Interviews with Nora Younis

So I continued to meet the dissidents and to go to demonstrations, and to take pictures and video shots of the demonstrations. And then I didn´t know what to do with all this. But I noticed from going to demonstrations that most of the crew, or most of the journalists filming what was happening were foreigners. And the other non-foreigners that were there were mostly organizations, institutions. So there would be the camera– the CNN cameras, the BBC cameras, al-Jazeera camera. But there was no, like, independent archive photos happening.

So I decided to start this archive myself. I was filming everything and putting the pictures and the videos online. Everybody who wanted to use the footage, I was giving it to them. I always, until this point, I always stood on the reporter side. So I always stood on the other side. I didn´t stand on the demonstrators’ side. Until it was 25 May, 2005. And it was the day of a national referendum put forward by Mubarak to make the constitutional amendments that would lead to Gamal Mubarak becoming president later on. There was a planned cafe, a denomination, against the referendum and the supposed amendments. And I went to join and to film what was happening. And– I was– the demonstrators were not many.

We were a small group of people. And we were attacked by plainclothes thugs, young people, young men holding Mubarak´s picture. And who were beating the men just to push them away and targeting the women so they would sexually assault them. It was the first of its kind, like nothing in Egypt had happened like this before. And I personally have never heard of something like this before. I have participated in demonstrations where people were beaten or chased or arrested by uniformed police or plainclothes police. But sexual assault under police supervision was new to me. We were gathering in one location in Mounira. And then we dispersed, and we re-gathered in front of the Press Syndicate in Cairo.

In front of the Press Syndicate– the thugs came also chasing us all the way from Mounira to the Press Syndicate. And we were standing on the stairways, which was a very popular place for hosting all the demonstrations in the age of Mubarak. So we were standing on the stairways, and the thugs approached us. And they started beating the men also to attack the women, just to push the men away so they would attack the women. And there was a police general in uniform who said, “Bring all the women to the entrance of the garage and we will protect you.” And I heard him myself. So the garage was like– we had to jump like two meters down in order to get to the entrance of the garage, because we were standing on the end of the stairway.

So his men helped us, the women, to jump down, uniformed policemen. And once we were down there at the entrance of the garage, and the garage door was closed, we were completely cornered. And there was two or three rows of security men blocking the entrance. And he said, “We have to wait for a while, and then we will let you go.” And then he gave an order to his men, and they opened the lines, so the thugs would come in to the cornered women. And I just could not believe it. I just could not believe it. He said, “Bring the women, I will protect you.” Like– and he´s an old man, you know? He has his gray hair. He´s in uniform. He´s a police. He can´t do this. As anything, he cannot do this. So I spit in his face. I just– I was so raged– so outraged. I spit in his face, and I was like maybe I said bad words that involve his family or his mother or something. And I was so shocked. I took his picture, and I took the pictures of his men helping him.

I had documented the whole process. And then, when I did this to him, his men started beating me. So I have to bend down. And then a friend pulled my hand, and she pulled me, and we crawled from between the security men’s legs. So we were outside of the circle. But then we walked for 100 meters or so, and then we waited. Because our friends were still inside. And when they came out, the women had their shirts torn, you know, they were– their hair, and this was like– and they were saying– they were telling the stories of what happened to them in there. And it was just unbelievable. And from this day forward, I had a personal revenge.

I had a personal vendetta with the ministry of interior, with the minister of interior, Habib al-Adly, with Mubarak and his gang. It became very personal to me. I couldn´t stop it anymore. So I got to know personally the people who used to stand on the Press Syndicate stairway to the ministry. Together, later on, we formed a women´s group called The Street is Ours.

Nora Younis is a human rights activist, journalist and blogger who is now working as the website managing editor of Al-Masry Al-Youm Daily Independent, one of the best known newspapers in Egypt.

As a human rights activist, Ms. Younis won the Human Rights First (HRF) thirtieth anniversary award in 2008 for her work using new media tools to expose human rights violations and police brutality.

When she started blogging in 2005 she focused on addressing the information vacuum on protest movements in Egypt. Before Twitter came into being, she was continually sending mass text messages to human rights activists, political groups, and journalists, informing them of rallies, arrests, state violence and police brutality.

After Twitter became established among Egyptians, she moved into visual documentation. Most recognized is her video of the textile workers’ strike in Mahalla in September 2007 that soon grew into a nationwide movement known as the April 6th strike. One of her most famous blog posts includes her testimonial about the brutal police raid on a Sudanese refugee protest camp in Cairo in 2005 where at least 27 men, women and children were killed. Her testimonial was translated by fellow bloggers and activists across the world into more than seven languages. It was used in law suits and human rights reports condemning the Egyptian government.

During the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, Ms. Younis played a major role in documenting and reporting events. Using improvised communications methods, she filmed and disseminated to global audiences the demonstrations and crackdowns in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

Before she took up her position as website managing editor of Al-Masry Al-Youm Daily Independent, Ms. Younis covered the Middle East for The Washington Post (2008) and for other international newspapers.

Twitter: @NoraYounis 

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.