Revolutions are not dated in advance. You don´t book it in a calendar. And some of those who organized the protests were having drinks the night before and, you know, thinking if they should spend the night in their places and thinking of hideaways and things like this. So, it was the 25th of January. And I live in Garden City [Garden City is a neighborhood in Cairo.]. And I use– at that time I worked in downtown. And so, I walked from Garden City to my work place. And I couldn´t believe I have never seen so many police officers, so many central security forces´ trucks. I have never seen dogs– police dogs.
It was scary, the ambulances, the fire engines. Everything was getting ready for the protests. And I was like, “This is going to be crushed from the first minute. It is not going to happen.” And I was tweeting, even, like, as I´m walking, telling people where the trucks are. And I was unlucky because all my colleagues were going down. So, we decided that I would be the coordinator. So, I stayed. Then I went to what was known as the front to defense Egypt´s protesters. And I was planning to go there.
It´s a front that was done in 2008 during the 6 April strike and the Mahala protests. So, it was a front of different organizations, human rights organizations, and were activists and lawyers. And it was mainly about collecting and redistributing information and also coordinating a network of lawyers to provide legal aid for protesters. So, I knew where the protests were going to begin from. I knew who was where. And I went there and I left ten days later. Basically, it was the first time I knew I could stay awake for four days. I never actually stayed awake for 24 hours.
Sally Sami has been a human rights defender for nearly a decade. She was one of the main coordinators of the Front to Defend Egypt’s Protesters (FDEP) during the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. Sami continues to defend human rights, but has become involved in politics and currently is a leading member of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party and has been elected its Secretary General for Civil Society Affairs.
Twitter: @salamander
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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