Newswire from Egypt

[Sentinel]

Please post breaking news from the Egyptian revolution in this thread. Also feel free to continue any discussions from the Protests in Egypt (http://www.revleft.com/vb/protests-egypt-t148815/index.html) -thread, which was closed as per board policy for having too many replies.

[Rusty Shackleford]

quick thing, can we have "protests in egypt" restickied so we have a history of this readily available? i think this is the first time a revolution has been monitored like this.

[ckaihatsu]

News » International

CAIRO, February 6, 2011

Muslim Brotherhood joins political mainstream in Egypt
Atul Aneja

AP

http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/dynamic/00381/BROTHERHOOD_381768f.jpg

Muslim brotherhood leader Saad el-Katatni, centre, gestures as other leaders Essam el-Erian, left, and Mohamed Morsi look on during a press conference in Cairo on Sunday. Banner reads " Press conference for Muslim Brotherhood" in Arabic.


After being shunned for decades, the Muslim Brotherhood appears set to acquire official legitimacy in Egypt with its representatives on Sunday holding talks with the government on defining the ground rules for a political transition, which has become necessary in the wake of a pro-democracy revolt.

Ahead of talks with Vice-President Omar Suleiman, who has emerged as the face of the Mubarak government in its interaction with the opposition, the Muslim Brotherhood signalled that Sunday's talks could be exploratory. “We decided to take part in a round of negotiations in order to test the officials' seriousness about people's demands and their readiness to respond,” the group's Supreme Guide, Mohamed Badie, said in a statement.

Nevertheless, the invitation for talks and its acceptance appear part of a larger regional shift in policy towards the organisation, which has well-organised branches in many countries in West Asia, including oil-rich Gulf countries. On Thursday, Jordan's King Abdullah also held talks with Muslim Brotherhood representatives — a step the Jordanian Hashemite monarch has avoided for nearly a decade.

In Cairo, in the talks with Mr. Suleiman, Muslim Brotherhood representatives joined others from secular opposition parties, as well as independent legal experts and a business tycoon Naguib Sawiris. The dialogue apparently ended on a positive note, with the Egyptian government claiming that both sides had agreed to identify specific steps to be adopted to enable detailed talks to commence.

A statement after the talks signalled that at least formally, President Hosni Mubarak would not leave, despite his departure from office being a core unifying demand among the pro-democracy demonstrators. Muslim Brotherhood representative Abdel Monem Aboul Fotouh, instead of focusing on the President's exit, said Mr. Mubarak must issue decrees “to change Articles 76, 77, dissolve parliament, release all political detainees, end emergency status.”

“Until then, the youth will remain on the streets and at the same time discussions will continue,” he said. Mr. Fotouh was referring to constitutional provisions that allow Mr. Mubarak's party to manipulate polls to choose a President, who could then run for unlimited terms.

While a convoluted dialogue appears to have begun, at the Tahrir (Liberation) Square, plans were afoot to mount a new cycle of protests to maintain pressure on the government.

Keywords: Egypt uprising, Mubarak government, Omar Suleiman-Muslim Brotherhood talks

[ckaihatsu]

REVOLUTION: Egyptian Federation for Independent Unions Founded


In every country of the World -- but most importantly in North Africa
and the Middle East right now -- workers must take this important step
of setting up independent, grassroots trade unions -- which in effect
overthrow the power of the present and longtime capitalist-/state-
controlled "trade union" apparatus. These decadent organizations
everywhere essentially work *only* for the capitalists now -- and
function fundamentally as workplace police for their corporate
masters. They must in fact be the first part of the capitalist
machinery of control to be smashed by the self-action of an
independent working-class -- and here, egyptian workers are attempting
this vital task.

And so should we all. Immediately.


Long Live the World Socialist Revolution.
All Power to the Workers' and Farmers' Councils and Communes.


-- grok.







----- Forwarded message

Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2011
Subject: Forward Far and Wide: Egyptian Federation for Independent Unions Founded





Egyptian Federation for Independent Unions

Constitutional Body Creation


Egypt is going through historical moments. Its people is courageously
struggling to defend the right to live a decent life. the right to
dignity, freedom and social justice. to decent opportunities and just
pay. to a democratic society for all, offering every single citizen a
share in its wealth and GNP. a society that does not allow few to buy
private jets whereas the rest of the population cannot even afford
public transportation. a society that refuses to pay the top of the
pyramid salaries higher thousand of time than minimum wage.

A society that allows its people to breathe freely. to freely speak,
interact and express itself. a society that allows all people
categories and classes to defend their interests and negotiate freely.
a society that does not oppress its people, inhibits its ambitions and
natural tendencies to develop workers capacities and improve their
life conditions.

Workers and people struggled for decades and participated, especially
since 4 years, in unprecedented recurrent protest actions to defend
their legal rights. They succeeded in their endeavor despite the lack
of independent union organization, stolen piece by piece for decades.
They succeeded in attracting larges social sectors, and mobilizing
greater sympathy among the Egyptian society, workers and union
movements.

Workers defended their right to work to face unemployment specter -
that devours youth - and demanded to set a new fair minimum wage that
guarantees decent living for all workers. They fought courageously to
defend their democratic right to organize and create independent union
organizations.

Labor struggles paved the way to today's people revolution. That is
why Egypt workers and employees totally refuse that the "governmental"
general federation represents them and speaks in their name, because
it often denied their rights and claims and even issued the famous
statement on January 27 claiming to oppose every single protest action
during this period.

Therefore, independent unions and committees [RETA, Retired Workers
Union, Health professionals Union, Teachers Independent Union] along
with workers independent groups in industries declare the creation of
Egyptian Federation for Independent Unions and its constitutional body
on Sunday the 30th of January 2011 and emphasizes on the following:


1.. Egypt citizens right to work - and binding the government to
"unemployment compensation".

2.. Define a minimum wage no less than 1200 LE, with a yearly raise
proportionate to inflation; guarantee workers rights to bonuses and
benefits according to work value, especially work compensation for
those facing work hazards. Moreover, maximum wage should never exceed
minimum wage by more than ten times.

3.. The right for all Egyptian citizens to fair social security
including the right to health care, housing, education "ensuring free
education and syllabus development to cope with science and technology
evolution", the right for all retired to decent pensions and benefits.

4.. Workers and employees right to organize, to create their own
bylaws, to remove all legal restrictions regarding this right.

5.. Free all detainees imprisoned after January 25th.


Egypt Federation for Independent Unions Constitutional Body invites
all Egypt workers to create civil committees in order to defend their
workplace, workers and citizens during these critical times and to
organize protest actions and strikes in the workplaces, except for
vital sectors workplaces, to realize Egypt people claims.



Egyptian Federation for Independent Unions

The "Constitutional Body"

30/01/201

----- End forwarded message -----






--
The Financiers & Banksters have looted untold trillions of our future earnings.
Their bureaucratic police & military goons are here to make us all pay for it.
Forever.
Well FORGET THAT. Let's get it *ALL* back from them -- and more.

**Socialist revolution NOW!!**

Build the North America-wide General Strike.
TODO el poder a los consejos y las comunas.
TOUT le pouvoir aux conseils et communes.
ALL power to the councils and communes.

And beware the 'bait & switch' fraud: "Social Justice" is NOT *Socialism*...

[Sentinel]

quick thing, can we have "protests in egypt" restickied so we have a history of this readily available? i think this is the first time a revolution has been monitored like this.Sure, done and done.

[freepalestine]

Youth coalition rejects talks with embattled regime


Heba Afify




February 6, 2011


Leaders of numerous youth organizations, calling themselves the Coalition of the Angry Youth Uprising, announced at a press conference today that they would not negotiate with the Mubarak regime until their demands for the president's ouster were met.

The group, which includes the 6 April protest movement, Young People for Justice and Freedom and the Muslim Brotherhood's youth wing, insist that the activists who met with newly-appointed Vice-President Omar Suleiman on Sunday did not represent them or those now in Tahrir Square.

"The people who negotiated with Suleiman only represent themselves. All the youths organizations are united in their position--no negotiations until Mubarak’s departure," says 6 April leader Ahmed Maher.

Yasser al-Hawary, a Young People for Justice and Freedom member who attended the meeting with Suleiman, says he was only representing himself at the meeting--not the organization. He says that activists holding talks with the vice-president are not negotiating, but merely conveying their list of demands.

Al-Hawary says Suleiman had agreed at Sunday's meeting--in the presence of leading brotherhood member Saad al-Katatney and "Wise Men" committee member Naguib Sawiris, along with other public figures--to ensure the safety of the protesters in Tahrir Square and to stop the security crackdown on, and media campaigns against, the protesters.

Activist Shady al-Ghazaly Harb says that the agreement reached by those opposition representatives who met with Suleiman failed to meet demonstrators' minimum demands.

Activists, meanwhile, maintain that no one has the right to convince those now in Tahrir to leave--except through the realization of their demand for Mubarak's resignation. "The millions in the square don’t belong to anyone. If any organization withdrew from the streets right now, it would be their loss," says one activist.

Maher says unknown people are appearing on television to speak on behalf of the youth organizations, while the regime has made it impossible for the media to reach actual members of these organizations by confiscating phones and detaining activists.

Along with Mubarak's ouster, activists' primary demands are the abolition of Egypt's longstanding Emergency Law and the dissolution of parliament.

"Someone who is responsible for killing 300 people and hurting another 3500 can’t stay in power," says activist Zyad al-Eleimy. "There are now 4000 families who have a personal vendetta against the regime. Mubarak must leave to preserve national stability."

Young people are also calling for the formation of a "National Salvation Front" and the formation of a judicial committee to investigate last week’s security crisis, which led to the death and injury of thousands of protesters. They also demand that the army protect protesters in Tahrir Square from attacks by pro-regime thugs.

Maher blamed the regime for attempting to distort the image of the revolution through media campaigns and by applying economic pressure in an effort to turn the public against the uprising.

"The people must know that we're doing this for their sake. They should not think badly of us and--most importantly--they should not think badly of our martyrs," he says.

Maher insists that, if Mubarak refuses to step down, the Tahrir Square protests would continue, and young people would take further escalatory measures.







:: Article nr. 74669 sent on 06-feb-2011 20:02 ECT


www.uruknet.info?p=74669 (http://www.uruknet.info?p=74669)

Link: www.almasryalyoum.com/en/news/youth-coalition-rejects-talks-embattled-regime</I> (http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/news/youth-coalition-rejects-talks-embattled-regime</I>)








------------------------------------------------------------------


















Who is the Real Opposition in Egypt?

by Shamus Cooke




February 6, 2011

The revolution in Egypt erupted like all revolutions do, from the bottom up. It was unemployment and high food prices that propelled working and poor people into action. Now, the media reports that the "opposition" in Egypt is a group of well-to-do folks who have very little in common with the poor of Egypt.
This top down takeover of the revolution is being engineered with the support of the U.S. and European nations, the same "allies" of the dictatorship that lasted three decades. If this elite group of Egyptians manages to gain power, they'll soon find themselves confronted with the real opposition of Egypt, the overwhelming majority of working and poor people.
Who are these upper-crust oppositionists? Middle East journalist Robert Fisk (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-exhausted-scared-and-trapped-protesters-put-forward-plan-for-future-2205079.html) explains:

[the oppositionists] include Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League, ... the Nobel prize-winner Ahmed Zuwail, an Egyptian-American who has advised President Barack Obama; Mohamed Selim Al-Awa, a professor and author of Islamic studies, ... and the president of the Wafd party [a tiny political party], Said al-Badawi...Other nominees for the committee...are Nagib Suez, a prominent [super-wealthy] Cairo businessman... Nabil al-Arabi, an Egyptian UN delegate; and even the heart surgeon Magdi Yacoub, who now lives in Cairo. (February 4, 2011).
What is the task of this committee? Al-Jazeera (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/20112420435766522.html) explains:

The committee — which was formed last night... proposed that vice president Omar Suleiman [the head of the brutal secret police] preside over a transitional government, and that he pledge to dissolve parliament (whose lower house was elected just last year) and call early elections. (February 4, 2011).
Are these oppositionists so naive to believe that a "pledge" from a venomous snake like Suleiman is worth anything? Is this a man that any respectable person should be negotiating with?
And herein lies the problem. There can be no smooth "peaceful transition," as Obama and other politicians would like to see, unless nothing in Egypt changes. This is because the ruling political power in the country, the National Democratic Party (NDP), has extremely deep ties to the rich and powerful in Egypt, backed up by both senior military officials and the U.S. government foreign aid program, which enriches various sections of the NDP. The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/world/middleeast/05cairo.html?hp) explains:

Since the revolt, the military has surged to the forefront, emerging as the pivotal player in politics it long sought to manage behind the scenes. The beneficiary of nearly $40 billion in American aid during Mr. Mubarak’s rule, its interests span the gamut of economic life — from the military industry to businesses like road and housing construction, consumer goods and resort management. Even leading opposition leaders, like Mohamed ElBaradei, have acknowledged that the military will have a key role in a transition.
To summarize, U.S. aid to Egypt has been the lifeblood of the dictatorship and the ruling party associated with it, while leading opposition figures have no interests in confronting these powerful interests, only removing their current figurehead. The opposition figures that plan to negotiate with the NDP must know that any agreed to middle ground will be unacceptable to the majority of Egyptians, since the NDP will work to maintain their own privileges and wealth.
If the ruling party stays intact, then so will the ruling security apparatus, which will eventually steer the wheel of history backwards again. The party of the dictatorship must be crushed and dismembered, so that real democracy can have room to grow. The official "opposition" has no interest in doing this, because they have no interest in real change.
What would real change look like? It would require a drastic departure from the free-market policies that have been implemented for years, including privatizations of state run industries, lowering taxes for the rich and corporations, eliminating regulations, subsidies, and tariffs, etc. These policies were required by the IMF and World Bank, U.S.-led institutions that created in Egypt what exists in the U.S. — an incredible gap between rich and poor.
None of Egypt's "respectable" opposition are mentioning these policies, because many benefit from them.
If an anti-Mubarak, pro-free-market opposition gains power, they will collide immediately with the majority of working and poor Egyptians, who want a change in the above policies that brought about their misery.
The only opposition group that is expressing the economic demands of the people seems to be the newly-formed Egyptian Federation for Independent Unions, which broke away from the government dominated unions to demand that a "... a minimum wage no less than 1200 LE, with a yearly raise proportionate to inflation; guarantee workers rights to bonuses and benefits according to work value, especially work compensation for those facing work hazards."
and:

The right for all Egyptian citizens to fair social security including the right to health care, housing, education 'ensuring free education and syllabus development to cope with science and technology evolution,’ the right for all retired to decent pensions and benefits.
It is demands like these that will decide Egypt's future the day after Mubarak is gone. This will require a complete transformation of Egypt's political system, including its economic policies that are intimately connected to the billions of U.S. foreign aid. It will also require that Egypt's poor and working class develop a clear vision of what they want in order to avoid being led astray by enemies acting as friends.

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org) (http://www.workerscompass.org)/)He can be reached at [email protected]






:: Article nr. 74664 sent on 06-feb-2011 18:41 ECT


www.uruknet.info?p=74664 (http://www.uruknet.info?p=74664)

[freepalestine]

Statement of the Revolutionary Socialists Egypt

Richard Seymour




Lenin's Tomb (http://leninology.blogspot.com/2011/02/statement-of-revolutionary-socialists.html), February 6, 2011

The iron heel of US imperialism (http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/2/6/how-to-restrain-suleimans-power.html) is coming down hard on Egypt (http://www.merip.org/mero/mero020111.html). The army command which America funds, trains and instructs is now mobilising rapidly to consolidate a dictatorship under the leadership of Omar Suleiman. US warships are making their way to Egypt (http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/02/american-warships-heading-to-egypt.html). This is not, military commanders insist, to prepare for military intervention. I would assume they are being truthful. An open invasion is neither necessary nor useful for the regime. The warships would be for contingency, and to remind people who the boss is. The main way in which the counter-revolution is being organised is through the efforts by the military to create a fait accompli, a far more sophisticated operation than Mubarak's crude use of armed gangs on horseback.

Since no one wants the torturer Suleiman, the question now, as this statement from the Revolutionary Socialists Egypt argues, is whether the soldiers can be broken from their bosses.

Statement of the Revolutionary Socialists Egypt:

Glory to the martyrs! Victory to the revolution!

What is happening today is the largest popular revolution in the history of our country and of the entire Arab world. The sacrifice of our martyrs has built our revolution and we have broken through all the barriers of fear. We will not back down until the criminal 'leaders’ and their criminal system is destroyed.

Call to Egyptian workers. Statement from the Revolutionary Socialists, Egypt:

The demonstrations and protests have played a key role in igniting and continuing our revolution. Now we need the workers. They can seal the fate of the regime. Not only by participating in the demonstrations, but by organising a general strike in all the vital industries and large corporations.

The regime can afford to wait out the sit-ins and demonstrations for days and weeks, but it cannot last beyond a few hours if workers use strikes as a weapon. Strike on the railways, on public transport, the airports and large industrial companies! Egyptian Workers! On behalf of the rebellious youth, and on behalf of the blood of our martyrs, join the ranks of the revolution, use your power and victory will be ours!

Form revolutionary councils urgently.

This revolution has surpassed our greatest expectations. Nobody expected to see these numbers. Nobody expected that Egyptians would be this brave in the face of the police. Nobody can say that we did not force the dictator to retreat. Nobody can say that a transformation did not happen in Middan el Tahrir.

What we need right now is to push for the socio-economic demands as part of our demands, so that the person sitting in his home knows that we fighting for their right. We need to organize ourselves into popular committees which elects its higher councils democratically, and from below. These councils must form a higher council which includes delegates of all the tendencies. We must elect a higher council of people who represent us, and in whom we trust. We call for the formation of popular councils in Middan Tahrir, and in all the cities of Egypt.

Statement of the Revolutionary Socialists, Egypt, on the role of the army:

Everyone asks: Is the Army with the people or against them?
The army is not a single block. The interests of soldiers and junior officers are the same as the interests of the masses. But the senior officers are Mubarak’s men, chosen carefully to protect his regime of corruption, wealth and tyranny. It is an integral part of the system.

This army is no longer the people’s army. This army is not the one which defeated the Zionist enemy in October 73. This army is closely associated with America and Israel. Its role is to protect Israel, not the people. Yes we want to win the soldiers of the revolution. But we must not be fooled by slogans that 'the army is on our side’. The army will either suppress the demonstrations directly, or by restructuring the police to play this role.


:: Article nr. 74662 sent on 06-feb-2011 17:46 ECT


www.uruknet.info?p=74662 (http://www.uruknet.info/?p=74662)</I>

[freepalestine]

Video: Police in Egypt Kills Civilian, Alexandrai, Tue25thJan

mafotoh



February 6, 2011

YzTxujQDokY
[video currently is being flagged..]


This is why no one will leave Tahrir Square, this is a video from Alexandria, Egypt...Tue25thJan
Most probably, the kid was angry because his friend was shot, so he walked to the police, he showed them he had no weapons on him..but they still shot him when he was just about to leave.






:: Article nr. 74661 sent on 06-feb-2011 17:38 ECT


www.uruknet.info?p=74661 (http://www.uruknet.info/?p=74661)</I>

[PhoenixAsh]

I have been away for the last two days with little possibility to follow the news indepth....or at all.

What is the latest sitrep? As far ad i heard the army tried to clear the square this morning?!

[Palestine]

Wael Ghonim the one who was behind all this, the admin of the Khalid Said page, which was the pioneer to launch the protests, will be freed today, after he was away since 28 January.
The protesters are demanding to go to the presidential palace on Thursday so we have to wait and see.

[ckaihatsu]

REVOLUTION: White House Warns Egypt Against Revoking Pacts With Israel, U.S.


Repudiating all treaties with the lawless, criminal "zionist" state of
Israel -- and siding 1000% with the Palestinians against them -- is
EXACTLY what any future egyptian government must do, if it actually
serves the interests of the laboring masses of Misr -- and beyond.
That the yanqui imperialists 'draw a line in the sand' on this so
clearly, merely demonstrates that they and their stooges -- most
definitely including the intellectual whores of the capitalist
mass-propaganda media -- are the irreconcilable class enemy of all
workers of every country on the Planet: and most immediately a mortal
threat to the egyptian working-class and their Revolution.

Down with Mubarak and his entire regime IMMEDIATELY.
A ONE STATE solution to the issue of a divided Palestine.


Long Live the World Socialist Revolution.
All Power to the Workers' and Farmers' Councils and Communes.

-- grok.







http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-02/08/c_13722042.htm


Xinhua News Agency
February 8, 2011


U.S. warns Egypt against revoking previous treaties


Washington: White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on Monday warned any
future Egyptian government against revoking previous treaties,
including the country's crucial peace treaty with Israel.

Gibbs told reporters that the United States expects any future
Egyptian government "would uphold particularly the treaties and the
obligations that the government of Egypt, and ultimately the people of
Egypt, have entered into."

His remarks came as the United States and Israel are extremely
concerned that a radical religious force, such as the Muslim
Brotherhood, would come into power in future Egypt, which could
threaten the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.

The treaty, signed in 1979 by then Egyptian president Anwar El Sadat
and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, ended the state of war
between the two countries and is essential to Israel's security.

Gibbs said the United States is against the anti-American rhetoric by
the Muslim Brotherhood, which he said "goes very counter to the
regional peace and stability."

"You have responsibilities if you become part of the government to
adhere to the agreements that government has laid out, to adhere to
the rule of law and to the constitution and to adhere to nonviolence,"
he added.








--
The Financiers & Banksters have looted untold trillions of our future earnings.
Their bureaucratic police & military goons are here to make us all pay for it.
Forever.
Well FORGET THAT. Let's get it *ALL* back from them -- and more.

**Socialist revolution NOW!!**

Build the North America-wide General Strike.
TODO el poder a los consejos y las comunas.
TOUT le pouvoir aux conseils et communes.
ALL power to the councils and communes.

And beware the 'bait & switch' fraud: "Social Justice" is NOT *Socialism*...

[Palestine]

Aljazeera: Thousands of protesters surround the Parliament.

And in other development, the man behind the revolution was freed yesterday after being kidnapped for 12 days, and was held captive by state security.

[Palestine]

Aljazeera: protesters are also surrounding the interior ministry.

[Ligeia]

AlJazeera: Mubarak could go to Germany to undergo a "full medical check-up", German publication Der Spiegel reports.
Rumours that Mubarak may arrive in Germany for a medical sojourn are "much more concrete than was believed until now". He previously received medical treatment in Germany at least twice.


In the German news they are talking about this "speculation" all the time, so I guess it might be true.


The governemnt is also forming a "transition plan (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12394941)" like it was ordered by European and United States' governments to do...an organised transfer of power.

[Sasha]

2.24pm: Jack Shenker has a new update from an "exhilarating" Tahrir Square.
There is more energy and optimism in Tahrir today than almost anything I've seen before - an aimless wander through the packed crowds is a dizzying, exhilarating experience, revealing a hundreds of little micro-dramas playing out all over the square.

