Month: December 2004

Let’s connect some dots, specificially yesterday’s demonstration, Egypt’s recent and rather bold gestures towards Israel, and the Ukrainian presidential elections. The mass’ ability to nullify fraudulent elections in Ukraine have surely been noted by Arab leaders and opposition figures. As Egyptian analyst Wahid Abd al-Magid noted on the op-ed pages of Al Hayat on December 5: “It only took a few thousand protesters to impose democratic reforms in the age of the American neo-conservatives… a big internal crisis has put Arab regimes in a historical dilemna, especially in light of the increasing possibility of a foreign role– namely America– in supporting internal demonstrations.” (He’s exagerrating a bit with the “few thousand” number. Later in his article Abd al-Magid claims that the initial demonstrations in Kiev consisted of 20,000 to 30,000 people. I haven’t been able to find any numbers on the first demonstrations.) The events in Ukraine were the result of a partnership between internal and external pressure. Were it not for the concerned eyes of the EU and the United States it is likely that the Ukrainian government would have cracked down at the first signs of protests. And were it not for the public display of public will, the millions that eventually turned out to protest in over 30 Ukrainian cities, US and EU concerns would have been irrelevant. (I have found www.fistfulofeuros.net the best on Ukraine)

This has been one of the cornerstones of the reform debate in the Arab world as well: what is the role for the United States, or any outsiders for that matter, in pressing for political reform inside Egypt and other Arab countries? Ukraine now provides a formula. If Egypt’s opposition hopes to repeat the Ukrainian model here, it will need to pave the way for protests against the President himself. Afterall, that’s what will be demanded of the people on election day 2005 if they are going to protest against the reelection of Mubarak in fraudulent elections. Yesterday’s demonstration showed that it can be done.

Now to Israel-Egyptian relations. On December 5 Egypt released the convicted Israeli spy Azzam Azzam, Egypt is scheduled to sign a trade deal with Israel tomorrow, and rumors have been going around that Egypt will return its ambassador to Tel Aviv. In addition, Israeli Embassy spokesperson Israel Tikochinski appeared on Egyptian television for the first time last week. Egypt’s Mubarak is coming up for reelection in Fall 2005. With Mubarak aging, rumors swirling about his son Gamal’s ambitions, and expectations for the US to back its democratization rhetoric with its closest Arab ally, the 2005 Egyptian presidential elections promise to be a closely watched affair. Bush publicly called on Egypt to lead the way towards democratization in Fall 2003. It is hard for me to imagine the regime here getting away with the same sort of antics that occurred in the 1995 and the 2000 elections. The opposition is more emboldened than it has ever been, and external pressure is increasing. However, if Mubarak suddenly proves himself willing to make bold moves on the Israel front then that could be the one thing that would convince the Bush administration and “the international peace process industry” to turn a blind eye to another sham election in Egypt, even if the opposition plays the Ukraine gambit and manages to mobilize thousands of protesters.

The recently completed renovations to Cairo’s central downtown square, Midan Tahrir, have made the gathering of protesters there very difficult. A series of chest high fences now surround the once-open area that was a favorite for protesters. Cairo’s largest anti-war protests at the outbreak of the war in Iraq began in Midan Tahrir, and it seems the government decided on a timely “beautification” project to prevent future ruckuses. So I had been curious to see where protest organizers would relocate to. And it appears they made a very clever decision yesterday. I just came from an interview with Amira Bahey Eddin, a Cairo lawyer who has worked on a number of high profile human rights cases (most recently that of Ashraf Ibrahim) and is close to many on the left who organized yesterday’s demonstration against Mubarak. She said the success of the demonstration was due to its location, on the steps of Egypt’s high courthouse. With 8,000 judges fighting through 14 million pending legal cases in Egypt (those numbers according to Zeinab Radwan of the National Council for Woman, the National Council for Human Rights, and the NDP’s Policies Secretrariat), closing down the courthouse to prevent the demonstrators from gathering was not an option. People had to be allowed to come and go in order to appear in court and it was impossible for security to distinguish between those with cases pending and the rabble rousers.

Josh Stacher — an academic expert on Egypt and Syria who will soon start contributing to this site — has sent me this CSM story by Dan Murphy that wraps up some recent events that have to do with Egypt-Israel relations and the crackdown on Egyptians living in Sinai since the Taba bombings (I had briefly mentioned this in early November.) This, I think, has been under-reported in the Western press. Here’s what HRW’s Joe Stork told Dan:

In Egypt’s case, the new economic deal comes even as the country is alleged to be engaged in one of its most wide-ranging crackdowns against its own citizens in years. Foreign and local human rights organizations claim that as many as 3,000 Egyptians have been detained near the city of Al-Arish on the Sinai peninsula over the past six weeks in a crackdown connected to a terrorist attack in the resort of Taba in October. Some of the attackers were from Al-Arish.

Amnesty International alleges that some of those arrested have been tortured, and that most have been held without charges or access to lawyers. Many of those arrested have since been released, but human rights organizations estimate that hundreds remain in detention.

“I was out there for two days and I managed to talk to about 20 people some of whom were tortured. I find their stories very credible,” says Joe Stork, Washington Director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch. He says two of those he spoke with detailed torture by electric shock and being tied up and hung from door-frames.

