I arrived, not knowing what to expect. Deep down, I had been hoping the government would be a bit embarrassed about the growing torture scandal, that they might allow a small group of lawyers and professors to protest in front of the police station, and allow reporters like myself to do their job.
My hopes were dashed right away. I saw a group of around three dozen rights activists and lawyers carrying banners, shouting against torture, while at least 200 plainclothes thugs, uniformed and plainclothes security officers including two generals—add to that a phalanx of black-clad riot police conscripts, worked hardly to prevent them from marching on the Qasr el-Nil Police Station. The protestors were violently pushed by the thugs and the officers away. Women doctors from the Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence were shoved away.
I heard a woman screaming, and turned only to find 3emad Mubarak (he’s not related to Hosni Mubarak, in case you are asking), the director of the Association for Freedom of Expression and Thought, being snatched away by plainclothes thugs. 3emad’s wife, Maha Youssef, also a rights lawyer, threw herself screaming at the security trying to free 3emad. Other friends also tried to intervene, but they were outnumbered by the thugs. I took my digital camera out, and started taking photos of the thugs grabbing Emad. There was so much scuffling. More women screaming. Banners being thrown on the floor, stepped on and torn by thugs and officers. I saw rights activist Ayman 3ayyad and veteran leftist engineer 3adel el-Mashadd also being snatched by the security. This all happened in ten minutes, when it came my turn. I was taking photos hysterically, when a firm hand grabbed my arm trying to take the camera away. I clutched my fingers on the camera, refusing to let go of it. A number of thugs soon swung to action. One going for the camera that I had both hands on now; another pulling my neck; a third grabbing my waist. I kept on shouting, “leave the camera,� in vain. I was thrown to floor; I saw someone grabbing the camera from me, and throwing it to floor and break it into pieces, my sunglasses followed. Some activists, including 3adel Wassili, tried to save me from the thugs’ yoke, with no success. 3adel told me later the thugs were kicking me with their legs, but to be honest, I was in such an adrenaline-induced mood, with my full focus on my camera that I didn’t feel anything, and can not confirm I was kicked.
Next thing I knew, I was carried away from the crowd by five thugs who each grabbed a limb, while the fifth grabbed my shirt. They carried me for fifty meters away in this bizarre crucifixion position, and threw me to pavement behind the security cordon. I was forced to the floor, and warned not to move. I wasn’t allowed to stand up. So I kept on shouting while I was lying on the floor identifying myself as a reporter, and it was my right to be here and see what’s happening. One of the thugs warned me to stay silent and not try to get up or else “you’ll be taught a lesson you won’t forget.�
Ten minutes passed, and I’m still pushed to the floor. I concluded I was to be detained today. I wondered whether I’ll be taken to the Qasr el-Nil police station for a Sharqawi-style treatment, or would I be taken to Lazoughli, for a friendly meeting with State Security officers. I also tried to look around me from where I was lying down searching for the three disappeared activists. I couldn’t see any.
An officer in plainclothes came near me, and I yelled at him demanding my release. He ignored me. Few minutes later, a uniformed police general told the thugs to stay away, and told me to leave. I stood up, and felt kinda dizzy. My shirt was unbuttoned from where I was being grabbed, and my clothes were disheveled. By that time, the demonstrators were pushed away to the Cornish by the officers and the thugs. They were still screaming, and none wanted to leave without the release of the three activists. More scuffles broke out on the cornish, before the activists decided to leave, as they were exponentially outnumbered by the security agents, and their support brigades of thugs. People in cars driving down the street, used to slow down to watch thugs and agents intimidating respectable university professors, veteran lawyers, women doctors in their 50s. It was bizarre. Several colleagues advised me to leave the scene, saying the security officers were pointing at me. I started walking faster. By then the activists were scattered into groups of fours, and each group running to try to stop a taxi to run away in. Dr. Magda Adly and Dr. Suzan Fayad of the Nadeem Center got into a shouting match with the officers, as they were being chased. The kidnapped activist 3adel el-Mashad, one of the founders of the Egyptian Association Against Torture, was Fayad’s husband, so it was even more personal for her.
People in the cars and taxis passing in the street could well notice something was happening on the pavement. Some were nodding their heads with disgust, others tried to pretend they weren’t seeing anything, but you can see the discomfort on their faces. The activists were still shouting and chanting against torture and against the regime, as they were chased all the way up to the Qasr el-3eini hospital. I was walking in speed trying to keep distance from the thugs, and still be close enough to see if there were anymore nabbed.