It's so difficult to convey the atmosphere of this place through words or images; Tahrir may have dropped down the international media agenda somewhat in recent days, but honestly if you go down there and just stare around you - at the picnicking families, the raucous flag-wavers, the volunteer tea suppliers, the cheery human security cordons, the slumbering bodies curled up in the metal treads of the army's tanks, the pro-change graffiti that adorns every placard, every tent, every wall space in vision - it's impossible not to feel as moved as we all did in the very first days of this ongoing revolution.
As the streets appear safer and security more guaranteed, the numbers of those joining queues to enter Tahrir is growing, not falling - dozens told me today they were here for the first time. Politicking at the top may give the impression that the uprising has lost momentum, but clearly for many in Egypt it's only just getting started.

2.20pm: There's new mobile phone footage of a demonstration outside the People Assembly. It was streamed to the video sharing site Bambuser four minutes ago by the blogger RamyRaoof.

2.08pm:Journalists at the pro-government newspaper Rosalyusif are staging a protest against their editor, according to reports.

Blogger and activist Daliaziada tweets:

Wow! Another protest inside pro-government Rosalyusif newspaper against the editor. Viva #Egypt. Viva the #revolution. #Mubarak

Blogger estr4ng3d:

Roz Elyoussef staff protesting inside their campus, chanting against their chief editor

2.05pm: Journalist Ashraf Khalil paraphrases a line from Jaws to describe the scale of today's protests.
Just back from Tahrir. If numbers keep growing like this, these guys are going to need a bigger square #egypt

[Sasha]

3.01pm: A whole range of workers seem to be walking out of their jobs in solidarity with the protesters. We've already mentioned Cairo University staff and journalists but Ahram online reports that over 6,000 Suez Canal Company workers from the cities of Suez, Port Said, and Ismailia began an open-ended sit in today over poor wages and working conditions . And thousands of Telecom Egypt staff at various branches are protesting and threatening a sit-in if their demands are not met. They want a 10% pay rise and the managing director to be sacked.

2.53pm: More on the anger from journalists at media censorship. Al Masry Al Youm reports:
More than 500 of Egyptian media professionals issued a statement denouncing state-run media coverage of the youth-led uprising staged since 25 January calling for Mubarak's resignation.
Talk show presenter Ibrahim Eissa, press syndicate member Abeer Saady, novelist Ezzat al-Qamhawi, as well as notable artists, were among those who signed the statement.
"We renounce what has been done by print, visual and audio media of falsifying truth, lying and tarnishing the image of the people who seek freedom and progress for this country," noted the statement. It called for stopping what it labeled as "lies" and referring those responsible for urgent trial.

[PhoenixAsh]

Well...at least things are moving a bit foreward and the protestors are leaving the square more and more to protest at govenrment institutions.

That is somewhat of a step foreward.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

From Lenin's Tomb:


Monday, February 07, 2011

Why did the Egyptian intifada become a revolution?

This title is not a rhetorical question, not one of those devices where I set up a problem to which I already know the answer. It's not the usual trickery, in other words. I literally am not in a position to know. But perhaps the best way to get to the answer is to phrase the question properly in the first place. Asa Winstanley has an interesting article on New Left Project on the contours of the Egyptian uprising, which he argues has already acquired the dimensions of a genuine social revolution. He writes:


Despite many obstacles, there are reasons for optimism. Every time events seem to be slowing down, and the pundits predict a loss of momentum, Egyptians prove them all wrong and the revolution escalates. Indeed, for so many people, their lives literally depend on it.

The revolt is showing many early signs of popular social revolution, reminiscent of the wave of factory occupations, strikes and mass-uprisings that took place in Latin America in the late 1990s and 2000s. Youth, women, children and the working classes are leading this revolution. New independent trade unions have sprung up and there have been multiple calls for a general strike.

Given the mysterious New Year’s Eve bombing of a Coptic church in Alexandria, the extent to which the revolution has been consistently anti-sectarian is heartening. There have been widespread reports of Christian Egyptians protecting praying Muslims, frequent use of the cross-and-crescent symbol and even participation of Coptic religious leaders (despite the fact that the church hierarchy, like the Muslim clerics of al-Azhar, has long been co-opted by the regime). On Sunday there was a Coptic mass in Liberation Square, protected by Muslims, and joint Christian-Muslim prayers for the martyrs of the revolution.

The level of spontaneous self-organisation is striking and highly impressive. Charles Levinson of the Wall Street Journal describes a scene in Liberation Square:


“Hundreds of young men guarded the square’s perimeter. Some frisked new arrivals and checked identification… By Thursday afternoon, several dozen protesters were wearing badges made of masking tape that specified their role in their hastily assembled administration. Doctors with medical coats wore pieces of tape bearing their names and specialities.”

Democracy Now! senior producer (and Egyptian-American) Sharif Abdel Kouddous has been reporting from Cairo (his work has been essential, as has that of the Electronic Intifada’s Matthew Cassel). Abdel Kouddous described how protesters in Liberation Square began to clean up for themselves: “not only are they gathering the trash, but they are actually separating plastic, doing recycling”.

What can explain this level of self-organisation? Why have the people been able to withstand wave after wave of repression, beating back an enemy with immensely superior resources? It, say some, lacked leadership and organisation. Indeed, the factions which have made up Egypt's mainstream opposition were largely late to the revolution and have been racing to catch up. For all the scaremongering about the Muslim Brothers, they have rarely been interested in power, much less an Islamic state, and they have been on the most conservative, slow-moving end of the protests since they began. Mohammed El Baradei, for all that he was feted on Al Jazeera, has no clear base in this struggle. As for techno-fixes, fuggedaboutit. The Egyptian state shut down the internet and the mobile 'phone networks, and it still didn't stop the revolution. Malcolm Gladwell is right, in this sense. The social media which is championed by those revolving door apparatchiks moving between the State Department and silicon valley (eg) is not organisation itself, but merely a means to it and, as it turns out, a dispensable means. Yet the logistics of revolution have been handled with aplomb. People who were assumed by journalists to be passive, certainly never capable of such a monumental task as revolution, have proven to be the most advanced and adept social organisers on the planet. They have disproved, in mere weeks, the filthy aristocratic prejudice, still undergirding ruling class thought today, that ordinary working class people cannot govern themselves.

Of course, the premise that this revolution arose ex nihilo, with no leadership and no prior history of struggle, may precisely be one of the assumptions inhibiting a proper understanding. Some of the most militant areas in this revolution have been zones of intense class struggle in the last few years - Mahalla, Alexandria and Suez, for example. And out of these struggles, leadership has emerged sufficient to plan days of action well in advance, consult on and elaborate very detailed and intelligent tactics, and disseminate invaluable information. The truth is, this didn't come out of nowhere. Well before the Tunisian revolt, Hossam was predicting that something was about to go up in Egypt. But the question remains. Why didn't this intifada surge, break against the rocks of state repression, and fall back in disarray and defeat? What made the difference between, say, Iran and Egypt? Ordinarily, one would expect there to be a point where people struggling against a regime that is willing to murder people in their dozens, or hundreds, and injure thousands more, start to melt away. The core of committed activists who keep things running when everything falls to pieces go into hiding, or are captured, locked up and tortured. But no - this time people said: "we can't go home after all this, if we do leave the streets, they'll come after us individually, raid our homes in the middle of the night, and take us away to secret jails." And so the question, again, is - why?

Several more articles and links here:

http://www.leninology.blogspot.com/

[Ligeia]

Al Jazeera: Catherine Ashton , the high representative of the EU for foreign affairs and security policy spoke about how the Egyptian people should have democracy, and that it is a process that they should decide.

The critical thing that we want to do is make sure that the Egyptian people are able to have democracy. Democracy is not a moment in time, it’s a process that you have build for. It’s for the Egyptian people to have to work out who takes them forward with that transition. What we’ve urged is that it’s quick and that it moves forward meaningfully. The institutions, the way in which you develop society so that it is able to have democracy, to have human rights, to ensure that you’ve got in place everything you need, that takes a little bit of time, but a lot of support. What we’re clear about is we’ll be offering that support to ensure it will happen.

I wonder what they mean by "support"?

[ckaihatsu]

The critical thing that we want to do is make sure that the Egyptian people are able to have democracy. Democracy is not a moment in time, it’s a process that you have build for. It’s for the Egyptian people to have to work out who takes them forward with that transition. What we’ve urged is that it’s quick and that it moves forward meaningfully. The institutions, the way in which you develop society so that it is able to have democracy, to have human rights, to ensure that you’ve got in place everything you need, that takes a little bit of time, but a lot of support. What we’re clear about is we’ll be offering that support to ensure it will happen.


This is all liberal blather laced with vague abstract terms that beg interpretation.

The *critical* thing would be to address the *critical* issues of the day -- when will Mubarak be gone, withdrawal of the army, etc. If people aren't discussing concrete *policy* then what *are* they discussing -- ?!

Here's a visual aid for all of this:


Consciousness, A Material Definition

http://postimage.org/image/35t4i1jc4/

[Ligeia]

This is all liberal blather laced with vague abstract terms that beg interpretation.

The *critical* thing would be to address the *critical* issues of the day -- when will Mubarak be gone, withdrawal of the army, etc. If people aren't discussing concrete *policy* then what *are* they discussing -- ?!

I know, that's what I was asking about. How can you interpret this?
"A lot of support" and they'll "ensure" it?
Doesn't sound good to me.
At least it's a clear sign, they are working on taking this on their very own directions.

[PhoenixAsh]

Suliman has stated to MENA (state media) that the current regime will not end and that the ousting of Mubarak is not a current concern.

In the mean time the usual suspects (EU, US and Israel) are scrambling to find a solution which keeps their economic and geo-political strategies and interests in tact.

Many begin to worry about the economic damage that the protests have caused and will cause if continued. Concerns are also what would come out of rapid change. Thus...International language is once again "evolving" and express that the current reforms are the best option and are giving in to the "legitimate" wishes of the protestors.

Suliman also issued a threat...they do not want to use police tools....but the protests should end soon.

The protests are still growing in size with todays protests being the largests yet. The protests seems to move away from the square and starts to focuss on government buildings...and are accompanied by massive strikes.

However there is still no direction. There is still no real decisive action taken. Protesters hope that given all that has happened the regime will not use violence again...and will eventually give in to their demands.

This gives the current regime time to formulate an answer and persuade the international political spectrum to allow force to be used. especially since economic damage is now being felt in the rest of the world.

I think the position of the protestors is naive. Until now they have had the growing support of the population. Though there is increased dissent as well by people who now feel economic impact of the protests.

Popular support within a nation does not mean change will come. Its highly naive to think governments will not turn to violence if they can get away with it to protect themselves.

If the protestsers do not turn protest into more direct action soon they will loose any advantage.

[PhoenixAsh]

Suez Canal Company workers (6000 of them) are in an open ended strike as of today refusing to go home and holding a sit in.

They do not disrupt Suez Canal operations as the involved 5 companies do not work close to the Suez Canal itself.

Interestingly enough...oil prices jumped as soon as this was made known....with .56 points.

[PhoenixAsh]

Unions are going to join the protests! Organised strikes and uniosn actions will take place in coordinated effort in the next couple of days.

Already several unions are on strike in several cities!

AJ. reported

[PhoenixAsh]

Yesterday in the city of Al Kahrg in Wadi Al Jadid violent clashes between pro-democracy demonstrators and the riot police resulted in 3 deaths and 300 injured...after 3000 demonstrators took to the streets.

Violence started after police tried to violently put down spontanious demonstrations on tuesday. The demonstrators tried to attack and burn down the NDP headquarters and several policestations.



Suliman warned for a military coup if the protests would not end soon.

[brigadista]

from the al jazeera live blog today


6:07pm Al Jazeera's Shirin Tadros, reporting from Cairo, said that the members of the labour unions - some of them from independent, non-state unions - have joined the protesters, calling for Mubrak to step down.

5:31pm A doctor who treated some of those wounded in last night's clashes in Wadi al-Jadid said he treated four people, all of whom had been shot in the chest. All four, he said, survived.

5:10pm Reuters reports that the Egytian army is "beefing up security" on the road leading up to the presidential palace in Cairo.

4:14pm The AP news agency reports that protesters are responding angrily to Suleiman's statement on Tuesday, in which the vice presidnet said that continued protests would not be tolerated and would trigger a "coup" :

dont think we should underestimate these protests....

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

Oh - and in passing, the Egyptian police is using live ammunition on protesters in Mahallah, a major industrial center (weaving) that has been the site of repeated strikes and factory occupations with the support of the Revolutionary Socialists Egypt.:mad:

[brigadista]

sorry forgot to add this quote from AJ re Suleiman's statement-

'He is threatening to impose martial law, which means everybody in the square will be smashed,' said Abdul-Rahman Samir, a spokesman for a coalition of the five main youth groups behind protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square. 'But what would he do with the rest of the 70 million Egyptians who will follow us afterward.'
Suleiman is creating 'a disastrous scenario,' Samir said. 'We are striking and we will protest and we will not negotiate until Mubarak steps down. Whoever wants to threaten us, then let them do so.'

[brigadista]

despite the power broking reality of the situation the solidarity of the Egyptian people right now is warming my heart...

[freepalestine]

Human Rights Watch Reports 297 Killed in Egypt
09.02.11 - 16:36
Cairo – PNN - The international non-governmental [??]organization Human Rights Watch reported on Wednesday that 297 people had been killed since the beginning of the Egyptian revolution three weeks ago.


http://english.pnn.ps/images/stories/2008/OmarSuleiman.jpg
Mubarak-appointed Vice President Omar Suleiman (AP).





At least one former military general, according to democracy activist Wael Abbas, was killed by police in the al-Kantar prison during the unrest. Using recorded evidence posted on his blog, Abbas claimed that General Mohammed al-Batran had been shot by police snipers because he opposed the release of certain prisoners that he believed would be used to terrorize Egyptian protesters.

Meanwhile, torture and police brutality continue to be reported in Egypt today. Hadj Sahrawi of Amnesty International told Agence France Presse (AFP), “When you see the beatings of protesters by security foreces in the last 10 days, there’s really no break in the way they continue to behave.”

Another activist named Aida Seif al-Dawla said torture was back to “business as usual.”
This comes during the halting process of talks between the government of unpopular president Hosni Mubarak and the vice president he appointed, Omar Suleiman, and the hundreds of thousands of protesters still occupying Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

Yesterday, news agencies carried secret diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks that Suleiman, who has been in talks with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently, was talked about as Israel’s preferred successor to Mubarak in 2008.

http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9534&Itemid=61

[brigadista]

guardian daily blog

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2011/feb/09/egypt-protests-live-updates-9-february

[brigadista]

learned from twitter strikes of transport workers across cairo

[Palestine]

learned from twitter strikes of transport workers across cairo

Not only that, strikes are everywhere, in the post offices, in the Suez and Al Mahalla industrial areas.
It's beautiful to see what's happening in Egypt.
And now the regime is counting days, because I don't think much left.

[freepalestine]

Mubarak regime warns of crackdown as revolt spreads
Published yesterday (updated) 09/02/2011 22:00





By Sara Hussein


CAIRO (AFP) -- Egypt's embattled regime warned of a military crackdown on Wednesday as massive protests demanding its overthrow spilled out across the country and deadly unrest flared in the remote south.

Hundreds of demonstrators marched on parliament from the epicentre of the uprising in Cairo's Tahrir Square the day after the largest protests since the revolt began, as other demonstrations erupted in cities across the country.

Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit warned the army, until now a respected and mostly neutral force on Cairo's streets, would intervene to protect the country if the protests against President Hosni Mubarak escalated.

"If chaos occurs, the armed forces will intervene to control the country, a step... which would lead to a very dangerous situation," the official MENA news agency said, paraphrasing Abdul Gheit's interview with Arabic-language satellite television channel Al-Arabiya.

His remarks came after newly appointed Vice President Omar Suleiman warned of a possible "coup" in the absence of a peaceful transfer of power.

The protesters however showed no sign of backing down on their demand for Mubarak's overthrow as tens of thousands of people filled Cairo's Tahrir Square well into the third week of a revolt that could reshape the Middle East.

Around a thousand marched on parliament to demand its members' resignation, vowing to remain until the legislature -- widely seen as unfairly dominated by the ruling party -- is dissolved.

The night before they had been joined by several hundred thousand supporters for the biggest rallies yet in the two-week-old drive to topple the autocratic president and replace his 30-year-old US-backed regime.

On Wednesday, volunteers were building portable toilets, indicating the protesters have no intention of leaving the "liberated" square, now a sprawling tent city with sound stages, flag vendors and a mobile phone charging station.

In a sign the protests were widening beyond Cairo, unrest gripped the remote oasis of Kharga, where at least five people were killed and 100 wounded when security forces opened fire on demonstrators, a security official told AFP.

In the Suez Canal city of Port Said, some 3,000 protesters stormed a government building, torching office furniture and the governor's car.

In the southern town of Assiut, some 4,000 protesters blocked a railway with wooden planks and bricks and shut down a major highway with burning tires.

Several smaller strikes broke out in Cairo and the Nile Delta to the north, where textile workers demanded higher wages and better conditions.

The 82-year-old Mubarak has charged Suleiman, his longtime intelligence chief, with drawing selected opposition groups into negotiations on democratic reform before elections due in September.

Some parties have joined the talks, but the crowds in Tahrir Square insist that Mubarak must go before they will halt the protest. Suleiman, however, warned that the transition must be slow and orderly.

"The second, alternative way would be a coup -- and we want to avoid that -- meaning uncalculated and hasty steps that produce more irrationality," he warned Egyptian news editors.

Protesters in Tahrir said they were unmoved by Suleiman's remarks and vowed to remain in the square until their demands are met.

"He is acting as they've been acting with us for 30 years. The same talk, the same lies," said Neven al-Sergany, a 44-year-old teacher. "I don't think I will leave. The people here are so determined."

The Muslim Brotherhood, the country's best organised opposition group despite a half century of illegality, meanwhile moved to reassure observers who fear an Islamist takeover should Mubarak's regime be toppled.

"The Muslim Brotherhood does not seek power. We do not want to participate at the moment," senior leader Mohammed Mursi told reporters, adding that the movement would not field a presidential candidate.

The United States is watching events in the most populous Arab country with great concern, hoping the transition to elected rule can take place without a descent into violence, or an Islamist or military takeover.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the government had yet to meet the "minimum threshold" of reform demanded by Egyptians.

Suleiman's proposed transition process "does not appear to be in line with the people of Egypt. We believe that more has to be done," he said, adding that it was not for the United States to dictate the shape of reforms.

In another sign the regime has not gone far enough, Culture Minister Gaber Asfour -- appointed just nine days ago in a cabinet shake-up prompted by the revolt -- resigned for "medical reasons."

http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=358568





-------------------------------------------------------------------------







5 dead, 100 wounded in south Egypt clash: Official

AFP

February 9, 2011

CAIRO - At least five people were killed and around 100 wounded in two days of clashes between police and demonstrators in a town in southern Egypt's New Valley region, medics told AFP on Wednesday.

Earlier, a security official had confirmed three dead.

Police fired live rounds Tuesday when local people rioted in the oasis town of Kharga, more than 400 kilometres (240 miles) south of Cairo, the security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Scores were wounded and three people died of their injuries on Wednesday.

The furious mob responded by burning seven official buildings, including two police stations, a police barracks, a court house and the local headquarters of President Hosni Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party.

The unrest in the south was the latest indication that the frustration with Hosni Mubarak's 30-year-reign has spread far beyond Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the massive protests now in their third week.

The central square saw its largest protests yet on Tuesday, fuelled in part by an emotional televised interview with Wael Ghonim, a 30-year-old Google executive and activist who was released after being detained for 12 days.

The youth-led protesters have said they will not give up the square, now a sprawling tent city, until Mubarak steps down.

The 82-year-old strongman has said he will not run in September elections but will finish his term, despite the unrest, which has sent Egypt's economy into a tailspin and rattled autocratic regimes across the region.
© Copyright (c) AFP

:: Article nr. 74797 sent on 09-feb-2011 20:59 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=74797 (http://www.uruknet.info/?p=74797)

Link: www.montrealgazette.com/news/dead+wounded+south+Egypt+clash+Official/4252186/sto (http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/dead+wounded+south+Egypt+clash+Official/4252186/story.html)ry.html (http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/dead+wounded+south+Egypt+clash+Official/4252186/story.html)

[Ligeia]

7:58am The Egyptian military has secretly detained hundreds and possibly thousands of suspected government opponents since mass protests, the Guardian newspaper reports:
The military has claimed to be neutral, merely keeping anti-Mubarak protesters and loyalists apart. But human rights campaigners say this is clearly no longer the case, accusing the army of involvement in both disappearances and torture ..

8:29am Calls for Mubarak to resign are now spreading, with hundreds now camped outside Parliament. Thousands of workers are expected to strike for a second day as they push for pay rises and reforms.


Aljazeera reports.

[brigadista]

from AJ

Egyptian labour unions plan to hold more nationwide strikes for a second day, adding momentum to the pro-democracy demonstrations in Cairo and other cities.

The move comes as the demonstrations calling for President Hosni Mubarak's immediate ouster enters its 17th day.

Al Jazeera's Stefanie Dekker, reporting from Cairo, said about 5,000 doctors and medical students were expected to come out on Thursday.

"It's certainly increasing the pressure on the government here. I think it's worth making the distinction that the strikes going on are more of an economic nature, they are not necessarily jumping on the bandwagon of the protesters in Tahrir Square, ...many of them are not actually calling for the president to step down, but fighting for better wages, for better working conditions."

Our correspondents, reporting from across Egypyt, said around 20,000 factory workers had stayed away from work on Wednesday.

"[Strikers] were saying that they want better salaries, they want an end to the disparity in the pay, and they want the 15 per cent increase in pay that was promised to them by the state," Shirine Tadros, reported from Cairo.

Some workers were also calling for Mubarak to step down, she said.

Culture minister quits

Meanwhile, Gaber Asfour, the recently appointed culture minister, resigned from Mubarak's cabinet on Wednesday for health reasons, a member of his family told Reuters.

But the website of Egypt's main daily newspaper Al-Ahram said Asfour, a writer, was under pressure from literary colleagues over the post.

Asfour was sworn in following the start of the protests on January 31, and believed it would be a national unity government, al-Ahram said.


Click here for more on Al Jazeera's special coverage

Determined protesters continue to rally in Cairo's Tahrir [Liberation] Square, and other cities across the country. They say they will not end the protests until Mubarak, who has been at the country's helm since 1981, steps down.

Protesters with blankets gathered outside the parliament building in Cairo on Wednesday, with no plan to move, our correspondent reported. The demonstrators had put up a sign that read: "Closed until the fall of the regime".

There was also a renewed international element to the demonstrations, with Egyptians from abroad returning to join the pro-democracy camp.

Our correspondent said an internet campaign is currently on to mobilise expatriates to return and support the uprising.

Protesters are "more emboldened by the day and more determined by the day", Ahmad Salah, an Egyptian activist, told Al Jazeera from Cairo. "This is a growing movement, it's not shrinking."

Meanwhile, 34 political prisoners, including members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood opposition group, were reportedly released over the past two days.

Our correspondent said that there are still an unknown number of people missing, including activists thought to be detained during the recent unrest.

Human Rights Watch said the death toll has reached 302 since January 28. However, Egypt's health ministry denied the figures, saying official statistics would be released shortly

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/20112107944393156.html

[Ligeia]

5:15pm: Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel-Hamid, reporting from Cairo, confirmed the new demands of those in Tahrir Square include the entire administration to resign – not just President Mubarak. They want a one-year transitional period before full parliamentary elections - during which a three-person presidential council should run the country while a panel of experts write a new, permanent constitution – taking advice from opposition groups and senior, high-profile Egyptians, including the Muslim Brotherhood.

