Sam Bartlett's List: Arab Spring Reloaded

• Media
• Media
• Media
• signs point to a less-than-perfect picture, in which the old regime’s rules still persist.
• between the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and the Brotherhood in the months preceding the election, Morsy’s victory reveals a new phase of political arrangements between the two. For one, they have already come to a decision on how to split control over government institutions
• the army will maintain control over its budget and internal affairs
• Al-Masry Al-Youm that the Brotherhood will be in charge of the ministries of Finance and Foreign Affairs but will be required to keep away from the Defense, Interior and Justice ministries.
• safeguard the SCAF from being sidelined by a non-allied president.
• However, the arrangement plants a ticking time bomb that could jeopardize Morsy’s presidency, once he and his group seek to expand their powers.
• Only a few days before the election, the ruling military council added an addendum to the Constitutional Declaration that has governed Egypt since March 2011. The declaration limits the powers of the president and adds to those of the military council
• The document also takes away from Morsy the title of commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
• the military would be a de facto continuation of the old regime
• Since winning the election, Morsy has been making the rounds of government institutions, looking to iron out differences and shore up his presidency
• Media
• Media
• pay allegiance to whoever is in power, a fact demonstrated by how quickly they changed their long reverence to Hosni Mubarak once the ruling military council took his position in February 2011.
• Shahira Amin, a state TV presenter.
• “The state media loyalty will probably remain to the SCAF. It’s in their interest to maintain the status quo, which might jeopardize Morsy’s presidency,”

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• "international forces" thought they could establish a new regional system to give them more influence – but failed
• El-Sisi said the result was civil and sectarian war, the loss of the potential of the region's people and chaos.
• increasing awareness from the different world powers, among them the major powers, concerning the truth of the situation in the region
• Egyptian president maintained his praise of Saudi Arabian King Abdullah
• one of Egypt's main backers in its transitional period after the ouster of president Mohamed Mors
• As for Turkey and Qatar
• relations with Egypt have significantly soured since the group's removal from power last year

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• @ramiglal
• number of former generals have joined the alliances between the political and civil forces to form electoral lists.
• a backup for Sisi in parliament
• important as Egyptian civil parties have failed to reach an agreement on a strong alliance able to form a majority in parliament
• Azar expressed her discontent
• a number of civil parties and alliances led by military figures
• desire to form a political backup for Sisi and pass his resolutions

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• Sisi regime has taken concrete steps to quash dissent, silence opposition voices, and consolidate control over the body politic
• the guise of a war on terror and restoring “stability,
• university campuses
• religious institutions
• civil society
• Internet.
• • Sisi - securitisation of sinai & wider Egyptian society in order to consolidate his and military control, this has caused the rise in terror attacks, not the other way around.
    Lucie 'violence breeds violence'
• violence has only increased.
• three-month state of emergency
• law that formalizes the role of the army in domestic security and expands the jurisdiction of military courts
• the military to assist police in guarding public facilities
• military tribunals to try civilians
• taken to grant state institutions wide, unchecked powers to tighten their grip on the country
• THE UNIVERSITIES
• presidential decree in June that authorizes him to directly appoint university presidents
• “crimes that disturb the educational process”
• all partisan political activity has been banned.
• university campuses emerged as one of the last bastions of mass dissent against the military-backed regime
• up to sixteen students dead
• police firing tear gas and birdshot
• Omar al-Sharif, has died from injuries caused by security officials
• POLICING
• new division within Egypt’s police force
• “Community Police.”
• move may be an attempt to formalize the existing relationship between the security forces and their large network of civilian informants
• the division would “form groups of ‘elites’ in every neighborhood
• NGOs in Egypt
• register under a restrictive Mubarak-era law that “empowers the government to shut down any group virtually at will,”
• New draft legislation
• authority over all activities of NGOs
• Sisi signed an amendment to Article 78 of the penal code
• money from a foreign country or organization could face a lifetime prison sentence
• RELIGIOUS SPHERE
• MEDIA
• Ministry of Religious Endowments to grant its inspectors the right to arrest anyone
• it says are aimed at combating extremism
• also serve to control the message from the pulpit
• Journalists and media outlets
• government halting the publication of Al-Masry Al-Youm’s October 1 print
• a sensitive interview with an intelligence agent.
• media landscape already subservient to the state.
• two high-profile talk show hosts were pulled off the air within the space a week.
• Wael al-Ibrashy
• Mahmoud Saad
• ONLINE TRACKING
• The Interior Ministry is looking to procure new technologies to establish a vast internet surveillance system
• a leaked copy of the tender issued by the Interior Ministry
• Ministry of Communications and Information Technology will give the Ministry of Defense a ruling share of the national communications infrastructure and the right to manage it
• general Khaled Abdel-Sallam al-Sadr
• secretary general of Egypt’s House of Representatives
• in the meantime, Sisi holds both executive and legislative power.
• preventative detention
• imprison citizens without trial
• draconian protest law
• Employing the age-old autocratic logic that trades rights for security, the Sisi regime continues to lay the groundwork for an increasingly authoritarian state.

