Egypt on the "Brink"...
UPDATE: It will be close to 4:30 PM in Cairo now. By most accounts, the large numbers just haven't been there but, nonetheless, Cairo erupted in demonstrations once again, and there is a global effort by dedicated techies working to overcome the communications ban. Arrests and brutal crackdowns by police continue. In other words, they have not turned. Most accounts say "thousands" came out after Friday prayers, but this one says tens of thousands. From this report:
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...of revolution.
Don't let that stop you people. The police seem almost ready to join you. There are conflicting reports regarding the police. Some speak of police disappearing from the streets while others say there is a heavy presence. Key members of the Muslim Brotherhood have been arrested. Godspeed, the Egyptian people!
"A middle-aged woman in a Cairo crowd who had never participated in a demonstration before summed up the mood of a populace that, at least for today, has reached a breaking point.
“We didn’t just come here because of inflation or rising food prices. We came because we want freedom, because we’re tired of oppression, and because we hate the regime,” she says."
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...of revolution.
"Police warned the president they could soon lose control of the demonstrators demanding his overthrow...(while) organisers said they planned to make today's marches the biggest yet."According to Sandmonkey's twitter site, all communications lines have been shut off.
Don't let that stop you people. The police seem almost ready to join you. There are conflicting reports regarding the police. Some speak of police disappearing from the streets while others say there is a heavy presence. Key members of the Muslim Brotherhood have been arrested. Godspeed, the Egyptian people!
Labels: democracy, dictatorships, Egypt, revolution
posted by Louise at 2:35 am
5 Comments:
I'm just reading the latest news articles now, 11AM EST. That makes it 6PM Cairo time. Protests after Friday prayer services should be beginning about now, which not by coincidence is also the curfew time the regime is trying to force.
Elbaredei publicly offered to serve as leader of an interim government, which is presumably why the regime now has him under house arrest. House arrest as opposed to regular in-custody arrest, as ElBaradei is apparently an extremely esteemed, prestigious figure in Egypt.
There's been some information in a couple of articles that the Egyptian Army generals have told Mubarek they will NOT allow the Army to kill large numbers of Egyptians to suppress this movement. Supposedly they already refused to violently put down the Suez City mass protest yesterday.
If the regime is also loosing the Army and other Armed Forces, this is like what happened in Tunisia, that prompted the exodus of Ben Ali & family.
Communications difficulty with the Internet and cellphone shutdown. Great to see Europeans, tech-heads, are starting efforts to work around the regime's shutdown, to help Egyptians communicate!
Seems a very fluid status right now...
I believe the big Friday prayer service for Muslims is at noon. It's no different than any other day, in that they (at least the devout ones) pray five times a day at prescribed times. But I'm pretty sure the noon hour prayer is the big communal one conducted in the mosques on Fridays.
Beyond that, I'm not as convinced that there will be any earth shattering change in Egypt, unlike Tunisia, which is unfortunate (maybe), as Egypt has been considered a leader among nations by Middle Easterners, at least since the early 1950s. The ripples caused by an overthrow of the old guard there would be more like a tsunami, IMHO.
That's good to hear the army isn't hot to save the regime. That's what it takes. When the regime loses its police and military forces, it's game over. I just hope it's not a military take-over. The Middle East has had enough of that.
I keep wondering what the Mad Mullahs and Iamadinnerjacket are thinking about all this, too. They can't be too happy, especially if it spreads to Syria and/or emboldens the secular forces in Lebanon.
I kinda like it when the world is dull and boring. I can actually get something done, like housework. May place is a colossal mess at the moment, due to my being a wee bit preoccupied with the news, staying up until 4:00 am some nights this past week.
There have been very few events in my life-time that were as big as this one is, as far as being a potential game changer. We'll have to wait and see, I guess. To me, this one is like the fall of the Berlin Wall or the capture of Saddam Hussein.
I also hope it's not the Muslim Brotherhood that comes out on top. Yikes!!
Thanks for the info on the Friday prayers thing. Somewhere, I'd gotten it that it was the evening prayers that were the main one.
The Mullahs and Ajad must be a bit nervous about now. The thing they've got going for them is that they do have the Revolutionary Guard for brute force revolt squashing. As the Mullah regime demonstrated after the last rigged election, they'll not hesitate to do everything in their power, get as violent as they can, to maintain their regime. It looks like no peaceful change in Iran is possible. If and when it ever comes, it'll be bloody.
Nevertheless, in the big picture, the "stock value" of Arab dictatorships is steadily sinking. Iraqi Democracy particularly, for all it's limitations, will more and more serve as an example for all it's neighbors and be a dangerous virus to dictatorships in the years ahead.
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