5:30pm: "Ambiguous" statement from military confirms its “commitment and responsibility to safeguard the people and to protect the interests of the nation, and its duty to protect the riches and assets of the people and of Egypt”. Mentioned the demands of the people are “lawful and legitimate”. Understood the military council met separately from Mubarak.

6:00pm: The CIA chief reportedly says there is a "strong likelihood" Mubarak will step down tonight.

AlJazeera

[freepalestine]

secetary-general of NDP has just been on the bbc-that mubarak is to step down(officially)later today via egypt state television

CAIRO (AFP) -- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak could "respond to the people's demands by tomorrow," the secretary-general of his party told the BBC on Thursday, as protesters demanded the strongman's departure.

"I expect the president to respond to the demands of the people, because what matters to him in the end is the stability of the country. The post is not important to him," Hossam Badrawi of the National Democratic Party said.

Badrawi did not specify that he was referring to Mubarak stepping down, but a senior military officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP: "We are awaiting orders that will make the people happyhttp://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=358825

[Palestine]

LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE!!
But the job is half done, although the president resigning is a great success, the regime is still there, and if the vice president assumes control, the revolution will still be on, because in arab countries, the head of the intelligence is the symbol of the oppression the people have been going through, and if the vice president ( Head of the intelligence agency) becomes the president this means the revolution will only grow bigger.
We should bow in respect for our fellow Egyptians.

[ckaihatsu]

[anticapdiscuss] Fwd: The Egyptian Revolution: First Impressions from the Field


A fascinating account of the magnificient, spontaneous achievements in Egypt along with a hint of the problems confronting this movement should it succeed. As the writer says, " But spontaneity provided the Revolution with much of its elements of success, it also meant that the transition to a new order would be engineered by existing forces within the regime and organized opposition, since the millions in the streets had no single force that could represent them." The movement will face huge challenges the day after it achieves its initial goals, if it does. How to end the huge and growing poverty? Unemployment? Subservience to the imperial world order of capitalism?

It's like winning an election and wondering, "How do we confront these huge challenges without having agreed upon a common program beyond change?" The need for a systematic program of revolutionary change awaits its day in the sun. Just as it faced the Russian peasants, workers and soldiers after their successful, spontaneous February Revolution overthrew their dictator, Czar Nicholas II, back in 1917.

The main focus here is on political change: Mubarak out, fair elections, and an end to the state of emergency will open political space, a huge achievement. It leaves until later resolving the growing poverty, unemployment, rising food prices and low pay- the class divide that is life for most. And spontaneity and fair elections can not bridge that reality in Egypt any more that we have here in the U.S.. Indicating how deep the divide, the author writes "..., virtually everyone had a story to tell me about the ostentatious corruption of the business-cum-political elite that benefited most from the system."

Even if successful politically, how will this magnificient movement will face the challenge of formulating a break from the that reality to a new form of social life? That 'new beginning' can be seen, in embryo, in the movement described here. The organic solidarity illustrated here expresses the profound hopes and aspirations in play. Building from that practice into a social revolution is the challenge if this revolution is to achieve the life which most Egyptians (and most people?) clearly want. Historically, both the Marxist and anarchist traditions have fought to embody and realize those aspirations. How well will they/we/others rise to the challenge?

fyi and in solidarity,

Earl


[A visiting sociologist - on the ground in Cairo - assesses the 'revolution' thus far, above all its secular, horizontal, spontaneist disposition. Sending in the camels epitomizes, for Mohammed Bamyeh, the antiquated character of the regime, and the president's concessions revealed simply the deafness of autocracy. Where the world's media sees chaos and the threat of Islamism, the 'ant's view' deems these irrelevant and sees instead the flowering of dignified community through an ethic of mutuality and care. IB]

The Egyptian Revolution: First Impressions from the Field
Mohammed A. Bamyeh
Al-Qahira, The City Victorious
6 ii 11

Never has a revolution that seemed so lacking in prospects gathered momentum so quickly and so unexpectedly. The Egyptian Revolution, starting on January 25, lacked leadership and possessed little organization; its defining events, on Friday, January 28, occurred on a day when all communication technologies, including all internet and phones, were barred; it took place in a large country known for sedate political life, a very long legacy of authoritarian continuity, and an enviable repressive apparatus consisting of more than 2 million members. But on that day, the regime of Hosni Mubarak, entrenched for 30 years and seemingly eternal, the only regime that the vast majority of the protesters had ever known, evaporated in one day.

Though the regime continues to struggle, practically little government exists. All ministries and government offices have been closed, and almost all police headquarters were burned down on January 28. Except for the army, all security personnel disappeared, and a week after the uprising, only few police officers ventured out again. Popular committees have since taken over security in the neighborhoods. I saw patriotism expressed everywhere as collective pride in the realization that people who did not know each other could act together, intentionally and with a purpose. During the ensuing week and a half, millions converged on the streets almost everywhere in Egypt, and one could empirically see how noble ethics—community and solidarity, care for others, respect for the dignity of all, feeling of personal responsibility for everyone--emerge precisely out of the disappearance of government.

Undoubtedly this revolution, which is continuing to unfold, will be the formative event in the lives of the millions of youth who spearheaded it in Egypt, and perhaps also the many more millions of youth who followed it throughout the Arab world. It is clear that it is providing a new generation with a grand spectacle of the type that had shaped the political consciousness of every generation before them in modern Arab history. All those common formative experiences of past generations were also grand national moments: whether catastrophic defeats or triumphs against colonial powers or allies.

This revolution, too, will leave traces deep in the social fabric and psyche for a long time, but in ways that go beyond the youth. While the youth were the driving force in the earlier days, the revolution quickly became national in every sense; over the days I saw an increasing demographic mix in demonstrations, where people from all age groups, social classes, men and women, Muslims and Christians, urban people and peasants—virtually all sectors of society, acting in large numbers and with a determination rarely seen before.

Everyone I talked to echoed similar transformative themes: they highlighted a sense of wonder at how they discovered their neighbor again, how they never knew that they lived in “society” or the meaning of the word, until this event, and how everyone who yesterday had appeared so distant is now so close. I saw peasant women giving protestors onions to help them recover from teargas attacks; young men dissuading others from acts of vandalism; the National Museum being protected by protestors’ human shield from looting and fire; protestors protecting captured baltagiyya who had been attacking them from being harmed by other protestors; and countless other incidents of generous civility amidst the prevailing destruction and chaos.

I also saw how demonstrations alternated between battle scenes and debating circles, and how they provided a renewable spectacle in which everyone could see the diverse segments in social life converging on the common idea of bringing down the regime. While world media highlighted uncontrolled chaos, regional implications, and the specter of Islamism in power, the ant’s perspective revealed the relative irrelevance of all of the above considerations. As the Revolution took longer and longer to accomplish the mission of bringing down the regime, protestors themselves began to spend more time highlighting other accomplishments, such as how new ethics were emerging precisely amidst chaos. Those evidenced themselves in a broadly shared sense of personal responsibility for civilization—voluntary street cleaning, standing in line, the complete disappearance of harassment of women in public, returning stolen and found objects, and countless other ethical decisions that had usually been ignored or left for others to worry about.

There are a number of basic features that are associated with this magnificent event that are key, I think, to understanding not just the Egyptian Revolution but also the emerging Arab uprisings of 2o11. Those features include the power of marginal forces; spontaneity as an art of moving; civic character as a conscious ethical contrast to state’s barbarism; the priority assigned to political over all other kinds of demands, including economics; and lastly autocratic deafness, meaning the ill-preparedness of ruling elites to hear the early reverberations as anything but undifferentiated public noise that could be easily made inaudible again with the usual means.

First, marginality means that the revolution began at the margins. In Tunisia it started that way, in marginal areas, from where it migrated to the capital. And from Tunisia, itself relatively marginal in the larger context of the Arab World, it travelled to Egypt. Obviously the situation in each Arab country is different in so far as economic indicators and degree of liberalization are concerned, but I was struck at how conscious the Egyptian youth were of the Tunisian example preceding them by just two weeks. Several mentioned to me their pride in seeming to accomplish in just a few days what Tunisians needed a month to accomplish.

Marginality appears to have been an important factor within Egypt as well. While much of the media focus was on Tahrir Square in central Cairo, to which I went every day, the large presence there was itself a manifestation of a possibility that suddenly became evident on January 25, when large demonstrations broke out in 12 of Egypt’s provinces. The revolution would never have been perceived as possible had it been confined to Cairo, and in fact its most intense moment in its earlier days, when it really looked that a revolution was happening, were in more marginal sites like Suez. The collective perception that a revolution was happening at the margins, where it was least expected, gave everyone the confidence necessary to realize that it could happen everywhere.

Second, in every sense the revolution maintained throughout a character of spontaneity, in the sense that it had no permanent organization. Rather, organizational needs—for example governing how to communicate, what to do the next day, what to call that day, how to evacuate the injured, how to repulse baltagiyya assaults, and even how to formulate demands—emerged in the field directly and continued to develop in response to new situations. Further, the revolution lacked recognized leadership from beginning to end, a fact that seemed to matter most to observers but not to participants. I saw several debates in which participants strongly resisted being represented by any existing group or leader, just as they resisted demands that they produce “representatives” that someone, such as al-Azhar or the government, could talk to. When the government asked that someone be designated as a spokesperson for this revolt, many participants flippantly designated one of the disappeared, only in the hope that being so designated might hasten his reappearance. A common statement I heard was that it was “the people” who decide. It appeared that the idea of peoplehood was now assumed to be either too grand to be representable by any concrete authority or leadership, or that such representation would dilute the profound, almost spiritual, implication of the notion of “the people” as a whole being on the move.

Spontaneity was a key element also because it made the Revolution hard to predict or control; and because it provided for an unusual level of dynamism and lightness—so long as many millions remained completely committed to a collective priority of bringing down the regime, represented in its president. But it also appeared that spontaneity played a therapeutic and not simply organizational or ideological role. More than one participant mentioned to me how the revolution was psychologically liberating, because all the repression that they had internalized as self-criticism and perception of inborn weakness, was in the revolutionary climate turned outwards as positive energy and a discovery of self-worth, real rather than superficial connectedness to others, and limitless power to change frozen reality. I heard the term “awakening” being used endlessly to describe the movement as a whole as a sort of spontaneous emergence out of a condition of deep slumber, which no party program could shake off before.

Further, spontaneity was responsible, it seems, for the increasing ceiling of the goals of the uprising, from basic reform demands on January 25, to changing the entire regime three days later, to rejecting all concessions made by the regime while Mubarak was in office, to putting Mubarak on trial. Removing Mubarak was in fact not anyone’s serious demand on January 25, when the relevant slogans condemned the possible candidacy of his son, and called on Mubarak himself only not to run again. But by the end of the day on January 28, the immediate removal of Mubarak from office had become an unwavering principle, and indeed it seemed then that it was about to happen. Here one found out what was possible through spontaneous movement rather than a fixed program, organization or leadership. Spontaneity thus became the compass of the Revolution and the way by which it found its way to what turned out to be its radical destination.

It proved therefore difficult to persuade protestors to give up the spontaneous character of the Revolution, since spontaneity had already proved its power. Spontaneity thus produced more confidence than any other style of movement, and out of that confidence there emerged, as far as I could see, protestors’ preparedness for sacrifice and martyrdom. Spontaneity also appeared as a way by which the carnivalesque character of social life was brought to the theater of the revolution as a way of expressing freedom and initiative; for example, among the thousands of signs I saw in demonstrations, there were hardly any standard ones (as one would see in pro-government demonstration). Rather, the vast majority of signs were individual and hand-made, written or drawn on all kinds of materials and objects, and were proudly displayed by their authors who wished to have them photographed by others. Spontaneity, further, proved highly useful for networking, since the Revolution became essentially an extension of the spontaneous character of everyday life, where little detailed planning was needed or possible, and in which most people were already used to spontaneous networking amidst common everyday unpredictability that prevailed in ordinary times.

But while spontaneity provided the Revolution with much of its elements of success, it also meant that the transition to a new order would be engineered by existing forces within the regime and organized opposition, since the millions in the streets had no single force that could represent them. Most protestors I talked to, however, seemed less concerned about those details than with basic demands the fulfillment of which, it appeared, guaranteed the more just nature of any subsequent system. As finally elaborated a week after the beginning of the Revolution, these demands had become the following: removing the dictator; resolving the parliament and electing a new one; amending the constitution so as to reduce presidential power and guarantee more liberties; abolishing the state of emergency; and putting on trials corrupt high officials as well as all those who had ordered the shooting of demonstrators.

Third, remarkable was the virtual replacement of religious references by civic ethics that were presumed to be universal and self-evident. This development appears more surprising than in the case of Tunisia, since in Egypt the religious opposition had always been strong and reached virtually all sectors of life. The Muslim Brotherhood itself joined after the beginning of the protests, and like all other organized political forces in the country seemed taken aback by the developments and unable to direct them, as much as the government (along with its regional allies) sought to magnify its role.

This, I think, is substantially connected to the two elements mentioned previously, spontaneity and marginality. Both of those processes entailed the politicization of otherwise unengaged segments, and also corresponded to broad demands that required no religious language in particular. In fact, religion appeared as an obstacle, especially in light of the recent sectarian tensions in Egypt, and it contradicted the emergent character of the Revolution as being above all dividing lines in society, including one’s religion or religiosity. Many people prayed in public, of course, but I never saw anyone being pressured or even asked to join them, in spite of the high spiritual overtones of an atmosphere saturated with high emotions and constantly supplied by stories of martyrdom, injustice, and violence.

Like in the Tunisian Revolution, in Egypt the rebellion erupted as a sort of a collective moral earthquake—where the central demands were very basic, and clustered around the respect for the citizen, dignity, and the natural right to participate in the making of the system that ruled over the person. If those same principles had been expressed in religious language before, now they were expressed as is and without any mystification or need for divine authority to justify them. I saw the significance of this transformation when even Muslim Brotherhood participants chanted at some point with everyone else for a “civic” (madaniyya) state—explicitly distinguished from two other possible alternatives: religious (diniyya) or military (askariyya) state.

Fourth, a striking development after January 28 was the fact that radical political demands were so elevated that that all other grievances—including those concerning dismal economic conditions—remained subordinate to them. The political demands were more clear that any other kinds of demands; everyone agreed on them; and everyone shared the assumption that all other problems could be negotiated better once one had a responsible political system in place. Thus combating corruption, a central theme, was one way by which all economic grievances were translated into easily understandable political language. And in any case, it corresponded to reality because the political system had basically become a system of thievery in plain daylight. For months before the revolution, virtually everyone had a story to tell me about the ostentatious corruption of the business-cum-political elite that benefited most from the system. They tended to be a clique clustering around Mubarak’s son. Some of its members, reportedly, stood behind the recruitment of thugs who terrorized the protestors for two long days and nights on February 2-3.

Fifth, as everywhere in the Arab World, a key contributing factor was autocratic deafness. The massive undercurrent of resentment that fueled this volcano was stoked over years by the ruling elites themselves, who out of longevity in office and lack of meaningful opposition completely lost track of who their people were and could no longer read them, so to speak. They heard no simmering noise before the Revolution, and when it erupted they were slow to hear it as anything other than an undifferentiated noise. The one-way direction of autocratic communication allowed for no feedback and presented every recipient of its directives as either audience or point of incoherent noise. Throughout the Revolution this deafness of ruling structures was evident in the slow and uncertain nature of government response. On the day following the January 25 demonstrations, editors of government newspapers belittled the events.. On January 28, when all Egypt was in flames and many world leaders had issued some statement of concern, the Egyptian government remained completely silent—until Mubarak finally spoke at midnight, saying the exact opposite of what everyone had been expecting him to say. He thought he was making a major concession, but one which—as any intelligent advisor would have told him—could only be interpreted as a provocation, resulting in several more days of protests. Then on February 1 he made another speech, also thinking that he was making major concessions, although again, it was received by many protestors as the height of arrogance.

He was, in a sense, always responding to what he must have understood as incoherent noise, emerging from undifferentiated masses that could be allayed by the appearance of compromise. Arab state autocracies had long been accustomed to approach their people with either contempt or condescension. They were no longer skilled at any other art of communication (although Muhammad Shafiq, the new prime minister, has been trying to do his best in those arts). Clearly, autocratic deafness was a major factor in escalating the revolution. Many protestors suggested to me that what Mubarak said on January 28 would have resolved the crisis had he said on January 25, when he said nothing. And what he said on February 1 would also have resolved the crisis, had he said it on January 28.

When none of these concessions succeeded in diffusing the crisis, Mubarak’s new appointees had no serious arguments to explain why he wanted to stay in power for just a few more months, and in the face of a determined revolt that did not in fact challenge many other parts of the system. On Feb. 3 his new prime minister said that it was not common in Egyptian culture for a leader to leave without his dignity. He cited as evidence the salute given to king Farouk as the free officers forced him to leave Egypt in 1952! And on the same day, his new vice president opined that it is against the character of Egyptian culture to so insult the character of the father, which he claimed (in a moment of forgetfulness of the revolution just outside) Mubarak was to the Egyptian people. And the president himself asserted on that same day that he could not possibly resign, since otherwise the country would descend into chaos--astonishingly, still not realizing what everyone else in the country knew: that it was already there.

In the absence of autocratic deafness, all successful politicians, including manipulative ones, know that one art of maneuver consists of anticipating your audience’s or enemy’s next step, so that you are already there before it is too late. Here we had the exact opposite situation: a lethargic autocracy, having never known serious contest, was unaware of who its enemies had become, which in this case was more or less the vast majority of the country. That on February 2 some of Mubarak’s supporters found nothing better to do than send camels and horses to disperse the crowd at Tahrir, seemed to reflect the regime’s antiquated character: a regime from a bygone era, with no relationship to the moment at hand. It was as if a rupture in time had happened, and we were witnessing a battle from the 12th century. From my perspective in the crowd, it was as if they rode through and were swallowed right back into the fold that returned them to the past. By contrast, popular committees in the neighborhood, with their rudimentary weapons and total absence of illusions, represented what society had already become with this revolution: a real body, controlling its present with its own hands, and learning that it could likewise make a future itself, in the present and from below. At this moment, out of the dead weight of decades of inwardness and self-contempt, there emerged spontaneous order out of chaos. That fact, rather not detached patriarchal condescension, appeared to represent the very best hope for the dawn of a new civic order.

Mohammed Bamyeh
Department of Sociology
University of Pittsburgh

[danyboy27]

LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE!!
But the job is half done, although the president resigning is a great success, the regime is still there, and if the vice president assumes control, the revolution will still be on, because in arab countries, the head of the intelligence is the symbol of the oppression the people have been going through, and if the vice president ( Head of the intelligence agency) becomes the president this means the revolution will only grow bigger.
We should bow in respect for our fellow Egyptians.


lets wait for what mubarak will say.

if he is a smart guy he will dismiss his vice president and give temporary power to the head of the parlement for transition.

The army have huge stake in the economy and cannot allow further failures.

their prestige are in jeopardy has well if they miss this opportunity.

[Ligeia]

7:44pm: "If General Sulieman or the military take over, that is of great concern to everyone," says Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin. "While the military is very much respected, people here want to see a transition from military rule to civilian rule." The past four leaders of Egypt have had a military background.

7:50pm: More on that concern of the Muslim Brotherhood. " It looks like a military coup," said the Brotherhood's Essam al-Erian. "I feel worry and anxiety. The problem is not with the president, it is with the regime."

Aljazeera

[ckaihatsu]

Recap: Mubarak warned of a possible coup and threatened martial law, the military met separately from him and expressed support for the people of Egypt, and now Mubarak has said he will be stepping down.... Correct? So this is an "inverse" of the pro-Bush soft coup of 2000 in the U.S. -- here the political infrastructure is bending in the direction of the *people* instead....

[Dimentio]

Mubarak seems to be willing to resign now.

I have mixed feelings about that. Then West will cheer and Suleiman would urge the protesters to get home. If they don't, he crack down. If they do, he silently puts them into jail later.

[PhoenixAsh]

well reuters is saying the minister of information said the president will not step down....


its going to be hitchcockian suspense :)

[Dimentio]

He will never step down.

[S.Artesian]

Workers began their strikes yesterday, today the military announces it has established an emergency council that will stay in session around the clock. Cynical, jaded me, I think those two things are connected and that the "people's military" will pretend to force some reforms unto the Mubarak regime, with or without, Mubarak, split the student and young demonstrators from the workers, and then mobilized to break the strikes.

I don't know why I think that. I must have read about that happening somewhere before this. Or maybe I'm paranoid. But hey, just because being paranoid doesn't mean the the world isn't out to get you.

[ckaihatsu]

*Whoever*'s up there can't stall for *too* long -- the markets are going to start *****ing again pretty soon....

[chegitz guevara]

10:52pm Mubarak says that he will not be leaving office immediately, as demanded by the protesters:


I will work to peaceful transition of power. Want to take country from these harsh moments - looking to backing of everyone

[PhoenixAsh]

he is transfering power to Suliman...:glare:

[PhoenixAsh]

wtf...is he saying Egypt will not end until he does? Or did I mishear?

and again with the I will be burried here....

People are now incredibly angry....this coul very well be leading to violence....

[Tommy4ever]

I can't believe that Mubarak has refused to step down. He may well push the crowds to violence. Which could be beneficial in the end.

[danyboy27]

bad bad bad political move.

Now there are an increasing number of peoples who are in the street who are frustrated i would suggest him to run for his life right now.

with that much frustration and anger contentrated into huuge crowds, there is no riot police or military that could possibly stop massive riot to dispose the governement.

this guy is detatched from reality, big time.

[danyboy27]

funny post from huffingtonpost about this:

What a bunch of self gratifying b.s. The farmers and the cops?.....*..........*...oh yeah thyr're right behind you.....wi*th pitchforks and god knows what else! Catch a plane while you can fool !

[PhoenixAsh]

In Alexandria protestors are going to the military base... o.o

[Sasha]

bad bad bad political move.

Now there are an increasing number of peoples who are in the street who are frustrated i would suggest him to run for his life right now.

with that much frustration and anger contentrated into huuge crowds, there is no riot police or military that could possibly stop massive riot to dispose the governement.

this guy is detatched from reality, big time.

Wich is probably why the speech was pre recorded and he went to safe sharm-A-sheik tis afternoon. Now the question will be when it will turn into riots again whether the army will strike them down or remove Mubarak by coup....

[danyboy27]

report of a crowd leaving tahiri square and moving toward the presidential palace.


i pity the fool.

[Sasha]

9.05pm GMT: A clear translation of Mubarak's words will take a while so it's hard to know exactly what Mubarak was saying. But from the reaction on the ground, it seems that these minor concessions will not be enough.
There was little that was new in Mubarak's speech, and he granted some powers to Omar Suleiman, but little else and far less than many were expected.
None of this meshes with the statements issued by the military leadership today: that hints at a palace civil war going on behind the scenes.

[danyboy27]

Wich is probably why the speech was pre recorded and he went to safe sharm-A-sheik tis afternoon. Now the question will be when it will turn into riots again whether the army will strike them down or remove Mubarak by coup....

economicly speaking, taking down mubarak would be preferable.

the repercussion of a massive repression would be catastrophic at long term.

and beside, the army is ill equiped to crowd control, they have no real formation or equipement for that.

and killing thousand of civilian in order to establish order is out of the question, especially with the internet working and all those cellphone.

