It was a busy week in Cairo. While I was busy preparing my exams and catching up with an old friend, the Egyptian police was busy showering their fellow Egyptians in teargas and gunning them down with rubber bullets, shotguns and reportedly some rounds of life amunition.
After last Friday's protest, which demanded the military to come out with a clear timeable for the handover of power to civilian rulers and which was the first protest in a long time with mass turnout, a small group of protesters stayed in Midan Tahrir over night. The reportedly around 200 protesters that camped out at the Midan were violently removed from Egyptian police forces early Saturday. The unnecessary and unprovoked brutality of the police enraged many others who heard of the events. So soon, the crowd in Tahrir started to swell again, throughout Saturday and Sunday.
At the same time violent clashes broke out and continued for days in some streets bordering Tahrir, namely Sharia Mohammed Mahmoud (where the ministry of the interior is located), Sharia Sheikh Rehan and Midan Falaki. Police fired insane amounts of two different types of teargas, and apparently also used some kind of nerve gas on protestors in Tahrir on Tuesday night. Police shot with rubber bullets and at parts also life ammunition, reportedly aiming in specific at protesters' eyes an necks. While both teargas and rubber bullets are traditional tools of riot control, they can obviously also be used in order to kill. The amount of teargas fired from short distances, the firing of rubber bullets at sensitive areas from short distance and the documented brutal beating of protesters by police indicates that no effort whatsoever was undertaken to avoid injuries, the opposite seems to be the case.
At the same time, protesters themselves seemed determined to sustain the violence in Sharia Mohammed Mahmoud. Their throwing of rocks and pushing forward towards the distant end of the street was not appreciated by all of the protesters present in Tahrir. According to an article by Nate Wright, it was this fraction of protestors who prevented fellow protestors from braking the truce that had come into being early Thursday morning. More than one attempt to negotiate a truce had failed before, and an earlier truce agreed upon had been broken by police on Wednesday after few hours.
The fighting and the dramatic pictures produced thereof (on some nights, another injured person was delivered to the field clinics on the Midan every 20 seconds! all this could be watched live on TV) drew more people, on Tuesday it was called for another million men march. And even though the number of 1 Mio might not have been reached, it was clearly the largest demonstrations Egypt had seen in a long time. I have heard many people say that until now the sacrifices of the Egyptian people, the death of so many "martyrs" had been in vain.
At the same time, protesters themselves seemed determined to sustain the violence in Sharia Mohammed Mahmoud. Their throwing of rocks and pushing forward towards the distant end of the street was not appreciated by all of the protesters present in Tahrir. According to an article by Nate Wright, it was this fraction of protestors who prevented fellow protestors from braking the truce that had come into being early Thursday morning. More than one attempt to negotiate a truce had failed before, and an earlier truce agreed upon had been broken by police on Wednesday after few hours.
The fighting and the dramatic pictures produced thereof (on some nights, another injured person was delivered to the field clinics on the Midan every 20 seconds! all this could be watched live on TV) drew more people, on Tuesday it was called for another million men march. And even though the number of 1 Mio might not have been reached, it was clearly the largest demonstrations Egypt had seen in a long time. I have heard many people say that until now the sacrifices of the Egyptian people, the death of so many "martyrs" had been in vain.
Many (me included) sense that Egyptians are currently trying to bring to an end the revolution they had started in January - and abandoned inbetween in the (naive?) belief that the army would help implement the changes asked for. Now that it has become clear that the army is at most malicious and at least incapable, people are loudly voicing their demands for change again, shouting "The people want to bring down the military regime" or "The people want to bring down Tantawi" (the head of the SCAF, Supreme Council of Armed Forces).
During the past days, the officials responded with various moves, yet none of them could satisfy the protesters demands. The government under prime minister Essam Sharaf resigned, Tantawi delivered his first speech ever (which was as boring as expected), the SCAF excused for the deaths on its facebook page (sic!) and Kamal Ganzouri was appointed new prime minister and expected to form a cabinet over the weekend. Yet, given that he had already been prime minister for several years under Mubarak it was hardly surprising his appointment was not appraised by the protesters in Midan Tahrir.
The demands of various protesting factions vary if it comes to the institutional details (composition, competencies, timing of national salvation government and/or presidential council), but have in common that they ask for a handover of power to civilian institutions/individuals. Also, the demand for some form of transitional justice, the cleansing of the interior ministry and the reform of the police is central to the protestors' agenda.
It is contested, whether elections can (and should) begin on Monday as planned. The Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafis and the US State Department are pushing for elections to take place as scheduled. Also, various reports and opinion pieces state that the protesters and their demands are not backed by a majority of Egyptians, who supposedly simply want the elections to take place so calm can return to the squares and streets of their country. (Obviously I think this goal is illusive. Or to be more precise: the assumption real societal and political peace could be produced by holding elections on Monday is illusive.)
In any case, it is no understatement to say that today is a crucial day for Egypt. The turnout at the protests and the military's and police's reaction will be decisive for the days and weeks to come.
(For articles on all the above mentioned issues, see the separate post "Some good articles and impressive pictures".)
A very good article, although the topic concerns me a lot... a friend of mine took part in the clashes at Sharia Mohammed Mahoud and the details he told were hard stuff... take care and I hope to meet you soon in Augsburg :)
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