October 6, 2011
“There was much more to this unique Tahrir square phenomenon than just bread and butter, there were popular demands to restore a lost dignity.”
The Egyptian Revolution and
the epic story of Tahrir square
There
are a few academic definitions of “Revolution”… but they all come down to one
sentence
“Dramatic change in a relatively short period of time”
It
could take some time to change the political system of a country; it could take
some time to draft a new constitution, elect a new parliament, even a new
president … but it will definitely take so many years to get rid of the
culture of fear when you have been living for so long in a police state.
It is understandable that criminals usually need rehabilitation,
but what is not conceivable is when you find a situation where police
officers need to be rehabilitated and retrained to properly serve and protect
the people according to a code of ethics that is universally agreed upon.
Torture, was the only department the regimes of the Arab
dictators excelled at.
When the clueless Mr. Bush launched his stupid crusade, better
known as the war on terror, he used to send abducted suspects of the so called
al-Qaeda over to Morocco, Egypt and Jordan for innovative techniques of
questioning that made waterboarding looked benign.
The Egyptians revolted not against Mubarak per se, rather they
protested against living in a police state that acted, not according to the
order of law, but under the emergency law, where
every suspect is guilty until proven otherwise.
And in the meantime he is most likely to be humiliated like
never before in his life and stripped of his dignity and pride. And if he was
to get out of his imprisonment again, he will likely to walk out as a human
wreck.
Of course there were social and economic grievances behind the
Egyptian revolution, but there was much more to this unique Tahrir square
phenomenon than just bread and butter; there were popular demands to restore a
lost dignity.
The honeymoon between the
Egyptian military and the protesters did not last long
The honeymoon between the Egyptian military and the protesters
did not last long. Tahrir Square, which had been the scene of jubilant
celebrations, soon turned into a battlefield, as the army moved to violently
disperse activists, beating them with clubs and electric rods – even firing
live ammunition ~ leading to many casualties.
Hundreds were dragged away to trucks and thrown in prison.
Between January 28 and August 29, almost 12,000 civilians were tried
in military tribunals, far more than Mubarak managed in
30 years of dictatorship. Torture by police and military personnel remains
widespread with hundreds of cases involving beatings, electrocution, and sexual
assault reported.
A video was released lately revealing army and police
officers torturing citizens in Kurdi police station in the governorate of
Dakahlia (lying north east of Cairo)
.
The video showed three half naked citizens bound and blindfolded and the officers stepping on them with their shoes. The video then shows an officer form the Special Forces electrocuted the citizens behind on their ears with taser guns, making them scream while they were being interrogated.
The video showed some familiar officers who appeared during the
Egyptian January 25 Revolution, from the army, police and the Special Forces.
It is worth mentioning that the two suspects, being tortured in
the video, were caught red handed robbing and looting … but I don’t think this
fact could make this whole mockery of human rights and legal procedures less
reprehensible.
The Egyptian police/military forces might as well have
saved themselves the trouble and bombarded the two men at the crime
scene by some drone attacks, as Obama did with this Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen.
But then again, the Awlaki case is no comparison to this
Egyptian police misconduct, I mean the suspects were at least brought in for
questioning. We have to give the Egyptian police credit for that
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