[chegitz guevara]

report of a crowd leaving tahiri square and moving toward the presidential palace.


i pity the fool.

Source?

[Palestine]

I bet that Mubarak has left Egypt, but still the people are raging right now, and they're planning to head to the presidential palace right now.

[danyboy27]

Source?

heard that on the bbc live feed.

it wasnt in the posting section, i just heard that live.

[danyboy27]

i bet 1 dollars that the army staff wasnt aware of that until the last minute.

[Palestine]

Omar Suleiman is on

[chegitz guevara]

2133: Ahmed Mekkawy (http://twitter.com/linuxawy) in Alexandria tweets: "North area military command center is getting totally surrounded by protestors. I swear something big will happen in Alexandria today."

[chegitz guevara]

2128: Journalist Lina Wardani tells the BBC: "Thousands of angry Egyptians are moving now towards the presidential palace. I think things will change tonight or tomorrow morning. I don't expect these angry masses to go home or wait until tomorrow. These people are not going to go home. It's not only Tahrir, it's all the streets to downtown. People are chanting 'down with the regime'."

[PhoenixAsh]

Suliman: same old shit...passed as a six course meal.

Really....listening to this guy reminded me of a joke...

Some restaurants seperate their garbage. Other restaurants seperate their garbage and put it on the menu as a four course meal. :-)

[chegitz guevara]

2141: It's doubtful anyone in Tahrir Square heard Mr Suleiman's speech - the noise of chants and horns is deafening.

[Palestine]

Protesters just had a double dose of anger. That should be enough to remove the regime.

[chegitz guevara]

2143: Mamoun Mandy (see entry at 2110) tells the BBC: "This is the first time I've been convinced that the people around Mubarak gave him a distorted image of what has been going on on the ground. On the ground, you'd never remotely think that speech was acceptable. It was written from a pre-25 January world which has no connection with what's going on on the ground. I am so worried about the future of this city. Mubarak's regime has only a few hours to decide: is it Mubarak or Egypt? If they do not accept the demands of the people, I think we are in for something really ugly tonight."

[PhoenixAsh]

All the blogs, tweets and FB entries I have read all seem to indicate rapid radicalisation.

Each and everyone for the first time expressed willingness to march to the presidential palace and use force.

[chegitz guevara]

2147: First reaction from the US - White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says President Obama will meet his national security team at the White House on Thursday.

[chegitz guevara]

2156: Robert Danin from the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington tells the BBC World Service: "It seems to me that behind the scenes there must be some sort of power play taking place between the military and the president. It's really quite bizarre that the president would stand up, especially on a Thursday night, and essentially antagonise the crowd on the eve of a Friday, traditionally the most volatile day for protests in the Arab world. So tomorrow's going to be quite a day I expect."

[Sasha]

9.51pm GMT: This is interesting: the BBC's Paul Adams reports that people in Cairo are receiving text messages from the high council of the army, saying that it is monitoring how events unfold and will decide how to act.

9.48pm GMT: Mubarak's address was watched by President Obama onboard Air Force One. He is planning to go straight from his plane to meet with his national security team at the White House.
"This is not what the [US] administration was told President Mubarak was going to do," reports CNN political correspondent John King.

[Sasha]

9.51pm GMT: This is interesting: the BBC's Paul Adams reports that people in Cairo are receiving text messages from the high council of the army, saying that it is monitoring how events unfold and will decide how to act.

9.48pm GMT: Mubarak's address was watched by President Obama onboard Air Force One. He is planning to go straight from his plane to meet with his national security team at the White House.
"This is not what the [US] administration was told President Mubarak was going to do," reports CNN political correspondent John King.

[chegitz guevara]

2156: Robert Danin from the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington tells the BBC World Service: "It seems to me that behind the scenes there must be some sort of power play taking place between the military and the president. It's really quite bizarre that the president would stand up, especially on a Thursday night, and essentially antagonise the crowd on the eve of a Friday, traditionally the most volatile day for protests in the Arab world. So tomorrow's going to be quite a day I expect."


2201: State TV is still showing images from the square, but without sound, so without the deafening crowd noise that other broadcasters are trying to speak over.


2205: Ali Habibi (http://twitter.com/#%21/alihabibi1) tweets: "Protesters heading to the national TV building."

[ckaihatsu]

"This is not what the [US] administration was told President Mubarak was going to do," reports CNN political correspondent John King.


Oh shit -- the U.S. has *another* one going rogue...! We know how the U.S. has handled *that* in the past.... (pained smile)

[danyboy27]

my reaction while i was watching mubarak at work


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpuRcmPnSTM

[Sasha]

2253 Robert Springborg, from the US Naval Postgraduate School tells Reuters Egypt's leaders are desperate men. He says: "The speeches tonight are not intended to bring an end to the crisis in a peaceful way but to inflame the situation so there is justification for the imposition of direct military rule. They are risking not only the coherence of the military, but even indeed - and I use this term with advisement here - civil war."

[Os Cangaceiros]

When an unstoppable force meets an immovable object...

[~Spectre]

ElBaradei calls for military overthrow:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/.a/6a00d83451c45669e20147e27dce59970b-550wi

[Sasha]

2347 Yasser Seif in Cairo tweets: "Around 2,000 protesters are marching from #Tahrir towards the presidential palace in Heliopolis."

[ckaihatsu]

---





ElBaradei calls for military overthrow:




Egypt will explode. Army must save the country now.





[Marx] used the term Bonapartism to refer to a situation in which counterrevolutionary military officers seize power from revolutionaries, and then use selective reformism to co-opt the radicalism of the popular classes. In the process, Marx argued, Bonapartists preserve and mask the power of a narrower ruling class.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonapartism#.27Bonapartist.27_as_a_Marxist_epithet




A Bonapartist regime for Marx appears to have great power, but only because there is no class with enough confidence or power to firmly establish its authority in its own name, so a leader who appears to stand above the struggle can take the mantle of power. It is an inherently unstable situation where the apparently all-powerful leader is swept aside once the struggle is resolved one way or the other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonapartism#.27Bonapartist.27_as_a_Marxist_epithet

[Rusty Shackleford]

calls for 20 million to march tomorrow

[danyboy27]

according to aljazeera a siege of the state tv station has begun.

a fews thousand camping outside the station, allowing people to go out but not to go in.

same thing appear to be appening with the presidential palace has well.

[Rusty Shackleford]

protestors camped outside of the presidential palace over night.

it is now almost 7:30 am.

midday prayers in 4.5 hours.

[Rusty Shackleford]

military just made its statement.
extremely ambiguous.

the only thing i can make out form the audio translation is this :

emergency laws will be lifted after the demonstrations end.

[Sasha]

9.24am: As everyone awaits the army's next move the people in Tahrir Square in Cairo are chanting that the people and the army are "together". There are also reports of army officers joining the protests. From Reuters:

An Egyptian army officer who joined protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square said on Friday 15 other middle-ranking officers had also gone over to the demonstrators.
"The armed forces' solidarity movement with the people has begun," Major Ahmed Ali Shouman told Reuters by telephone just after dawn prayers.

On Thursday evening Shouman told crowds in Tahrir that he had handed in his weapon and joined their protests demanding an immediate end to President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule.
"Some 15 officers ... have joined the people's revolution," he said, listing their ranks ranging from captain to lieutenant colonel. "Our goals and the people's are one."

Shouman said the other officers would address the crowd after Friday midday prayers.
Another army major walked up to Shouman while he was talking with a Reuters reporter in Tahrir on Thursday and introduced himself, saying: "I have also joined the cause"...
Protesters carried Shouman on their shoulders, chanting "The people and army are united", after he spoke to them on stage ...

Shouman, who had to show his army credentials to a few suspicious protesters, said he had urged other officers to join the planned anti-Mubarak demonstrations across Egypt.
He said he had 15 years of army service and had been told to guard the western entrance to Tahrir Square. Many of the other officers siding with the protesters had been posted around Tahrir and had been in constant contact with those inside.

9.07am: The April 6 youth movement has issued a furious response to Mubarak's speech last night. In a communique sent to its Facebook followers it says "a general strike is needed to bring him down".

Mubarak's speech was an astonishing piece of hypocritical filth. This man who sat atop of the regime which brutalised his people for 30 years, and tried in the last 17 days to destroy the movement any way that it could shed crocodile tears for the people that his police had killed. Over 300 people have died to force him from power, and after cursing the movement and trying to drown them in blood he addresses his speech to the "youth of the nation". These are the youth of the nation who have risen up against him and hate him with a passion – they have nothing in common with him or his regime. They are the future and he is the past, that is why he has fought against them so violently.
He promised a full investigation into anyone involved in persecuting protesters and swore again that he would resign in September, but not before.

During his entire speech he did not offer one serious concession to the people - he did not even withdraw the state of emergency. He proposed the amendment of 6 sections of the constitution, including the most controversial ones of article 76 and 77. He said he would scrap article 179. Article 179 is a relatively new anti terrorism amendment which stipulates "the state will assume responsibility for safeguarding security and public order in the face of the dangers of terrorism", which allows for anti terror suspects to be investigated and arrested without any kind of judicial over view.
The strikes should not be called off, they need to be extended and coordinated into an all out general strike. The strikes should be coordinated by democratic councils of the workers, they need to organise the defence of the revolution. It is also important now that the rank and file soldiers be won over to the revolution.

Now the demand for a constituent assembly is crucial. It is not the military or technocrats which should decide the new constitution but a democratic assembly composed of recognised delegates from the people.

Whether Mubarak is working in relative agreement with the army or defying them is not clear. Clearly the army wants to consolidate its influence in the political process. Clearly the military are divided over what to do – still the different factions within the regime do not know what to do. Some within the NPD want Mubarak gone, but Mubarak and his clique want to hold on to power. The army's position is changing, but it is not clear yet what role they will play.

[danyboy27]

scission inside the military.
really, he should have stepped down long time ago.

i give him 50% chances today to end up in a pine box.

[Tommy4ever]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12433045

Egypt crisis: President Hosni Mubarak resigns as leader

[Tommy4ever]

<LI class=type-9999>1613: One of the protesters in Tahrir Square, Gigi Ibrahim, tells the BBC: "We did it. I cannot believe it. Mubarak the dictator has gone. And the Egyptian people will forever be free. We are so proud. Everyone is so happy. We've suffered for years and finally the dictator is gone. We will remember this day forever."


<LI class=type-9999>1612: Full statement from Vice-President Suleiman: "In the name of God the merciful, the compassionate, citizens, during these very difficult circumstances Egypt is going through, President Hosni Mubarak has decided to step down from the office of president of the republic and has charged the high council of the armed forces to administer the affairs of the country. May God help everybody."



Ahem ..... Woohoo!

[Ligeia]

6:03pm: He's gone. He's resigned. 30 years of Mubarak rule is over. Omar Suleiman says:

President Hosni Mubarak has waived the office of president


Power handed to the armed forces.

[PhoenixAsh]

I fear this will mean the end of revolution...

:-/

[S.Artesian]

Yeah, "they did it," they got a military government.

If the source of this upheaval is economic, and it most certainly is, then the handing of power to the military will prove to have one purpose and one purpose only: suppress the strikes, suppress the rebellion, maintain the mode of accumulation.

Best way to fuck somebody, even the collective somebody, up is to give him/her exactly what he/she thinks he/she wants.

[Tommy4ever]

Yeah, "they did it," they got a military government.

If the source of this upheaval is economic, and it most certainly is, then the handing of power to the military will prove to have one purpose and one purpose only: suppress the strikes, suppress the rebellion, maintain the mode of accumulation.

Best way to fuck somebody, even the collective somebody, up is to give him/her exactly what he/she thinks he/she wants.


I'm hopeful that this is not yet over Comrade.

So long as the NDP continues to rule many will continue to fight.

[Bandito]

Hosni Mubarak resigns.

http://bltwy.msnbc.msn.com/politics/mubarak-resigns-as-president-of-egypt-1681163.story

[Cheung Mo]

Suleiman's Mubarak's torturer-in-chief and his mouth is so tightly wrapped around Netenyahu's dick that you can't even see his face.

[ckaihatsu]

I'm hopeful that this is not yet over Comrade.

So long as the NDP continues to rule many will continue to fight.








Army statement

In a statement read out on state television at midday on Friday, the military announced that it would lift a 30-year-old emergency law but only "as soon as the current circumstances end".

The military said it would also guarantee changes to the constitution as well as a free and fair election, and it called for normal business activity to resume.

Al Jazeera's correspondent in Tahrir Square said people there were hugely disappointed with that army statement, and had vowed to take the protests to "a last and final stage".

HOSNI MUBARAK RESIGNS AS PRESIDENT:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/2011211164636605699.html


The army is now in an explicitly political role and is already taking on the exact same characteristics (policy) that Mubarak was just kicked out of office for. Does the army think that people won't notice the similarity in governance?

[Tommy4ever]

The army is now in an explicitly political role and is already taking on the exact same characteristics (policy) that Mubarak was just kicked out of office for. Does the army think that people won't notice the similarity in governance?

Yes.

[ckaihatsu]

REVOLUTION: Misr/Egypt: The Giant Awakens: Egyptian steelworkers call for society-wide formation of workers' councils


Now THIS is the REAL Egyptian Revolution.
I wonder how long it will take al-jazeera to 'discover' it...


-- grok.




----- Forwarded message

Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2011
Subject: Egypt: The Giant Awakens

Call by Iron and Steel workers: together to topple the regime
by Aida Seif El Dawla on Wednesday, February 9, 2011 at 4:19am
The giant of the working class joins the revolution



Demands:

1- Immediate resignation of the president and all men and symbols
of the regime

2- Confiscation of funds and property of all symbols of previous
regime and everyone proved corrupt.

3- Iron and steel workers who have given martyrs and militants call
upon all workers of Egypt to revolt from the regime's and ruling
party workers federation, to dismantle it and announce their
independent union now and to plan for their general assembly to
freely establish their own independent union without prior
permission or consent of the regime which has fallen and lost all
legitimacy.

4- Confiscation of public sector companies that have been sold or
closed down or privatized as well as the public sector which
belongs to the people and its nationalization in the name of the
people and formation of a new management by workers and
technicians.

5- Formation of a workers' monitoring committee in all work places
monitoring production, prices, distribution and wages

6- Call for a general assembly of all sectors and political trends of
the people to develop a new constitution and elect real popular
committees without waiting for the consent or negation with the
regime.



A huge workers' demonstration will join the Tahrir square on Friday
the 11th of February 2011 to join the revolution and announce the
demands of the workers of Egypt

Long live the revolution - Long live Egypt's workers

Long live the intifada of Egyptian youth - People's revolution for the people





----- End forwarded message -----

--
The Financiers & Banksters have looted untold trillions of our future earnings.
Their bureaucratic police & military goons are here to make us all pay for it.
Forever.
Well FORGET THAT. Let's get it *ALL* back from them -- and more.

**Socialist revolution NOW!!**

Build the North America-wide General Strike.
TODO el poder a los consejos y las comunas.
TOUT le pouvoir aux conseils et communes.
ALL power to the councils and communes.

And beware the 'bait & switch' fraud: "Social Justice" is NOT *Socialism*...

[Political_Chucky]

source?

[ckaihatsu]

source?


Good question. I got it in an email from a reputable political correspondent. Hang on, lemme check....

[ckaihatsu]

Okay, the most I heard back on that is that this guy is the author:

http://davidmcnally.org/


If anyone could confirm the info that'd be great. Thanks.

[Sasha]

7.54pm GMT: Al Arabiya television is reporting that the Egyptian military will announce the dismissal of the cabinet, the suspension of the upper and lower houses of parliament, and that the head of the constitutional court will form an interim administration with the military council.

[freepalestine]

Richard Reilly
Breaking news, 1 2 3 go --------------->
Egypt: the youth of the April 6 Movement call on the military to lift the siege of Gaza.

[brigadista]

so looks like a back door military coup....

[RedTrackWorker]

source?

I haven't been any to confirm the statement by iron and steel workers directly, but as others point out that it's the "Helwan" workers (which is the only iron and steel plant in Egypt) who have a long history of struggle (a couple of plant occupations, donating a day's pay from the whole factory in 2000 and Jan 2009 to the Palestinian resistance, forming a solidarity committee for the Mahalla strikers in 2007, so it seems very plausible to me that these workers would put out such a statement and that seems more likely than some kind of fraudulent claim at this point. (Helwan is basically a suburb of Cairo FYI.)
Notice they were going to march as a group in Cairo today--the news of the resignation may overwhelm their message, I wonder what impact they had though as other workers were sending delegations this could catch on.

[Sasha]

so looks like a back door military coup....

that's what it looks like but it isn't nesceserly so. This was the only constitutional way (by actually disbanding the constitution and put the military in charge) Mubarak could leave without causing emediate presidential elections that would massively favor the ruling npd party.

[brigadista]

that's what it looks like but it isn't nesceserly so. This was the only constitutional way (by actually disbanding the constitution and put the military in charge) Mubarak could leave without causing emediate presidential elections that would massively favor the ruling npd party.

yes that is why i said looks like - :):) ...

[S.Artesian]

I'm hopeful that this is not yet over Comrade.

So long as the NDP continues to rule many will continue to fight.

No, it's not over by a long shot, but the key to keeping it from being over is to oppose the military government and the key to doing that is to introduce class struggle into the military-- break the ranks from the officers; demand ranks elect their own officers; demand freedom of political agitation among soldiers.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

The BBC reported earlier that the final straw today was the fact that soldiers en masse in Cairo began to throw off their uniforms and refuse to take orders.

So, the above tactics are now relevant, and likely to work.

[freepalestine]

30 or 40 year old drawings by palestine political artist (and leftist) naji al ali



http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44015000/gif/_44015986_begin416.gif
(a former zionist p.m.- beygin)
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/iHsIQOxeF_4/0.jpg

http://www.re-title.com/public/exhibitors/2537/archive_2032_AroundtheCoyote-1.jpg

http://www.aljazeerah.info/Cartoons/2003%20cartoons/cartoon%20negatives/2003/July/563swkar_01_p.GIF
http://sha3teely.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/naji204.jpg

http://olympiarafahmural.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Handala-Cartoon-Wheat-barbed-wire.jpg

[danyboy27]

i bet a lot of ministry of interior troops are anxious right now.

to me, it seem that if reforms goes well, the ministry of interior will be dramaticly shrinked in numbers.

the remaining will probably pass trought an intensive training similar to the one east german security force had to undergoes when their units fusionned with their western counterpart.

[brigadista]

http://www.arabawy.org/2011/02/12/permanent-revolution/
very good blog

[Ligeia]

Soldiers have moved in to form a cordon around the protestors who still occupy parts of Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
The Army says it respects the demonstrators’ demands.
But today is the start of the working week in Egypt and it has urged them to go home so that normal life can resume.
Despite toppling the Mubarak regime, many say they plan to stay in the Square to hold the newly-installed army council to account.
There was some pushing and shoving and sporadic scuffling.
It has been claimed that dozens of protest leaders have been taken away and are being held near the Egptian Museum next to Tahrir Square.
There has been no comment from the military.

euronews (http://www.euronews.net/2011/02/13/soldiers-corral-protestors-in-parts-of-tahrir/)

[ckaihatsu]

Tahrir appeared less crowded Sunday than in previous days, though some Egyptians have vowed to keep protesting until "Egypt is ruled by a civil government, not a military one."


This confirms that the rebellion has mostly been a *national* one, confined to *national* borders -- while it was still ongoing I think we revolutionaries took a supportive, wait-and-see attitude to its politics, but now that the movement has accomplished its main goal in the dismissal of Mubarak, it is clearly exhausting the limits of its perspective with its nation-centric focus. I haven't heard much in the way of internationalism from the protestors themselves, not even much about a pan-North-African identity.





The restoration of security and normal life is the government's priority, Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq said, as troops began trying to clear protesters from Tahrir Sqaure, the spiritual heart of the 18-day uprising that toppled Mubarak after 30 years.

That could take time, Shafiq acknowledged in his first comments to the press since Mubarak stepped down.

"The feeling of the lack of security which started when the situation began has to end," he said. "It will end gradually, but not as fast as we want."




http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/02/13/egypt.revolution/


In the absence of a *growing* political movement the existing powers-that-be threaten to reassert their inertia of control over Egypt's status quo ("normal") mode of life -- this means appeasing capital investments, of course, with whatever labor exploitation is required to make that happen, in the name of "security".

[PottersvilleUSA]

I really think the police need to be replaced since they, unlike the military, turned on the people. But it doesn't look like that will happen.

[danyboy27]

I really think the police need to be replaced since they, unlike the military, turned on the people. But it doesn't look like that will happen.


it appear that a division inside the police appened when mubarak stepped down.

Low ranking police officier protesting against senior for corruption and low pay, they are asking for the head of the former security minister, litteraly.


Now, all they have to do to show their seriousness is to throw to the army those who where responsable of the looting and murdering of egyptian citizens.

also, expect after the election a makeover of the whole security forces structure.

there is no way they need that much riot cops and interior troop now that the 30 year old state of emergency will be lifted.

[PhoenixAsh]

Problem is that; though the strikes are continuing and gaining momentum...finally (!!!)... and there are still several thousand protesters out and about; the army is not designed to run a country.

Second problem is the economy. Which already took big hits because of the protests and the resulting decline in services, workhours, tourists etc. A lot of people think they reached their goal when Mubarak stepped down. They haven't realised its the same clown...just a different nose. And as such they want to restart the economy and start earning again. They grow impatient.

Third problem is...there is still no leadership, uniform direction and controlled opposition.

If this continues the army will get support to use force.

Especially now that it seems the international forces have gotten the best deal they can currently hope for.

On friday more protests are planned aswell as more strikes. The army already requested media to stop filming on Tahrir.

With the workers taking over in relative media obscurity and disinterest (less access and less pretty pictures) the possible interesting (for us) revolution is just starting now...

But I bet it will be violently repressed...



.

[danyboy27]

Problem is that; though the strikes are continuing and gaining momentum...finally (!!!)... and there are still several thousand protesters out and about; the army is not designed to run a country.

Second problem is the economy. Which already took big hits because of the protests and the resulting decline in services, workhours, tourists etc. A lot of people think they reached their goal when Mubarak stepped down. They haven't realised its the same clown...just a different nose. And as such they want to restart the economy and start earning again. They grow impatient.

Third problem is...there is still no leadership, uniform direction and controlled opposition.

If this continues the army will get support to use force.

Especially now that it seems the international forces have gotten the best deal they can currently hope for.

On friday more protests are planned aswell as more strikes. The army already requested media to stop filming on Tahrir.

With the workers taking over in relative media obscurity and disinterest (less access and less pretty pictures) the possible interesting (for us) revolution is just starting now...

But I bet it will be violently repressed...



.
the army will have to deal with the fact that a bloody repression of those strike will probably trigger mass protest and restart massive unrest.

I think serious negociation is more likely than brutal crushing of unions.

With all the buisnessmen out of the country, this would be a perfect timing for the governement to just powergrab many sector of the industries who where previously in the hand of private corporations, now that they know they just can say piss off to mubarak friends.

