Mubarak must go...

Which side is the Egyptian army on?
Would it be willing to fire on demonstrators if ordered to do so by President Mubarak?
The future of his authoritarian and sclerotic regime depends on the answer to these questions.
The army, one of the few meritocratic institutions in the country which can provide decent careers to those of humble backgrounds, is widely respected in Egypt.
Yesterday, President Mubarak ordered his army to patrol the streets in order to try and restore a semblance of order in the country, a task the police seems no longer capable of fulfilling.
As such, it is the army that is now guarding the capital’s strategic sites and buildings.
It has also been instructed to enforce the curfew in Cairo, between 4PM and 8AM.
The police has, for the most part, vanished.
Yesterday in Cairo, protesters, after a day-long struggle, finally overwhelmed the police and took control of the Kasr al-Nil bridge, which leads to Tahrir Square (Liberation Square), a rallying point for Cairo’s demonstrators.
In Alexandria meanwhile, the police also retreated, unable to subdue the thousands demonstrating against the regime.
There is no government in Alexandria now. They are all hiding, Muhammd Ahmed Ibrahim, a twenty-two-year old protester, told the NYT.
For the first time in the history of the Mubarak regime, the capacity of the police was completely exhausted. The police state broke down today, Peter Bouckaert, of HRW, told the NYT.
When the long confrontation which ended in their defeat was over, police officers actually shook hands with protesters and shared bottles of water with them.
The police however, is widely despised in Egypt, and for good reason.
According to cables recently released by WikiLeaks, police brutality is routine and pervasive.
The emergency law, imposed by Mubarak after the assassination of his predecessor, Anwar el Sadat in 1981,  allowed the police to operate at will, as it saw fit, and above the law if need be.
The police use brutal methods against common criminals to extract confessions, but also against demonstrators, certain political prisoners and unfortunate bystanders.
One human rights lawyer told us there is evidence of torture in Egypt dating back to the time of the pharaohs. NGO contacts estimate there are literally hundreds of torture incidents every day in Cairo police stations alone, according to one cable.
Even today, some apartment dwellers are loathe to report burglaries due to the predictable consequences: the torture of all the doormen is standard procedure.
Saturday, demonstrators once again took to Cairo’s streets in the tens of thousands, according to The Guardian’s Jack Shenker.
Thousands did likewise in Alexandria.
Friday night, President Mubarak spoke on national television and vowed to protect the nation’s security. He also announced that he had dismissed his cabinet and would appoint a new one to initiate a program of reforms essential to the nation’s future.
Yet, he made few, if any, concessions.
He did not tender his resignation.
He did not call for new parliamentary elections, that would be both free and fair.
He also failed to announce that September’s Presidential elections would be open and conducted according to established international standards.
Finally, he said nothing about repealing the emergency law…
Only concessions of this magnitude could perhaps assuage those rebelling against his rule in the streets.
Instead, he appointed Omar Suleiman, a close ally, and hitherto Director of Egypt’s General Intelligence Service since 1993, (the Mukhabarat) as Vice President, a post that he had held vacant so as not to encourage any potential rivals.
Does this nomination signify that the Egyptians will be spared the ordeal of being ruled by Mubarak’s son, Gamal, come September?
He also appointed a former Air Force commander, and outgoing civil aviation minister, Ahmed Shafiq as his new Prime Minister.
These changes are merely cosmetic and do not fundamentally alter either the regime, or its nature, and, as such, should hardly suffice to resolve the crisis.
The problem is he is a corrupt president and had a corrupt government and if he brings a new government, it will also be corrupt since the system is all corrupt, as one demonstrator told Al Jazeera
We are seeking a change of regime. President Mubarak should step down. We should head towards a democratic state through a new government and free democratic elections. The world should realize that the Egyptians are not going home until their demands are realized. We are talking about taking down the Pharaonic dictatorship, Mohamed Elbaradei told Al Jazeera.
It is time to urge Mubarak to resign and support Elbaradei and all those striving to establish a democratic regime in Egypt.
President Obama, for his part declared when President Mubarak addressed the Egyptian people tonight, he pledged a better democracy and greater economic opportunity. I just spoke to him after his speech and I told him he had a responsibility to give meaning to those words, to take concrete steps and actions that deliver on that promise.
That is simply not sufficient.
The only way that Mubarak can now serve his people is by stepping down…
The Washington Post, in an editorial called The US needs to break with Mubarak now, crossed the rubicund.
The United States should be using all of its influence-including the more than $1 billion in aid it supplies annually to the Egyptian military-to ensure the latter outcome, that is to say Mubarak’s resignation.
Saturday morning, the police did reemerge in Cairo and fired on those demonstrators attempting to storm the Interior Ministry building.
