by Salwa Ismail, Index on Censorship
The sustained mass protests that began in Egypt on 25 January lit the
spark of revolution in a country long subject to repressive rule. The
scale of the protests, the resilience of the protesters and their firm
resolve to bring down the regime represented an unprecedented movement
in Egypt and come as a wonderful corrective to the unfounded view of
Egyptians as politically apathetic. For more than a decade now, Egypt
has been witnessing increased levels of collective action involving
broad segments of society. Between 1998 and 2008, industrial workers
mounted thousands of protests, numerous strikes and sit-ins. The textile
workers revived their long-established tradition of activism, best
exemplified by 10,000 workers of the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company
in al Mahala al Kubra going on strike in 2008. There have been newcomers
on the scene of public engagement and action as well, most notably the
tax collectors who staged an 11-day occupation of central Cairo
demanding better pay, also in 2008. Alongside this mobilisation for
economic change, other groups in society organised and pressed for
political reform. In April 2006, in a widely publicised and
well-regarded move, a group of prominent judges held a sit-in led by the
Judges’ Association to denounce electoral fraud in the 2005 elections.
The regime responded with punitive measures, bringing a number of the
judges before disciplinary panels to sanction them. Subsequently,
judicial oversight of elections was repealed in the constitutional
amendments of 2007.
These high-level and well-organised activities have been
complemented by spontaneous popular activism for basic rights. In towns
and villages throughout Egypt, ordinary people have gathered to protest
against poor infrastructure and police abuse. Stand-offs between the
people and the police have often ensued, sometimes ending in violence.
In a sense, Egypt was building up to, and possibly rehearsing for, a
showdown with the regime. Although the revolution is unprecedented, it
was not entirely unexpected. The early activism and the ongoing mass
protests have succeeded, in a remarkable way, in breaking down the wall
of fear erected by the police over many years. To appreciate the
magnitude and significance of these events, we should consider the kind
of restrictions that were imposed on any expression of opposition to the
regime and its policies. A web of regulations and decrees has encircled
Egyptian citizens, undermining their capacity to organise and act
collectively.
Although Egypt formally has a multi-party system, it has been
dominated by one party for 35 years. The National Democratic Party
(NDP), headed by Hosni Mubarak until his resignation from the post in
early February, maintained a monopoly position in state institutions and
government. To maintain this dominance, the regime devised regulations
that made it virtually impossible to challenge it on a level playing
field. These regulations set restrictions on the formation of political
parties through a committee, affiliated with the shura council (the
upper house of parliament) and comprising prominent NDP figures.
Political parties in formation like the al Wasat party (formed by a
dissident group of Muslim Brothers members) and the al Karama party
(formed by a dissident group of Nasserist party members) were refused
legal recognition on several occasions and their appeal to the Supreme
Administrative Court was rejected in 2007. Existing parties have also
been given little space to manoeuvre: they were subject to security
oversight intended to limit any outreach to constituents or to the wider
public.
As the National Democratic Party resorted to electoral fraud,
elections increasingly lost their relevance for participatory politics.
Vote rigging, buying of votes, violations of electoral rules and the use
of thuggery at election time were the norm and reached a flagrant level
in the parliamentary elections last November, in which the NDP won 93
per cent of the vote. It is worth noting that the NDP leadership
introduced measures to prevent its own members from running as
independents if they do not win party nominations. The party introduced
the novel, and possibly unique, practice of devising nominations lists
with multiple NDP candidates for the same seat. The November elections
were therefore run primarily as a contest among NDP members.
In a sense, parliamentary contests and the continued dominance of
the NDP were elements of the consolidation of the extensive executive
powers concentrated in the hands of the president. The 1971
constitution, and subsequent amendments, invested the president with
absolute authority over key institutions (e.g. as commander of the armed
forces, and head of the Supreme Council which oversees judicial
organisations), with rights to appoint and dismiss the prime minister,
his deputies and cabinet members. In 2007, amendments to the
constitution effectively foreclosed the possibility of non-NDP
candidates running for the presidency. According to Article 67,
nominations to the presidency required the endorsement of at least
one-third of the members of the People’s Assembly. The nominee who won
one-third of the votes of assembly members would become the candidate
for the post of president of the republic and the candidacy referred to
the people for election (or, more properly, ratification) in a
plebiscite. Needless to say, with an absolute majority in the assembly,
only NDP-supported nominees would become candidates for the presidency.