To me, it seem like a more strategic thing to do than just doing mass repression that would create further unrest.

what they want is to things to go back to normal, and if it mean make some millionaires pissed and paying more salary to worker well they will do it.

its all action-reaction.

action: further protest.
reaction: some police action and more speech
action: more protest.
reaction: .......

basicly, the next step must appear has if the army is really in charge and know they have the situation under control, crushing unions will make them look weak. On the other hand, negociation with those groups and possible nationalisation will send a message that things are under control.

And on a side bonus, some of these nationalised firms and buisness could fall under the control of the army, kinda like the PLA in china and their 10 000 companies. the egyptian army is already a big player in the regions in various buisnesses.

[Kiev Communard]

Some perspective on the views of Egypt's poorest:


In One Slice of Egypt, Daily Woes Top Religion

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/02/16/world/middleeast/16islam2/16islam2-articleLarge.jpg

Men discussed politics in an outdoor cafe in Imbaba, an impoverished neighborhood in Cairo.

By ANTHONY SHADID
Published: February 15, 2011
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CAIRO — A generation ago, Ahmed Mitwalli’s parents were Islamists in this neighborhood along the Nile once nicknamed the Islamic Republic of Imbaba. But their son is not, and his convictions, echoed in the caldron of frustrations of one of the world’s most crowded quarters, suggest why the Muslim Brotherhood is not driving Egypt’s nascent revolution.

“Bread, social justice and freedom,” the 21-year-old college graduate said. “What’s religious about that?”

Egypt’s revolution is far from decided, and the Muslim Brotherhood remains the most popular and best-organized opposition forces in the country, poised to play a crucial role in the transition and its aftermath. But in a neighborhood once ceded to militant Islamists, who declared their own state within a state in the early 1990s, sentiments here are most remarkable for how little religion inflects them. Be it complaints about a police force that long resembled an army of occupation, smoldering class resentment or even youthful demands for frivolity, a growing consciousness has taken hold in a sign of what awaits the rest of the Arab world after President Hosni Mubarak’s fall on Friday.

Three times more crowded than Manhattan, Imbaba offers a window on the shift away from religious fervor. A fiery preacher, derided as a drummer-turned-cleric, imposed his rule on Imbaba’s streets for years until the government drove him and his followers out after a long siege in 1992. With American largess, the government tried to wrangle a city still not recognized on its maps back on the grid. By the accounts of residents, it failed, eventually withdrawing from a sea of resentment that neither the Muslim Brotherhood nor anyone else has managed to channel.

“The last thing youth are thinking about is religion,” said Mr. Mitwalli, who hides his cigarettes from a family where all the women wear the most conservative veil. “It’s the last thing that comes up. They need money, they need to get married, a car, and they don’t have anything to do with anything else. They’ll elect whoever can deliver that.”

Though parts of Imbaba are upscale, much of it feels like the countryside washing across the pretenses of a city, unfinished red-brick buildings overlooking markets disgorged in the streets. Three-wheel buggies known as tuk-tuks, blaring the latest pop song of Amr Diab, an ageless Egyptian pop star, navigate a mélange of overflowing trash bins, mannequins in the median and racks of clothes in the street.

Mr. Mubarak’s government long stigmatized neighborhoods like Imbaba as a netherworld of crime and danger. There is that, though its people extol their own sense of community, where streets band together at the slightest provocation. When the uprising devastated the economy, vendors brought down prices to help people cope. And in almost every conversation, residents, especially the young, frame their plight as us against them.

“There was no dialogue,” said Walid Sabr, a 29-year-old who works at a shoe store. “There was force and there was bullying. Dialogue with that? It’s impossible.”

Samih Ahmed, a vendor down the street, added, “This isn’t the Jan. 25th revolution,” calling the uprising by its most popular name. “This is a revolution of dignity.”

Everyone in the neighborhood had a story about officials — a $2 bribe to enter a hospital to see a relative, a $20 fine imposed for stealing electricity, a $10 payoff to a municipal official to get an identity card. Mr. Sabr talked about getting arrested for trying to report a traffic accident. Ibrahim Mohamed complained that he had been thrown in jail after the police planted hashish on him. Umayma Mohamed, a 23-year-old woman carrying her 3-month-old baby, begged for help in getting her brother released after a fight.

“You raise your voice,” Mohamed Ali said, “and they answer by beating you.”

Egypt is deeply devout, and imposing labels often does more to confuse than illuminate. Amal Salih, who joined the protests against her parents’ wishes, dons an orange scarf over her head but calls herself secular. “Egypt is religious, regrettably,” she said. Mr. Mitwalli wears a beard but calls himself liberal, “within the confines of religion.” A driver, Osama Ramadan, despises the Muslim Brotherhood but has jury-rigged his car to blare a prayer when he turns on the ignition.

Defining sentiments is no more precise. Youths defiant in their praise of Mr. Mubarak only last week joined the celebrations on Friday, some bringing flags and fireworks to Tahrir Square. Residents say some of the most ardent Islamists here had the best connections with the police, who sought to cultivate them as informants. But in streets suffused with trash, occasionally drawing flocks of sheep, a common refrain is that political Islam, as practiced by the Muslim Brotherhood, does not offer the kind of solutions that may decide an election.

“We don’t need prayers, sheiks and beards,” said Mr. Mohammed, standing with the angry crowd on a street filled with trash. “We’ve had enough of the clerics.”

The Islamic Group, known in Arabic as Al Gamaa al-Islamiyya, waged an intermittent insurgency against the government in the 1990s, and Mr. Mitwalli’s uncle was one of its leaders. He was jailed for 13 years. A man known as Sheik Gaber belonged to the same group, and he and his followers imposed their notion of order here, drawing thousands to sermons where they occasionally — and triumphantly — broadcast a tape of President Anwar el-Sadat’s assassination in 1981. They arbitrated disputes and provided for the poor, while sauntering through the slum to drive away prostitutes and drug dealers, to impose the veil, to burn shops that rented Western videos, and to force Christians to pay a religious tax.

An embarrassed government eventually sent in 12,000 soldiers and armored cars in a crackdown that began a six-week occupation. With the help of American aid, it flooded the neighborhood with investment for a time, paving roads and bringing sewerage, telephones and electricity. Just last year, the governor of Giza, which oversees Imbaba’s side of the Nile, pledged it would soon look like one of Cairo’s wealthier neighborhoods.

It does not. In fact, Imbaba feels overwhelmed, as the rich flee to suburbs with names like Dreamland, Beverly Hills and the European Countryside, and a new government faces its predecessor’s failure to provide housing for a population where nearly 7 in 10 are under the age of 34, numbers that mirror much of the Arab world.

“The youth today think this way: let me live my life today, and I don’t care if you kill me tomorrow,” said Mohammed Fathi, a 23-year-old friend of Mr. Sabr’s at the shoe store. “Next year isn’t important. All I’m thinking about is getting by today.”

In Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and grim stretches of urban Iraq, populist clerics often manage to channel youthful anger. But the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood is perhaps most distinguished for representing the demands of an aspiring middle class; it counts some of Cairo’s wealthiest among its ranks. No one in Imbaba mentioned a religious figure as an inspiration. Asked about their choice for a new president, many shrugged or offered up Amr Moussa, the aging departing secretary general of the Arab League.

The biggest draw here seemed to be one of Imbaba’s favorite sons, the Little Arab, a pop singer who runs a cafe on Luxor Street decorated with his own pictures.

“I don’t want to be pinned down by any political tendency,” Ms. Salih said.

It remains an oddity of the long struggle between the government and the Muslim Brotherhood that both an aging opposition and a corrupt state spoke the same language of moral conservatism. It has left Egypt more ostensibly religious over the years. Measured by sentiments here, it may have also provoked a backlash among youth recoiling at the prospect of yet more rules promised by an even more stringent application of Islamic law.

“In my view?” asked Osama Hassan, a high school student who joined the protests in their climactic days. “We need more freedom not less. The whole system has to change.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/world/middleeast/16islam.html?pagewanted=2&ref=middleeast

[freepalestine]

Middle East Egyptians defy call to end strikes
Airport and textile workers among those refusing to heed military's appeal not to protest.

Last Modified: 16 Feb 2011 20:11 GMT





Emboldened by the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak last week, Egyptians have been airing grievances over issues ranging from low wages to police brutality and corruption.
Workers in banking, transport, oil, tourism, textiles, state-owned media and government bodies are striking to demand higher wages and better conditions, said Kamal Abbas of the Centre for Trade Union and Workers' Services.
Staff at Cairo airport and in the textile industry were among those who on Wednesday defied the call by Egypt's new military rulers to stop all protests.

While hundreds of airport employees protested inside the arrivals terminal for better wages and health coverage, in the industrial Nile Delta city of Mahallah al-Koubra, more than 12,000 workers at a state-owned textile factory went on strike over pay and calls for an investigation into alleged corruption at the factory.
In Port Said, a coastal city at the northern tip of the Suez Canal, about 1,000 people demonstrated to demand that a chemical factory be closed because it was dumping waste in a lake near the city.


Banks closed

In sectors not hit by strikes, the central bank's decision to keep banks closed was forcing many to scale back production because clients were unable to pay for the goods.
The military had urged Egyptians on Monday not to strike and appealing to their sense of national duty in what was seen as a final warning before an outright ban on strikes and protests.

Pro-democracy leaders plan a big "Victory March" on Friday to celebrate the revolution.
Meanwhile, the health ministry said at least 365 people were killed during the 18-day uprising that began on January 25. It said 5,500 people had been treated for injuries and that the death toll could rise as the government is still gathering information.
Rights groups say hundreds are still missing after the protests.
Gamal Eid, a lawyer who heads the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, said: "There are hundreds of detained, but information on their numbers is still not complete ... The army was holding detainees."

In Tahrir Square, the focal point of the revolt, traffic flowed on Wednesday and some of the army tanks and armoured vehicles had been pulled back, although military armour remained in other Cairo locations.
Given the instability around the country, authorities decided to put back by another week the reopening of schools and universities across the country.
Schools and universities were just starting their midyear break when the protests broke out in January.


Council formed

Some protest organisers said on Wednesday they had formed a "Council of Trustees" to negotiate on the country's transition to democracy with the ruling military council.
"The head of the regime is gone but the body of the regime is still here," Abdullah Al-Ashaal, a former ambassador and a university professor, told a new conference announcing the formation of the council. "I'm worried there is much uncertainty about this transitional period."

The council's membership includes political scientist Hassan Nafaa, Judge Zakaria Abdel-Aziz, Mohamed el-Beltagi of the Muslim Brotherhood, Khaled Abdel-Qader Ouda, an academic, author Alaa el-Aswany, and veteran television presenter Mahmoud Saad, among others.
Meanwhile, a committee set up to amend the constitution as a prelude to parliamentary and presidential elections in six months has met as the military dismantles mechanisms used
to maintain Mubarak's rule. The military council has already dissolved parliament and suspended the constitution.
Egypt also imposed travel bans and froze the assets of another former cabinet minister and two more businessmen on Wednesday

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/2011216141815340645.html

[ckaihatsu]

2. Means -- Global Syndicalist Currency

This is basically advocating a global syndicalist currency that would be worker-controlled, cut across national boundaries, retain full labor value, and provide a broad range of trans-national goods and services through regular distribution channels.

All labor provided towards supplying the currency would necessarily be revolutionary acts, and could take place on a variety of scales, in a mixture of patterns of participation, gradually growing in size as cities once did. Transparency of accounting and operations would provide ongoing credibility, with worker-controlled decision-making -- call it stochastic soviets, if you like...!

It would be far more preferable to build up the strength and reach of a global syndicalist currency, backed by full, unexpropriated labor value, and enjoying the credibility that comes with transparently published accounts. Given these qualities it should be easy to see how this currency would be absolutely incompatible, both economically and politically, with any existing, capitalist currencies.


tinyurl.com/49bezkk


tinyurl.com/concise-communism-model

[ckaihatsu]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~(((( T h e B u l l e t ))))~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 465 .... February 18, 2011
_______________________________________________

The Egyptian Uprising and Workers’ Grievances

Nada Matta

It is too early to give an explanation for the Egyptian revolt. Much still needs to be understood about the character and the driving forces behind this sustained mass mobilization, as well as its dynamic and development. Some initial thoughts could still be entertained, however, especially with regards to the nature of the protestors’ demands. Though the revolt was caused by increasing economic hardship and insecurity, as well as by mounting political repression and authoritarianism, the demands of its youth organizers were solely focused on political democracy. The economic and social justice campaigns that in part laid the groundwork for this revolt over the past few years (with 3,000 workers protests and strikes since 2004) have as yet to take centre stage politically in this mass upheaval. Why this is so is an important part of trying to determine what happened in these last weeks of rupture in Egypt.

What is particularly striking about the Egyptian uprising of the past 18 days is that it has been mostly led by middle-class youth activists, galvanizing Egyptians from many walks of life including workers, professionals, and the poor. As the protests continued and Hosni Mubarak stubbornly refused to leave, the 6th of April group (as part of the newly formed Youth Coalition of the Anger Revolt), came up with a clear set of demands:

- The resignation of the entire ruling party, including the vice-president Omar Suleiman.

- The creation of a broad-based transitional government appointed by a 14-member committee, composed of senior judges, youth leaders, and members of the military.

- The selection of a founding council of 40 public intellectuals and constitutional experts to draw up a new constitution followed by elections.

- The end of the country's emergency laws.

- The dismantling of the state security apparatus.

- The trial of key regime leaders, including Mubarak.


Click here to continue reading

http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/465.php#continue




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(((( T h e B u l l e t ))))~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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[S.Artesian]

Military quoted as saying today that it will not tolerate continuation of the strikes.

Here it comes-- permanent revolution against the preemptive counterrevolution disguised as "national reconciliation"

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Socialist Worker:


After 30 years of market 'reforms' we're fighting back

by Phil Marfleet

Egypt’s revolution has delivered a resounding “No” to free market neoliberal capitalism.

Ordinary people created a mass movement that finally gave them a chance to reject political and economic policies endured for over 30 years—policies that became principles for global economic development.

The revolution is a problem for globalisation and the assumption that the market must shape affairs across the planet.

This raises huge questions about Egypt as a model for economic reform and as a base for US imperialist strategy in the Middle East and Africa.

By bringing down Hosni Mubarak, Egyptians have questioned the status quo. Who rules? Whose interests do they serve? Who determines policy?

These issues touch a raw nerve across the region, where scores of states are signed up to neoliberalism and its slogan that “there is no alternative”.

Neoliberalism says that private business, not governments, should make decisions on economic policy. Egypt has been a laboratory for testing this creed.

Long before Thatcherism President Sadat introduced “infitah” or “the opening”.

This was a commitment to dismantle the social and welfare provisions of the state and to hand the initiative to private business.

Mubarak embraced this and in the 1980s and 1990s he reduced state subsidies on staple foods—government spending on bread, flour, rice, sugar and cooking oil declined by two thirds.

Notorious

After further reductions many families were living at the margin of survival. In 2007 there were food riots in several cities—11 people were killed in four months as crowds fought at bakeries in desperate efforts to get bread.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) applauded Mubarak’s efforts, urging him to cut more deeply.

He privatised state-owned industry, forcing millions of peasants from their cultivated plots.

Under notorious Law 96, the Egyptian parliament decreed that land should be returned to the owners of the colonial era. Entire villages were evicted, with court rulings enforced brutally by police.

When the government started the evictions in 1997 there was resistance in over 100 villages.

Some 17 people died, 533 were wounded and 1,588 were arrested in disputes between landlords and “fellaheen”—peasants.

Worldwide

There have since been battles in villages across Egypt, between thousands of peasants and gangs of armed men employed by landlords and supported by the police.

Egypt has gone far down the road of neoliberal change. In 2007 the World Bank declared that Egypt was “the world’s top reformer”.

Economic journalists in Cairo described Mubarak as “an IMF poster child”. The regime became a model for the IMF. States worldwide have been encouraged to follow its example.

Egyptians have long known who benefits from pro-business policies. Mubarak has protected a network of new capitalists, financiers and speculators who have acquired huge wealth.

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=23938

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Eyewitness report:


Egypt: 18 days that shook the world

Mubarak’s gone but revolution continues.

Eyewitness report by Judith Orr

There are years that live on in our history: 1848, 1917, 1968, 1989.

Now we have a new date to celebrate. 11 February 2011: the day the dictator Hosni Mubarak was brought down by the Egyptian revolution.

Mubarak ruled Egypt for 30 long years. His regime was drenched in the blood of his opponents—who were tortured, imprisoned and murdered. Corruption ran through every office of government.

The immense wealth of the country is concentrated in the pockets of a tiny few while almost half the population live below the poverty line.

Successive US presidents found a friend in Mubarak for their imperialist wars. The Israelis found an ally happy to help oppress the Palestinians.

Now Mubarak is gone.

It wasn’t the army who brought him down. It wasn’t politicians. It wasn’t foreign troops. It was a revolution made by millions of ordinary Egyptians.

They took to the streets in Cairo and in cities and towns across the country. They marched, occupied and went on strike.

They endured beatings, tear gas and bullets. Yet still they stood and fought. Their tremendous struggle brought down one of the most brutal dictators in the world.

At the start of the revolution I witnessed the height of the street demonstrations and the mass occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo.

It was an exhilarating time.

But it was followed by ferocious street-by-street battles and a drawn out struggle before Mubarak finally went.

I returned to the streets of Cairo the day after Mubarak’s fall. The city was still filled with a collective roar of celebration.

This truly was a festival of the oppressed. Women, men, young and old—who never thought they would see this day—danced, sang and cheered in their tens of thousands. It was impossible not to be carried along by the throng.

And then into the square, Tahrir, a name that will now forever represent the spirit of this revolution. It was a sea of Egyptian flags. Fireworks lit up the sky as scooters wove through the crowd with horns tooting and flares burning.

People embraced and took photos of each other against placards and banners. Others held up their mobile phones to record the historic moment.

They celebrated the achievement of weeks of struggle—but also decades of endurance.

Because it wasn’t all joy. Hanging from buildings, and from railings all over the square were giant banners depicting the “martyrs”: the 300 who lost their lives during the revolution.

Two women dressed in black approached me. The older of them held a picture. “He was my son,” she told me. “His name was Mohamed. He was 16-years old when he was killed.”

Another man held up a picture of his friend, 30-year old Ahmed. “They found six bullets in him,” he said.

Several large memorials are set up along the roadside. People gathered around and read the dedications, and a small tree was decorated with notes and photographs of the dead.

“We should rename the streets after the dead,” said one volunteer doctor at the medical station at the side of the square. “They died so we could be free.”

Dancing

Even as people were dancing in the street, others told me the struggle wasn’t over. They were happy and relieved that Mubarak had gone—but that wasn’t enough.

People were talking about the inequality in society, and the wealth that’s been stolen from them by Mubarak’s regime.

Ahmed, a lawyer from Alexandria, and his friend, an engineer, both said they were prepared to go home tomorrow but that the revolution isn’t over.

“Half of Egypt is poor,” said Ahmed. “When the chance came to fight many of the poor came to Tahrir because they want a better life, an education, a job.

“We all fought together. We can’t let it go back to how it was. I have seen people getting food from rubbish bins, workers who can’t afford medical care.

“Yet rich politicians fly out of Egypt to have their operations.

“They and the business men have stolen all our money.”

His friend interrupted—“They won’t be rich after now!”

Cronies

But Mubarak’s rich cronies are still there, in the cabinet. The army, who have taken control, say this is just in the interim until elections are called.

Most protesters tell me they are prepared to trust the army for the moment. They see it as a protector of the revolution. Families queued up to be photographed alongside soldiers and tanks.

But there is also wariness about the future. There is as yet no date for elections. The emergency powers are still in place.

Many people told me that they would be ready to fight again if their demands were not met.

“If the army do anything against the people,” one protester, Ahmed, said, “we know the way back to Tahrir.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

‘Now we are not afraid of anything’

The arguments and debates about whether everyone should leave the square stretched into Sunday morning.

Some vowed to remain until all of the regime had been dismantled.

The roads opened for the first time since 28 January when the police disappeared.

Army officers went into the square early and started tearing down tents, even as people slept in them.

People were shocked that the army would treat them like this—but they had been through too much to be pushed around. They darted under and around the soldiers’ barrier.

Word went out that people had been roughed up. Soon thousands returned to the square. Even those who felt the demonstration had served its purpose came back, because they thought the army should treat the people with respect.

Confidence

The army has now cleared the square, but these incidents showed how the confidence and sense of liberation that people have gained in the struggle has changed people.

“People tell us we have to go back to normal,” one told me. “But I think many of us don’t ever want to go back to normal.”

In fact, precisely because Mubarak hung on for so long, people became more politicised as the struggle deepened.

It was the entry of organised workers into the struggle, however, that finished Mubarak off. This is often overlooked in the mainstream media.

The formidable power of the massive Egyptian working class is why rumours abound about the army’s desire to clamp down and ban strikes.

The army is panicking because the strikes have continued and spread even after Mubarak’s exit.

The walkouts in massive workplaces have inspired numerous small disputes about pay, corrupt bosses and greater rights at work.

Streets away from Tahrir, I met striking insurance workers fighting for higher pay. At the airport, staff were holding a mass meeting on the concourse. They were on strike demanding permanent contracts and their boss sacked. By the time my plane took off, they had won their contracts.

These struggles have the potential to push forward the momentum of the revolution and deepen its impact.

Political demands can feed into economic issues.

The ruling class has shown it won’t give up power without a fight, so there will be more battles ahead.

But ordinary people now have had a taste of their power. They brought down Mubarak. They achieved the impossible—now they can do anything.

“We were afraid of dying, but now we are not afraid of anything,” said protester Mohammed. “We wanted to breathe free. We decided we can do this, we did do this.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

People’s pride in their revolution

There was immense pride in the nature of the revolution—in particular the way people organised themselves.

There were the doctors who came to help the wounded and stayed.

The teachers from the university who offered free classes to protesters.

The teams of volunteers who did shifts securing the square, checking ID to keep undercover police out.

People who had previously been cogs in a gigantic, inhumane system began to run their own lives—and their own city. Even as the last occupiers were holding out, a big clean up was underway.

The road was being repainted. Teams were dispatched to touch up the railings along the pavement.

They didn’t want anyone to say they had destroyed their own city.

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=23930

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Egypt: Strike wave deepens the revolution and threatens the power of capital

by Simon Assaf

Egypt is in the grip of a huge strike wave that marks a sudden and dramatic deepening of the revolution. Tens of thousands of workers have walked out of offices, factories, textile mills, ports, hospitals, schools and universities across the country. Even police officers are demonstrating.

These strikes erupted in direct defiance of the army’s call for workers to end strikes, sit-ins and demonstrations.

They have the potential not only to transform Egyptian society, but also to threaten capitalism itself.

Hosni Mubarak dreamed of transforming Egypt’s economy into “the Tiger on the Nile”.

His government privatised state industries, kept wages low and slashed meagre social security provision in a drive to make Egypt a prime spot for global investment.

Foreign and Egyptian companies made huge fortunes on the back of low wages, terrible working conditions and the suppression of trade unions.

All the world’s economic powers bought a stake in Mubarak’s Egypt. Now their interests are under threat.

Egyptian workers have huge potential power. Some 8 percent of the world’s seaborne trade passes through the Suez Canal.

The two cities at each end of the vital waterway, Suez and Port Said, were key centres of the uprising.

US interests are directly under threat. The largest chunk of US investment in Egypt is tied up in the petro-chemical industry, including the strategically vital SuMed pipeline that runs along the banks of the Suez Canal.