In the last twenty-four hours, over 100 demonstrators have been killed by the security forces, according to Al Jazeera.
Only the army can now save Mubarak.
We should be doing our utmost to ensure it does nothing of the kind…
(the photograph of demonstrators fraternising with soldiers in Cairo is by Hannibal Hanschke/EPA)

Let us demand Mubarak's departure now...

After another day of mass demonstrations, notably in Cairo, Alexandria and Suez, dubbed the Friday of Anger and Freedom, there are indications that, in some areas, the police have begun fraternising with the protesters.
In Cairo, according to Ben Wedeman of CNN, the situation may have quieted down somewhat (a curfew has been declared throughout the country) because the security forces have vanished. Things have calmed down because there is no government here, he said.
Is the Mubarak regime imploding?
AlJazeera has been at the forefront of the media coverage of the Egyptian uprising. It also played a major role in facilitating the Tunisian revolution because of its comprehensive, ubiquitous coverage, and its willingness to broadcast independent videos of the demonstrations shot by the protagonists themselves.
One would have thought, if not hoped, that coverage of such momentous events, the revolt of oppressed peoples demanding freedom, justice and the right to earn a decent living would have inspired Western media, the BBC, France 24, CNN or Fox.
Alas, the most agressive and dynamic coverage was provided by a young upstart network from Qatar...
Yet, those demanding change and seeking to overthrow their autocratic and corrupt rulers are but appropriating those ideals we hold so dear.
Why, then, has our support for the oppressed been so timid?
Why have we been aiding their oppressors for so long, thereby betraying our own ideals, and prolonging the agony of the oppressed?
We are fighting for universal values, Mohamed ELBaradei, who returned to Egypt on Thursday in order to join the demonstators, and who appears to be currently under house arrest, told The Guardian.
If the west is not going to speak out now, then when?
That is a most relevant question.
What are we waiting for?
Shall we have to apologize to the Egyptians, the day they wrest their freedom from Mubarak, for not having come to their assistance when they needed it the most?
The French have been doing just that, (or more to the point, attempting to account for their inaction) but to the Tunisian people, for the last week, because their reluctance to intervene in the conflict, so as not to destabilize the nation, led them to play the part of the hapless and helpless bystander.
The nation priding itself upon being the birthplace of human rights thus stood listlessly by, as a detemined people fought for its freedom and dignity.
Is that the part we aspire to play in the Egyptian uprising?
What are we waiting for, then, to demand Mubarak's departure and the fall of his morally bankrupt regime?
Fox's reluctance to cover the mass demonstrations in Egypt may provide a clue.
"You probably don't give a lot of time thinking about Egypt", a Fox News presenter suggested, before explaining that "groups linked to al-Qaida" were in danger of taking over the government in Cairo, wrote Richard Adams, of The Guardian's Wahington bureau.
Here lies our unspeakable fear: if the despots fall, the islamic extremists are bound to replace them.
In a post 9/11-world, that is unthinkable, an unconscionable proposition.
Hence, their misery and oppression is the price for our security and comfort, even though Islamic extremism is spawned by misery and oppression....
The Israelis themselves are terrified at the prospect of Mubarak's downfall.
I'm not sure the time is right for the Arab region to go through the democratic process, one diplomat told TIME.
This remark, if condescending and contemptuous, is at least a candid one.
The time shall never be right as long as we, in the West, continue being obsessed with Osama Bin Laden.
The erroneous belief that only robust police states can shield the West from Islamic extremism led us to sacrifice the interests of entire populations comprising millions of people, in the name of security, but only our security (those hapless Muslims living in the Middle East will have to forego theirs and continue being victimized by the thugs who rule them) and affordable oil prices...
In this regard, it should be noted that the revolt in Egypt has just pushed oil prices near $100 a barrel...
Hillary Clinton has condemned the violence, but not the regime, as she still refuses to demand Mubarak's departure.  As a partner, we strongly believe that the Egyptian government needs to engage immediately with the Egyptian people in implementing political, social and economic reforms, she stated today.
Mubarak has lost the moral authority to initiate these changes, assuming he ever even knew how to proceed.
Only the demise of his corrupt police state will allow the Egyptians to create the future they demand and deserve...
(the photograph above of demonstrators in Cairo is by Mohammed Abed AFP/Getty Images)

This is do or die...

Initially, on Tuesday, members of the security apparatus, including the feared Mukhabarat, the secret police, dwarfed the number of protesters, who were scarcely visible.
Some 4,000 occupied Cairo’s busiest quarter, Tahir Square (Liberation Square).
Then the police converged on a small group of thirty demonstrators.
