The government didn’t deal with the [April 6th] movement peacefully, on the contrary, the regime was trying to resist it and was exploiting its authoritarian and repressive power against it and its members. [The April 6th Youth Movement is an Egyptian activist group that was founded in 2008 to support striking workers.]
Many members were arrested and tortured, in addition to fighting them at their work place and universities.
In most cases, this used to happen when the security forces tried to scatter the demonstrations. They used to arrest the members of the movement and other people in the demonstration as well. They used to take those they arrested in deportation cars and take them either to the police office or throw them in the desert.
I have been arrested four times from the demonstrations, they took us in the deportation car and drove for 5 or 6 hours till the demonstration ended. They took us to the desert, for example, Cairo-Ismailia Desert or Egypt Suez Desert and threw us there at night.
In the middle of the night, they used to throw each one of us individually far from the other, for example, they throw one and then another after five or ten kilometers, to make sure that we can’t gather again.
These practices used to happen a lot. They tried to scatter us so that we don’t gather and go back to the demonstration again.
It happened with me four times. Sometimes, they used to send us a formal call from the State Security so that we go and they do some investigations.
But we used to reject these calls, of course, because this was illegal. Thus, they tried to arrest us or kidnap us from our work place or universities. This happened with many members.
Also, when we go to collect signatures on the Statement of Change [A nationwide campaign launched by the National Association for Change to collect at least one million signatures for a seven-point program of reforms to ensure free and fair elections], they arrest us as well, this happened with many members. The police arrested and investigated them, but eventually, it ended peacefully because this was an illegal arrest. They were just trying to scare and intimidate us so that we don’t do this again.
But we didn’t feel any kind of fear or intimidation, we believed in our cause and believed in our mission.
We were ready to be arrested and tortured at any time, because we believed that this was the price to be paid for reaching our goal, the price for achieving what we believe in, for reaching this stage of overthrowing the corrupt regime and dictatorship that was controlling each and every part of the country. The regime acted as a focus of corruption in the country and encroached on each institution.
There was no freedom, democracy or social justice in Egypt.
In the [April 6th] movement, there was a Legal Committee, this committee consists of a group of lawyers, and I was one of them.
We used to look after any member who got arrested or put in prison. We used to go to the police office and defend him till they set him free or we checked the procedures concerning the process of arrest.
There was a committee following the legal committee called the Committee for Subsistence, this committee was concerned with getting funds to the arrested members. It provided them with food, drinks, clothing, cigarettes and everything they needed in prison. We also look for their families in case they are in need for money, sometimes the arrested member is the only breadwinner of his family, so the family needs money as long as he is in prison. We gathered money from all the members and from our resources, tracked those who were arrested, and helped them with anything possible.
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.
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