The security officers present seemed to be favoring a quick departure (aka disappearance) of the activists. After all, the area is full of tourists, and as we all know talk about torture in front of the khawaggas drives some people in the government nuts.
Suddenly a tourism company mini-van stopped beside me, and asked me and the few around me to get in. I was so touched. The driver could see the police chasing us, and offered to help. Seven of us crammed in quickly. We decided to head to the Hisham Mubarak Law Center (HMLC). The guy took us all the way from el-Qasr el-3eini Hospital to Souq el-Tawfiqia where HMLC is, and would not ask for money. Battling through the traffic, the driver was mumbling insults against the president and the government, as other passengers were on the phones talking to their friends about what happened today, and about the new arrests.
I felt really
drained, and the mini van was air-conditioned, that I was resisting falling asleep in the seat. When I reached HMLC, people over there looked at me as if they’ve seen a ghost. News were already circulating about the arrests, and my name was mentioned along with the three other detainees after I was seen being dragged away.
Activists were flocking to the HMLC, which was soon like honeybees nest, with lots of humming, talk, and shouts around. We received news, a group of six protestors including Dr. Laila Soueif, and her novelist sister Ahdaf Soueif have managed actually to reach the police station, and were encircled by thugs.
Over the phone, Ahmad Seif al-Islam, HMLC director, managed to find out from his wife Laila Soueif, that the three detainees were not taken inside the notorious police station, rather they were locked up in a blue Prisoners’ transport truck. They were not allowed to leave the truck, and were briefly interrogated by two plainclothes security. 3emad Mubarak was even denied a visit, urgently needed, to the toilet, so he had to piss in a bottle inside the truck.
Activists in the center were discussing an immediate sit in at Tala3at Harb sq., till the detainees are released, after security sealed off Garden City. Soon news trickled, Laila Soueif and her fellow colleagues were refusing to leave till the detainees get released.
Around 6:30pm, 3emad, 3adel and Ayman were released. They arrived at the HMLC, and received by cheers and hugs.
I left the center around 7pm, glad to know the three detainees were released. I’m still trying to reflect on what’s happened today and ideas on what journalists should do to cover a demo in Cairo. Walking back to Tahrir Sq, I saw seven riot police trucks lined near the lawyers’ syndicate, and felt I was in a war zone. I guess when the adrenaline went away, I started thinking again about what happened in the afternoon, and felt very angry for the assault and the destruction of my camera. Back in November 2005, thugs and security attacked me in Damanhour and confiscated my camera while I was trying to take pictures of their assaults on voters. I managed to retrieve the camera after a week following official complaint LA Times filed to the Egyptian press center. But now it’s smashed.
I thought it was extremely ironic I was attacked by security-hired thugs from a police station neighboring the Indonesian Embassy in Cairo. Similar gangs of thugs were also unleashed by Suharto’s security services against student activists, during the 1998 Indonesian revolution. The Indonesian thugs were also poor disheveled miserable bastards, recruited and trained by the Indonesian security agencies. These thugs unleashed orgies of violence against democracy activists (and the ethnic Chinese minority) in the streets of Jakarta. That didn’t stop Suharto’s throne from ending in the sewage. One final thing, Suharto’s last foreign visit before his humiliating removal from power was to Cairo, to consult with Hosni Mubarak…
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Hossam,.
Sorry about the camera. Keep up the good work and take care.
All Best,
Dan & Conchita
All I can think of right now is how grateful I am for ppl who love this country this much.
As for your cam, ma3lesh khadet el shar w ra7et 🙂 although sadly khadet 7agat tanya kaman
Glad you got out, Hossam, was worried briefly. How surreal political activity in Cairo seems, doesn’t it – your description of the small war zone in the midst of posh tourist-land with people looking on curiously and sometimes averting their eyes as they go about their business is very telling.
We in the US have no clue about how brave you are in Egypt. God bless you and your efforts.
Ya Hossam,
proud you guys are staying strong. Don’t stop. Someone’s bound to tire and it WON’T be us. So proud that women and academics and proffessionals are taking such interest in the fight kaman. this way teh youth won’t feel they are being sacrificed. Begad fe3lan proud.. I can imagine how it feels like a surreal war zone, with the trucks stationed all over the place, and the amn, and all the challenge, and fear and danger and wrath adn anger in the air.. bas when you come to think of it , it is a battle.. sa7? Not realy one for freedom, ad ma heyya one over the country.. people are finally speaking up and saying ‘la2 BETA3TEY..!’.. or at least that’s how i feel.
