Egypt between revolution & counter-revolution

In Tahrir Sq, and among the various organized movements and bodies involved in the 25 January Revolution either directly, such as the youth movements, or indirectly, such as the so-called “Committee of Wise Men”, the general sentiment is one of disappointment and dismissal of yesterday’s proposals offered by Vice-President Omar Suleiman to “representatives” of political parties and other groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood.

Yesterday witnessed an unprecedented meeting between members of the “wise men” committee – who call themselves “the dialogue committee”, and blame the media for the “wise men” designation – and the representatives of five youth movements which have played a significant role in triggering the uprising, and providing a measure of field leadership to the protesters, not just in Tahrir Sq, but around the country. These are: The 6 April Movement; the Campaign in Support of Baradei and Democracy; the Door-Knock Campaign, The Muslim Brotherhood Youth; and the Youth Movement of the Democratic Front Party.

The Committee, which is effectively led by the former head of the Human Rights Council, Kamal Abul-Magd, is made up of some 30 non-partisan public figures, including most prominently, Ambassador Nabil Al-Araby, a former judge on the International Court of Justice, and member of the board of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

The committee also includes prominent law professor, Yehia Al-Gamal, Ambassador Nabil Fahmy, Egypt’s former ambassador to the US, currently the Dean of the American University in Cairo’s School of Public Policy. It includes as well, Naguib Sawiris, a Copt and one of the country’s top businessmen, as well as Egypt’s top publisher, Ibrahim El-Moalem. Between Sawiris and El-Moalem, the committee effectively has influence on two Egyptian satellite TV stations, O TV, and On TV (Sawiris), and a daily newspaper, Al-Shorouk (El-Moalem), all three of which have not been shy about providing favorable coverage of the ongoing revolution.

Other members present a variety of public figures including a smattering of former government ministers, diplomats, academics, journalists, businessmen and prominent political activists. According to Abul-Magd, membership in the committee is subject to a number of criteria, including non-partisanship, personal integrity and public approval. Chuckling, he adds, “and a smiling face”.

In the course of their meeting with committee, the youth representatives said they had been called by the office of the vice-president and asked to join yesterday’s dialogue with various opposition forces. They declined, and said they decided they would rather have the “dialogue”, or “wise men” committee, negotiate on their behalf. They were very clear however that they were ceding nothing to the committee, but rather asking it to deliver their demands and report back to them on the course of negotiations. This was readily agreed to by the committee; Abul-Magd and others assured the youth representatives that they made no claims to speak in the name of the protesters in Tahrir sq or anywhere else in the country, but were merely trying to help facilitate the realization of the objectives of the 25 January Revolution, with which they are fully accord.

Representing the committee in the meeting with vice-president Suleiman were law El-Gamal and Sawiris. El-Gamal arrived at the committee’s ad hoc headquarters at the premises of Al-Shorouk daily newspaper, and briefed committee members and the youth representatives on the vice-president’s offers, which had been set down in a statement, later published as the outcome of an agreement between the government and the protesters representatives.

In separate meetings, both groupings wholly rejected the statement, which they described as a manifest attempt to circumvent the revolution and subvert its basic demands. Similar reactions were later declared by the protesters in Tahrir and elsewhere, as well as by the Muslim Brotherhood, which had won a newfound, if still de facto legitimacy by being invited to the dialogue.

As matters stand today, the protesters continue to insist that President Mubarak either resign, or delegate his powers to the vice-president, in accordance with Article 139 of the Constitution, and fade out of the political stage, possibly moving to his Sharm El-Sheikh residence, or traveling abroad for treatment.

No one in the revolution camp is buying the constitutional amendment argument raised by Suleiman and Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik. According to this argument, the relevant article of the constitution allows the president to give over all his powers to the vice president or the prime minister with two exceptions: declaring war, or amending the constitution.

There are two responses to this. One, which is supported by prominent businessman and opposition figure, Mamdouh Hamza, is that a constitution that has been approved and amended several times by rigged referendums is made null and void by the revolution. “The people are the only source of legitimacy, at the present moment,” he says, adding “and it’s all nonsense anyway, just a pretext like a whole series of other pretexts they’ve been hanging on, including stability, the threat of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mubarak’s dignity, and so on.” The UK, he went on, does not have a constitution, and “they don’t seem to have any problem operating a democratic system of government.”

Another response, which was suggested by some of the young activists, is that Mubarak should offer the people a whole “package” of measures, at one and the same time, thus dissolving both houses of parliament, call for the amendment of the constitution, and announcing the delegation of his powers to the vice-president.