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• a critical juncture in Egypt’s civil-military dynamic
• the army seeks preservation of its political and economic privileges in the emerging system
• The military was able to project a cohesive façade in the first months of the revolution
• the army has paradoxically managed to maintain a popular image as national protector
• SCAF is in a difficult position as result of its multifaceted interests
• “the restoration of stability”
• decentralized popular movements continue to exert pressure
• the SCAF all too uncertain of its prerogatives
• risks awakening political controversies within the army and undermining the relatively apolitical internal dynamic
• A new bargain will necessarily emerge between the military and the nascent political system
• This so-called “Turkish model” would result in an enduring guardian role, but also risk heavy interference of military staff in politics
• • pre-empts the system the army chose to endorse 2012,
    and the coup 
• “dirty tricks”: threats, intimidation, and even coups d’état
• even coups d’état
• deepening of Turkish democratization post 2005—a process that now seems distinctly plausible in a post-Mubarak, post-SCAF Egypt.
• the militaries are less moved by an appetite for power than by a desire to protect their corporate interests and pass judgment on “proper” civilian leadership
• accept the role of the military as a legalist corps in democratic settings. Such a model might be attractive for Egyptian officers
• socialized in US military academies

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• I don’t want a single dog to protest on university campuses
• those who speak of human rights be burned! Stop patting them on their backs, we request military trials for terrorist leaders
• Mostafa al-Bakry, host of the television show
• He called for a return to the heavy-handed policies of former President Gamal Abdel Nasser
• “Democracy and nonsense, this does not work for us here,” Bakry warned.
• National Security Council (NSC)
• three-month long state of emergency
• However, some commentators whose voices aren’t heard on satellite programs have pointed to the long-term consequences of such approaches.
• Ismail al-Iskandarany, a political sociologist and specialist in Islamist movements, warns that “any attempts to displace residents under such politically charged conditions will create a generation that opposes the state and its policies.
• “terrorists would be the primary beneficiaries from such an act of mass displacement
• privately owned newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm (AMAY
• shells were fired by the army by mistake, but the army didn’t admit to having carried out

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• Two controversial laws, one regulating NGOs and another putting restrictions on protesting , took centre stage at the UN Human Rights Council's regular four-year review of Egypt's human rights conditions
• "We are deeply concerned with steps taken by Egypt that have resulted in violations of freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly and association, deprived thousands of Egyptians of fair trial guarantees and undermined civil society's role in the country," US ambassador Keith Harper
• In response to the criticism, Hisham Badr, aide to Egypt's foreign affairs minister, said that the right to assembly was protected in Egypt's constitution.
• "Egypt urges for the remarks (at the review) to be based on correct and accurate information, because some of them appear to be dealing with conditions in a country other than the Egypt in which we live,"
• Egypt's general prosecution in the delegation, denied that there are any political detainees in Egyptian prisons, or persons being detained without trial.
• "There is no prisoner in Egypt who is detained because of expression-related charges. All of those arrested are being detained for breaking other criminal laws,"
• Austria and Iceland brought up the violent dispersal of the two pro-Morsi Rabaa Al-Adaweya and Nahda sit-ins in August 2013, raising concerns about the excessive use of force
• Ibrahim El-Heneidy, Egypt's minister of transitional justice, addressed the council at the beginning of the review, where he described how Egyptians launched two revolutions for the sake of their freedoms and rights.
• "Human rights and citizens' freedoms are priorities of the national government that led the political roadmap after the 30 June revolution
• Calling the 2014 constitution a victory for human rights and freedoms,
• mentioned the achievements Egypt had made in the past four years regarding women's rights, freedom of speech

