A protester returns a gas canister during clashes with security forces near the Interior Ministry in Cairo 3 February 2012. (Photo: REUTERS - Suhaib Salem)
Ahmed Wardani, aged 25, lost his brother to police violence against protesters on January 28 last year. Mustafa was killed during the Friday of Rage riots in Suez, on a day that Egyptians consider crucial to the short history of the country’s revolution.
In spite of the loss of his elder brother, Wardani showed consistent warmth and a characteristically Egyptian sense of humor during interviews with Al-Akhbar in early December 2011.
But on 3 February 2012, Wardani sounded bitter like never before. “There’s so much violence. It’s really bad here today,” he said. “The police are using tear gas, rubber bullets and live fire to disperse some 8,000 protesters around the city’s security directorate. The violence just shows that the police has not changed at all, in spite of the revolution.”
New wave of violence: Police versus people
A new wave of violence struck Egypt starting February 1, when 74 people were killed and more than 1,000 injured during the country’s worst football disaster in history during a game in Port Said. Sympathizers with the victims unequivocally blamed the ruling military regime, either by design or omission, for the tragedy. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has held executive power since the resignation of ousted President Hosni Mubarak.
Witnesses said the Central Security Forces, long associated with quelling anti-Mubarak street action, failed to stop the violence, in part by allowing people armed with white weapons to enter the stadium. They also reportedly failed to intervene to stop violence against Al Ahly fans when they were violently attacked by thugs as soon as the game ended.
The Muslim Brotherhood, whose Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) heads the main parliamentary bloc, blamed remnants of Mubarak’s regime for the violence. On Thursday, parliament held an emergency session and blamed the Ministry of Interior, led by Mansour Essawi, for failing to stop the violence.
According to a statement published on the Muslim Brotherhood’s English website, FJP vice-chairman Essam Eryan “presented to parliament a request for prosecution of the Interior Minister on charges of negligence.” The statement also referred to the “survival” of the senior leadership” of the ministry, which is believed to be “complicit” with Mubarak’s regime.
Enraged by the deaths, thousands of people took to the streets in cities across Egypt on Thursday. But the protests were more than just an expression of anger with the security forces. They also expressed demands for the fall of the SCAF new momentum.
Police violence remained in the limelight when the security forces resorted to excessive violence to quell protests that continued through Friday in Cairo, Suez and Alexandria among other towns. The authorities have denied the use of live ammunition against protesters, though witnesses at the scene in Cairo and Suez claim otherwise.
The scenes were reminiscent of crackdowns on protesters in central Cairo during November and December last year. Because of their magnitude, they were also eerily reminiscent of crackdowns during the last days of Mubarak’s regime.
Through clashes on Thursday evening and Friday, at least four people were killed during street battles in Cairo and Suez. The significance of the deaths in Suez was not lost on protesters, who were quick to remember that the first victims of the January 25 revolution fell there.
According to the Ministry of Health, more than 1,600 people were injured in the latest round of violence since Wednesday. Protesters on Thursday and Friday were mostly unarmed, while some hurled rocks at the security forces.
One of those killed was an army lieutenant, apparently run over by mistake by a security vehicle. The majority of injured protesters suffered suffocation from tear gas used to force protesters away from the Ministry of Interior building in the heart of the city.
Significantly, among those in the front lines of Cairo protests were hardcore football fans, or Ultras. The Ultras not only played a key role in last year’s protests leading up to Mubarak’s ouster, but also in intermittent clashes through 2011 with the security forces and military. They have a history of clashes with the Central Security Forces, both pre and post-Mubarak.
Resignations and travel bans: Insufficient concessions
A string of resignations and travel bans followed the Port Said tragedy. Port Said governor Major-General Mohamed Abdullah resigned Wednesday and has now been banned from leaving the country. According to Al Jazeera, the head of Port Said’s security has also been issued a travel ban.
SCAF Chairman Hussein Tantawi was quoted by Reuters as saying: "We will get through this stage. Egypt will be stable. We have a roadmap to transfer power to elected civilians. If anyone is plotting instability in Egypt they will not succeed. Everyone will get what they deserve." He also said that the security of the Port Said game was the responsibility of the police force.
Meanwhile Prime Minister Kamal Ganzouri told parliament on Thursday that all Egyptian Football Association board members would be suspended and an investigation would be opened on the Port Said game.
Appointed by SCAF in November and once prime minister under Mubarak, Ganzouri’s statements before parliament Thursday were deemed insufficient concessions by human rights lawyer Gamal Eid.
As the executive power, “the SCAF is directly responsible for security in Egypt. Promises of accountability are empty, and poor attempts at fooling the Egyptian people into thinking that only the SCAF can save them from insecurity and chaos,” said Eid, head of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information.
