Showing posts with label ETC. #jan25 #Egypt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ETC. #jan25 #Egypt. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 01, 2014

Egypt, Activist, out on Bail



 

          We understand that last month was the first month in over a decade in which no American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan.   We also realize that is is April fools' day.  It is not clear if there is any relation.

          In this interview, the reporter, at least, seems to be his old self.  Welcome back.

         
MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2014

Exclusive: Egyptian Activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah on Prison & Regime’s "War on a Whole Generation"

In a Democracy Now! global broadcast exclusive, we spend the hour with one of Egypt’s most prominent dissidents, Alaa Abd El-Fattah, speaking in his first extended interview after nearly four months behind bars. An open Internet and political activist, Fattah has been at the forefront of the struggle for change in Egypt for many years and has the distinction of having been actively persecuted by Egypt’s past four successive rulers. Facing a potential return to prison in the coming months, Fattah sits down with Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous to discuss his case, Egypt’s future and its ongoing crackdown on activists. "They are on a sentencing frenzy," Fattah says of Egypt’s military rulers. "This is not just about me. It’s almost as if it’s a war on a whole generation." Special thanks to Omar Robert Hamilton and Sherine Tadros.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Today, a Democracy Now! broadcast exclusive. Egypt’s electoral commission announced Sunday the country’s presidential elections will be held in late May. At this point, the vote is widely expected to be won by Egypt’s former military chief, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who announced his resignation from the military last week to run for office. Sisi led the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi last summer. Since then, some 2,500 people have been killed, and at least 16,000 people arrested.
In our global broadcast exclusive today, we spend the hour with one of Egypt’s most prominent dissidents, Alaa Abd El-Fattah, speaking in his first extended interview since his release from prison after nearly four months behind bars. An open Internet and political activist, Alaa has been at the forefront of the struggle for change in Egypt for many years and has the distinction of having been actively persecuted by the past four successive rulers in Egypt. In 2006, under the Mubarak regime, he was detained at a protest calling for independence of the judiciary and was jailed for 45 days. In 2011, he emerged as a leading face of the revolution that forced Mubarak out of office. Later that year, under the rule of the military council that replaced Mubarak, he was jailed again, this time for 56 days. His son, Khaled, was born while he was behind bars. Then, during the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, Alaa was issued an arrest warrant as part of a government crackdown on critical voices.
This past November, after the military’s ouster of Morsi and a brutal attack on the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters, the interim Cabinet issued a draconian protest law to further crack down on any opposition. Dozens of people were arrested the next day at a protest near Parliament, among them Alaa’s sister, Mona, who was eventually released. Despite the No to Military Trials activist group publicly admitting to organizing the protest, prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Alaa as the organizer of the event. He was jailed in the same prison ward as other leading activists Ahmed Maher and Mohamed Adel of the April 6th Youth Movement, as well as Ahmed Douma, whose health is deteriorating every day.
After 115 days behind bars, Alaa was finally brought before a judge, who released him on bail. His case is still ongoing. He says he expects to be convicted and sent back to prison. In the first interview since his release, Alaa discusses his imprisonment, the wave of repression in Egypt and the state of the revolution. He sat down withDemocracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who interviewed him in Cairo, Egypt, on Sunday.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Alaa Abd El-Fattah, welcome toDemocracy Now!
ALAA ABD EL-FATTAH: Thank you.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Let’s start by talking about the night of your arrest. Explain exactly what happened.
ALAA ABD EL-FATTAH: They broke into my house around 9:00 p.m. Like a foolish special forces squad [inaudible]—I don’t know, they looked like guys coming out of a Hollywood movie, like with their faces concealed and with heavy weapons and bulletproof vests and so on. And they just shattered the door and walked into the house, beat me and beat my wife. Fortunately, my son was sleeping, and they did not touch him. And then they started collecting all electronic devices, like mobile phones and laptops and so on, even though they did not have a search warrant. They only had an arrest warrant. The beating was because I protested this. And then I was blindfolded and transferred to a car.