A few moments later, those thirty were now three hundred and  marching away from the Square. Hurriya!, Hurriya!, Hurriya! (Freedom!, Freedom!, Freedom!), they shouted.
As their numbers swelled, the protesters briefly overwhelmed the Mukhabarat, and headed toward the museum where other demonstrators, around 1,000, were marching.
When the crowd reached several thousand, the police resorted to water cannons to try to disperse the demonstrators.
I saw today that the Arabs are alive. And the Arabs are hungry, the journalist Ahmed Moor, who was present on the scene, wrote in aljazeera.net.
The Guardian reporter Jack Shenker was at Abdel Munim Riyad Square.
Thousands were converging there from Tahir Square.
The riot police charged.
Along with nearby protesters I fled down the street before stopping at what appeared to be as safe distance. A few ordinary dressed young men were running in my direction. Two came towards me and threw out punches, sending me to the ground. I was hauled back up by the scruff of the neck and dragged towards the advancing police lines, he wrote.
He was arrested and thrown into a police truck, along with dozens of other protesters heading for an unknown destination. The police attacked us to get us out of the square; they didn’t care who you were, they just attacked everybody. They hit our heads and hurt some people. There are some people bleeding, we don’t know where they are taking us, Ahmad Mamdouh, a co-detainee told the journalist.
They were soon al freed by other activists who stormed the truck…
The clashes lasted well into the night.
Yet, the demonstrators vowed to return the next day, even though the government had outlawed all public gatherings.
On Wednesday, thousands of police patrolled the streets of the Egyptian capital, controlling major intersections, and protecting the national television building, and the headquarters of President Mubarak’s National Democratic Party.
Though less numerous than the day before, several thousand protesters boldly marched through the streets.
The police fired tear gas, and charged. The activists retaliated by throwing rocks at the security forces.
Those demonstrating near the Ramses Hilton were dispersed by the police and plain-clothed agents armed with truncheons.
Nevertheless, the demonstrators repeatedly regrouped, refusing to submit to the authority of the regime’s security forces.
This is do or die. The most important thing is to keep confronting them, Mustafa Youssef, a twenty-two-year old student told the NYT.
Demonstrations also took place in Suez. Activists there threw Molotov cocktails at President Mubarak’s party headquarters.
In Assyut, south of Cairo, some one hundred demonstrators chanting down, down Hosni Mubarak and oh, people join us or you will be next, were beaten by the police, who then arrested nearly half of them.
Overall, some 800 were arrested throughout the country, according to the government. Human rights groups claim the figure is closer to 2000. Four are reported to have been killed in the clashes, including one policeman.
Sporadic clashed continued on Thursday.
There is a sense of calm before the storm in Cairo today, as protesters prepare for an all-out surge tomorrow following the afternoon prayers in mosques and churches around the country. A heavy security presence remains in place across the capital, whilst hundreds of those arrested since this uprising began will begin being interrogated today, activists are appealing for lawyers to come forward and help with their cases, Shenker wrote Thursday.
The anti-government activists vowed to demonstrate anew after Friday prayers.
Mohammed Elbaradei, former head of the IAEA, winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace prize, returned to Egypt Thursday to participate.
The barrier of fear is broken and it will not come back, he told reporters upon his arrival.
Earlier he had written, the young people of Egypt have lost patience, and what you’ve seen in the streets in these last few days has all been organized by them. I have been out of Egypt because that is the only way I can be heard. I have been totally cut off from the local media when I am here. But I am going back to Cairo, and back into the streets because really, there is no choice. You go out there with this massive number of people, and you hope things will not turn ugly, but so far, the regime does not seem to have gotten the message.
January 25, Egypt’s Police Day had been chosen by Mubarak’s foes to organize a Day of Rage.
The demonstrators were summoned on Facebook, particularly on the Facebook page We Are All Khaled Sa’id. The latter was killed by the police in June of last year. The page has some 400,000 members…
An additional page called The Day of Revolution against Torture, Poverty, Corruption and Unemployment was launched to promote the Day of Rage. It has well over 100,000 members.
The demonstrations have been designed as apolitical, and sponsored by a number of groups such as the April 6 Youth Movement, Mohamed Elbaradei’s National Association for Change, and the Muslim Brotherhood, an illegal opposition party that is nonetheless tolerated by the regime.
The April 6 Movement refers to the general strike that had been called for April 6, 2008. It is also an internet-based organization.
The organizers decide to call for a Day of Rage because Egypt is in one of its worst stages in history. Demonstrating would thus end the silence and the submissiveness regarding what is happening in our country, they wrote.
They felt that it was time to take control of their own future.
In Egypt, some 24% of the 80 million-strong population have access to the internet; 26 million own cell phones, such that activists can communicate through text messages.