This pipeline carries 2.5 million barrels of oil a day.

It is part of a network that links Saudi Arabia’s new Red Sea oil terminals, built to bypass the unstable Persian Gulf.

The potential power of this movement also has a direct impact on Israel—which depends on Egypt for one quarter of its natural gas.

This gas is pumped to Israel along a pipeline that crosses the northern Sinai coast and

El-Arish, the biggest Egyptian city close to the Gaza Strip. It was here that rebels fought armed battles to drive out state security troops on the eve of Mubarak’s departure.

This strike wave drew its momentum from the decisive role played by organised workers.

The mass insurrectionary strikes which first erupted on Sunday 30 January—the so-called “day of normality”—were in direct response to attempts by regime thugs to crush the revolution in Tahrir Square.

Workers who walked out in solidarity with the “youth of Tahrir” also issued economic demands, many of them long-standing disputes over pay, conditions and bonuses.

Now they are demanding the sacking of bullying foremen, corrupt managers and bosses with ties to Mubarak’s ruling party.

This workers’ movement reaches into the heart of Egyptian society. The new working class organisations that have sprung up to represent tax collectors, bus workers, railway workers, teachers, airport staff, cabin crews, textile workers, street cleaners, hotel workers and so on, have the potential to change social relations in Egypt.

They could also transform the role of women.

Tens of thousands of women work in the giant textile mills in the Nile Delta. They live on poverty wages—despite operating advanced and modern mills that produce much prized luxury cotton for the US market.

These women were key to the dramatic wave of strikes and occupations in 2007. Now they are raising equal pay.

This strike wave is a deepening of a revolutionary process. The insurrectionary mass demonstrations destroyed the physical control of the state. Now the rule of capital itself is being challenged.

How these strikes will develop is uncertain, but the Egyptian revolution is full of surprises. It can go beyond simply deposing a tyrant to deposing a tyrannical system itself.

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=23942

[ckaihatsu]

REVOLUTION: Misr/Egypt: Declaration by Egypt's Independent Trade Unions



----- Forwarded message

Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2011
Subject: Declaration by Egypt's Independent Trade Unions




Egyptian independent trade unionists' declaration
Cairo, 19 February 2011
Revolution - Freedom - Social Justice

Demands of the workers in the revolution

O heroes of the 25 January revolution! We, workers and trade unionists
from different workplaces which have seen strikes, occupations and
demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of workers across Egypt during
the current period, feel it is right to unite the demands of striking
workers that they may become an integral part of the goals of our
revolution, which the people of Egypt made, and for which the martyrs
shed their blood. We present to you a workers' program which brings
together our just demands, in order to reaffirm the social aspect of
this revolution and to prevent the revolution being taken away from at
its base who should be its beneficiaries.

The workers' demands which we raised before the 25 January revolution
and were part of the prelude to this glorious revolution are:

1. Raising the national minimum wage and pension, and a narrowing of
the gap between minimum and maximum wages so that the maximum is no
more than 15 times the minimum in order to achieve the principle of
social justice which the revolution gave birth to; payment of
unemployment benefit, and a regular increment which will increase with
rising prices.

2. The freedom to organize independent trade unions without conditions
or restrictions, and the protection of trade unions and their leaders.

3. The right of manual workers and clerical workers, peasant farmers
and professionals, to job security and protection from dismissal.
Temporary workers must be made permanent, and dismissed workers to be
returned to their jobs. We must do away with all excuses for employing
workers on temporary contracts.

4. Renationalization of all privatized enterprises and a complete stop
to the infamous privatization program which wrecked our national
economy under the defunct regime

5. * Complete removal of corrupt managers who were imposed on
companies in order to run them down and sell them off.
* Curbing the employment of consultants who are past the age of
retirement and who eat up 3 billion of the national income, in order
to open up employment opportunities for the young.
* Return to the enforcement of price controls on goods and services in
order to keep prices down and not to burden the poor.

6. The right of Egyptian workers to strike, organize sit-ins, and
demonstrate peacefully, including those striking now against the
remnants of the failed regime, those who were imposed on their
companies in order to run them down prior to a sell-off. It is our
opinion that if this revolution does not lead to the fair distribution
of wealth it is not worth anything. Freedoms are not complete without
social freedoms. The right to vote is naturally dependent on the right
to a loaf of bread.

7. Health care is a necessary condition for increasing production

8. Dissolution of the Egyptian Trade Union Federation which was one of
the most important symbols of corruption under the defunct regime.
Execution of the legal judgments issued against it and seizure of its
financial assets and documents. Seizure of the assets of the leaders
of the ETUF and its member unions and their investigation.


Signed:
Employee of the Meteorological Office, Ahmad Kamal Salah
Health Technicians Union, Hossam Muhammad Abdallah Ali
Nurse, Sayyida Al-Sayyid Muhammad Fayiz
Al-Fayyum Sugar Refinery, Ashraf Abd al-Wanis
Omar Effendi Department Store, Abd-al-Qadir Mansur
Future Pipes Co, 6th October City, Hafiz Nagib Muhammad
Egypt - Helwan Textiles Co., Muhammad Hassan
Tora Cement, Mahmud Abd-al-Munsaf Al-Alwani
Egyptian Commercial Pharmaceutical Co., Ali Mahmud Nagi
Hawamidiyya Sugar Refinery, Omar Muhammad Abd-al-Aziz
Egyptian Pharmaceuticals, Muhammad Galal
Suez Fertilisers Co., Shazli Sawi Shazli
Military Factory No.45, Muhammad Ibrahim Hassan
Military Factory No. 999, Wasif Musa Wahba
General Transport Authority, Gamil Fathi Hifni
Cairo General Contractors, Adil Abd-al-Na'im
Al-Qanah Rope Co., Port Sa'id, Ali Hassan Abu Aita
Information Centre, Hind Abd-al-Gawad Ibrahim
Information Centre, Hamada Abu-Zaid
Information Centre, Muhammad Khairy Zaid
General Authority for Cultural Centres, Hatim Salah Sayyid
National Postal Authority, Muhammad Abd-al-Hakim
International Ibex Co., Ahmad Islam
Military Factory 99, Tariq Sayyid Mahmud
Military Factory 999, Nabil Mahmud
Trade unionist, Mahmud Shukri
Military Factory 999, Ahmad Faruq
Military Factory 999, Osama Al-Sayyid
Future Pipe Industries, Yasir Al-Sayyid Ibrahim
Tannery workers, Mahmud Ali Ahmad
Future Pipe Industries, Abd-al-Rasul Abd-al-Ghani
Omar Effendi Department Store, Ali Al-Sayyid
Property Tax Collectors (RETAU), Kamal Abu Aita
Property Tax Collectors (RETAU), Ahmad Abd-al-Sabur
Property Tax Collectors (RETAU), Salah Abd-al-Hamid
Property Tax Collectors (RETAU), Mahmud Umar
Worker, Khalid Galal Muhammad
Petrotrade Co., Muhammad Zaki Isma'il
Suez Canal Co., Saud Omar
Suez Fertilizers Co., Kamal el-Banna

----- End forwarded message -----







--
The Financiers & Banksters have looted untold trillions of our future earnings.
Their bureaucratic police & military goons are here to make us all pay for it.
Forever.
Well FORGET THAT. Let's get it *ALL* back from them -- and more.

**Socialist revolution NOW!!**

Build the North America-wide General Strike.
TODO el poder a los consejos y las comunas.
TOUT le pouvoir aux conseils et communes.
ALL power to the councils and communes.

And beware the 'bait & switch' fraud: "Social Justice" is NOT *Socialism*...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

The BBC has just reported (but it's in today's papers anyway) that David Cameron's current visit to Egypt was planned before these protest began, and one of it's main aims was to sell yet more arms to these murderers!

In fact, 6 out of the 20 businessmen on the trip are arms dealers.

[Delirium]

Cairo - Egypt could soon be looking for a new economic model – one that will be different from the traditional system that has been promoted for years by international financial institutions such as the World Bank, the IMF, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), under the reign of ousted president Hosni Mubarak.
"Lots of Egyptians after the revolution realized the level of injustice against them, and that they were being ripped off for many years," Abulezz Al-Hariri, a former opposition member of parliament, told IPS.
"They started asking for their rights," he added. "This cabinet is just trying to cater to that immediate realization."
Since the mid 1980’s, the World Bank, the IMF, and USAID have sought to encourage policies that limit the role of government in the economy, cut budget deficits, and give more influence to the private sector and corporations.
Under pressure from the public following the success of the January revolution, the government of Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq - originally appointed by Mubarak but kept by the military to run the everyday affairs until new elections are held - quickly rolled back some of the controversial policies.
Many of the moves announced over the past few days are designed to be a quick fix to the economic situation faced by millions of Egyptians who are eager to enjoy concrete benefits of the 18-day revolution in which 365 protesters died.
The new government has announced that all citizens are eligible to apply for monthly portions of sugar, cooking oil, and rice. The previous cabinet, which was comprised of businessmen and former corporate executives, had frozen the rations.
This decision overturned the previous policy of providing monthly rations only to those who prove they are poor through a lengthy process of paperwork and red tape.
Last week, new finance minister Samir Radwan said that the country will not change its current subsidies system, which offers reduced food prices for some 65 million Egyptians.
Furthermore, the new government promised to offset any extra cost in food prices that might accompany rising prices internationally. Radwan put the initial cost at 2.8 billion Egyptian pounds (about 425 million dollars).
Under the new policies, the health ministry will offer free health care 24 hours a day at public hospitals. Days before the Jan. 25 revolution, the Mubarak regime had limited free health care hours from 8:00 am to 1:00 pm.
Temporary workers who have spent at least three years working for the government will now be given permanent contracts that carry higher salaries, and benefits such as pension plans, and health and social insurance.
Many municipalities also saw long lines of applicants after the interim government said that it will offer subsidized housing for young people on an expedited basis.
And on Wednesday, the Central Bank of Egypt said it will be a "guarantor" to achieve the demands of banking sector employees, which include curbing top management compensation packages and salaries as well as offering greater benefits for employees.
But while the new measures remain limited, their implementation has raised questions about whether Egypt may be heading back to its strong socialist past, which flourished under the rule of former president Gamal Abdelnasser, who ran the country in 1950’s and 1960’s.
Some officials say that the new programmes constitute an initial reaction from a team known for its pro-capitalist background and are only temporary.
"We are not moving back to a socialist past," Amina Ghanem, deputy finance minister, told IPS. "We are just trying to extinguish fires."
"We are not going to lose our reforms," said Ghanem, who was also deputy to outgoing finance minister Youssef Botrous Ghali. "We want people to work and not take charity from the government."
For measures already announced, the interim government will find funding by re-allocating spending to more high-priority areas, rather than re-making the Egyptian economy, she said.
"Instead of spending now on, say, for example, landscaping, we’ll re-channel that money to more urgent needs," she explained.
Al-Hariri, a member of the left-of-centre Tagammu Party, agreed that the current interim government is not taking a U-turn away from capitalist policies inspired by Western financial institutions.
"Their measures are just like tranquilizers; something to kill the pain but not cure anything," he said.
Al-Hariri added that past policies under Mubarak were not effective and that any future government should find an alternative. He recommended long- term plans to create more jobs, and what he called "real industries" and "real investments".
Confiscating wealth looted by cronies of the former regime, more egalitarian distribution of wealth, gradual taxation, better government oversight, and placing "a reasonable ceiling" on profitability of goods and services sold to the public are among the measures that should restore an economic balance to society, he said.
Mamdouh Al-Wali, a business writer with the Al-Ahram Daily newspaper, said Egypt’s path towards a new economic direction will be fraught with dangers from deeply-rooted interests, such as businesses, former regime symbols, and international financial institutions.
"A future new government, even though elected, may not be able to resist all that counter-pressure," he told IPS. "The change will be hard."

http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20110221061216810

[PhoenixAsh]

Well...the protests are fazr from over. Today thousands of people gathered in Tahrir to demand the promised changes now.

[PhoenixAsh]

Aj reports violence broke out in the massive protests in Tahrir square today....protesters are demanding quick change from military governance to civilian governance and an end to the state of emergency.

I have missed the specifics about teh violence...anybody got the gist of it????

[(A)(_|]

A small group of remaining protesters in tahrir square and in front of parliament, who were staging a sit-in, were violently dispersed by military police yesterday midnight. Some protesters were detained and others who managed to get away said the military police used tasers and whips to disperse them.

Since yesterday, the military supreme council issued a statement apologizing; saying they did not and would never order the beating of protesters, and that the violence which ensued was due to a "misunderstanding" between military police and peacful protesters. This is hardly believable though as we all know the army is a hierarchal institution, and this indicates that either some rogue military ranks are corrupt or the council is simply lying.

Personally, I think that Mubarak's generals are a continuation of his regime as there is no reason why the emergency law is still intact, or why Ahmed Shafeeq is still prime minister. Their intimidating threats towards striking workers and employees also warrants suspicion. We will see, however we also must remember that the army has close relations with the US, and I imagine, however this is only my opinion, that like countries in Latin america, if a democratically elected government does not meet uncle sam's standards, we might expect a coup.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Egypt: The Military's Gambit (http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/2/27/egypt-the-militarys-gambit.html)

[danyboy27]

A small group of remaining protesters in tahrir square and in front of parliament, who were staging a sit-in, were violently dispersed by military police yesterday midnight. Some protesters were detained and others who managed to get away said the military police used tasers and whips to disperse them.

Since yesterday, the military supreme council issued a statement apologizing; saying they did not and would never order the beating of protesters, and that the violence which ensued was due to a "misunderstanding" between military police and peacful protesters. This is hardly believable though as we all know the army is a hierarchal institution, and this indicates that either some rogue military ranks are corrupt or the council is simply lying.

Personally, I think that Mubarak's generals are a continuation of his regime as there is no reason why the emergency law is still intact, or why Ahmed Shafeeq is still prime minister. Their intimidating threats towards striking workers and employees also warrants suspicion. We will see, however we also must remember that the army has close relations with the US, and I imagine, however this is only my opinion, that like countries in Latin america, if a democratically elected government does not meet uncle sam's standards, we might expect a coup.
the army is a hierarchical institution, but it dosnt avoid certain people from acting like nuts. In theory the police is also a hierarchical institution, and yet there are dirtbag in the cops who beat and attack civilian on a daily basis.

[Sasha]

11.03am - Egypt: (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/feb/28/arab-and-middle-east-protests-libya#block-16) A very interesting piece of news has just come in from Egypt, where the public prosecutor has issued a travel ban on the former president Hosni Mubarak and his family.

[Os Cangaceiros]

http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/news/labor-protests-escalate-throughout-egypt

fTj3yVGFOLE

^some interesting info in that video regarding minimum wage battles and contention between established Egyptian unions and their rank-and-file.

[ckaihatsu]

This following description of an interpersonal passive-aggressive, bullying-consoling kind of relationship is entirely accurate when applied to the political situation in Egypt right now. It's the kind of rigid, inflexible, co-dependent, diffident relationship that results when *any* two parties at *any* scale are not really "into it" -- as between a de facto authority and the population it controls....








As most of you know by now, the Egyptian army beat up protestors on Friday night, with some apparently donning masks to hide their identity and using electric cattle prods. The army subsequently apologized, and then once again stressed the need for everyone to go home, and then spoke of the usual foreign dangers against the sanctity of the Egyptian people, etc.

Sarah Carr as always has an account that captures the mood, read it in full:




One protestor was in tears, shouting, “the army is hitting us! The army is hitting us!” There has long been popular adoration of, and respect for the army, reinforced since the tanks rolled in on the 28th. It will be interesting to see whether last night’s episode in any way shakes this, or whether it rallies more people around the demand that Shafiq resigns.

The army has already subjected us to a barrage of statements on Facebook about the incident, like a teenage girl discussing boy problems. Statement no. 22 was particularly odd. Entitled “apology” it then said that the “encounters” between the military police and the great Egyptian people were “unintentional” (“OMG I didn’t mean to hurt you babe!!!! Luv u 4ever xoxoxoxo)

Statement no. 24 meanwhile goes on about how the army has got our back but there exist fears of “infiltrating elements” trying to corrupt the revolution who threw stones and bottles at the armed forces (“How cld u treat me like this I hate u you’ve broken my heart you bastard!! (((((”).

This is all very Mubarak and must desist.

Egypt: The Military's Gambit (http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/2/27/egypt-the-militarys-gambit.html)

[Sasha]

the egyptian PM stepped down ahead of announced new demonstration coming friday and after being ripped on TV during the very first public debate between an government official and opposition politicians.


10.46am: (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/mar/03/libya-uprising-gaddafi-live#block-16) The new Egyptian prime minister, Essam Sharaf, sounds like he could represent a genuine break from the Mubarak regime, despite being a former minister himself. From Ahram online (http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/6859/Egypt/Politics-/Essam-Sharaf-appointed-Egypts-new-PM.aspx) (thanks to @Snarkos in the comments section for the tip-off):

Sharaf was one of a handfull of ex-ministers who declared their support for the revolution in its early days, and is said to have joined the protesters in Tahrir Square days before ex-president Mubarak stepped down.
A professor of engineering who served under Mubarak from 2004-2006, Sharaf is well respected among the Egyptian public. He has been a vocal opponent of the Mubarak regime since leaving office and has been especially critical of the collapse of public transport under the former president.

[bcbm]

One man died after thousands of Christians and Muslims clashed (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110308/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_egypt) in Cairo on Tuesday after anger erupted over last week's burning of a church, AP reports.

...

Women protesters (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jA0lTCLBfPISCkbcDhbjgma1OOJQ?docId=e75dbfdfa f294cbd9ee5ebd557c9887e) also faced troubles on Tuesday when an angry mob heckled and shoved them as they demonstrated in honor of International Women's Day. They were demanding an end to sexual harassment of women in Egypt. Men chased the women out (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jA0lTCLBfPISCkbcDhbjgma1OOJQ?docId=e75dbfdfa f294cbd9ee5ebd557c9887e) of Tahrir Square in Cairo.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/egypt/110308/cairo-christians-muslims-clash

[PhoenixAsh]

well....thats taking a turn for the worse....


another quote:


"They said that our role was to stay home and raise presidents, not to run for president," Farida Helmy, a 24-year old journalist, told AP.

[Os Cangaceiros]

That's pretty disappointing news.

I read that AP article and it sounded like whoever wrote it was intent on making the current situation in Egypt look like complete bedlam and anarchy.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Some interesting info (http://she2i2.blogspot.com/2011/03/new-era-for-egyptian-trade-unions.html) on Egypt's revitalized trade union movement.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Consitutional referendum in Egypt tomorrow. Big day.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12787947

[Os Cangaceiros]

Egyptian rights group: 684 people died during Egypt's "non-violent" revolution (http://signalfire.org/?p=8412)

[Dimentio]

The new constitution is apparently pretty unamazing, even by bourgeois standards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_constitutional_referendum,_2011#Proposed_ Amendments_Summary

[S.Artesian]

What a surprise.

[Sasha]

the interior ministry in cairo is on fire (once again) i assume after an demonstration but i havent found conclusive reports yet.

[(A)(_|]

Very important escalation:

The new government of Essam Sharaf issued a new law today prohibiting protests, strikes and sit-ins "if they cause any disturbance to the work cycle". What we have unfortunately is a huge support for this law by the middle class and other sectors of society that have been led to believe by media outlets owned by the state (in this case the military council) and private media outlets co-opted by the state or serving the interests of the capitalists that the country is on the brink of economic meltdown, bankruptcy and total chaos, all of this because of those greedy striking workers, playing the nationalism card and diverting attention from many of the businessmen enriched during the neoliberal era. Just today, an emergency aid package was pumped into the stock market which had its first session since the beginning of the protests, yet it still fell by 9%.

Ever since the departure of Mubarak and before, Egypt has been witnessing
one of the largest strike and demonstration waves in history across different sectors of the working class. Over 400 demonstrations and more than 70 strikes that have been unfortunately met by mainstream condemnation, even going as far as dubbing these strikers counter revolutionary forces!

After the law was issued, the military police cracked down on students protesting in Cairo university, who have been on hunger strike for a week demanding the removal of the university dean. They violently dispersed them using electric tasers and whips. The general vibe now is one of calmness and deescalation. The unwritten consensus is that the revolution is basically over and that life is back to normal. Things like " no to the dictatorship of tahrir square" have been on people's mouths all week long ever since the constitutional referendum, a major upset in which Islamists degraded politics to a simple religious matter, motivating people to vote yes claiming that 2nd amendment that states Islam is the prime source for jurisprudence was in jeopardy. And you had Christians voting no with instructions from the church, so it turned into a religious matter. Public debate was monopolized by religious institutions, and the revolutionaries were swept aside. It seems efforts to delegitimize the spirit or weaken the spirit of the revolution have worked.

[Os Cangaceiros]

bastards (http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/371465)

Nothing new...although I wonder how well they're going to be able to enforce it.

[Princess Luna]

(Reuters) - Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his family are not allowed to leave the country, the military council to which he handed power on February 11 said on Monday.

The military denied reports that Mubarak had left to Saudi Arabia, adding: "He and his family are subject to forced residency in Egypt."
Source (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/28/us-egypt-mubarak-idUSTRE72R2KB20110328)

[RedTrackWorker]

Anyone seen reports on if the anti-strike law is being enforced?

[Palestine]

AJ: Mubarak leaves Egypt to Germany.

Something fishy is going on!!

[Os Cangaceiros]

Egypt's youth leaders vow to continue protests ahead of demonstrations planned for Friday (http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/04/201147124918409148.html)

[Sasha]

Egyptian troops told not to join Friday protest

By Ivan Watson and Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, CNN
April 8, 2011 -- Updated 0944 GMT (1744 HKT)



A air force major has called on military to join protests against the Supreme Council in Egypt.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS


Egyptian military apparently issues warning in response to internet videos
A video was posted by a man who says he was an air force officer
He calls on fellow soldiers and officers to join a demonstration on Friday



Cairo, Egypt (CNN) -- Egypt's ruling military council is threatening immediate prosecution before a military tribunal for any troops seen participating in a planned protest in Cairo on Friday.
The stern warning, which came Thursday, appeared to be a response to a campaign of public challenges to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, issued by several men who describe themselves as former military officers.
In an 11-minute long video posted on YouTube, a man who introduces himself as former air force Maj. Hatem Abadi called on fellow soldiers and officers to join a demonstration expected to be held in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday.
"The Supreme Council is leading a counter-revolution," Abadi said. "We demand to be there, protesting peacefully in Tahrir wearing the military uniform."
In a separate video on YouTube, another plain-clothed man introducing himself as former army Capt. Sharif Osman rails against the military council, accusing it of "protecting a dictator."
On Thursday, military spokesman Maj. Mohamed Askar told CNN "any civilian or military personnel seen wearing army or military uniforms [at protests] will face immediate military tribunal."