Yet there remains the situation on the ground. There is among the protesters and their supporters a very strong feeling that the regime is basically playing for time. And that they are quite capable of reneging on all promises once the protest shows signs of exhaustion, and begins to dwindle. “We don’t have any guarantees that within a few weeks, or a couple of months, thousands will not be rounded up and thrown in concentration camps, accused of being agents of foreign powers. After all, they’re still talking about foreign agendas and “foreign fingers” in Tahrir sq.”

As such members of the committee and the youth representatives agreed that a number of urgent demands must be met immediately, if the negotiating process is allowed to go on. “These demands,” said one committee member, “could be implemented in an afternoon.”

They include: 1) Eliminating the state of emergency, in force for the past 30 years; 2) immediate release of all political prisoners, and prisoners of conscience; 3) immediate arrest and prosecution of NDP Oligarchs, officials and police officers and agents implicated in the “criminal” attacks on protesters (killing over 200 people and thousands of injured), and on public and private property, including the attempts to loot and burn the Egyptian museum. 4) Bring an immediate halt to all forms of incitement against the protesters, by state officials and the state owned media. And, finally 5) fire the minister of information, Anas El-Fiqi, and put Egyptian state TV under the oversight of an independent Board of Trustees.

The 25 January Revolution continues to possess a great deal of energy,

Egypt government warns of ‘counter-revolution’

CAIRO – Egypt's new government warned on Wednesday of a "counter-revolution" following a series of deadly political and religious clashes blamed on diehards of the former regime.

The government said it "is fully committed to the interests of the people and to implementing the goals of the revolution; and it will stand firm against plans for a counter-revolution," according to state news agency MENA.

Sectarian clashes killed at least 13 in Cairo, the health ministry said.

Bloody fighting broke out late Tuesday in the working class Cairo district of Moqattam when Muslims confronted 1,000 Christians who had been blocking a main road in protest at the burning of a church last week in the provincial town of Sol, south of Cairo.

Father Boutros Roshdy of a Moqattam church told AFP at least seven Coptic Christians were among the dead.

Meanwhile, in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicentre of anti-regime protests that toppled president Hosni Mubarak, attackers armed with knives and machetes waded into hundreds of pro-democracy activists, witnesses said.

Stone-throwing skirmishes raged, and activists were gathering sticks and stockpiling rocks to defend themselves.

By early evening, the army had restored order in the square, dismantling tents pitched by protesters shortly after anti-regime riots erupted on January 25, and detaining several protesters, MENA said.

On Sunday, armed civilians attacked protesters outside state security headquarters in Cairo as they attempted to storm it to retrieve files kept on the population by a powerful regime apparatus long accused of rights abuses.

The violence, widely blamed on remnants of Mubarak's regime, revealed the security vacuum created by police, who disappeared from the streets during January protests that led to Mubarak's resignation.

Human rights group Amnesty International condemned what it called the Egyptian army's "heavy-handed actions to clear Cairo's Tahrir Square."

"It is absolutely unacceptable that the army should participate in violently breaking up the peaceful protests", said the London-based watchdog's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.

"The Supreme Military Council has the duty to uphold the right to peaceful protest," Hadj Sahraoui said.

The clashes took place as the newly appointed cabinet met with the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to propose a law criminalising threatening behaviour, MENA said.

A statement later said the cabinet had discussed "developments in the country, specifically the acts that have hindered daily life, acts of thuggery, incitement, intimidation and tensions affecting national unity."

Accordingly, it has "ordered the swift return of police forces, in their full capacity, back to the streets" and "urged citizens to cooperate with the police."

The Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest opposition movement, blamed diehards of the Mubarak regime of inciting the violence.

It called on "everyone to stand together to support our armed forces and the cabinet so that they can fulfill the demands of the revolution."

Egypt's military rulers have been battling to steer the country through a fragile transition since Mubarak was overthrown on February 11, promising to pave the way for a free democratic society.

On Monday, the military council vowed to have the Sol church rebuilt and to prosecute those behind the arson attack.

Coptic priest Samann Ibrahim told AFP earlier on Wednesday that those killed and wounded in the Moqattam clashes had been shot.

Some people among the crowd of Muslims opened fire on the demonstrators, he said, adding the mob had also petrol-bombed houses and workplaces.

Before the Moqattam violence, Copts had protested for several days outside the radio and television building in Cairo demanding the torched church be re-built, and that those responsible be brought to justice.

The Shahedain (Two Martyrs) church was set ablaze on Friday after clashes between Copts and Muslims that left two people dead.