Before they blindfolded me, I—they took me out of the house, and before they blindfolded me, I realized I saw them—they had like the whole neighborhood at gunpoint so that nobody would interfere. It was a massive squad, several cars and, you know, tens of people, tens of heavily armed policemen. And then they blindfolded me and transferred me—later on, I figured out that that’s the Cairo security headquarters forces, but I didn’t know at the time where I was. And they played tricks with me, like when they moved me from room to room, they would walk me outside so that it’d feel like I’m moving from a building to a building, and, you know, stuff like that. I spent the whole night there, thrown on a floor with my hands tied to my back, my eyes blindfolded with a very dirty rag that—I mean, I actually had an infection in the eye because of it. I was bleeding. I was beaten with the back of some weapon, I’m not sure which. But my head was bleeding. And it was quite cold. And they left me there for 12 hours in that condition. And then, they kept moving me several times at night.
And then, in the next morning, I found—they took me to meet the prosecutors. Now, the prosecutors are supposed to be part of the judiciary, and you’re—police are supposed to move you to them. They’re supposed to be independent, and it’s very important to set boundaries between them and the police. But what’s been going on for a while is that the prosecutors move the prisons, move the police stations, even judges. You know, there are hearings, there are court hearings, that happen inside prisons. Actually, most court hearings now are happening inside branches of the police academy. So the whole justice system now is explicitly, you know, not even in a secret way, but explicitly and overtly controlled by the police.
So, anyway, I faced the prosecutor and asked for my lawyers. They spent a couple of hours trying to convince me to cooperate without my lawyers, and then they gave in, and my lawyers were brought in. And I was questioned. Turns out I’m not just accused of protesting without permit, but also of armed robbery. And I was transferred to prison. Then, immediately, the treatment, in terms at least of bodily safety and so on, was improved, you know, so I was placed in a relatively clean and, by Egyptian standards, spacious cells, which means quite small, but at least I had it for my own. And I was allowed visits, and I was allowed access to my lawyers and so on, so the very basic rights were allowed immediately after.
For the first month, we were placed in—we were placed in solitary. We were basically placed in solitary, but for the first month we were not allowed out of our cells except for one hour per day. We were not—we were not placed close to each other, so, you know, we couldn’t talk and exchange stuff across cells and so on.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Explain what solitary is like. How do you occupy your time?
ALAA ABD EL-FATTAH: You go crazy. You sleep a lot. So, you know, it certainly feels like clinical depression, which it might also be, clinical depression. But [inaudible] the time, so reading, writing.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: The Australian Al Jazeera correspondent Peter Greste was also imprisoned in the same wing as you for a month before he was transferred to another wing of the prison complex. What did you discuss, the two of you?
ALAA ABD EL-FATTAH: Well, there was a lot of explaining. The guy, Peter, is obviously—I mean, he’s quite experienced writer. He worked in many crazy situations, but not this particular kind of crazy. And he had only spent, I think, two weeks in Cairo before he got arrested. So, we spent a lot of time just trying to give him enough context to understand what’s going on, also the legal proceedings that he is involved in and so on. But we also talked about literature, and we talked about Africa. I lived in South Africa. He lived in Kenya. And so, like just, I mean, either we discussed the politics of different sub-Saharan African countries or just, you know, imagined being in the savanna somewhere outside of this horrific context and this horrific place.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah speaking in his first extended interview since his release from prison after nearly four months behind bars. He’s interviewed in Cairo, Egypt, by Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous. When we come back, Alaa talks about the likelihood of being convicted again and sent back to prison. Back in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue our exclusive interview with prominent Egyptian political activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah. He was released last week after 115 days in jail. On Sunday, he sat down for his first interview since his release, speaking with Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous in Cairo.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: What is the likelihood of you being convicted and sent back to prison?
ALAA ABD EL-FATTAH: It’s quite likely. First of all, this is—they’ve created these special terrorism courts. Now, they pretend they’re not special courts. They pretend they are regular courts, that it’s just that they’ve—that they’ve formed separate circuits that are, you know, completely free and dedicated for their imminent terrorism and protest law charges so that they could speed the legal process. Criminal procedures in Egypt—well, all legal procedures in Egypt are quite very slow. They tend to take months and months, if not years sometimes.