Ps. Ahdaf and Laila ‘Soueif’
Damn, that was right next to my old apartment … sorry about your camera, and thanks so much for getting this account out there. Bastards.
Thank you all for your concern and for your kind words. They are very much appreciated.
You are truly brave, the people around here complaining about how the police behave does´nt have a clue. Bookmarked your blog.
Alia– I corrected the typo.. Cheers.
I’ve posted some links to your blog from a couple of mine … even an experienced 60s radical hippie anti-war protester like me is having a hard time grasping the situation you are in.
Some tips from the 1968 Chicago political riots … recruit a fast runner to stay between you and a clear exit, and have someone on a scooter waiting to evacuate you. If you get in trouble, you throw the camera (or film or SD card) to the fast guy and they run like hell to the scooter to keep the images safe.
Carry a crap camera or two … use them as bait for the goons while you get the good one to safety.
Can you access paypal, I will gladly donate towards you getting a a bunch of new ones. Ones with easily removable memory so you can pull the memory as they pull the camera from you. Your blog reminds me of the cost of freedom and shames me for the stance many in my country take at times. You and all those who champion freedom in a land where it’s not truly known should be lauded as the heroes you are.
If we announce daily or weekly that there will be some demonstartions here and there, we shall make their lives as hell even though if we don’t show up…:)
I’m forwarding your post to several people. A “government” that hires thugs to beat its own people is no government. A “President” that behaves like Mubarak is sickening.
I received several emails from friends and Arabist readers who kindly offered to buy me a new camera instead of the one that was smashed by the security thugs. I want to thank you all for your kindness and generousity. I will get a new camera from my savings. But if you really wanna help, then please circulate info about the situation in Egypt among all your contacts and local representatives; email your congressmen and MPs; and if you were lucky enough to be born in a country where the police doesn’t sodomize your right to protest, then picket the Egyptian embassy or consulate in your town calling for the torture to stop.
[…] Egypt extends jail time for pro-reform protesters, including one who was sexually abused and severely tortured CAIRO, Egypt (AP) _ Prosecutors on Wednesday extended the detentions of 50 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood and two other activists who were among hundreds arrested for taking part in pro-reform protests earlier in April and May. The public prosecutors office also ordered medical treatment for one of the activists, Mohammed el-Sharkawi, who said he was tortured and sodomized at a Cairo police station after his arrest on May 25. El-Sharkawi, 24, was grabbed, punched and kicked by more than 15 men in plainclothes after he had participated in a peaceful protest outside of the Journalists’ Syndicate in downtown Cairo. Another activist Karim el-Sha’er arrested with him was also beaten. The 50 members of the Brotherhood, have been in jail since protests on May 11. Since April, police have arrested hundreds of activists involved in peaceful protests of disciplinary hearings for two reformist judges. Authorities can hold detainees for up to six months without trial under Egyptian law. On Tuesday 164 Brotherhood protesters and 21 non-Brotherhood secular activists ordered held for another 15 days have already been in detention since April. Four others, including two women, were ordered released Tuesday. The Brotherhood, an Islamic-based political party that is formally banned but usually tolerated by the government, won nearly 20 percent of the legislature’s seats in last year’s elections, making it the largest opposition bloc. […]
[…] Darkness on the Edge of Cairo by John William Salevurakis Every day I walk from my fashionable neighborhood to the university and pass a pair of very kind, white-uniformed police officers. They stand in their almost blindingly clean attire, only a block from my crumbling apartment building, smoking Egypt’s cheapest Cleopatra cigarettes and directing traffic. “Ya Pasha!” they shout, “Habibi!” This is my daily greeting as I pass and kiss each of them on both cheeks. Since I came here from Utah nearly two years ago, I have been “a ruler” and their “dearest one” nearly every day. I don’t smoke but they commonly offer me a cigarette so I will take the time to uneasily chat in my pidgin Arabic. We talk about mundane things like the summer heat or when I’ll again be visiting America or Europe. In Cairo, the mundane is really of immense value as a symbol. It is a social ritual, it seems, representing calm and a certain degree of material prosperity, a sign that one can afford to be concerned about such things pertaining to one’s self and others. With regularity, however, the calm is now broken on the edges of Cairo, and the darkness, fueled jointly by domestic and foreign powers, is creeping in from the edges of town. Everybody’s got a secret, it seems. On May 25th, Karim Al-Shaer and Mohammed Al-Sharkawy were arrested at a local protest and taken to