2011 Egyptian protests

The 2011 Egyptian revolution, also known as the 25 January revolution ( ar, ثورة ٢٥ يناير; ), began on 25 January 2011 and spread across Egypt. The date was set by various youth groups to coincide with the annual Egyptian "Police holiday" as a statement against increasing police brutality during the last few years of Hosni Mubarak's presidency. It consisted of demonstrations, marches, occupations of plazas, non-violent civil resistance, acts of civil disobedience and strikes. Millions of protesters from a range of socio-economic and religious backgrounds demanded the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Violent clashes between security forces and protesters resulted in at least 846 people killed and over 6,000 injured. Protesters retaliated by burning over 90 police stations across the country.

The Egyptian protesters' grievances focused on legal and political issues, including police brutality, state-of-emergency laws, lack of political freedom, civil liberty, freedom of speech, corruption, high unemployment, food-price inflation and low wages. The protesters' primary demands were the end of the Mubarak regime. Strikes by labour unions added to the pressure on government officials. During the uprising, the capital, Cairo, was described as "a war zone" and the port city of Suez saw frequent violent clashes. Protesters defied a government-imposed curfew, which the police and military could not enforce in any case. Egypt's Central Security Forces, loyal to Mubarak, were gradually replaced by military troops. In the chaos, there was looting by rioters which was instigated (according to opposition sources) by plainclothes police officers. In response, watch groups were organized by civilian vigilantes to protect their neighborhoods.

On 11 February 2011, Vice President Omar Suleiman announced that Mubarak resigned as president, turning power over to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). The military junta, headed by effective head of state Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, announced on 13 February that the constitution is suspended, both houses of parliament dissolved and the military would govern for six months (until elections could be held). The previous cabinet, including Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik, would serve as a caretaker government until a new one was formed.

After the revolution against Mubarak and a period of rule by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the Muslim Brotherhood took power in Egypt through a series of popular elections, with Egyptians electing Islamist Mohamed Morsi. However, the Morsi government encountered fierce opposition after his attempt to pass an Islamic-leaning constitution. Morsi also issued a temporary presidential decree that raised his decisions over judicial review to enable the passing of the constitution. It sparked general outrage from secularists and members of the military, and mass protests broke out against his rule on 28 June 2013. On 3 July 2013, Morsi was deposed by a coup d'état led by the minister of defense, General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, as millions of Egyptians took to the streets in support of early elections. El-Sisi went on to become Egypt's president after an election in 2014 which was boycotted by opposition parties.

Other names

In Egypt and other parts of the Arab world, the protests and governmental changes are also known as the ( ''Thawrat 25 Yanāyir''), ( ''Thawrat Horeya'') or ( ''Thawrat al-Ġaḍab''), and (less frequently) the ( ''Thawrat al-Shabāb''), () or ( ''al-Thawrah al-bayḍāʾ'').

Background

Hosni Mubarak became President of Egypt after the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDS) maintained one-party rule. His government received support from the West and aid from the United States by its suppression of Islamic militants and peace with Israel. Mubarak was often compared to an Egyptian pharaoh by the media and some critics, due to his authoritarian rule. He was in the 30th year of his reign when the Revolution of 2011 began.

Inheritance of power

Mubarak's younger son was expected to succeed his father as the next president of Egypt in 2000. Gamal began receiving attention from the Egyptian media, since there were apparently no other heirs to the presidency. Bashar al-Assad's rise to power in Syria in June 2000, hours after Hafez al-Assad's death, sparked debate in the Egyptian press about the prospects for a similar scenario in Cairo.

During the years after Mubarak's 2005 re-election, several left- and right-wing (primarily unofficial) political groups expressed opposition to the inheritance of power, demanded reforms and asked for a multi-candidate election. In 2006, with opposition increasing, ''Daily News Egypt'' reported an online campaign initiative (the National Initiative against Power Inheritance) demanding that Gamal reduce his power. The campaign said, "President Mubarak and his son constantly denied even the possibility of uccession However, in reality they did the opposite, including amending the constitution to make sure that Gamal will be the only unchallenged candidate."

