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A massive demonstration of Egyptians gathered in Tahrir Square in Cairo today to mark the anniversary of the uprising that eventually led to the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak. Political divides are still in force with liberals and Islamists differing on their visions for the future of the country. Mubarak is now on trial for complicity in the deaths of protesters. The uprising in Egypt last year was one of the initial protests of what is called the Arab Spring, which has included the slaying of Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy and the ongoing protests in Syria. -- Lloyd Young (31 photos total)
Those books we were able to save, we handed to the army unit that was blocking Sheikh Raihan Street. The irony of handing the books to the army while uniformed soldiers and plainclothes police continued their attack on us from the adjacent roof was lost on nobody.
Egypt lost much more than a building that night.
...it is clear that the only people to gain from this shameful disaster are the elements of the old regime who benefit from this state of chaos and anarchy, which is slowly but surely chipping away public support for the protesters, who were once depicted as heroes but are now increasingly portrayed as thugs and vandals seeking to destroy and destabilize Egypt.
“I’ve been in line for four hours and I won’t give up,” one middle-aged woman told me as we waited. Three hours later, she had finally cast her vote—her first ever in the country’s parliamentary elections. There were 18,000 of us in that same line who voted—assigned to that voting station based on our National ID numbers and registered home addresses. My own wait was six hours, a cousin waited seven.
The road to these parliamentary elections has been bumpy. When we went out for our first ‘free and fair’ vote back in March—a Yes/No vote on a package of nine constitutional amendments—most of us expected we would already have a parliament in place by now.
Najwa Alazabi has another first name, Tiarina, but under Muammar Qaddafi's rule she could never use it. Tiarina is a traditional name of Amazighs, a North African ethnic minority also known as Berber, and expressions of the Amazigh culture and script were forbidden in Qaddafi's Libya. When we met in early November, the dark eyed, 22-year-old solemnly told me I can call her either one.
Alazabi was nervous when we first sat down. She'd never spoken to a journalist before, she said -- much less a Western one -- and the topic we were discussing is so important to her, she doesn't want to get it wrong. She shuffled with her papers looking for the right words and pointed to the Amazigh necklace she's wearing -- an emblem on a blue, green, and yellow background. She couldn't wear this before, either. Now, she wears it everyday.
NPR reports that the offer to transfer power was immediately rejected by tens of thousands of protesters at Cairo's Tahrir Square, who want to see the interim military council resign immediately. They responded to Tantawi's proposal by chanting "Erhal," or "Leave."
What is happening in Tahrir Square -- as frightening as it is -- may very well be a clarifying moment. From the start, the Egyptian military's declarations that it was preparing the ground for democracy were far from credible. The officers' interest in remaining the sole source of political legitimacy and authority, the military's economic interests, and the Ministry of Defense's conception of stability are simply not compatible with a more democratic Egypt.
The proximate cause for the current confrontations in Cairo -- and now it seems elsewhere around the country -- is the result of trigger-happy security forces.
"In the meantime, we will be striving along with other parties to abort the sedition that the interior ministry has instigated in the country," the statement said.
Cairo police on Monday fought protesters demanding an end to army rule for a third day on Monday and the death toll rose to at least 33, with many victims shot, in the worst violence since the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak.
The party demanded that the ones repsonsible for the killing of potesters be brought to justice. In the meantime, it linked the Tahrir clashes to "desperate attempts made for months to halt the process of handing power over to the peoeple through the parliamentary elections."
Cairo's Tahrir Square witnessed a nightmarish groundhog day on Monday -- recalling scenes from the bloody uprising in February that brought down Hosni Mubarak -- as protesters battled with security forces for a third straight day. Since Sunday morning, Egypt's health minister says, 23 people have died and more than 1,500 have been wounded in the worst outbreak of violence since the revolution, a spasm of popular anger that threatens to delay parliamentary elections scheduled to begin next week.
The Scaf's "firm stance" is as, I write this, killing protestors in Egypt.
...we stand with you not just in your attempts to bring down the old but to experiment with the new. We are not protesting. Who is there to protest to? What could we ask them for that they could grant? ...
These are public spaces. Spaces forgathering, leisure, meeting, and interacting – these spaces should be the reason we live in cities. Where the state and the interests of owners have made them inaccessible, exclusive or dangerous, it is up to us to make sure that they are safe, inclusive and just. We have and must continue to open them to anyone that wants to build a better world, particularly for the marginalized, excluded and for those groups who have suffered the worst .
What you do in these spaces is neither as grandiose and abstract nor as quotidian as “real democracy”...
...the occupations must continue, because there is no one left to ask for reform. They must continue because we are creating what we can no longer wait for.
Memories remain strong of the 1952 revolution against the monarchy — when army officers pledged a transition to democracy but gradually consolidated their hold on power.
But today's military ... is wary of bearing full responsibility for running the country over the long term, so is the Muslim Brotherhood. ...
No one resembling a front-running candidate has emerged ... the organizers of the pro-democracy demonstrations ... are pleading for more time to get their political operations in shape.
...Early elections, they contend, would give the advantage to the Muslim Brotherhood and elements of Mubarak's old party. ...
"It's been kind of remarkable what the protesters have been able to accomplish," says Jason Brownlee, a government professor at the University of Texas. "Every time they go out and do a protest in Tahrir, they seem to get a concession."
[Informed Comment - Juan]
1. The British government’s official inquiry into how it got involved in the Iraq War was deeply compromised by the government’s pledge to protect the Bush administration in the course of it.
[Hullabaloo - digby]
...up until this recent uprising the protests there were carefully controlled by the government. Here's a photo from last Wednesday, showing how it was usually done:...
[Adam Serwer]
[Eliot Abrams suggests that] the domestic factors leading to the protests are secondary to Bush giving a bunch of speeches about freedom while undermining due process and human rights at home, that the protesters themselves are...but "bit p
[Talking Points Memo - David Kurtz]
I've seen a lot of references today to "Mubarak's thugs." CNN has a good rundown on who instigated the violence in Cairo and points the finger in the general direction of pro-Mubarak, state-supported provocateurs. What
[GOOD - Cord Jefferson]
Depicted in this photo, an image from an anonymous source on the ground in Egypt, is a team of Egyptian Christians forming a massive human shield to protect their Muslim countrymen as they prayed during the violent protests...
Up
[The F-Word Blog - Jolene Tan]
Via Al Jazeera, here is an interesting interview with Rabab al-Mahdi, a professor of political science at the American University in Cairo, Frances Hasso, a professor of Women's Studies at Duke University, and Nadje al-Ali,
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