the Kasr El Nil police station near my apartment. They were beaten and tortured, and Al-Sharkawy was sexually abused, and then turned over to State Security Forces, at which point their long-term futures became even more uncertain. The two were then allegedly denied medical care and remanded to the Tora Prison for a minimum of 15 days under Egypt’s widely criticized yet strikingly familiar “Emergency Laws” which have been in place, almost without interruption, for the last 38 years. A second protest on June 2nd (Correction: actually it was June 1st) saw the detainment of three Egyptians and an L.A. Times reporter who also had his camera smashed by police in front of the Kasr El Nil station. It was loudly and repeatedly noted by security: “There’s no permit for a protest today for the demonstrators. There is no permit for the coverage by reporters!” Historically, no one has asked any questions when faced with statements such as these . . . but that obedience is starting to evaporate. This cycle of demonstrations and arrests is becoming more frequent as the darkness extends further toward the heart of the city. The calm that generally characterizes Egypt in the region is shattered in support of journalists and judges who are being oppressed by the Mubarak regime. The mundane is perhaps most foundationally overshadowed by popular frustration over last year’s forced re-election of President Hosni Mubarak. It is common knowledge here that voter fraud was rampant and neither journalists nor judges are being allowed to voice this reality. Support for those who do voice it is then swiftly met with brutality or the credible threat of it. What’s more, the American government issues only occasional communiqués of concern regarding these events of repression and hails Egypt as a fertile root of democracy in the region. On June 2nd, the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt expressed “disappointment” but continued to simply state: “We don’t know all the facts. We know that there are at least two sides to every story.” A day later, the U.S. State Department issued a statement in which Tom Casey said, “We are troubled by the recent reports that Mohammed Al-Sharkawy as well as Karim Al-Shaer were arrested and, during their arrest and detention, were tortured.” He continued to soften American concern by adding, “If those allegations are true, that would certainly be a violation of Egypt’s own laws” and “If the allegations are true, what we want to see happen is. . . .” What a repulsively inappropriate assertion of either doubt or diplomacy, given that a political activist in the region’s first true “democracy” was just reportedly sodomized with cardboard in a police station. Of course, maybe the definition of “democracy” is somewhat flexible as all of this was taking place a mere two weeks after President Mubarak’s son, Gamal, had met with President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and National Security Advisor Steve Hadley while visiting the U.S. on “private business.” At my university, I teach economic principles largely to the children of ministers in the Mubarak government or American students privileged enough to spend a semester or year abroad. When controversial political topics invariably arise, I make uneasy jokes about the room being bugged or offending someone’s father with my impending comments. Everyone laughs . . . but the darkness is here in my classroom, too, and perhaps only temporarily hiding behind the mundane graphical representation of supply and demand or the oblique writings of Thorstein Veblen. I still pass the usual white-suited police officers on my street. I still exchange smiles and handshakes and still get offered cigarettes. We chat about the mundane . . . the weather, my wife, our dog, and their families in Upper Egypt. I look at them and wonder, though, about the true reach of darkness into Cairo, from where it originated, and how far it will ultimately travel. I look at the policeman’s aging face, tobacco-stained teeth, and graying wiry hair, thinking only that this smiling gentleman could very well have been jumping on the stomach of a prisoner yesterday or penetrating another with whatever implement happened to be convenient the week before. A mundane object like a cardboard paper towel roll assumes a new horrifying aspect in hindsight. The calm here remains generally widespread, making the surface of daily life courteous, yet it is widely understood to be a façade for the externally supported brutality maintaining it. The United States has found itself stuck fast in a tarry mass of its own prejudice and financial interests in Iraq and yearns for allies, any ally, in the region. The price for this is paid by Egyptians who are victimized in the name of domestic political stability as well as by Americans, even Utahns, who find themselves witness to domestic imprisonments without trials, remote European “interrogation facilities,” or warrantless domestic surveillance in the name of insulation from terror. Hearing I have contracted to stay in Cairo for another three years, people of varied origins — including Americans — often ask me if I feel “safe” in what they perceive to be the darkness completely external to their own lives. My response to Americans is simply, “Do you?” […]