Thousands of Egyptian took the streets to say what they have been eager to say outloud for years " freedom and social justice for all " . It took the Egyptian government by surprise to see the crowds defying the notorious riot police , not willing to back-down in the face of beating , tear gas and live ammunition . young Egyptians were standing side by side to the Old , men and women , Muslims and christians united against tyranny , united
for freedom . all differnces have dissolved that day .
The day before , Monday 24th of Jan. Safwat al Sharif ( Mubarak's right hand ) appeared on national Tv saying that " the Tunisian uprising is never going to be seen in Egypt " . in the meanwhile on facebook , an event made by a group called " we are all khaled said "
have set the 25th of Jan.2011 as the Egyptian revolution day , with more that 70.000 attendees .
The Egyptian government being arrogant as usual , thought that it would be able to supress such an event with it's " powerful " interior ministry guards ... why not ? they have done so many times before . but they have forgotten a very important thing this time around :
the Egyptian people had this firm belief that they can " Never " overcome Mubarak's interior ministry dogs ( estimated to be around 2 million ) . they were wrong ;
Tunisia :
The greatest accomplishment in my opinion in the Tunisian revolution is the idea of " possibility " . the Tunisians have done , why not Egypt ? . Egypt have two thirds of it's people under 30 years old , they haven't seen any other egyptian president other than Mubarak .
they have endured the Mubarak's regime injustices for decades . Whenever they try to object or demand their God given human rights , they get arrested , tortured , killed . it seemed impossible to overcome the systematic corruption we face in our everyday life ... until we saw the great Tunisian people .
Then ,
Tuesday has come , hundred thousands have shown up , all the Egyptian demographic strata were there shouting " freedom , social justice for all " , peaceful marches swept the nation , all the cities at the same time . A huge surprise to the Egyptian government .
" peaceful , Peaceful " protesters shouted . " erhal erhal ya mubarak = Leave, Leave, Mubarak " they screamed .
The Crackdown :
Hundreds were arrested .... activists , journalists and many protesters . Hundreds were brutally beaten , others have died . Egyptian media neglected the protests , not only that .... once again Safwat Al Sharif appeared on a news conference ( on privatly owned TV station not the national station ) saying " we are not the kind of government that runs away or flee the country , what exactly do you want ?( addressing the protesters ) , " We already give you your subsidized sugar and tea " he added arrogantly !
On the same time online , we have been reading and distributing the news about the protesters who have died . Suez city had witnessed the most of them .
Another event on facebook calling for a huge demonstration in Friday the 28th of Jan . the Friday of anger we call it . Hillary Clinton went on Tv saying " the Mubarak regime is stable"!
In the mean while , protests were taking place in Wednesday and Thursday all over the country with many protesters being shot dead or overrun by riot police .
Friday :
Millions hit the streets all over the country for the third day in a row after the midday prayer . The interior minister has made it's plans already , closing the main mosques in the country and placing the riot police around the mosques . Right after we have finished the prayer , it turned out that Mubarak's thugs have been planted inside the mosques to suppress the protests before it even begins . They started doing what they do best , beating people ...
Then the most violent day Egypt have seen have erupted , not only thugs and riot police beating, but also tear gas and live ammunition .
It's estimated that there were 300 deaths in that day, in suez city , the city mogue had recieved more than a 100 dead persons . Hundreds were injured and hospitals were packed .
Riot police were literally fainting in the streets .
National Egyptian tv is broadcasting shows about the benefits of vegetables ! no news at all about what was going on the streets .
Internet is getting slower , then twitter is blocked ..
News about electricity and cell phones being cut off in Suez in an attempt to isolate Suez from the rest of the world. It didn't take so long before facebook was also blocked from all over Egypt. And then hours later the whole internet was shut down alongside with cell phones . It was a pathetic attempt to suppress the protests . but the government have forgotten one other thing ....We know that they would block the internet and cell phones .... it takes a thief to catch a thief ... that's why we were using good old landlines and papers to spread the message .
We, most Egyptians, know ... there are no leaders for our revolution , it is a political movement as they claim , it is made by the people , ignited by the facebook event .
Saturday :
The air in Alexandria smelled like burnt paper . Most police departement were set ablaze . All government owned buildings were on fire .
It was estimated that 500 thousand protesters were in Alexandria on Friday . army forces and tanks are in the streets .
Scare tactics :
The Egyptian TV :
News reports about convicts fleeing their prisons , an estimated 17.000 convict they say .
gunfire in heard all over the country .
No police man in sight not even a traffic officer. Major malls and shops are destroyed and stolen.
news about the Egyptian museum being sabotaged .
We were recieving phone calls from our friends and relatives screaming, saying there are thugs being shipped in trucks raiding their homes. They don't only have knifes and swords , some of them have machine guns .
People calling Al-Jazeera, Al Arabiya, BBC news, and the Egyptian TV stations asking for help ... convicts are being systematically freed by the government , all at the same time ...
In Al Faioum , security guards who didn't obey the order of letting the convicts free are shot dead .
The Egyptian government announces that ambulance cars , police cars have been stolen by convicts .
in Alexandria :
We heard gun fire almost every 10 minutes , it was 6 pm on Saturday night where i went to the street infront of my home . men were guarding there streets . We brought whatever weapons we can put our hands onto .