As a result, the protest movement is largely apolitical and powered by the nation’s young people (two-thirds of the population is under 30), adept at utilizing modern technology.
In addition, they have many reasons to demand change.
President Mubarak has been in power for thirty years.
Now eighty-two and ailing, he seems intent on anointing his son Gamal as his successor. Gamal, tell your father that Egyptians hate you was one of the chants heard on the streets of Cairo.
Approximately 40% of Egyptians live on less than $2 a day, and one third is illiterate.
90% of the unemployed are under thirty…
Fraudulent parliamentary elections held last November ensured the opposition won but 3% of the seats.
Presidential elections are to be held in September, and the Egyptians suspect that the Mubarak family will once again conspire to retain power.
Hence, the current status quo is no longer tenable, all the more so as Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution proved that change is possible, and that it can only be initiated by the people themselves, with the nation’s youth spearheading the movement.
If you look at the Tunisian uprising, it’s a youth uprising. It is the youth that knows the media, Internet, Facebook, so there are other players now, Emad Shahin, an Egyptian scholar at the University of Notre Dame, told the NYT.
The protest was full of young people who had never been to protests before. All chanting against Mubarak and his regime. They had expressed their wishes on the internet but now they’ve decided to express them in the streets, Mostafa Hussein, an Egyptian doctor present in the streets of Cairo, wrote in The Guardian.
This is being driven by youth, and their familiarity with technology is helping them. There is a divide between them and the older men who hold power, David Nassar, CEO of Hotspot Digital told John Timpane, of philly.com.
The Egyptian government did attempt to prevent access to sites such as Twitter and Facebook, in order to undermine the protest movement, but was only partially successful.
In retaliation, the activists group known as Anonymous  organized what it called Operation Egypt, launching cyber attacks on several official government websites.
The group had similarly attacked Tunisian government sites earlier this month.
Will the Egyptians succeed in overthrowing Mubarak’s authoritarian regime?
The security services and armed forces firmly back the old autocrat.
The prospects for Tunisia-style reform in Egypt are dim. The Egyptian government is well-versed in managing and containing even large scale protests, and has been dong so for decades, Mona el-Ghobashy, assistant professor of political science at Barnard College, told John Timpane.
Yet, no one saw this coming in Tunisia, either. The main thing is, the unthinkable first step has happened, John Entelis, director of Middle Eastern studies at Fordham University, told philly.com.
Will the West, this time, be on the side of the people in revolt, or shall the preservation of the status quo be the preferred option once again?
Secretary of State Clinton declared that we believe strongly that the Egyptian government has an important opportunity at this moment  in time to implement political, economic and social reforms that respond to legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people.
White House press secretary Robin Gibbs declined however, to explicitly express support for the beleaguered Egyptian president, declaring instead that Egypt is a strong ally.
In fact, it receives annually some $1.5 billion in US financial aid.
The US and the West obviously fear that the introduction of democracy in the Middle East could ultimately benefit groups and parties with agendas hostile to US and European security interests.
After all, when a free and fair election was held in the Palestinian Territories in 2006, Hamas, and not the West’s ally, President Abbas’ Fatah won!
Hence, promoting reform rather than revolution seems to be the policy currently pursued by Western nations.
Is it still possible however, to reform Mubarak’s Egypt?
We are staring at social disintegration, economic stagnation, political repression, and we do not hear anything from you Americans, or for that matter from the Europeans, Mohamed Elbaradei wrote in The Daily Beast.
Can the current regime realistically be expected to tackle these issues successfully?
It has been in power for thirty years…
In addition, are stability and democracy compatible?
Should we ignore the imperious demands for change the Egyptian people are vociferously expressing, following the lead of the Tunisians, so that are political interests can be preserved?
When confronted with such popular uprisings, the calling of the Western democracies seems obvious: support the people fighting and dying for freedom, justice and democracy (values we profess to embody), and not the thugs who oppress and rob them.
As recent events in Iran, Tunisia, Yemen and Egypt have evinced, police states do not engender stability, but sow the seeds of rebellion instead…
It is time for Mr. Mubarak to flee, and follow his Tunisian colleague into exile, who is now wanted on charges of defrauding his country.
It is time that the autocrats of the region finally heed the voices of their own peoples.
The destiny of their nations surely belongs to the latter, and certainly not to us.
The Egyptians, like the Tunisians before them, and, hopefully soon,  the Algerians, Syrians, Jordanians, Saudis and the rest, deserve our active support.
We should not hinder their efforts to reclaim their lost dignity, but provide all the support that we can…
(the photograph above of Tunisian and Egyptian protesters is by Reuters)