It’s a big case, even though it’s completely ridiculous, in terms of—you know, it serves—it has no purpose except, you know, serving the regime. There’s no sense of justice in it. I already have a suspended sentence, based on a very colorful case that was started by the military prior to Morsi’s election and then was dropped. The prosecutor dropped the charge for lack of evidence. And then, when we started complaining about human rights violations committed by the Muslim Brotherhood government, they would revive the case again. But the point is, I have a one-year suspended sentence, which means that if I’m—if I’m accused of even the smallest misdemeanor, I’m going to spend that year plus whatever else I’m getting. So, it’s highly likely that I’m going back to prison, or at least that’s their plan.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: How does that affect you? How does that affect your life, your family, knowing that you will probably be sent back to prison?
ALAA ABD EL-FATTAH: It, of course—I mean, it’s quite horrific, obviously. Yeah, I mean, we have plans to fight this, both in court and out of court, obviously. I mean, these are not real courtrooms, this is not true justice, so you have to exert political pressures via protesting, via exposing the irregularities in the process and so on. So we are busy doing that. And also we’re busy planning a solid defense strategy. But yeah, but that’s going to be my life for a while, that I’m—because even if we get rid of that case, because of that suspended sentence, it remains hanging over my head for three years, at least. And also, it’s clear—I mean, I’ve been arrested before, but it’s—it was always clear in the previous times that they never planned to sentence me. It was like they used the pretrial detention as a form of punishment, as a form of executive detention. And so we always knew that, you know, it was just about stifling that voice for a while or about, you know, exerting punishment that would only last for a few months. But this time it’s clear.
And it’s not just about me. I mean, there’s been activists in Alexandria who have been sentenced for five years, I think—no, two years. Two years. And the verdict was confirmed in the appeals process. There’s been several student groups that have been sentenced, anything from one year to five. These have been common. There’s also a couple of cases where students have been sentenced with crazy, like 14 years and 17 years and 11 years and so on. So, they are on a sentencing frenzy. I mean, this is not just about me. And it’s almost as if it’s a war on a whole generation.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Let me just switch gears and ask you about some of the letters that you wrote from prison. In December, you wrote a letter to your two younger sisters, Mona and Sanaa, which was delivered a month later. And in it, you write, "What is adding to the oppression that I feel is that I find that this imprisonment is serving no purpose. It is not resistance, and there is no revolution." Explain what you meant.
ALAA ABD EL-FATTAH: Well, that was in contrast to the previous times in which I was arrested, in which I was arrested at a—either at a moment of, like in 2006, it was a moment of peak mobilization for the pro-democracy movement back then, or in 2011, it was immediately before a very strong wave in between two massacres. So it was clear, and in both cases there was a—there was a sense of urgency in the facts of my arrest. Like in 2011, the plan wasn’t to arrest me; the plan was to prosecute me, and they thought that this would make me—well, the military prosecutors—this was not civilian—they thought that this would, you know, shake me. So, back then, I kind of planned my own arrest, in a way. You know, I felt in control, and it was clearly part of a struggle. And there was a strong reaction on the outside that was, you know, supportive, and I felt that I’m being supportive of this strong reaction, you know, like I had a purpose there.
This time, it was very different. This time, it’s a moment of defeat, to be honest. Everything that’s been happening since—you know, at least since the end of July 2013, if not month before that, has been, you know, part of a massive counter-revolutionary wave that has compromised a lot of individuals and parties and political groups, deeply compromised them. But also, part of it was that that kind of crackdown, with the massive arrests and so on, it could have been broken if there was a strong enough reaction back then. This was the first case where they used the protest law. They’ve only managed to sentence people via the protest law. You know, basically, if you participate in a protest and there is a single individual in that protest, even if not known to you, even if that’s not part of the purpose of the protest, who happens to carry a knife, for instance, then you have committed a crime. So, it’s—so if there’s a protest, they can arrest you and sentence you, you know, not just—I mean, they’ve always been able to just arrest you on completely arbitrary, but it’s now possible to sentence you very easily, and judges could claim that this is, you know, the letter of the law, not—they’re not being—they’re not being ordered by the executive order or anything like that now. That’s not true, but still. So, the reaction back then wasn’t—you know, it could have been broken then. There was a much bigger window for action then, and it didn’t happen. So that’s what I was expressing.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Did you take part in the June 30th demonstrations?