During the decade, public perception grew that Gamal would succeed his father. He wielded increasing power as NDP deputy secretary general and chair of the party's policy committee. Analysts described Mubarak's last decade in power as "the age of Gamal Mubarak". With his father's health declining and no appointed vice-president, Gamal was considered Egypt's ''de facto'' president by some. Although Gamal and Hosni Mubarak denied an inheritance of power, Gamal could be elected; with Hosni Mubarak's presidential term set to expire in 2010, speculation existed that Gamal would run as the NDP candidate in 2011. However, after the January–February 2011 protest Gamal Mubarak said that he would not run for president in the 2011 elections.

Emergency law

Emergency law (Law No. 162 of 1958) was enacted in the country after the 1967 Six-Day War. Although it was suspended for 18 months during the early 1980s, it has otherwise continuously been in effect since Anwar Sadat's 1981 assassination. Emergency law extended police powers, suspended constitutional rights, legalised censorship and abolished ''habeas corpus''. It limits non-governmental political activity, including demonstrations, unapproved political organizations and unregistered financial donations. The Mubarak government has cited the threat of terrorism in extending emergency law, claiming that opposition groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood could gain power in Egypt if the government did not forgo parliamentary elections and suppress the group through emergency law. This has led to the imprisonment of activists without trial, illegal, undocumented and hidden detention facilities and the rejection of university, mosque and newspaper staff based on their political affiliation. A December 2010 parliamentary election was preceded by a media crackdown, arrests, candidate bans (particularly Muslim Brotherhood candidates) and allegations of fraud due to the near-unanimous victory by the NDP in parliament. Human-rights organizations estimate that in 2010, between 5,000 and 10,000 people were in long-term detention without charge or trial.

Police brutality

According to a U.S. Embassy report, police brutality has been widespread in Egypt. In the five years before the revolution, the Mubarak regime denied the existence of torture or abuse by police. However, claims by domestic and international groups provided cellphone videos or first-hand accounts of hundreds of cases of police brutality. According to the 2009 Human Rights Report from the U.S. State Department, "Domestic and international human rights groups reported that the Ministry of Interior (MOI) State Security Investigative Service (SSIS), police, and other government entities continued to employ torture to extract information or force confessions. The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights documented 30 cases of torture during the year 2009. In numerous trials defendants alleged that police tortured them during questioning. During the year activists and observers circulated some amateur cellphone videos documenting the alleged abuse of citizens by security officials. For example, on 8 February, a blogger posted a video of two police officers, identified by their first names and last initials, sodomizing a bound naked man named Ahmed Abdel Fattah Ali with a bottle. On 12 August, the same blogger posted two videos of alleged police torture of a man in a Port Said police station by the head of investigations, Mohammed Abu Ghazala. There was no indication that the government investigated either case."

The deployment of Baltageya ( ar, بلطجية)—plainclothes police—by the NDP has been a hallmark of the Mubarak government. The Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights has documented 567 cases of torture, including 167 deaths, by police from 1993 to 2007. Excessive force was often used by law-enforcement agencies against popular uprisings. On 6 June 2010 Khaled Mohamed Saeed died under disputed circumstances in the Sidi Gaber area of Alexandria, with witnesses testifying that he was beaten to death by police – an event which galvanized Egyptians around the issue of police brutality. Authorities stated that Khaled died choking on hashish while being chased by police officers. However, pictures of Khaled's disfigured corpse from the morgue showed signs of torture. A Facebook page, "We are all Khaled Said", helped attract nationwide attention to the case. Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, led a 2010 rally in Alexandria against police abuse, and visited Saeed's family to offer condolences.

During the January–February 2011 protests, police brutality was common. Jack Shenker, a reporter for ''The Guardian'', was arrested during the Cairo protests on 26 January. He witnessed fellow Egyptian protesters being tortured, assaulted, and taken to undisclosed locations by police officers. Shenker and other detainees were released after covert intervention by Ayman Nour, the father of a fellow detainee.