While the formal political structure and the institutions of
political participation were closed off, emergency laws have further
undermined ordinary citizens’ civil rights. These laws have been in
effect since Mubarak came to power in 1981 and allow administrative
detention without trial on the order of the minister of the interior.
Under detention regulations, imprisonment does not issue from a court
order, nor does it follow a court order of arrest. Rather, people are
arrested at the police officers’ discretion and detained for months or
years. Once the police have submitted a report to the security division,
claiming that a particular individual constitutes a threat to national
security, an internment order can be issued by the Ministry of the
Interior. The detention rules deny civil liberties and guarantees of due
process and leave citizens at the mercy of the police.
The Egyptian police departments govern vast areas of social life.
They have responsibilities for security and public order, but also
include jurisdiction over the regulation of outdoor markets, the use of
public utilities such as electricity and the implementation of municipal
building codes. With regular outdoor market raids and campaigns to
monitor citizens’ use of these utilities, the police have intruded into
the daily life of ordinary citizens. Endowed with the arbitrary powers
of emergency laws, the police have engaged in extortion, and used
violence to intimidate and silence any questioning of their powers.
The police have carried out numerous types of policing campaigns,
maintaining continuous monitoring and surveillance of the population.
Within the remit of what is called “traffic committees” (lijan murur ),
they randomly stop drivers to verify driving licences or identity cards,
and to inspect cars. Similarly, “security committees” (lijan amniya)
target drivers and pedestrians and subject them to investigation
procedures. Security checks and roadblocks on the streets of Cairo and
many other cities have been part of Egyptian citizens’ daily reality.
Young men, feared by the regime for their potential for activism and
resistance, have been the main target of these practices, particularly
those living in low-income neighbourhoods, and they are commonly stopped
and asked to present their identity cards; following inspection, they
may be hauled into the police station and subjected to what is known as
“suspicion and investigation procedures” (ishtibah wa tahari ). This
involves detention in the police station for up to three days while the
police verify whether or not the detainee has a criminal record.
These practices are aimed at the control of the population,
undermining Egyptians’ ability to challenge the police and ultimately
the ruling regime. Indeed, in response to these practices, ordinary
citizens have devised means of avoiding dealing with police. For
example, young men from low-income neighbourhoods refrain from
frequenting areas with roadblocks and checkpoints. Furthermore, women
have stepped in as intermediaries with the agents and agencies of the
state, including the police. I have noted in my work on the politics of
everyday life in Cairo that women process applications for utilities
services, negotiate fines issued by the police for violations of rules
relating, for instance, to the use of electricity utilities, or for
unauthorised occupation of public space by vendors in the informal
markets.
The police’s arbitrary powers have been exercised with impunity
under the emergency laws, which include the power to detain without
charge individuals who are deemed a threat to national security. In the
80s and 90s, these provisions were applied, in the first instance, to
suspected Islamist militants, but by the late 90s, they were used by the
police to silence any questioning of their abuse of power and their
engagement in illegal activities. It is estimated that the number of
administrative detainees reached 30,000 in the late noughties. In
addition to the use of systematic torture of suspects in police
stations, the police engage in monitoring and surveillance and use a
large number of informants and thugs. Indeed, the police have hired
thugs, used them as informants in low-income quarters of the city and
rewarded them with licenses to operate kiosks or run minibus services.
Under conditions such as these, organising for political reform, and
social and economic transformation, using traditional channels and
within existing institutions, became an increasingly fruitless exercise.
Ordinary citizens and activists were aware that elections were not
likely to change the regime, but were rather a means for achieving its
consolidation. Analysts interpreted the results of the elections last
November as laying the groundwork for the succession of the president’s
son Gamal to the presidency. The absolute majority of the NDP in
parliament, secured through unfair and illegitimate tactics, appeared
certain to guarantee that only the party elite’s candidate would be
nominated, and the prevalent speculation had been that Gamal Mubarak was
the person of choice. Emergency laws were extended until 2012 and the
politics of security was intensified, aided by constitutional amendments
that introduced new anti-terrorism laws in 2007, in effect normalising
emergency rule.
Protests became the only means of voicing demands and expressing
opposition. In 2009 and 2010, various groups organised sit-ins in front
of the National Assembly and the Council of Ministers with the objective
of making representations to parliament and to the cabinet. These
actions were often dismissed and the protesters’ demands sidestepped.