The Supreme Council assumed executive powers following the abdication of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak on February 11.
The Egyptian military rode a wave of popularity after troops refused to open fire on pro-democracy protesters during 18 days of street protests. But in the weeks since, the secretive 20-man council has come under increasing criticism from different ends of the Egyptian political spectrum, amid complaints of human rights abuses and lack of transparency in its decision-making process.
Since February 11, Mubarak has been living on his estate in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. A growing number of Egyptians accuse the head of the council, Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, of protecting Mubarak from prosecution. Until February 11, Tantawi served for years as Mubarak's defense minister.
In his defiant 10-minute tirade, former captain Osman mocks Tantawi, calling him "grandpa." Meanwhile, the former air force officer Abadi accuses Tantawi of "destroying the armed forces."
Activists organizing this Friday's protest are labeling it a "Day of Trial and Cleansing."
Last week, more than 10,000 demonstrators peacefully protested in Tahrir Square, many of them heaping criticism on the ruling military council. But this week the numbers may swell considerably, since Egypt's long-banned Muslim Brotherhood movement has announced it intends to join the demonstration.
"The Muslim Brotherhood is joining the protest to support the demands of all the Egyptians who started this revolution, because we want to finish what we began," said Dr. Jamal Nassar, a senior official in the Brotherhood. "We want the army to speed up the trials of all those involved in corruption from the Mubarak regime."
This week, Egypt's interim government announced Mubarak's former housing minister Ibrahim Suleiman was placed under arrest for 15 days for alleged corrupt business deals. An arrest warrant was also issued for Hamdi Rasekh, a businessman who is one of Mubarak's brothers-in-law.
And on Thursday, a spokesman for the Egyptian Justice Ministry told CNN Mubarak's oldest son, Gamal, was expected to appear for questioning before the ministry's illegal profiteering committee on Sunday.
Gamal Mubarak is a wealthy, Western-educated banker who held a high-ranking position in Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party. It was also widely believed he was being cultivated to one day succeed his father as president of Egypt.

[Sasha]

tenthousands demonstrated today on tahir for the prosecution of the old regime and to call on the militarycouncel to make haste in turning over power to an civilian goverment.
despite the the threats by the military to courtmarshal any soldiers who would participate several officers, in uniform, attented and speeched.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Two killed in pre-dawn raid by military in Tahrir Square (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/09/egyptian-soldiers-tahrir-square-protesters)

[ckaihatsu]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704662604576257262572040464.html


[LaborTech] Egypt Sends Blogger to Prison for Criticizing Army


APRIL 11, 2011, 5:15 P.M. ET
Associated Press

CAIRO --An Egyptian military tribunal has convicted a blogger of insulting the army after he publicized reports of abuses by the military, and sentenced him to three years in prison, human rights groups said Monday.

The military court issued the sentence against Maikel Nabil Sanad, 26, Sunday without the presence of his lawyers, according to a statement by seven Cairo-based rights groups.

It was the first trial of a blogger by Egypt's military rulers, who took charge of the country after former president Hosni Mubarak was ousted by anti-government protests Feb. 11 after an 18-day popular uprising.

Rights lawyers say the sentence has wide implications for freedom of expression in post-Mubarak Egypt, and could set a precedent for anyone seeking to expose wrongdoing or abuses by the military.

A member of the military council, Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Assar told an Egyptian private TV station, ONTV, Monday, the armed forces is open to criticism--up to a point.

"There is a difference between criticism with good intentions from a citizen, a journalist or a broadcaster, who mean the public good. There is no problem with that," he said. "The problem is in questioning the intentions (of the army)."

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said it was "shocked" by the three-year jail sentence, asking the authorities to review it and free him "without delay."

The case against Mr. Sanad, who was arrested two weeks ago at his home, was based on a blog post titled "The people and the army were never hand in hand," questioning the military's continued allegiance to Mr. Mubarak; as well as Facebook postings reporting allegations of abuse.

"(Mr.) Maikel was posting on his blog news published by rights groups, and newspaper clippings" among other things, said Adel Ramadan, Mr. Sanad's lawyer. "The danger extends to all bloggers, rights activists and journalists."

In the same interview with ONTV, however, Maj. Gen. Ismail Etman said not only were Mr. Sanad's postings insulting, but he also agitated against the country's policy of mandatory military conscription, which would "affect people."

He added that Mr. Sanad might have "foreign links," without elaborating. Attributing foreign agendas to political activists was also a common tactic used by Mr. Mubarak's regime to tarnish its opponents.

"We don't object to opinions, but they must be with respect and without insults or defamation," Mr. Etman said, adding that the sentence could be appealed to the military's supreme court.

Rights groups have criticized the new military rulers for arbitrary arrests and speedy trials for civilians, saying their activities were reminiscent of those of the former regime.

Mr. Ramadan said more than 10,000 civilians have been convicted and sentenced by military tribunals since the army took over two months ago. He was quoting official court records and military statements and included cases involving minor theft, land disputes, as well as demonstrating and weapons possession.

Military trials are swift, do not follow the procedures and rules of evidence of civil courts.

Most Egyptians expressed joy when the military stepped in to remove Mr. Mubarak, chanting the slogan "the military and the people go hand in hand," but tension has since crept into the army's relations with the population.

In the early hours of the morning Saturday, soldiers forcefully stormed a protest camp on to break up a sit-in, killing at least one demonstrator and wounding dozens. The protesters had been critical of the military.

Volleys of gunfire rang through the streets of downtown Cairo for hours until the military withdrew at sunrise.

Soldiers arrested 42 civilians, including two foreigners, all of whom are now facing military tribunals. Eleven were later released, including the foreign nationals.

Around a thousand protesters have now started a new sit-in at the country's iconic Tahrir Square in Cairo demanding the resignation of the minister of defense and head of the army, Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi.

Heba Morayef, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, said Mr. Sanad's case also shows that the military cannot be criticized.

"It sets the military up as an establishment beyond criticism and beyond being held accountable," she said. "It sends exactly the wrong signal at a time when you are supposed to be transitioning away from abusive practices combined with official denial and failure to investigate."

It was also the harshest sentence against a blogger since 2004, when one was convicted of insulting the former president and offending Islam and sentenced to four years in prison.

[Os Cangaceiros]

a guide to Egypt's emerging political landscape (http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/10342/Egypt/Politics-/Shopping-for-a-political-party-Ahram-Onlines-idiot.aspx)

[Os Cangaceiros]

Doctors strike planned for mid-may (http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/human-a-civil-rights/syndicate-approves-decision-to-hold-doctors-strike.html)

Workers strike in a ceramics factory (http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/11343.aspx)

Thousands of workers struck/are striking in industries like transportation, manufacturing and energy (http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/422587)

[(A)(_|]

People in front of the Israeli embassy were violently dispersed today. Reports are saying they tried to break into the building but it's still unclear what exactly happened. A guy was shot in the head, and many others injured. Mainly it's the CSF (central security forces) who are back again. They were firing tear gas, bird shots, and some people said they fired live ammunition in the air. Not clear if it's blanks or what. They guy shot in the head is hospitalized. People still don't know if he's dead or what.

If you want updates, follow @3arabawy, @mandoz, @moftasa or @gsquare86 on Twitter.

Now reports there are 2 dead. One shot in the head, and the other ran over by CSF truck. Still awaiting what the military has to say about this. They can't cover up this time. Too many witnesses and footage.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Egypt's former finance minister sentenced to 30 years in prison (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/06/201164115437667338.html)

[Os Cangaceiros]

interesting polling in egypt (http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/middle-east/egyptians-see-reviving-the-economy-as-priority)

[Os Cangaceiros]

major split within the Muslim Brotherhood (http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/470366)

[Sasha]

Egyptian protesters gather in Tahrir Square
Mostly secular and leftist activists try to press military rulers to keep their promises of reform.

Last Modified: 09 Sep 2011 10:06

http://english.aljazeera.net/mritems/Images/2011/9/9/20119992154673580_20.jpg Anti-Mubarak protests continued this week outside the police academy where Mubarak's trial resumed [AFP] Protesters have started arriving at Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square for a planned mass rally calling for reforms, as the ruling military warned it would respond harshly to any violence by activists.
Organisers called the rally for Friday, which is expected to branch out into a march to the nearby cabinet offices, to press Egypt's military rulers to keep their promises of reform after a revolt ousted president Hosni Mubarak in February.
A live state television broadcast showed several hundred protesters converging on Tahrir Square ahead of the rally, which was expected to grow after the end of weekly Friday Muslim prayers at around 1100 GMT.
The military, in a statement posted on its Facebook page, said it respected the activists' right to protest peacefully, but warned it would respond to violence by the protesters with "the utmost severity and decisiveness".
The interior ministry said it had withdrawn riot police stationed in Tahrir Square to allow the activists to protest unhindered, the official MENA news agency reported.
The protest was called by mostly secular and leftist activists, and is being boycotted by the influential Muslim Brotherhood movement.
Secular activists are concerned that the military's current timetable for parliamentary elections in autumn will play into the hands of the Brotherhood by denying new political movements the time to organise into parties.
The activists are also demanding an end to the military trials of civilians.

source: al jazeera

[Rusty Shackleford]

rumor has it people were battling police and the army outside of the Israeli Embassy. apparently a wall of the embassy was knocked down and the Israeli flag was taken down, again.

ill see if i can confirm it.


EDIT: CONFIRMED

plH9s_fyMMQ

[PhoenixAsh]

The Egyptian military government wants to expand the state of emergency which has been in effect for the last 30 years.

The state of emergency lasw will include a complete ban on:

student demonstrations
union demonstrations and demonstrations by workers
hindering of traffic
spreading of rumours (wtf?)

In effect this means that any demonstration or protest can be quickly an d legally banned with an appeal to the state of emergency and any anti government speech will now be a punishable offense.

This is a direct reaction to the attacks on the Israeli embassy earlier this week. But it is probably something which has been planned for a long time. This initiative shows exactly what the people did wrong several months back....in leaving the square and letting the army take over and dictate terms the people have given away the chance to effectively change anything. The only effect of the massive protests so far has been a change in puppets...like many of us correctly predicted then.

By accepting this puppet change the protesters gave the "new" government time to entrench...they did so in the hopes things would get better and trusted different elements fro the same ruling class in making that happen. They gave away their initiative. They gave away their leading role. They gave it away to the ruling class. And this is what is the result.

A new battle is necessary. One which will not be so "easilly" gained. The new government does not have a real face. No scape goat in the form of a long term dictator....who can be blamed and removed to "make things better". This time it is the military who directly protects the interests of the burgeoisie...and we will see an entirely different attitude on the international stage.

The lesson we need to learn here: You can never ever let the ruling class solve the problems for you....never give away the initiative.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Egyptian soccer hooligans (http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/15345)


It’s thanks to him that I know that the acronym A.C.A.B. — which I now notice everywhere on the walls of Cairo — means “All Cops Are Bastards".

[Os Cangaceiros]

Ps0cZESV-ec

State-sanctioned violence against religious minorities, charming.

[Os Cangaceiros]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/10/attack-on-egyptian-christians-not-sectarian?CMP=twt_gu

[PhoenixAsh]

For those following the news in Egypt this may not be a surprise.

The last three days there have been large protests on Tahrir square again. On friday more than 20.000 people (source needed) protested the military rule of Egypt.

On saturday 300 were left. MOstly people who were injured during the large protests earlier this year. There were also family members of people who got killed or seriously injured. MOst of the people there were members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The police charged this group. And more than 5000 people rushed to the square to help them. At least one person was killed after being hit by a police bullet in the chest. More than 200 people got injured during the riots.

Today protests continued. And the military police cleaned the squuare in big clashes with the demonstrators. After the square was cleared of protesters thousands flocked back into the square.

The military government is currently having an emergency meeting to decide how to deal with the protests.

[PhoenixAsh]

7 people dead in clashes on Tahrir square!

4 people were shot by members of the miliktary police and security agencies. 3 people died fo suffocation from the copious amounts of teargas that was fired at them.

This according to the chief medical officer who is at the field hospital which has been errected at Tahrir square.

Thousands of protesters keep the square occupied and clash heavilly with police and security forces at the moment after the square was initially cleared by the military.

[PhoenixAsh]

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/11/2011112082333907688.html


the death toll of todays clashes is up to 11.

there were also clashes with protesters and the police in Alexandria, Suez and Aswan and several other cities.

Clashes continue throughout the night.

Live blog here: http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/Egypt

[PhoenixAsh]

watch the footage in the live blog. its horrible

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Yeah I'm getting some pretty disturbing photos on my twitter feed...

[PhoenixAsh]

protests escalte today. Currently I read conflicting reports about the number of casualties. One report speaks of 33 people who have died over the last 24 hours.

People protest the military governments plan to relinguish power in 2012 or 2013. They want the military government tp step down now and hand over power immediately to a civilian temporary intrim government.

[Bandito]

Revolution is, like we all knew it, unfinished.

Warning, violent picture:
http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/379983_280378768667781_133634216675571_749540_2182 67314_n.jpg
Added spoiler to image per request - Sentinel

[The Douche]

Can you hide that behind a spoiler and include a trigger warning for death/violence, please?

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I thought this was interesting if true-Egypt is close to another general strike


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXgtwZvhkaY&feature=player_embedded

Egyptian pigs in action

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8RA-MUefKw&feature=player_embedded

(one scene in there of a cop clubbing an unconscious man ... pretty heavy stuff)

[Grigori]

its on. check aljazeera

http://www.youtube.com/user/AlJazeeraEnglish

[brigadista]

qXgtwZvhkaY

[brigadista]

there are a LOT of people in tahrir sq right now

[Os Cangaceiros]

lotta continua! :cool:

Egyptians continue to be very inspiring for those acting against whatever variety of despotism they live under.

[Sentinel]

The Egyptian cabinet has offered to resign due to the new massive protests, but the Military Council hasn't accepted it so far.. BBC Article:


Egypt cabinet offers to resign as Cairo protests grow

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/56849000/jpg/_56849884_56848618.jpg
BBC's Lyse Doucet in Tahrir Square: "The anger that has been mounting for many months has now boiled over"

Egypt's cabinet has offered to resign after three days of protests against the country's military rulers, state media have reported.
Cabinet spokesman Mohammed Hegazy said the resignation had not yet been accepted by the military council.
As he spoke, thousands of people swelled crowds of protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square.
More than 20 people have been killed and nearly 1,800 injured in three days of violence in the Egyptian capital.
Egyptian activist groups have been demanding the military council hand power to a civilian government.
"The government of Prime Minister Essam Sharaf has handed its resignation to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces," cabinet spokesman Mohammed Hegazy said in a statement carried by the official Mena news agency.
"Owing to the difficult circumstances the country is going through, the government will continue working (until the resignation is accepted)."
A military source has told the BBC that the council is meeting now to discuss the cabinet's offer, but there is still no consensus on whether to accept it. The same source said that the council was also consulting other political groups.
The BBC's Yolande Knell in Cairo says the crowds in Tahrir Square cheered and shouted "God is great" when they heard news that the cabinet had submitted its resignation.
However they soon resumed an earlier chant "the people want the removal of the marshal" - a reference to Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, who heads the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.
The ruling generals are the real focus of demonstrators' anger, she adds. The interim cabinet is seen as having little power.
Our correspondent says several thousand people remain in Tahrir Square and many plan to spend the night.
US 'concern'As night fell in Cairo, thousands more flocked to the symbolic square - the focal point of protests that overthrew Hosni Mubarak in February.
Ambulances forced their way through the crowds and medics told the BBC they were seeing people injured by tear gas and rubber bullets.
Field Marshal Tantawi has the task of overseeing the country's transition to democracy after three decades of autocratic rule under ousted President Hosni Mubarak.
Elections are due to begin across Egypt next week but many Egyptians fear the military plans to hold on to the reins of power, whatever the outcome.
Late on Monday, a coalition of political groups - including followers of opposition figure Mohamed El Baradei - accused the military council of leading a "counter-revolution".
They called for a mass demonstration in Tahrir Square on Tuesday.
In a Facebook page for the rally, the groups called for the resignation of Prime Minister Essam Sharaf's cabinet and the formation of a "national salvation" government.
They also demanded a presidential election be held by April 2012.
As the violence and tension escalated the US called for restraint on all sides. "We're deeply concerned about the violence," said White House spokesman Jay Carney.
Earlier on Monday protesters set up burning barricades in and around the square and threw stones at riot police and troops.
Security forces responded with batons, tear gas and birdshot.
Officials confirmed on Monday that more than 20 people had been killed and about 1,800 injured since Saturday.
One of the protesters in Cairo, Ahmed Imam, 33, said handing power to the military after the overthrow of Mr Mubarak had been a mistake.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/56853000/jpg/_56853105_013376485-1.jpgProtesters fought running street battles with riot police and troops
"We should not have left the streets. We handed power to the military on a silver platter," he said.
"The revolutionaries went home too soon. We collected the spoils and left before the battle was over."
In other developments


Culture minister Emad Abu Ghazi resigned in protest at the government response and 25 Egyptian political parties called for the ministers of information and the interior to be sacked over the violence



A group of senior Egyptian diplomats condemned the way the protests had been handled and demanded an immediate halt to attacks on protesters



Amr Moussa, former secretary-general of the Arab League and now a presidential candidate in Egypt, said the use of force against the protesters could not be justified

Trouble started on Saturday after demonstrations against proposed constitutional changes unveiled by the interim government.
The military council produced a draft document setting out principles for a new constitution, under which the military and its budget could be exempted from civilian oversight.
A proposal by the military to delay the presidential election until late 2012 or early 2013 has further angered the opposition.
Protesters want the presidential vote to take place after parliamentary elections, which begin on 28 November and will be staggered over the next three months.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15826048

[brigadista]

cant find any live coverage anymore but threatened net blackout and a lot of call outs on twitter for medicine and blood donors ...and there is more teargas

[brigadista]

tahrir sq militant but free of clashes -
main clashes around the side streets leading up to ministry of the interior-
many ambulances and drs treating casualties
many protesters lost eyes yesterday ...

big clashes also in Alexandria..battlezone outside police directorate , teargas and shooting

[freepalestine]

Marches staged in governorates in solidarity with Tahrir protesters
Al-Masry Al-Youm Staff
Mon, 21/11/2011 - 13:22



Photographed by Mohamed Al Garnousy
The April 6 Youth Movement Democratic Front organized marches on Monday in Damietta Governorate to condemn assaults on protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Marches passed through Damietta's streets and its corniche. Participants held banners demanding the formation of a civil presidential council.

In Beheira, political groups staged a march of around 3000 people to condemn the attacks on Tahrir protesters.

Launched from Sa’aa Square in Damanhour, it passed through the city’s main squares. Protesters chanted slogans against the Interior Ministry and the ruling military council and called for a handover of power.

In a statement, the movement demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Essam Sharaf’s cabinet, and that Interior Minister Mansour al-Essawy be questioned about the Tahrir violence.

Five people were injured, including three central security personnel, in Qena following clashes among police and protesters outside the governorate's security directorate building. Protesters attempted to break into the building, while police fired tear gas to disperse them.

Translated from the Arabic Edition
http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/516901





http://www.revleft.com/vb/revolution-continues-egypt-t164754/index.html?t=164754

[brigadista]

from tahrir sq 45 minutes ago

please watch

http://vimeo.com/32478270

[brigadista]

statement by the Revolutionary socialists 21.11.11

http://www.scribd.com/doc/73421569/Statement-by-the-Revolutionary-Socialists-21-Nov-2011

[El Rojo]

good report from Lenin's Tomb:

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2011/11/occupy-tahrir-square.html

cuesta lo que cuesta, la lucha sigue sigue!

[brigadista]

youth are leading the way - many injured and dead uprising also in ALexandria and Suez
"million Man" march today tahrir sq filling up with even more people- major teargas use

aGKWw10rokw

[brigadista]

uprisings all over egypt ....

[brigadista]

twitter posts reporting since tantawi announcement huge crackdown in alexandria and weird gas being used in tahrir sq possibly CR gas

[robbo203]

Try this as well - on the situation in Egypt http://www.spacesofhope.org/

[bcbm]

clashes ongoing in alexandria, esp. near police hq
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/11/20111122205520948614.html

[freepalestine]

article maybe from revolutionarysocialists egypt(??)
================================================== ===

Issue: 2279 dated: 26 November 2011 International
posted: 6.25pm Tue 22 Nov 2011
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=26795

Egyptians rage against the regime




The ongoing revolution has reached a critical point as protesters and police clash in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, writes Sameh Naguib from Egypt’s Revolutionary Socialists

People are filling the squares in cities across Egypt in their tens of thousands. The numbers in the streets are amazing.

Egypt’s second city of Alexandria is on fire. Students have marched in their thousands there. Even cities like Aswan in the more sparsely populated south have seen massive demos.

The people here in Tahrir Square are mainly young and working class. The barricades are up. Every time the police try to come back in they are forced back.

The police are reduced to protecting the interior ministry’s building. That’s all they can do now. Yet even there they have to fend off waves of attacks from thousands of protesters.

There appear to be splits in the ruling military council about what to do. At one point the army went into Tahrir Square with extreme force. Then abruptly they turned round and left again.

Some of the army clearly want to go all out to crush us. There were serious battles all around the edges of the square to get back in. But others think that’s too dangerous for the unity of the army itself.

Brutal

The attacks we face are more brutal than anything we’ve seen yet. In Tahrir Square alone 33 people have been killed so far.

All around people are dying. The army are throwing dead bodies on the street. It has a fascist tone to it. Over 2,000 have been injured and many of those injuries are very serious.

The police and army are using terrible tear gas. It’s completely different to what they have used before. It leaves you out of breath, nauseous and disorientated.

They are using it in massive amounts to create huge clouds of white smoke. If you can’t get away people faint and suffocate. It becomes very dangerous.

But the violence is not working. The people are amazingly resilient. One guy we know, Ahmed Harara, lost an eye in the battle on 29 January. He wore an eye patch with the date written on it.

On Sunday he lost his other eye in the battle in Tahrir Square. He now has a second patch with 20 November written on it. And he is here in the square with us tonight.

Stage

This is a new stage in the revolution. But it will be a long battle. We don’t know what is coming yet. The crowds in Tahrir Square are as big as they were during the early days of the revolution. And the revolutionary anger is even greater than it was in January.

The army has miscalculated. This all started with provocation by the police. That created a huge backlash.

Now the security forces seem powerless to take the square back. They would need a wholesale massacre to do that—and that would create even more anger.

Perhaps this was a badly planned counter-revolution. As in other revolutions in history, sometimes an attempt at *counter-revolution can jumpstart the revolution. That is what is happening here. The mood has shifted completely.

People always suspected that the military would not give up power even after elections. Now there is unprecedented clarity among the people. They understand that the enemy is the military junta.

Egyptians don’t just want Field Marshal Tantawi to step down. People now want to see him tried for crimes against the Egyptian people.

There is rage on the streets. The civilian ministers’ offer of resignation is nowhere near enough. Various political leaders came into the square today to talk to people.

But they were seen as collaborators because they had not come out strongly against the military. They were surrounded and beaten up.

Backdrop

This is happening against a backdrop of economic crisis. The regime is in serious economic trouble. They are running out of foreign currency, partly because tourists are staying away.

Prices are rising and wages are still at poverty levels. This is fuelling workers’ struggles. There is real chance of another big strike wave.

The role of the workers movement over the next days and weeks will be critical. Workers have been fighting back and setting up new unions partly because of growing confidence, but also because of the impact of the crisis.

The new federation of independent trade unions issued a strong statement that fully backs the latest demonstrations.

Political struggles can feed into the workers’ movement and generate renewed confidence for economic battles. These in turn can strengthen the movement on the streets. Every concession the regime makes creates a new will to fight.

We are agitating among workers and calling for a general strike across Egypt to finish off the regime. Our message to workers simple—“You saved the revolution the first time. You can do it again now.”