Election corruption

Corruption, coercion not to vote and manipulation of election results occurred during many elections over Mubarak's 30-year rule. Until 2005, Mubarak was the only presidential candidate (with a yes-or-no vote). Mubarak won five consecutive presidential elections with a sweeping majority. Although opposition groups and international election-monitoring agencies charged that the elections were rigged, those agencies were not allowed to monitor elections. The only opposition presidential candidate in recent Egyptian history, Ayman Nour, was imprisoned before the 2005 elections. According to a 2007 UN survey, voter turnout was extremely low (about 25 percent) because of a lack of trust in the political system.

Demographic and economic challenges

Unemployment and reliance on subsidized goods

The population of Egypt grew from 30,083,419 in 1966 to roughly 79,000,000 by 2008. The vast majority of Egyptians live near the banks of the Nile, in an area of about where the only arable land is found. In late 2010, about 40 percent of Egypt's population lived on the equivalent of roughly US$2 per day, with a large portion relying on subsidized goods.

According to the Peterson Institute for International Economics and other proponents of demographic structural approach (cliodynamics), a basic problem in Egypt is unemployment driven by a demographic youth bulge; with the number of new people entering the workforce at about four percent a year, unemployment in Egypt is almost 10 times as high for college graduates as for those who finished elementary school (particularly educated urban youth—the people who were in the streets during the revolution).

Economy and poor living conditions

Egypt's economy was highly centralised during the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser, becoming more market-driven under Anwar Sadat and Mubarak. From 2004 to 2008 the Mubarak government pursued economic reform to attract foreign investment and increase GDP, later postponing further reforms because of the Great Recession. The international economic downturn slowed Egypt's GDP growth to 4.5 percent in 2009. In 2010, analysts said that the government of Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif would need to resume economic reform to attract foreign investment, increase growth and improve economic conditions. Despite recent high national economic growth, living conditions for the average Egyptian remained relatively poor (albeit better than other African nations with no significant social upheavals).

Corruption

Political corruption in the Mubarak administration's Interior Ministry rose dramatically, due to increased control of the system necessary to sustain his presidency. The rise to power of powerful businessmen in the NDP, the government and the House of Representatives led to public anger during the Ahmed Nazif government. Ahmed Ezz monopolised the steel industry, with more than 60 percent of market share. Aladdin Elaasar, an Egyptian biographer and American professor, estimated that the Mubarak family was worth from $50 to $70 billion.

The wealth of former NDP secretary Ezz was estimated at ; the wealth of former housing minister Ahmed al-Maghraby was estimated at more than ; that of former tourism minister Zuhair Garrana is estimated at ; former minister of trade and industry Rashid Mohamed Rashid is estimated to be worth , and former interior minister Habib al-Adly was estimated to be worth . The perception among Egyptians was that the only people benefiting from the nation's wealth were businessmen with ties to the National Democratic Party: "Wealth fuels political power and political power buys wealth."

During the 2010 elections, opposition groups complained about government harassment and fraud. Opposition and citizen activists called for changes to a number of legal and constitutional provisions affecting elections. In 2010, Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) gave Egypt a score of 3.1 based on perceptions by business people and analysts of the degree of corruption (with 10 being clean, and 0 totally corrupt).

Prelude

To prepare for the possible overthrow of Mubarak, opposition groups studied Gene Sharp's work on nonviolent action and worked with leaders of Otpor!, the student-led Serbian organisation. Copies of Sharp's list of 198 non-violent "weapons", translated into Arabic and not always attributed to him, were circulated in Tahrir Square during its occupation.

Tunisian revolution

Following the ousting of Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali after mass protests, many analysts (including former European Commission President Romano Prodi) saw Egypt as the next country where such a revolution might occur. According to ''The Washington Post'', "The Jasmine Revolution ..should serve as a stark warning to Arab leaders – beginning with Egypt's 83-year-old Hosni Mubarak – that their refusal to allow more economic and political opportunity is dangerous and untenable." Others believed that Egypt was not ready for revolution, citing little aspiration by the Egyptian people, low educational levels and a strong government with military support. The BBC
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