Eid mentioned the fact that no officer has yet been sentenced for killings during numerous crackdowns on protesters through 2011, though promises to that effect were made each time. “Every time calm returns to Egypt, a tragedy takes place to try and make people believe the SCAF’s claims that foreign agents or unidentified thugs being behind insecurity in the country,” the lawyer said.
“In fact, the strategy is backfiring. Every time there is bloodshed, people become more aware of who is ultimately responsible for the violence,” Eid added. “When you want to know who is behind a crisis, try and look for benefits most from it.”
And while the FJP’s calls to a large extent reflected the need to overhaul Egypt’s unreformed, and thus far unaccountable security apparatus, Eid believed its de facto compromise with the SCAF would make it hard for the Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing to go through with its drive.
“The FJP is trying hard to keep both its voters and the SCAF happy,” he said. “At some point, it is going to have to choose between them, because violence is making the gulf between the people and the executive grow by the day.”
Insecurity to engineer the counter-revolution
Not all Egyptians, however, are against the SCAF. Continued instability started to create a split on the streets that had yet to show itself in full force. Overall insecurity, skyrocketing crime rates, and the unprecedented presence of unknown thugs - whom some believe are criminals let out of jail during Egypt’s 18-day revolution last year - have led to the creation of significant support for continued military rule.
What has yet to be seen was how the situation in the coming months, leading up to presidential elections scheduled for June, would evolve. For one, splits between FJP supporters and other popular political forces on how to take the country forward - concerning both method and pace - were fast emerging almost 12 months on from Mubarak’s ouster.
On January 27, clashes broke out between liberal, secular and independent protesters on one hand, and Muslim Brotherhood supporters on the other in downtown Cairo. On Wednesday, new skirmishes broke out when FJP supporters blocked protesters from entering the street leading to the parliament building. This time around, however, the skirmishes were contained.
Meanwhile provocation by the authorities to keep tensions high have been continuous through the latest round of clashes. “State television has spent the past few hours telling its viewers to take to the streets to defend the country against ‘thugs,’ referring to protesters,” Suez activist Wardani said.
“But in my view, the more the SCAF and security forces resort to violence, the less likely it is that a split on the street will emerge,” he said. Though he sounded troubled, “I have hope,” Wardani added. “People can see with their own eyes, just like they did during the revolution, who is behind the violence.”
But ill omens still weighed heavy on Egyptians. For one, as Friday evening came to a close, reports broke out of attempts to set ablaze a building adjacent to the Ministry of Interior in downtown Cairo, just a few meters away from ongoing clashes. Minutes later, anti-SCAF Facebook group Scafgate claimed protesters had “detained” those trying to start the fire.
Staged or not, such incidents only prove that security was diminishing in a country whose people once kept it beautifully safe.
In spite of the loss of his elder brother, Wardani showed consistent warmth and a characteristically Egyptian sense of humor during interviews with Al-Akhbar in early December 2011.
But on 3 February 2012, Wardani sounded bitter like never before. “There’s so much violence. It’s really bad here today,” he said. “The police are using tear gas, rubber bullets and live fire to disperse some 8,000 protesters around the city’s security directorate. The violence just shows that the police has not changed at all, in spite of the revolution.”
New wave of violence: Police versus people
A new wave of violence struck Egypt starting February 1, when 74 people were killed and more than 1,000 injured during the country’s worst football disaster in history during a game in Port Said. Sympathizers with the victims unequivocally blamed the ruling military regime, either by design or omission, for the tragedy. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has held executive power since the resignation of ousted President Hosni Mubarak.
Witnesses said the Central Security Forces, long associated with quelling anti-Mubarak street action, failed to stop the violence, in part by allowing people armed with white weapons to enter the stadium. They also reportedly failed to intervene to stop violence against Al Ahly fans when they were violently attacked by thugs as soon as the game ended.
The Muslim Brotherhood, whose Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) heads the main parliamentary bloc, blamed remnants of Mubarak’s regime for the violence. On Thursday, parliament held an emergency session and blamed the Ministry of Interior, led by Mansour Essawi, for failing to stop the violence.
According to a statement published on the Muslim Brotherhood’s English website, FJP vice-chairman Essam Eryan “presented to parliament a request for prosecution of the Interior Minister on charges of negligence.” The statement also referred to the “survival” of the senior leadership” of the ministry, which is believed to be “complicit” with Mubarak’s regime.
Enraged by the deaths, thousands of people took to the streets in cities across Egypt on Thursday. But the protests were more than just an expression of anger with the security forces. They also expressed demands for the fall of the SCAF new momentum.
Police violence remained in the limelight when the security forces resorted to excessive violence to quell protests that continued through Friday in Cairo, Suez and Alexandria among other towns. The authorities have denied the use of live ammunition against protesters, though witnesses at the scene in Cairo and Suez claim otherwise.
The scenes were reminiscent of crackdowns on protesters in central Cairo during November and December last year. Because of their magnitude, they were also eerily reminiscent of crackdowns during the last days of Mubarak’s regime.
