Israel Matzav

Video and more from Egyptian protests

There are anti-Mubarak protests in Egypt as I write this (at an un-Godly hour of the night). Although Twitter has been blocked in Egypt (see below), my number one Egyptian follow @Sandmonkey keeps getting his tweets through.

Here's video from downtown Cairo earlier. Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: Blake Hounshell via Twitter):



Here's an Egyptian government press release regarding the day's events. The Arabist comments:

- The Egyptian government did not allow today's protests, they were explicitly banned because they were without authorization, and the Ministry of Interior said that protestors would be dealt severely (presumably to dissuade people from joining).

- The Muslim Brotherhood has officially denied taking part in the protests, while experienced reporters such as CNN's Ben Wedeman as well as countless participants and observers stated that the protests were surprisingly distant from Islamist rhetoric.

- On the rule of law issue the government obviously has a point: the protestors violated the Emergency Law which bans gatherings of more than five persons, and did throw rocks at police. Make of that what you will. The government, however, may be breaking Egyptian law by interrupting certain types communications, notably internet and mobile telecommunications.

In a later post, the Arabist posts this picture of the main protest at Cairo's Midan Tahrir:



The Arabist adds:

The most significant thing about today's protests across Egypt is that their scale was totally unexpected. Yes, there has been a wave of protests since late 2004. But none have been nationwide to this extent, and none have been as big. We still do not have a clear picture of what transpired in much of the country, and media focus tended to be on the main protest in Cairo's Midan Tahrir. But that is enough to know that these may be the biggest protest movement since at least the 1977 bread riots and perhaps even the biggest since the 1950s.

It was not predictable, just like Tunisia, because it was an unknown unknown — we did not know that the threshold for such an event had been reached, partly because previous protests had fizzled out or were effectively contained by the regime . While we (here I mean the press, analysts, and activists) knew many Egyptians were tired of the current state of affairs, we did not know that an external change (what happened in Tunisia) could have this kind of impact on a country that, after all, has been protesting for years and that is nowhere as repressive and controlled as Tunisia was under Ben Ali. I suspect the staggering effrontery of the regime during December's parliamentary elections and the moment of national unity after the New Year's Eve January bombing also played a role. A significant number of Egyptians simply do not find the regime credible anymore, and hold it responsible for much of the deterioration of the country — in terms of the socio-economic situation, sectarian relations, and political accountability. Today, a red line has been irrevocably crossed, a barrier of fear transcended.

What tomorrow brings is anyone's guess.

...

This movement, for now, has no leadership. Some opposition personalities participated, but it was mostly organized on Facebook by the campaign in memory of Khaled Said, the young Alexandria killed by police last year. The Muslim Brotherhood did not back it. Mohamed ElBaradei did not back it. The Wafd party did not back it. It appears to be largely a movement of young people inspired by the Tunisian example and the culmination of over six years of activism and rising resentment against the regime, the 30-year reign of Hosni Mubarak and the apparent acceleration of the project to have Gamal Mubarak replace his father in the last six months. It is also, of course, a protest against an increasingly unaccountable and uncontrollable police state, which is why Police Day was chosen (Mubarak must be kicking himself for making it a public holiday last year). It may become even less accountable if reports of a violent attempt to disband the Tahrir protest are to be believed. As I write these lines, it appears police are successfully driving away people from the square. Three people have thus far been reported dead, a number wounded and countless arrested.

Here's another video. Let's go to the videotape.



He's got much more, so read the whole thing.

Secretary of State Clinton came out with a statement that the Mubarak regime is not in danger; I'd say that's far from certain.

Finally, Twitter and some other online services have been blocked in Egypt (except for two URL's which are apparently getting through).

Earlier today, we reported on a lot of chatter that Twitter was being blocked in Egypt amid rising protests. We can now confirm that they are being blocked. Two tweets from the service tonight confirm it.

“We can confirm that Twitter was blocked in Egypt around 8am PT today. It is impacting both Twitter.com & applications,” Twitter communications head Sean Garrett just tweeted out via their new PR account. “We believe that the open exchange of info & views benefits societies & helps govts better connect w/ their people,” he continued in a second tweet.

The protests began happening in Cairo this morning after people rallied together using services like Facebook and Twitter, and after seeing similar protests in Tunisia about corruption.

If you follow me on Twitter, I've been tweeting a lot of this stuff.

Wow....

Labels: Egyptian elections, Egyptian riots, Hillary Clinton, Hosni Mubarak, Politics, Twitter, World Politics

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:35 AM