Given that opposition political parties had their hands tied, civil
society organisations, youth groups and broad short-term coalitions
coalesced around demands for change. Activists of diverse social and
political backgrounds agreed on the importance of ending Mubarak’s
presidency and thwarting plans for his son’s succession. The movement of
Kifaya (Enough) as well as the National Association for Change emerged
to express these demands, organising protests focused on free and fair
elections, and open democracy. They have a core group of activists, but
participants in their events remained small in number.
The broadening of the agenda for change came with the first call for
a general strike by textile workers on 6 April 2008, which drew wide
attention and support from a cross section of society. A group of young
activists formed what has come to be called the 6 April youth movement
(shabab sita ibril ) in support of this call, using the internet to
organise and develop ideas about the course and direction of change. The
movement’s website provides a virtual space for discussion and for the
circulation of information. Using Facebook, the movement publicised
events and mobilised its social circles. Importantly, the activists and
supporters of the movement were open to members of diverse political
groupings including the youth wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. A brief
survey of their website reveals that their concerns are focused on broad
social issues of equality and social justice, and on the protection of
freedoms and civil liberties. These broad demands are articulated along
with a vision for open and representative political government.
The protection of civil liberties is central to the youth movement
and independent political activists: the level of abuse and humiliation
of ordinary citizens by the police has been a catalyst in mobilising
people. Human rights organisations have documented widespread cases of
torture in police stations and the severity of the situation has
acquired greater publicity following specific cases. A well-organised
campaign against torture has also sensitised the public to the severity
of the abuses. In 2006, a video was circulated on YouTube showing police
abuse that shocked Egyptian society. The video, recorded by the police
on a mobile phone, showed police officers severely beating and sexually
abusing a young male minibus driver, Imad al Kabir, from the Greater
Cairo quarter of Bulaq al Dakrur. Last year, the murder of Khaled Said,
who was dragged out of an internet cafe in Alexandria by two policemen
in civilian clothes and violently beaten to death, further escalated
concerns. The “We are all Khaled Said” group that formed in 2010 has
captured the indignation of citizens who have come to fear for their own
security, in a society where the rule of law is disregarded. Khaled
Said became one of the iconic figures of the unfolding revolution.
Citizens’ daily experience of humiliation on the streets, the
growing social disparities – whereby a small elite has monopolised the
wealth and resources of the country – and the blockage of formal
political avenues, have all been factors driving the organisation of
independent opposition to the regime and the widespread mobilisation to
bring it down. The unfolding revolution in Egypt began when the 6 April
youths called for “a day of anger” on 25 January, using Facebook and
their website to publicise the call. On 18 January, in a powerful video
message, Asmaa Mahfouz, one of the group’s founders, addressed her
fellow citizens, particularly young men, to join her in public protest.
In a moving and emotional speech, she underlined that they all had a
responsibility to take part and that their success or failure depended
on acting together. In her video log, she summed up the collective
desire for liberty and dignity in the following statement: “I’m making
this video to give you one simple message. We want to go down to Tahrir
Square on 25 January. If we still have honour and we want to live in
dignity on this land, we have to go down on 25 January. We’ll go down
and demand our rights, our fundamental human rights. I won’t even talk
about any political rights… We want our human rights and nothing else.”
It is too early to provide a comprehensive account of all the
factors that have contributed to the people’s uprising and to the
revolution. The media and analysts have both emphasised the role of
social media in building up networks of dissidents and facilitating the
organisation of protests. Some have credited the “Facebook generation”
with lighting the spark of collective action. Undoubtedly, social media
activists put the tools of virtual communication to remarkable use in
calling for “the day of anger”. However, events can only be understood
if we look at the experience of the vast majority of Egyptians over the
last three decades under Mubarak’s rule.
It was fitting that the revolution had its spectacular beginning on
Police Day and that the young took the lead in breaking down the barrier
of fear that the police have erected over a long period of time.
Egypt’s youth has bravely come forward, along with broad segments of
society, to reassert their right to dignity and freedom. They have taken
the first steps towards exercising fully the responsibilities of
citizenship. It is in reference to these objectives that the protesters’
main and most powerful slogan, “the people want to bring down the
regime”, should be understood. The desired change is nothing short of an
overhaul of the institutions and structures of government.
