Interviews with Mahmoud Afifi

The April 6th Youth Movement used to create an event on Facebook every year on January 25th, it is National Police Day [an Egyptian holiday that commemorates the death of 50 police officers who were killed by British soldiers]. We’d say in this event, “Thugs are going to celebrate and we will celebrate with them.” By “thugs” we meant policemen. We used to demonstrate in front of the office of the Attorney General or the Union of Journalists or the Ministry of the Interior condemning torture and crimes committed by the Egyptian police on their National Day. We used to demonstrate and go back home. This was the case every year, in 2009, 2010 and also in 2011, we created the event on January 4th saying, “Thugs are going to celebrate and we will celebrate with them.”

We didn’t think that it was going to be a revolution; we thought it would be a normal demonstration just like every year.

But with the flare of events in Tunisia, the flight of [former Tunisian President Zine el Abidine] Ben Ali, and the success of Tunisians in overthrowing the regime of Ben Ali, we started to have some hope and believe that we would have a revolution as well. We must change the current situation and we shall overthrow the regime. The situation in Egypt is way more complicated than in Tunisia. We have different youth and political movements that are interested in political action at this stage, so we had to move and overthrow the regime.

There was a coordination between the movement and a page called “We are all Khaled Saeed” [a young Egyptian who was beaten to death by Egyptian security forces in 2010] on Facebook to make a common activity so that we go down the streets and change the current situation.

We all started to talk with people about joining us at that day and we searched for activities calling for a revolution on Facebook and communicated with them. We believed that there will be a revolution on January 25th and we will overthrow the regime.

Some of us were optimistic while others were pessimistic. Some said that it won’t be a revolution, because revolutions shouldn’t be announced. They believed that it will be just like every year. Those people were concerned with people who will go down to the streets for a demonstration for the first time. They were afraid of the disappointment in case the revolution was abandoned, or the repression practiced by the regime.

This was their concern. The optimists said that it will be a revolution and we will change the country, we won’t return except after the revolution.

The general feeling of optimism was because there was a very large number of activists and ordinary people who are using Facebook for the first time and talking about politics for the first time saying that they will go down to the streets and make a change. We received messages and photos from Egyptians abroad holding a banner reading “I will join on January 25th to make a change.”

We started working in the streets and started to go down and distribute millions of papers calling to join us on January 25th.

The reaction varied from one person to another. Personally, I was optimistic, but not to the extent that we will overthrow the regime! I believed that we will make a big incident that we will shake Egypt, and that there will be very large numbers of activists and ordinary people asking for change, and that political and economic reforms will take place.

Mahmoud Afifi is an Egyptian democracy activist with the April 6th Youth Movement, a group formed in 2008 to support striking workers; afterwards, it transformed into a nationwide opposition network against Hosni Mubarak’s regime. Today, Afifi serves as the Director of the April 6th Youth Movement’s Information Office. He is a lawyer by profession and graduated from Banha University in 2006.

Afifi joined the April 6th Youth Movement in 2009 and founded the group’s chapter in Egypt’s Qalyubia governorate. There he rallied youth to take part in various awareness campaigns and street protests against the government. As part of this strategy, he engaged the poorest segments of the population and strengthened their voice in the political arena. Following his success in Qalyubia, Afifi worked to organize April 6th Youth Movement campaigns at the national level. As the government cracked down on these demonstrations, Afifi was arrested several times and even abandoned in the desert.

Prior to the Egyptian Revolution that unseated President Hosni Mubarak, Afifi coordinated with other organizations encouraging citizens to participate in a January 25, 2011 demonstration in Cairo. On that day, Afifi marched to Tahrir Square with thousands of others demanding Mubarak’s resignation and a free Egypt. The protests intensified and expanded nationwide. Almost three weeks later, on February 11, 2011, Hosni Mubarak stepped down from power ending his 30 year reign.

With a history dating back to the 10th millennium B.C., Egypt has long played a central role in the Middle East. Egypt is the largest Arab nation and has an influential voice in Arabic and Middle Eastern culture. Egypt has a diverse economy, but has struggled to create sustained economic growth and opportunities for its population of 84 million people.

The country has little experience with representative democracy. From 1956 to 1970, President Gamal Abdel Nasser ruled Egypt with a strong hand, nationalizing the Suez Canal and taking the country into conflict with the new state of Israel. Upon his death, Anwar al-Sadat became president. Together with other Arab nations, Sadat launched the October War against Israel in 1973. In 1979, Sadat signed a groundbreaking peace treaty with Israel.

From Sadat’s assassination in 1981 until the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, Egypt was governed by President Hosni Mubarak. For all of Mubarak’s time in office, and for much of the time since his resignation, Egypt has been under “Emergency Law,” which allows the government to suspend constitutional rights, including limiting political activity and restricting free speech. Emergency Law also allows the government to use summary arrests against political opponents.

For four successive terms, Mubarak was reelected in referenda without an opponent. In 2005, under domestic and international pressure, Mubarak proposed a constitutional amendment to allow Egypt’s first multicandidate presidential elections. Because the amendment would have imposed severe restrictions on the eligibility of opposition candidates, opposition groups boycotted the vote. Mubarak claimed to have won the September 2005 presidential election with an official 88 percent of the vote, amid widespread allegations of fraud and vote rigging. The main opposition leader, Ayman Nour, was subsequently prosecuted by the government for forging signatures on petitions and was sentenced to five years in prison, provoking protests from the United States and other democratic countries.

Following the example of the Tunisian Revolution, large protests swept Egypt in early 2011. The military, led by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), withdrew its support of Mubarak. On February 11, 2011, Vice President Omar Suleiman announced that Mubarak had resigned. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) headed by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi then assumed power in Egypt. SCAF dissolved the parliament and suspended the constitution.

In November 2011, Egypt held parliamentary elections that were reportedly fair and democratic. In June 2012, Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi was elected President, in part because liberal and secular forces failed to coalesce around a single candidate. Morsi’s popularity declined as he declared his orders immune from challenge, removed judicial review processes, and was accused of taking steps towards the implementation of Islamist policies. Conflict arose between those supporting Islamist policies and those seeking a more liberal and secular government. Protests occurred throughout his presidency until Morsi was ousted by the military in July 2013. Muslim Brotherhood leaders were arrested and their camps and offices raided. Until new elections are held, a SCAF-installed provisional government led by acting President Adly Mansour is in control.

In its most recent report, the independent watchdog group Freedom House classifies Egypt as “partly free.” On its scale where 1 is the most free and 7is the least free, Egypt earned scores of 5 in both the civil liberties and political rights categories.