopped even pretending to care.
That whole dynamic ended with Mubarak’s forced resignation last month in the face of a historic 18-day popular uprising. Now, with the country being ruled by the Supreme Armed Forces Council, Egyptians face the task of building a functioning democratic society. That means deciding which elements of the existing political infrastructure can be repaired and reformed and which elements need to be scrapped entirely and rebuilt from scratch.
This question seems to define people’s feelings heading into Saturday’s vote. Opponents of the amendment package have argued passionately that it is insufficient to simply “fix” the existing constitution and demand a full rewrite — even if that means slowing down the country’s transition to civilian rule.
“The 1971 constitution fell in the revolution. It has no legitimacy,” said Mohammed Salah, a young activist speaking this week at a press conference called by a coalition of secular activist groups who were instrumental in the revolution. “The people want a completely new constitution.”
On the surface, the eight amendments formulated by a military-appointed commission of legal scholars, satisfy many of the basic demands of the protesters who brought the old regime down. They would establish presidential limits of two four-year terms, eliminate obstacles to forming political parties and launching independent presidential campaigns, limit the once-dominant powers of the executive branch and make it much harder for future presidents to govern under indefinite martial law, as Mubarak did.
Approval of the package would place the country on a fast track to parliamentary elections as early as September. Rejection would likely mean a disruption of that schedule and an extension of Egypt’s period of military rule.
Egyptian media has been dominated for the past week by extensive back-and-forth debate over the amendments. Despite a near-universal desire to get the country in civilian hands as soon as possible, an impressive array of political actors has called for a rejection of proposed changes. This includes many of the youth groups who first sparked the rebellion, as well as future presidential contenders Mohammed ElBaradei and Amr Moussa, the outgoing head of the Arab League.
The only significant political player that has endorsed the changes is the Muslim Brotherhood—a development that essentially turns the referendum into a test of the venerable Islamist group’s street power. Flyers distributed throughout Egypt by the Brotherhood are notably short on the usual religious references, but urge its followers to vote yes “for the sake of Egypt’s stability.”
More cynical observers view the Brotherhood’s enthusiasm as a bit of a power play. They charge that the group is trying to speed the path towards early parliamentary elections where its existing grassroots machine would give it a significant advantage before newer political forces have a chance to solidify and organize themselves.
Whatever the outcome, perhaps the most encouraging aspect of the feisty amendment debate is that nobody is pushing for a boycott.
Watching Egyptians peacefully and passionately disagree about the future of their country can’t possibly be a bad thing.
It started out as a routine night on the Egyptian parliamentary campaign trail, and ended as a clear lesson in the methods that a police state uses to control, intimidate and generally confuse journalists.
Along with several colleagues, I traveled to Shubra Al-Kheima — a grim industrial Cairo suburb — on Sunday night at the invitation of Dr Mohamed Beltagui, a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated parliamentarian, seeking to defend his seat.
The Brotherhood is illegal in Egypt and officially banned from forming a political party. Nevertheless in 2005 parliamentary elections, Beltagui and 87 other Brotherhood members won seats running as nominal independents — instantly establishing the Brotherhood as the country largest opposition bloc.
This time around the government seems determined to cut the Islamist group down to size. Hundreds of Brotherhood supporters have been arrested in the past week, often after police moved in to break up Brotherhood rallies.
At first there was no sign of such a crackdown on Sunday night. My colleagues and I walked along with Beltagui’s sign-carrying supporters, recording their chants and watching the candidate give several brief campaign speeches over a portable loudspeaker.
After about two hours, I got into a taxi along with Ursula Lindsey, a correspondent for the BBC radio program The World, and prepared to head home. Suddenly the taxi was stopped by a crowd of plain-clothed men, obviously officers of Egypt’s ubiquitous State Security Investigations force.
They removed us from the taxi, and demanded our IDs and credentials. They aggressively asked us where was our tasreeh (permission) to work as journalists in this neighborhood. I explained several times that my press card issued by the Ministry of Information WAS my permission. It became very quickly apparent that our official state press cards were worth almost nothing.
What followed was a half-hour of surreal tedium — standing on a darkened street with 10 plain-clothed officers who apparently thought they were protecting the country from us. The officers kept explaining that they were “following orders” but refused to explain just what those orders were.
There were several comments implying that as foreign journalists, we were hopelessly biased against the Egyptian government and only gave attention to opposition groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. At one point, one of them laughed at said, “Welcome to Shubra al-Kheima. Now don’t ever come back. Shubra al-Kheima is hazardous to your health.”
Finally I was handed a mobile phone. One the other end was a man identifying himself only as “General Ahmed.” He came off as the nicest guy in the world, and told me I was welcome to return to this neighborhood any time I wanted. But there was a catch. “To prevent problems like this in the future,” he told me, it would be best if I first stopped by the local police station to inform them of my presence. That way, he said, they could arrange a police escort, “for your protection.”
Fortunately, I restrained the urge to point out that the only protection I needed was from his men.
Finally we were allowed to leave. In the end, it was more annoying than intimidating, more bureaucratic than bullying. But it was a clear window into the type of petty harassment the regime routinely employs in order to shrink the local political playing field and limit the activities of foreign journalists.
On Monday morning came a surreal post-script. The government held a press conference to discuss their electoral preparations. The head of the state-sponsored National Council for Human Rights issued several assurances that this electoral round would be clean, transparent and free of the violations that have marred previous votes.
I mentioned that several journalists, including myself, were detained the previous night simply for doing our jobs. The responses were genuinely shocking.
Several government officials told me that it was my fault for being there. If I want to interview a candidate, I was told, I should meet them in their office. To walk alongside a campaign rally constitutes “political activity,” they said — which apparently makes me and other journalists fair game in the eyes of the state.
It started as a day of celebration, with tens of thousands of Egyptians converging on Tahrir Square to mark the first anniversary of Egypt’s revolution, 25 January. The morning crowd — dominated by bearded Islamists — waved flags and strolled peacefully in the Square — flashpoint of the eighteen day uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak last year.