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Later the health ministry said one soldier had been killed and about 300 people wounded. It says about 130 are being treated in hospital.

The army says proceedings against those arrested have already started in military courts.

At one point, soldiers broadcast a message on loud-hailers saying the defence ministry would only be stormed over their dead bodies, and that reinforcements were on the way.

A senior general later appeared on television to announce a night-time curfew around the defence ministry.

Six dissident journalists and crew members calling for media freedoms within state-run TV were referred to investigation Sunday upon orders by the minister of information, who also filed complaints to the prosecutor.

In addition to the internal investigation, Information Minister Ahmed Anis accused the six of vandalism, endangering national security, and disrupting the work process in a complaint to the Prosecutor General’s office, according to TV director Abdellatif Abou Hemela.

Today’s rapid advancements in media and telecommunications technologies allow people to record and publicize images and video of undue force more than ever before. Authorities are well aware of how images of violence play out publicly. In 1997, a joint report from the Pentagon and the Justice Department warned: 

 

"A further consideration that affects how the military and law enforcement apply force is the greater presence of members of the media or other civilians who are observing, if not recording, the situation. Even the lawful application of force can be misrepresented to or misunderstood by the public. More than ever, the police and the military must be highly discreet when applying force."

In the post-war period in Britain, and especially in the 1960s, Commonwealth immigrants were often excluded from the social movement for housing rights discussions. This was not because these immigrants lacked housing problems. In fact many immigrants experienced housing difficulties and suffered from the housing shortage, not only because of financial hardship but also because they were denied council housing or because private landlords did not want to let them rent their property. And yet representations of ethnic minorities were never at the centre of this social outcry against the British welfare state. At the heart of the 1960s protest was the symbol of white, working class Cathy, not her West Indies equivalent. Although some groups such as Shelter tried to assist and solve the housing difficulties of recent immigrants, the fact remained that within a very lively discussions about Labour’s failure to find a solution for housing and the result of what they called “homeless families,” the hardship of recent immigrants was barely discussed by the public.

Similarly, in Israel of 2011 the protest focuses on young, Jewish (mostly Ashkenazi) citizens and not on any of the other ethnic minorities. The tent movement – which I fully support and respect – can only exist through a clear demarcation of who is part of the imaginary whole and who is not; who deserves housing from the state and who doesn’t; who is part of the national home and who isn’t. And we don’t even have to go to the occupied territories for that. In other words, in both cases this is a protest about a right for citizens and not a universal right to a home. Even within the so-called “social agenda” there are many who are excluded.