Through clashes on Thursday evening and Friday, at least four people were killed during street battles in Cairo and Suez. The significance of the deaths in Suez was not lost on protesters, who were quick to remember that the first victims of the January 25 revolution fell there.
According to the Ministry of Health, more than 1,600 people were injured in the latest round of violence since Wednesday. Protesters on Thursday and Friday were mostly unarmed, while some hurled rocks at the security forces.
One of those killed was an army lieutenant, apparently run over by mistake by a security vehicle. The majority of injured protesters suffered suffocation from tear gas used to force protesters away from the Ministry of Interior building in the heart of the city.
Significantly, among those in the front lines of Cairo protests were hardcore football fans, or Ultras. The Ultras not only played a key role in last year’s protests leading up to Mubarak’s ouster, but also in intermittent clashes through 2011 with the security forces and military. They have a history of clashes with the Central Security Forces, both pre and post-Mubarak.
Resignations and travel bans: Insufficient concessions
A string of resignations and travel bans followed the Port Said tragedy. Port Said governor Major-General Mohamed Abdullah resigned Wednesday and has now been banned from leaving the country. According to Al Jazeera, the head of Port Said’s security has also been issued a travel ban.
SCAF Chairman Hussein Tantawi was quoted by Reuters as saying: "We will get through this stage. Egypt will be stable. We have a roadmap to transfer power to elected civilians. If anyone is plotting instability in Egypt they will not succeed. Everyone will get what they deserve." He also said that the security of the Port Said game was the responsibility of the police force.
Meanwhile Prime Minister Kamal Ganzouri told parliament on Thursday that all Egyptian Football Association board members would be suspended and an investigation would be opened on the Port Said game.
Appointed by SCAF in November and once prime minister under Mubarak, Ganzouri’s statements before parliament Thursday were deemed insufficient concessions by human rights lawyer Gamal Eid.
As the executive power, “the SCAF is directly responsible for security in Egypt. Promises of accountability are empty, and poor attempts at fooling the Egyptian people into thinking that only the SCAF can save them from insecurity and chaos,” said Eid, head of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information.
Eid mentioned the fact that no officer has yet been sentenced for killings during numerous crackdowns on protesters through 2011, though promises to that effect were made each time. “Every time calm returns to Egypt, a tragedy takes place to try and make people believe the SCAF’s claims that foreign agents or unidentified thugs being behind insecurity in the country,” the lawyer said.
“In fact, the strategy is backfiring. Every time there is bloodshed, people become more aware of who is ultimately responsible for the violence,” Eid added. “When you want to know who is behind a crisis, try and look for benefits most from it.”
And while the FJP’s calls to a large extent reflected the need to overhaul Egypt’s unreformed, and thus far unaccountable security apparatus, Eid believed its de facto compromise with the SCAF would make it hard for the Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing to go through with its drive.
“The FJP is trying hard to keep both its voters and the SCAF happy,” he said. “At some point, it is going to have to choose between them, because violence is making the gulf between the people and the executive grow by the day.”
Insecurity to engineer the counter-revolution
Not all Egyptians, however, are against the SCAF. Continued instability started to create a split on the streets that had yet to show itself in full force. Overall insecurity, skyrocketing crime rates, and the unprecedented presence of unknown thugs - whom some believe are criminals let out of jail during Egypt’s 18-day revolution last year - have led to the creation of significant support for continued military rule.
What has yet to be seen was how the situation in the coming months, leading up to presidential elections scheduled for June, would evolve. For one, splits between FJP supporters and other popular political forces on how to take the country forward - concerning both method and pace - were fast emerging almost 12 months on from Mubarak’s ouster.
On January 27, clashes broke out between liberal, secular and independent protesters on one hand, and Muslim Brotherhood supporters on the other in downtown Cairo. On Wednesday, new skirmishes broke out when FJP supporters blocked protesters from entering the street leading to the parliament building. This time around, however, the skirmishes were contained.
Meanwhile provocation by the authorities to keep tensions high have been continuous through the latest round of clashes. “State television has spent the past few hours telling its viewers to take to the streets to defend the country against ‘thugs,’ referring to protesters,” Suez activist Wardani said.
“But in my view, the more the SCAF and security forces resort to violence, the less likely it is that a split on the street will emerge,” he said. Though he sounded troubled, “I have hope,” Wardani added. “People can see with their own eyes, just like they did during the revolution, who is behind the violence.”
But ill omens still weighed heavy on Egyptians. For one, as Friday evening came to a close, reports broke out of attempts to set ablaze a building adjacent to the Ministry of Interior in downtown Cairo, just a few meters away from ongoing clashes. Minutes later, anti-SCAF Facebook group Scafgate claimed protesters had “detained” those trying to start the fire.
Staged or not, such incidents only prove that security was diminishing in a country whose people once kept it beautifully safe.
Uprooted Palestinian 
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