Christians, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt's 80 million population, complain of systematic discrimination and have been the target of several sectarian attacks.

the counter revoulution

Counter-revolution and sectarian strife

Plenty of people, but mostly thugs who lived off the former regime, will stop at nothing to halt what has begun, writes Ammar Ali Hassan*

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Click to view caption

Orchestrated by the men of the former regime, the Battle of the Camel is a flagrant example of a counter-revolution

When former minister of interior Habib El-Adli was sentenced to 12 years in jail for money- laundering and profiteering, many began to hold their breath in anticipation of the response by the other members of the former regime. Many of these are in Tora prison with El-Adli, facing the same charges on top of the charge of directly causing the death of many protesters, which is punishable by the death penalty under Egyptian law.
We have just had the response. It struck at the weak spot in the Egyptian social fabric: the sectarian question. That spot has grown more and more tender after decades of mounting tension between Egyptian Muslims and Copts, the root cause of which is to be found in the practices of the Mubarak regime. Through systematic discrimination that kept Christians out of public office and, hence, out of the public political sphere, that regime forced Copts to huddle in their churches behind their spiritual leaders, through whose mediacy the regime ensured the Christian vote for its political party and the party leader.
Several days before El-Adli was arrested, the Ministry of Interior dismissed several top State Security officers who joined the ranks of other personnel of that agency who had been variously fired or marginalised after the 25 January Revolution. One of those officers was in charge of the sectarian file in Egypt and familiar with every detail of this sensitive issue. Those officers were aided by some 400,000 thugs who had put themselves at the service of the corrupt members of the police, most members of the once ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) and parliament, and a number of business magnates complicit in the plundering of public moneys, which is to say the people who, together with other members of the former ruling party and businessmen who were harmed by the revolution, form the core of the counter-revolution.
Today, that disbanded army of thugs now largely numbers among the unemployed. No longer in demand and unwanted, they are filled with spite, and yearn for their old world and for the paymasters who filled their pockets with money from the public coffers. Therefore, they are eminently recruitable through offers of pay or through their old connections, and their resentful energies are easily harnessed into performing any sort of atrocity that feeds the counter-revolution.
There is evidence that strongly suggests that the events in Imbaba on Saturday were planned. Eyewitnesses confirm the presence of thugs and other information indicates that security officers were also instrumental. True, the incident may have been sparked by a group of Salafis who claimed that a woman who had converted to Islam was being held captive in the Mar Mina Church in Imbaba. However, there is little doubt that, in the ensuing confusion, agents from the former regime stepped in to stoke sectarian tension in the hope of creating civil strife in order to abort the revolution.
People in Egypt are deeply disturbed by the sectarian violence that reared its head again, in Imbaba this time, and the ulterior motive behind which is as plain as day. They are looking to the Higher Council of the Armed Forces (HCAF) to take firm and decisive action. Although the HCAF has assumed power for only an interim period until it hands control to an elected civil government, it is currently the effective political authority and the maintainer of law and order through the enforcement of the law which is, therefore, its responsibility. Clearly, one of its foremost tasks at this delicate phase is to restore and sustain stability and security, which are essential if the revolution is to succeed in stimulating production and laying the groundwork for a new order whose chief pillars are democracy and development.
It follows that "passive neutrality" is not the appropriate stance to take in the face of the forces conspiring to sew death and destruction in Egypt. Nor are traditional tribal methods the way to handle the abhorrent sectarian events. Instead, the law must be enforced and its full weight must be made to apply to all, so as to deter anyone who so much as contemplates tampering with our national unity which, alongside the Nile, constitutes the backbone of Egyptian national security.
In addition to the outbreaks of strife in which the role of thugs is apparent, people are also perturbed by the spread of gangs extorting protection money from shop owners in popular neighbourhoods in particular. Fighting such a phenomenon is no small order. Yet while the HCAF has ratified the law to combat thuggery, the actions it has taken to put it into effect still fall short of the level needed to ensure sustained peace and security. Hopefully it will bear in mind that those who sew terror, assault peaceful citizens, attack holy places and foment civil strife can not be handled gently or with kid gloves under any pretext.
Obviously this issue concerns the government of Essam Sharaf as well. Unfortunately, his minister of interior appears to lack the skills and vigour necessary to cope with this delicate phase in our country's life. Most police officers are slack in their responsibilities. Some continue to exploit their power over the people while others simply refuse to work, as though unable to tolerate a climate of normality. There is only one answer to such behaviour. They must be told in no uncertain terms that if they do not resume the proper exercise of their duties they will be brought before a disciplinary board. Egypt, today, cannot afford to go easy on officers who fail to perform their duties or who betray the oath they took when they graduated from the police academy.
Finally, the current situation in the country confirms how dangerous it is not to isolate the members of the defunct NDP politically or, at least, not to dissolve that party's fraudulent municipal councils that are still in power. It further indicates how necessary it is to apprehend and prosecute the criminal elements among the second and third tiers of the old regime.

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