Big protests going on in Cairo right now....
6 Comments Published by Tom Gara on Sunday, March 27 at Sunday, March 27, 2005.
Early this morning the Egyptian government arrested 45 members of the illegal but influential Egyptian organisation, the Muslim Brotherhood. Protests were expected in response and thousands of riot police lined the streets out the front of the parliament building in downtown. The protesters were clever though, and shifted locations at the last minute to another part of downtown, Ramses Square. They showed up there in large numbers (estimates vary from 2,000 by the government to 5,000 from the organisers) , with the riot police quickly following.
I heard from Tamer that his company are advising employees not go go into the city centre right now - probably good advice. I just called Thea, who was actually riding on the underground metro right underneath the center of the protests - the conversation, over a badly crackling line, went something like:
- "ummm...babe.....were you planning on getting out of the metro?"
- "no, I am going home"
- "ahhh....cool....ummm....dont get out of the metro. I'll explain later.."
Anyhow I guess more news will become available on all this in the next few hours. It is hard to categorise though - the protesters are calling for fair, free elections, the ability to form political parties, and repeal of Egypt's "emergency laws". Is it part of the "wave of democracy" spreading across the Middle East? The Muslim Brotherhood have been arguing for this kind of thing for almost half a century - they are fairly confident that if a free election was held where they could run as candidates, they would win comfortably.
I don't know how true this is today - I'm sure the whole Misr crew will post their thoughts on this in the next few days - but it is to me a sign that not every step towards immediate, western style democracy in the Middle East will lead to the "desired outcome", unless the desired outcome is a religious based government.
I heard from Tamer that his company are advising employees not go go into the city centre right now - probably good advice. I just called Thea, who was actually riding on the underground metro right underneath the center of the protests - the conversation, over a badly crackling line, went something like:
- "ummm...babe.....were you planning on getting out of the metro?"
- "no, I am going home"
- "ahhh....cool....ummm....dont get out of the metro. I'll explain later.."
Anyhow I guess more news will become available on all this in the next few hours. It is hard to categorise though - the protesters are calling for fair, free elections, the ability to form political parties, and repeal of Egypt's "emergency laws". Is it part of the "wave of democracy" spreading across the Middle East? The Muslim Brotherhood have been arguing for this kind of thing for almost half a century - they are fairly confident that if a free election was held where they could run as candidates, they would win comfortably.
I don't know how true this is today - I'm sure the whole Misr crew will post their thoughts on this in the next few days - but it is to me a sign that not every step towards immediate, western style democracy in the Middle East will lead to the "desired outcome", unless the desired outcome is a religious based government.
Enjoy the excitement whilst you can, Tom.
Are they burning any Egyptian flags?
For those that don't know, an attempted Turkish flag-burning in Mersin last Sunday is by far Turkey's biggest story of the past week. In respose to the attempted burning, almost every shop and apartment all over Turkey has hung out a Turkish flag.
See: http://taheny.com/2005/03/burning-turkish-flag.html
the devil we know is better than the one we dont!
i would rather have hosny mubarak any day of the week than the muslim brotherhood. there is no way in heaven or hell we will turn to saudi arabia.
the moment the muslim brotherhood takes over, that's the moment i turn my back on egypt and never look back.
I leave Egypt for two weeks and all hell breaks loose...
actually, the weired thing that not everybody knows that Mubarak isn't hated by the Egy people, as a lot of people see him as the best person for managing the external politics for Egypt, as he's saving the Egyptian rank among the arabs and africans.
about the muslim brotherhood, don't forget that they were responsible for the success of 52's revolution, as they were pushing the public for it, beside El-zobat el a7rar pushing the army.
plus, the muslim brotherhood, are open-minded in the religion wise opinions, and i think their ideas are accepted by a moderate religious muslims, or rational thinking people.
Muslims politics and muslim opinion are separated by a huge gulf of unspoken policies. While muslim opinion is secular, modern and progressive as any human race, muslim politics is aggressive and narrow minded. It is important to pick the right party as once in power the people are the ones who bring cheer or sorrow among themselves.