“The torture is very consistent with Egyptian state security’s modus operandi… You don’t just bring in suspects, you terrorize the population and say any more funny business and this will keep happening,” says Mr. Stork.

Egyptian officials have told local media that the allegations have been exaggerated, with one Interior Ministry official telling the government-owned Al-Ahram weekly that no more than 800 people have been arrested. The US Embassy in Cairo declined to comment on the allegations.

Yesterday, at the anti-Mubarak demo, there were also a few activists from the “popular committee” formed in support of the torture victims in China, who also has several international members. One of the main Egyptian activists, a man called Ashraf, told me about that over 6000 people have been arrested. He explained that although the police or state security had initially aimed at arresting 950 people, a lot of their relatives were also arrested — what he described as “taking the families hostage.” He also said that lawyers and human rights activists have been denied access.

Another thing he mentioned is that the government was destroying houses of these families — a policy that reminded him of Israeli home demolitions in Palestine. He also mentioned something rather weird about elite troops with laser-sighting equipped rifles doing raids on villages and Bedouin camps. I believe a report is being prepared by local and/or international human rights group on what’s happening, which is probably the biggest crackdown on the general population since the skirmishes with the Gamaa Islamiya in Upper Egypt in the 1980s.

You can find a few pictures I took at the demo with my phone here. Unfortunately, they’re not very high-res. I also a few video clips but I think most users won’t be able to view them without special software. I can put them up on demand or if I can find a way to convert them to a more universal format.

On another note, as I watched the clips again, I realized that when the demonstrators sang the national anthem, they were actually not using the right words. I didn’t realize at the moment but when re-listening it became quite clear. It was also confirmed by this AP story on the event.

On Sunday, the protesters dispersed peacefully within an hour, singing a revised version of the Egyptian national anthem: “My country, you still have oppression in politics and economics. You need revolution, my country.”

The real lyrics are: “My country, you have my love and my heart.”

If you can view 3GP files (I can with Quicktime Pro for Mac OS X), click here to see that clip.

I’ve just returned from the first demonstration ever to take place against Mubarak’s rule — a significant milestone in the evolution of Egypt’s pro-democracy movement.

There were some 500 activists, mostly from left-wing groups and human rights organizations, who gathered near the highest appellate court in the land in Downtown Cairo — the same place that overturned the verdict against Saad Eddin Ibrahim a couple of years ago.

As usual, they were surrounded by an incredible number of black-clad troops from Central Security, the riot-control police, who must have been in the thousands around the demo and in the surrounding streets.

The demo lasted a couple of hours and was mostly silent — I think they didn’t want to escalate things and let it get out of hand with the topic being so risky and so many troops around. Most of the time, they stayed silent with some protesters wearing stickers over their mouths that said “kefaya” — Arabic for “Enough.”

That has become the slogan of the people calling for Mubarak to step down — as can be seen on websites such as kefaya.org and others. The main slogan when they did shout something seemed to be “Haram! Kefaya!”, meaning “Shame! Enough” At one point, they also broke into a heartfelt and moving rendition of “Biladi”, the Egyptian national anthem that celebrates the movement led by one of Egypt’s early nationalist leaders, Saad Zaghloul, which demanded representation at the Versailles peace conference.

Although the demonstration was small and mostly uneventful, this group of people — which calls itself the “movement for reform” and was also behind the recent petition calling for Mubarak to stand down — just crossed a major red line. As far as I know, this is the first demonstration specifically against Mubarak that has ever been held. People did shout anti-Mubarak slogans during the Iraq war or pro-Palestinian protests, but they were never about that issue.

I spoke to Abdel Haleem Qandeeel, the editor of Al Arabi who was kidnapped and beaten up in the desert last month, who was the main organizer of the demo. He explained that the main idea of the movement, besides specific aims like constitutional reform to change the way the president is elected, was to make sure Mubarak was not elected for a fifth term and did not install his son Gamal, who has grown hugely influential over the past few years. He also stressed that the movement did not represent any of the official opposition parties but was more closely allied to illegal groups like the Egyptian communist party, the revolutionary socialists and other left-wing trends who have led the opposition to the Iraq war and support for the Intifada over the past few years.

But he said the movement was open to everyone who wanted to participate. One of its most discreet backers, for instance, is the Muslim Brotherhood, which sent a few token representatives. The Brotherhood is obviously not throwing its full weight behind this — if so there would be tens of thousands of protesters and very possibly a huge clash with security forces — but it is keeping its options open.

Nawal Saadawi and her husband Sherif Hetata were also there, as well as a smattering of prominent left-wing intellectuals. These people are often dismissed as irrelevant and without popular support, which is largely true, but at the same time you have to admire their balls for taking considerable personal risk and coming forward. I didn’t see any of the prominent liberals there, for instance. If these people don’t start taking the risks that the “loony left” has taken over the years by defending poor people and victims of police brutality, for instance, they’re going to be hard to take seriously.

I’ve just received a phone call this very minute saying that one of the opposition headquarters in the Giza district of Cairo is being surrounded right now by armored vehicles and a bunch of top army brass. It looks like Kamal Khalil, their leader, will be arrested. More on this when I can. I will also post some pictures and videos of today’s demo in a few hours.