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• streets of downtown Cairo a squadron of armoured personnel carriers and kalashnikov-toting policemen have stood guard for much of the past few months.
• “The government is using us to make it look like they’re working on downtown,” says Ahmed Abdelgalil, a 29-year-old shirt-seller sitting in the empty Turgoman car park. “But in reality they’re not doing anything. They’re just improving their image at our expense.”
• Revolutionaries, politicians, property investors and artists are among a clutch of actors to articulate competing and overlapping narratives on what Cairenes call “wust el-balad”: the centre of the country.
• Since 2011, the people most associated with the area have been the revolutionaries. Young, secular activists, they turned a previously tightly policed area into a symbol of people-power
• “After the revolution I’d go every day to share political views,” says Ahmad Abd Allah, a leading member of the now-banned 6 April movement,
• In fact, the state’s plan to revamp the area was quite literally halted by the revolution.
• part of a wider, controversial Mubarak-era plan, known as Cairo 2050
• Until the rise of Egypt’s new strongman, former army chief Abdel Fatah el-Sisi, the state’s attitude to a highly politicised downtown area largely became one of containment.
• since

  Sisi ousted Egypt’s first post-revolution president, Mohamed Morsi, the state has begun a comeback. Some of the walls have been knocked down. Police have returned. Protest has effectively been banned. Major buildings have been repainted – and the revolutionaries have been squeezed out along with the street-sellers.
• just a smokescreen for getting us all off the streets
• A lot of activists have been detained

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• A convoy of military armoured vehicles drove through a Cairo street as crowds cheered them
• Protesters had previously chanted slogans calling for the army to support them
• "Where is the army? Come and see what the police is doing to us. We want the army. We want the army,"
• "The army is a respected establishment in Egypt, and many feel they need their support against what they see as excessive force by the police and security forces,"

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• Mohamed Tantawi, Egypt's Minister of Defense, has been seen with the protesters in Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo.
•  Some protesters in the square believe the flights are intended to disperse them, but are saying they are not scared

• , they say they remain committed to the protest.

   

  Helicopters have been circling since the morning.

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• The army's show of force appeared aimed at quelling looting, armed robbery and arson that broke out alongside pro-democracy protests
• The military made no attempt to disperse some 5,000 protesters gathered at Tahrir Square
• Gangs of armed men attacked at least four jails across Egypt before dawn, helping to free hundreds of Muslim militants and thousands of other inmates
• The lawlessness, uncertainty, and indications of an attempted exodus from Cairo were gravely damaging Egypt's economy, particularly tourism, which accounts for as much as 11 percent of the country's gross domestic product.
• Mubarak, 82, perpetuated the overriding role of military men in Egyptian politics on Saturday by naming his intelligence chief, former army general Omar Suleiman, to the new role of vice president. Ahmed Shafiq, the outgoing civil aviation minister and Mubarak fellow former air force officer, was named prime minister.

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• President Hosni Mubarak said he won’t stand down until elections due in September, angering the hundreds of thousands
• Mubarak said he’ll stay on to ensure “stability” and push through political and economic changes before his departure.
• Egypt “faces a choice between chaos and stability,” Mubarak said in the address. “My first responsibility now is to restore the security and stability of the nation to achieve a peaceful transition.”
• Mubarak, who had previously declined to say whether he would stand again, last week appointed Omar Suleiman, head of Egypt’s intelligence services, as vice president.

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• Egypt’s military has always been the guarantor of state stability
• Egypt’s government is not so much a Mubarak government as it is a military government,” said Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington
• “If anyone ever doubted it, recent events highlight that the armed forces is the pillar of the regime,” said Steven Cook, a Middle East expert with the Council on Foreign Relations.
• Only the military remains and thus far they don’t seem to be budging.”
• He suspects the military’s ultimate strategy is to contain and control the pro-democracy protests for as long as possible and to play for time
• while trying to weaken the opposition by peeling away less-committed demonstrators.
• That game plan may have come into play Wednesday, when soldiers stationed around Cairo’s Tahrir Square did not intervene as dozens of people were injured in vicious street fighting between Mubarak supporters and pro-democracy demonstrators.
• • Battle of the Camel
    - Army stand by, their playing for time tactic 
• State television ran a scrolling message reading, “The armed forces call on the protesters to go home for the sake of bringing back stability.”
• It could be used to justify a military crackdown

• “My guess is that they will be hugely reluctant to fire on civilians,” said Bruce Rutherford, author of the book Egypt After Mubarak: Liberalism, Islam and Democracy in the Arab World.

   

  “The military is a very respected institution and very much sees itself as an institution that is protecting the Egyptian people.

   

  “It is at that moment when senior military leaders would essentially make clear to Mubarak that there are limits as to how far they will go to keep him in office. And that’s the point when Mubarak would exit.”
• • Military do see themselves as 'protectors of the people'
    - thus do not totally back mubarak 
    - But still prioritise stability and own position
    - Thus Rutherford pre-empts militaries waiting plan, and red line for mubarak 

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