Most of us had wooden sticks , rocks , knifes . I had a wooden stick in one hand and a broken glass bottle in the other hand.
We heard gun shots being fired from the north and the east at the same time . We figured it would be enough to have sticks and knifes, so we made petrol bombs and blocked the streets around our area with barricades and tires .
We managed to call an army personnel who sent a two soldiers with machineguns to scan the area . They were tracing the sound of the gun shots and then about 3.00 am , the soldiers were chasing an armed man on foot and they managed to hunt him down .
Right across the street there was an ambulance speeding with machine guns shooting randmomly in the streets . And a civilian car doing the same thing , with army vehicles chasing them.
Sometime later in the day, an army ranking officer came to talk to us, saying that they have caught them, and he added that half of these "stolen" cars were occupied by intenal ministry personel .
I slept about 4 or 5 hours in the last 48 hours .
Then later that day , Mubarak went on TV to say he is appointing a new prime minister . We were very disappointed but not surprised though .
Sunday :
BBC news has obtained a document that describes the internal minestry plan to deal with the protests : it says :
Topic: Plan to address the mass demonstrations
Strategies:
1 - Allow to pass demonstrations in the streets of cities and villages of the state as of the date.
2 - Employ a number of thugs and pay them amounts rewarding and meet with them in their role in the sites gatherings and in private by the elements authorized to do so without an official status, it and surrounding the deployment plan according to the attached table of the site entitled to 1 and tell them the time of the move and plan to spread chaos mentioned in the statement ,
3 - Control members of organizations and parties, and coordination with the printing presses and publishing houses and communication devices and the imposition of a complete record of messages and incoming and outgoing calls
4 - Will be cut off means of communication (Mobile - Internet) As of six o'clock am on Friday, 28/1/12011 with services to keep the ground for it to be assigned to all officers and personnel the use of wireless communications devices, manual and make sure it is in the development of encryption.
5 - The planned deployment of police and detectives and security agents in civilian clothes, according to the annex, entitled B-2.
6 - Inventory march demonstrations on Friday, 28/01/2011 in public squares and major parts in the event of demonstrations and access to areas of the warning by the attached map entitled by 3.
7 - Make sure to arm members of the civilian elements in civilian clothes with a wooden stick and sticks, iron small-scale (manual) for use in the arrest of the main elements present in the demonstration without showing any violence.
8 - Firing rubber bullets and tear gas without the use of live bullets and a warning that unless absolutely necessary.
9 - Show partial disability as of four o'clock on Friday afternoon said the police for demonstrating the superiority of the demonstrations and to allow penetration of the elements of item 2 to make a mess during the demonstration and limited according to the plan agreed with them to do so.
10 - A full withdrawal of police and security forces of the Central and wanted to organize the traffic and the guard and all categories of officers and individuals to protect government sites, businesses and institutions with the wearing of civilian attire and presence beside roads, around trees and engagement between the lines of the organizers of the demonstrations and the parking without interfering in any negative phenomena, and without revealing the identities their non-interference in the street until you tell you so.
11 - Empty the police stations of arms and ammunition and prisoners and transferred to the central prison and placed under heavy guard and the introduction of private security guards and security elements to the prisons, instead of them and the elements of the living and the members of the follow-up and criminal investigators, and collaborators from informants.
12 - Broadcast the rumors through all the media, the existence of acts of looting and by contacting the elements of women at all different media with hearing the cases of strong panic and cry and plan according to broadcast rumors attached to you.
13 - Broadcast messages directly through the personnel or indirect messages distributed leaflets to the media only external private located near events the existence of acts of looting and breaking of the banks and shops and police stations to coincide with the deployment plan thugs item 2, in order to broadcast a state of panic and terror in the street and the existence of a claim eligibility and the popularity of the presence of military and public security and public presence in these locations.
14 - Tips to issue directly and indirectly through the media of internal and external committees formed to protect the popular neighborhoods in order to guide members of the demonstration to go to their sites without the imposition of force by the army.
15 - Send false rumors and false information through all means of media stations outside only be corrected by the local media stations in order to gain the confidence of the public to divert attention from these stations and discredit all incoming connections to the local media stations.
16 - Strong rumors broadcast across all media, local and external existence of chaos and escape of prisoners and determining the number and big fake registrants, as well as the danger and they were seen within the residential areas.
Unfortunately for them , the protests are still taking place . an estimated 8 million egyptians took the streets on Tuesday 1st of Feb.
Inside the protests :
There is a great sense of solidarity and an exuberant celebratory atmosphere . people were giving out food and drinks to the protesters , others were cleaning the streets , while the protesters are chanting and singing at times....Humor is a almost always present in slogans ...
One protesters carrying a banner that said : leave you Mubarak , i'm here for 10 days i wanna go home to take a shower !
The situation now :
We have about 6 million egyptians who are living on pay per day basis , it won't take a long time before they starve .
Tahrir square is under siege , food and medical supplies are not allowed in like it used to thanks to Mubarak's thugs .
Most protesters their eat one meal per day .
Petrol and food shortage are present in many places around the country .
Human rights activists and journalists are still arrested in an unkown location .( Wael Ghoneim , the admin of " we are all khaled said " is one of them ) .
Today is the day of the revolution martyrs ..
Wael Ghoeim arrested by secret police .
Internal ministry chaos pamphlet .
Alexandria , Sidi Gaber .
Creativity !
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