How you can help us

Egyptian activists need people internationally to protest in solidarity with them. We don’t know what the military are planning next. They might try to imprison many of us.

The important message is that the generals are a bunch of murderers. Young people are dying all over Egypt. We are fighting for the future of the revolution. And we need your solidarity now.

Egyptian activists in Britain have called a protest every night this week, from 5pm to 7pm, outside the Egyptian embassy at 26 South Street, London W1K 1DW.



For more details go to www.menasolidaritynetwork.com

The following should be read alongside these articles:

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=26798
‘The revolution has reawakened’

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=26799
Role of Revolutionary Socialists

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=26800
The military against the masses

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=26783
Egyptian workers’ movement is critical to revolution

[brigadista]

live overage tonight tahrir sq 21.11.11 at reuters

http://live.reuters.com/Event/Revolution_continues_in_Egypt

looks like even more people there tonight -

[brigadista]

warning the end of this vid is graphic
PyG3fRHYYQo

[ckaihatsu]

Egyptian people take to the streets, demand end to military rule

By Staff


Protesters filled Cairo’s Tahrir Square, Nov. 22 demanding an end to military rule. Over the past four days, massive demonstrations have rocked Egypt’s capitol, along with Alexandra, Mahalla al-Kubra and a host of smaller cities. Authorities have killed scores of demonstrators and wounded several thousand.

In a Nov. 22 speech on television, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, offered some token concessions that that were rejected and ridiculed by the crowds in the streets. The top brass of Egypt’s military are pressing for measures that would maintain their political supremacy in the period following the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Tantawi was leading figure in the hated regime of President Hosni Mubarak and, like many others at the core of Egypt military, is closely tied with the U.S.

The U.S. provides more than $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt each year. In addition to the tear gas used to suppress demonstrations, the U.S. provides F-16 jet fighters, Apache helicopters and a host of advanced weapons systems. Following Israel, Egypt is the number two recipient of U.S. aid.

Commenting on the situation, Stef Yorek, the Political Secretary of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, stated, “The people of Egypt are pushing forward a national democratic process that aims at bring an end to military rule and foreign domination. Their struggle to bring down Mubarak was an inspiration and example to people everywhere. As they continue their fight, they deserve solidarity and support from everyone who cares about justice. We demand an end to all U.S. government assistance to the Egyptian regime.”

Read more News and Views from the Peoples Struggle at http://www.fightbacknews.org. You can write to us at [email protected]






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[Rusty Shackleford]

today

vssUVY2DJLo

[A Revolutionary Tool]

What is that for, aren't they just basically celebrating the anniversary of their revolution?

[ckaihatsu]

http://strongerunions.org/2012/01/30/egypt%E2%80%99s-new-labour-movement-comes-of-age/?utm_source=dlvr.itutm_medium=twitter


Ben Moxham

Egypt’s new labour movement comes of age


On the desert-battered outskirts of Cairo, in a kitsch marble convention centre, the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU) has just announced to Egypt and the world that it has come of age. EFITU was born in the inspiration and chaos of Tahrir square, exactly 12 months to the day. Since then they have been organising, organising and organising. Today was a chance to show the results and I was blown away.

The federation claims to have organised a phenomenal 2 million workers into 200 unions in barely a year. Of course, many of the new independent unions have their roots in the underground workers’ struggles throughout the past decade. And without clear ways to keep membership records, the total figure may be in doubt, but as an accurate figure emerges it will still be the single most impressive organising effort I’ve ever come across (And this is just one of the two new independent federations: the Egyptian Democratic Labour Congress (EDLC) claims to have signed up 214 unions with a seven figure combined membership also).

Legitimacy means everything to this nascent movement. So long denied a voice in the workplace and a voice in society, they are determined to be democratic and everywhere. “We bid farewell to land-lord run unions” of Mubarak, said Kamal Abou Aita, the acting President of EFITU.

And they did so in meticulous-style: each of the 264 delegates would vote, one-by-one, walking up onto the congress stage, showing their ID, filing out their ballot and putting it in a large glass box for the entire hall to see. “How powerful is that?” I thought after the first few votes. “How long will this take?” I thought after three hours and only 140 delegates in. More hours passed and I realised that these guys have pyramid-building patience and that I’d nodded off and drooled a bit.

But by then the party had set in. Us international guests filed some dead air time by firing off our best platitudes from the podium. I took the liberty to pass on your solidarity, and then joined in a few chants that I didn’t understand. By the time I left the congress in the wee hours the votes for the finance committee were only just rolling in.

What about the role of women in this new Egyptian union movement I hear you ask? Sure they were at the forefront of the revolution but early photos I saw of this new union movement showed a room full of men, straining the definition of middle-aged.

But today’s congress showed progress and promise. “It fills us with pride that the youth represent the vast majority of our union organisation, and that women play a pivotal role in our union,” said Abou Aita. And I could see that he wasn’t wrong. Further, it was these delegates that moved an amendment to EFITU’s constitution to put in place a 25 per cent quota for women. No mean feat in this part of the world.

But the journey for women’s empowerment in Egypt will be a long one. Take this sobering passage from the ILO’s latest global employment trends report on Egypt, Libya and Tunisa (page 75):

The unemployment rate for young people in the region was 27.1 per cent in 2011, the rate for women stood at 19.0 per cent and young women faced an unemployment rate of 41.0 per cent.

Even where they have a job, “female workers and those in the private sector work in slave-like conditions”, concluded Kamal Abbass, the acting leader of the EDLC, after describing the extreme overtime, poverty wages and high levels of harassment they face. With British business sourcing from these export zones of “slave-like conditions”, we need to play our role.

The new unions are still very much workplace based, yet to make connections with those in the same sector, or region, but the links are emerging. But workshop sessions throughout the week are pulling together key workers in the same sector, their respective global sectoral union federations helping with the speed-merger-dating.

And bizarrely, it got exciting: “We have formed 23 committees! And I’m on the fishing committee!”, yelled out one speaker to thunderous applause and more infectious chants that I didn’t understand. I wished I was on the fishing committee.

These workers are from workplaces across Egypt. I spoke with welders, justice ministry workers, bus drivers, teachers, farmers, postal workers, and nurses. Abou Aita also spoke proudly of the vulnerable – “peasants, casual workers, informal economy workers and street vendors” – swelling their ranks.

What impressed me greatly is that these folks aren’t waiting for some legislative silver bullet to deliver a union movement to them. They are going out there and making it under laws that haven’t changed since Hosni Mubarak owned the country.

And it’s tough. Most of them don’t have offices, and are barred from opening bank accounts. All of them face workplaces where the official stooge unions of the old regime are still collecting compulsory dues against the wishes of the workforce. To join a real union in Egypt you have to pay double.

Further, the new government may be dominated by Islamic parties that swept the recent elections, and a new law on trade union freedoms is yet to be enacted. But these won’t stop this chanting hall of workers whose time has come. They’ve already sunk their roots too deep.

Posted on January 30th, 2012 by Ben Moxham


Copyright © 2012 Stronger Unions, Trades Union Congress. All rights reserved.
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[A Revolutionary Tool]

More protests in Egypt:
rC_pj664wl4

In Suez police used live ammunition to ward off protesters at the police station and killed two people and an army lieutenant was killed when he accidentally got run over by a truck.

http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-protesters-besiege-cairo-ministry-022425302.html


CAIRO (Reuters) - Rock-throwing protesters fought riot police through clouds of tear gas near Egypt's Interior Ministry on a second day of clashes triggered by the deaths in Port Said of 74 people - the country's worst soccer disaster.
A demonstrator and an army officer were reported dead in Cairo and in the city of Suez two people were killed on Friday as police used live rounds to hold back crowds trying to break into a police station and fought in front of the state security headquarters, witnesses and the ambulance service said.
Hundreds of protesters blocked roads near state security headquarters in Egypt's second-largest city Alexandria.
Most of those killed in the Port Said football stadium on Wednesday night were crushed in a stampede and the government declared three days of mourning. Protesters hold the military-led authorities responsible.
It was the country's deadliest incident since an uprising ousted Hosni Mubarak almost a year ago and it gave fresh impetus to regular street protests against Egypt's ruling generals.
"We will stay until we get our rights. Did you see what happened in Port Said?" said 22-year-old Abu Hanafy, who arrived from work on Thursday evening and decided to join the protest.
The ministry in Cairo, a focus of hatred for football fans who say lax policing was to blame for the stadium disaster, has been hemmed in by street battles since Thursday.
Thousands staged running battles with riot police throughout Friday, ignoring government appeals to end the violence.
Tens of thousands were protesting peacefully nearby in Cairo's landmark Tahrir Square after 28 youth activist groups and political parties called for a "Friday of Anger."
A Reuters witness heard firing and found gun pellets on the ground. Demonstrators had heaved aside a concrete barrier blocking a main road near the ministry overnight to get closer to the building.
"We pulled it down with our bare hands," said Abdul-Ghani Mohamed, a 32-year-old construction worker. "We are the sons of the pharaohs."
Ambulances had to intervene overnight to extract riot police whose truck took a wrong turn into a street full of protesters.
Police fired round after round of tear gas and the wind picked up on Friday afternoon to waft the fumes back to the police lines, leading the rioting protesters, some of whom waved soccer team flags, to cry "God is Greatest."
Some of the demonstrators, mostly men in their late teens and 20s, goaded police defending the neat five-story ministry building, shouting "The army, the police - one filthy hand."
DESTRUCTION IN SUEZ
Almost 1,700 people had been hurt by late morning in the latest confrontations in Cairo and 207 in Suez, the Health Ministry said, many of them from inhaling tear gas.
An army lieutenant was killed by a security vehicle that ran over him by mistake, Health Ministry officials said.
Rocks thrown by protesters littered streets that two months ago saw clashes between police and activists who view the Interior Ministry as an unreformed vestige of Mubarak's rule.
Hardcore football fans known as "ultras," who often clash with the police and were at the forefront of the uprising against Mubarak, vowed to continue their protests.
"The crimes committed against the revolutionary forces will not stop the revolution or scare the revolutionaries," said a pamphlet printed in the name of the ultras.
In Suez, witnesses said fighting broke out at a police station. "We received two corpses of protesters shot dead by live ammunition," said a doctor at a morgue.
Police cordoned off the Suez state security headquarters and a Justice Ministry compound with razor wire and seven burned-out vehicles were nearby.
Many shops in Suez were wrecked and the facade of the Suez Canal Bank was destroyed. Police fired tear gas and shotgun pellets at protesters throwing stones.
The soccer stadium deaths have heaped fresh criticism on the military council that has governed Egypt since Mubarak stepped down. Critics regard the generals as part of his administration and an obstacle to change.
The army leadership, in turn, has presented itself as the guardian of the "January 25 revolution" and promised to hand power to an elected president by the end of June.
INTERIOR MINISTER BLAMES FANS
Health officials said at least 1,000 people were hurt in Port Said when fans invaded the pitch after local team al-Masry beat Cairo's Al Ahli, Africa's most successful club.
Hundreds of al-Masry supporters surged across the pitch to the visitors' end and panicked Al Ahli fans dashed for the exit. But the steel doors were bolted shut and dozens were crushed to death in the stampede, witnesses said.
The cause of the violence has been the focus of intense speculation. Some believe it was triggered by unknown provocateurs working for remnants of the Mubarak administration who are seeking to sabotage the transition to democracy.
Fans were puzzled at how match officials allowed the game to continue even as rival supporters threw stones and fired flares.
They also pointed to a thin police presence given the tense build-up to the game and a precedent of violence at such highly charged events.
Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said the fans started it by insulting and provoking each other.
The public prosecutor ordered 52 suspects in the Port Said incident detained for 15 days pending investigation, state news agency MENA said.
They all face charges of premeditated murder, causing bodily harm, thuggery and destroying public property, MENA quoted deputy public prosecutor Abdul-Maguid Mahoumd as saying. The prosecutor will base his case partly on footage from 33 video cameras running in the stadium during the violence.
Ibrahim was widely blamed for the deaths during an emergency parliamentary session on Thursday. MPs including the Islamists who control some 70 percent of the chamber called for him to be held to account and accused him of negligence.
Safwat Zayat, an analyst, said the incident had done further damage to the image of the country's military rulers. "The current events push in the direction of speeding up the transfer of power to civilians," Zayat said.

[ckaihatsu]

Mass protests in Egypt against pro-junta football riot

http://wsws.org/articles/2012/feb2012/egyp-f03.shtml

[Os Cangaceiros]

Dockers in the Egyptian port of Sokhna set to strike from tomorrow are receiving support from the International Transport Workers' Federation, which represents 4.5 million workers in the transport industry worldwide.

http://www.itfglobal.org/press-area/index.cfm/pressdetail/7013

[ckaihatsu]

Egypt: Trade union sentenced to 6 months for "insulting" Mubarak-era hack


Kamal Abbas needs our help right now.


Is this email not displaying correctly?
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Kamal Abbas, a leading figure in the fight to create independent democratic trade unions in Egypt, has been sentenced to six months in prison for the "crime" of insulting a Mubarak-era hack at an International Labor Organization conference.

Abbas is used to such treatment at the hands of the Mubarak regime, which jailed him and tried to crush the Center for Trade Union and Worker Services (CTUWS) which he headed.

But the Mubarak era is supposed to be behind us. After all, we are now one year into the Arab Spring.

The world's trade unions are calling for a massive online mobilization to demand that the charges be dropped.

Please take a moment to click here (http://labourstart.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=f3995b46c18cb039818f29a32&id=80bb794882&e=4e93ef2fad) and then spread the word.

Thank you!

Eric Lee
Copyright © 2012 LabourStart, All rights reserved.
You are receiving this message because you opted in at our website (http://www.labourstart.org) - most likely when you signed up to support one of our online campaigns in support of workers' rights.
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[Roxsas]

i think i can update this with some more news

1-the workers strikes have risen sharply over the last month which may reach even more than 30 different strikes

2-the Unis n high school revolutionary movement is very high n the highest caders being leftists from the Revolutionary socialist organization [marxists]

3- the star strike now is the general strike of public transportation workers [except the railway] wich have entered it's 10th day

4-the people mostly now hate or ignore the elected congress n senate n starting to denounce them being SCAF's lapdogs [mostly right wing religious fascists called the Muslim Brotherhood]

[Ottoraptor]

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/12/201212713828773287.html It's nice to see the salafist aren't leading the opposition, but I'm skeptical of coalitions with liberals (and in at least one case a conservative group) and this feels like a bit too much like a popular front minus islamists.

[hetz]

Why would salafists be leading the opposition when they have much more in common with the MB?

[Ottoraptor]

Why would salafists be leading the opposition when they have much more in common with the MB?

The Salafis were the next largest group in the egyptian parliament and I wouldn't have put it past them to take advantage of this drop in MB support. I'm happy I'm wrong and it doesn't take away from the fact this National Salvation Front smells horribly of popular frontism.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Why isn't there more discussion about what's happening in Egypt over the past few days? 100.000's of people out in Cairo, strikes, tanks in front of the presidential palace, raging street battles between the regime's supporters & opponents etc, it's starting to look a lot like early 2011 again.

Makes me have a lot of respect for Egyptians! Active participants in their own political future.

[Balocheski]

I just knew something like this would happen, from the moment he was elected and from the moment he entered the candidacy.

Issuing a decree all by himself, because he thought he is the president and can do anything. How can this man be this stupid? Did he thinks that people are dumb and that were will be no consequences?

BTW, following OnTV(the only liberal Egyptian channel, I guess).

[Le Socialiste]

There's more to this recent upsurge in activity than just 'liberals' protesting the MB. Mostafa Ali, a journalist and member of Egypt's Revolutionary Socialists had this to say in an interview:


The anger against the Brotherhood isn't only in the major centers of the revolution, Cairo and Alexandria. One new phenomenon of the past few weeks is that the outrage is growing in rural areas and provincial cities that have been strongholds of the Brotherhood.

http://socialistworker.org/2012/12/07/new-turning-point-in-egypt

Even those who were 'soft supporters' of Morsi, who thought he'd usher in new social and political reforms, are growing increasingly disillusioned and joining the protesters.

[ulysses]

Thought there would be more postings on Egypt, so just bumping the thread. Are there any comrade from Egypt on the board that can say what is happening with the situation currently? There was the bit of commotion earlier this year into early February with the unrest in Port Said, the tension with the Muslim Brotherhood and the questioning of Morsi's legitimacy, Black Blocairo, etc. Anything new??

They're planning on holding elections in mid-April, and it seems like things have quieted down, at least on the media front...

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/02/201322122221254348.html

[bcbm]

seven allaged black bloc members arrested (http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/69749/Egypt/Politics-/Seven-alleged-Black-Bloc-members-arrested-in-Egypt.aspx)

[Paul Pott]

Is Revleft living under a rock? Egypt is in the worst turmoil since 2011, the protesters demand that Morsi step down. The opposition politicians are calling for the military to depose him.

American and Israeli flags are being burned, an American has been killed, and slurs shouted at western journalists. This is by the Anti-Morsi people.

[Paul Pott]

http://news.antiwar.com/2013/06/28/egypt-clerics-warn-of-civil-war-as-three-killed-in-protest-violence/

[Paul Pott]

OZXrGVKros4

[Paul Pott]

The day of truth will be Sunday, though.

[ed miliband]

potential coup?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/01/egypt-army-mohamed-morsi-coup

[Sasha]

'Third Square' protesters reject Morsi, army




http://www.madamasr.com/sites/default/files/styles/banner/public/photos/news/Protests.jpg?itok=-rkNmYhM (http://www.madamasr.com/sites/default/files/photos/news/Protests.jpg)




Photo by:

Sarah Carr (http://www.madamasr.com/content/sarah-carr)


Friday, July 26, 2013 - 15:16


Authors:

Sarah Carr (http://www.madamasr.com/content/sarah-carr)

While deposed President Mohamed Morsi's supporters began marches around Cairo and as their opponents took to the streets in response to an army call for support to fight terrorism, a small group of people opposed to both camps made their position known in Sphinx Square.
They refer to themselves as "the Third Square". In a leaflet distributed in the protest they describe themselves as "a group of Egyptians who protested on January 25 against the corruption of the [Hosni] Mubarak state... protested against [former head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces Field Marshal Hussein] Tantawi's men who gave the army a bad name during the transitional period and protested against Morsi and religious fascism in order to call for early elections."
The leaflet says that they are protesting today against the army playing a role in politics and against "the defense minister calling for an authorization to kill Egyptians on the pretext of fighting terrorism when fighting terrorism does not require a mandate because that is the duty of the Armed Forces."
One of the protesters, Ahmed Adel, director of an NGO, said, "we are a group of young people whose views are not represented either in Tahrir Square or Rabaa al-Adaweya." Tahrir Square is where pro-army protesters are gathering, while Rabea al-Adaweya is a site of a sit-in of Morsi supporters.
He was critical of Egyptians being forced to choose between two camps "just because the Muslim Brotherhood failed" saying that he wants neither "religious fascism nor the army." He said that many people will not protest today because neither camp represents them.
Another protester, Marwa Ibrahim said, "I refused the June 30 coup not because I loved Morsi but because it was a violation of revolutionary legitimacy. We want a civilian president." Ibrahim said that a priority for her is justice for martyrs killed in the last three years.
Adel said that "[Armed Forces Chief Commander Abdel Fattah al-] Sisi shouldn't have thrown out the constitution and the elected institutions in the bin, he shouldn't have resorted to these speedy measures."
Today's protests following more than two weeks of clashes between supporters of the president who was deposed by the army on July 3 and his opponents.





source: http://www.madamasr.com/content/third-square-protesters-reject-morsi-army

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VTVfyCV9yc

[ckaihatsu]

BBC News - Sinai bomb kills 11 Egyptian troops

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27xjE27rG0k


Car bombing kills at least 10 Egyptian soldiers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSFQ85n0ShM


Egyptian police clear Tahrir square after protests

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3H9YejTqJM


Protesters hit Cairo's Tahrir on anniversary of deaths

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYqkGOx-5PY


Raw - Egyptian Clash at Tahrir Square

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNgoGW_Tsug

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-h6jqibHeQ

[ckaihatsu]

Three years after Mubarak's fall: support a new solidarity initiative against repression in Egypt


Egypt Solidarity: take action against repression


View this email in your browser (http://us3.campaign-archive1.com/?u=c9f63bc0526145a2dbe8f5300&id=c42d6e0381&e=e7d11d3114)


A call to action

In 2011 millions of ordinary Egyptians amazed the world. In a country where for decades dictatorship held sway, they toppled a tyrant through mass demonstrations and strikes. Spurred on by the example of Tunisia’s rebellion, Egypt’s uprising unleashed a tidal wave of protest. From Madrid, to New York to Istanbul and beyond, millions of people began to look towards Egypt for inspiration and hope. The revolution’s slogan of ‘bread, freedom and social justice’ reverberated across the world.

For the past three years, MENA Solidarity (http://egyptsolidarityinitiative.us3.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=c9f63bc0526145a2dbe8f5300&id=ff124a2cf1&e=e7d11d3114) has been organising campaigns in solidarity with Egyptian activists. On 25 January this year we were outside the Egyptian embassy in London as news came through that peaceful protests marking the anniversary of the revolution were broken up by the riot police, who admit to gunning down over 60 demonstrators in the street.

The old dictator’s generals are back in charge, attempting to wipe out all trace of the revolution with an iron fist. Journalists, lawyers, trade unionists, students and political activists opposed to the military are all under threat.

That is why we are helping to launch Egypt Solidarity with this call to action.

If the pictures from Tahrir made you believe that ordinary people can change the world...
If the courage of Egypt’s revolutionaries gave you confidence to challenge your bullying boss at work...
If after Mubarak's fall you walked taller on a protest, or held your head up higher on the picket line...

...we need you now.

The Egypt Solidarity founding statement has been signed by leading trade unionists, MPs, human rights lawyers, activists and academics from seven countries. Read it online here (http://egyptsolidarityinitiative.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c9f63bc0526145a2dbe8f5300&id=dd56958640&e=e7d11d3114)

Add your name to our statement online here (http://egyptsolidarityinitiative.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c9f63bc0526145a2dbe8f5300&id=dd56958640&e=e7d11d3114)

Ways to share the campaign online (http://egyptsolidarityinitiative.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c9f63bc0526145a2dbe8f5300&id=45d0ee8fe9&e=e7d11d3114).

Take action at work or on campus. Model motions and resources here (http://egyptsolidarityinitiative.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c9f63bc0526145a2dbe8f5300&id=7d37a05c38&e=e7d11d3114).

CC-BY Egypt Solidarity 2014

Our mailing address is:
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[ckaihatsu]

Atheism in Egypt - The challenges facing non-believers BBC News

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMvFSX00PAI

[ckaihatsu]

Egypt and Russia sign mutual cooperation pact in Moscow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HsGmd7ByXs

[ckaihatsu]

Russia's Putin gives supports to Sisi's bid for Egypt presidency

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPDXsaUZ_Uw

[ckaihatsu]

Islamist militant group warns all tourists to evacuate Sinai by Thursday

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5-foSlpCzo

[ckaihatsu]

Egypt's Military Backed Government Resigns

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAAxtq_zJ5w


Filmmakers record a revolution in Oscar nominated 'The Square'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OupSOZ3y5xo


Unexpected resignation of Egypt's government

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKNYXFt1SrE

[ckaihatsu]

Egypt's new PM vows to fight militant violence and rebuild economy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kuagwoFRec