ALAA ABD EL-FATTAH: Very reluctantly so. I—there was this—now, I consider it quite serious. There was this attempt to retain our margin, so we actually did a—all the people who were complaining about collusion with the military and with the police and so on were accused of being—well, accused by—you know, by our colleagues of being infantile, the infantile left. I think that’s a Lenin expression; doesn’t matter. But anyway, so, you know, we were supposed to be too stupid to realize the complex politics of it all and so on. So we staged a couple of protests that were under the—under the label and banner of the infantile left, where the point of them was to chant against the military and the police and the Muslim Brotherhood, you know, not—and to be confrontational and so on. But it was such a crazy time. The state was basically mobilizing people to go out. And so, any protest that you did was joined by tens of thousands who were out there because the state—practically, because the state told them to be out there. And so, even our protests were just joined by throngs of people who were saying yes to the military, yes to the police. And there was—you had no space, like your voice couldn’t be heard. So I participated in that.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Do you feel it was a mistake, given what is happening now?
ALAA ABD EL-FATTAH: I don’t feel it was mistake, because it was already—it was already set in stone. I mean, this path was—I think we started warning of an imminent coup in December, because the way the Muslim—yes, I think it was in December, or at least January, and when the Muslim Brotherhood started not just depending on the police force for violence, but on their own cadres, and then when they completely adopted a sectarian discourse, inciting against Christians, and then allowing their allies—or allying, aligning themselves with Salafis and jihadis, it just became clear that they’re walking a path that’s going to just lead to the military taking over. And a few of us spent months trying to stop that, either by warning them or by warning those who were supportive of military intervention or by trying desperately to create a more grassroots movement, so that the complications that the Muslim Brotherhood regime was creating would be resolved via, you know, a more genuine, popular approach.
But the Muslim Brotherhood government was—I mean, they refused to give any concessions in anything, which made politics basically impossible. Like you couldn’t win even very localized—you couldn’t even reach a compromise in very localized struggles around, you know, issues of service delivery in specific small towns. They just balked, which made—which made the coup inevitable. By April, the coup was showing its face, right? So, yeah, I was already defeated by April. So, it didn’t really—there was hardly anything we could do. I mean, we kept trying, but there was hardly anything we could do. And also, the Muslim Brotherhood kept—I mean, they could not see the real threat. They kept treating us as the threat—which is not completely illogical, because we were a threat to their project. But the more eminent danger was the military, and they could not see it at all. So during these months in which the coup was being planned, Morsi’s prosecutor, the one he broke all constitutional rules in order to install, was busy creating cases for me and Ahmed Douma, as well. The only cases that he filed were against Bassem Youssef, me, Ahmed Douma, you know, a couple of people like that.
AMY GOODMAN: Egyptian political activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah, speaking in his first interview since he was released last week after 115 days in jail. He is being interviewed by Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous in Cairo, Egypt. When we come back, Alaa talks about his family’s history of activism and dissent, including his father and his sister, how university students who have joined political protests have come under increasing attack, and about the future of Egypt. All in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We continue our exclusive interview with Egyptian political activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah. Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous spoke to him in Cairo, Egypt, this weekend in his first interview after being released from prison.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: There is a rich tradition of activism and dissent in your family. Both your sisters are very politically active. Your cousin is very politically active, and so are your parents. Your father was imprisoned several times, one of which your younger sister Mona was born during. This pattern was repeated when Khaled, your son, was born when you were imprisoned in 2011. I want to quote to you something that your father said in early January at a press conference talking about the crackdown on protesters. He said, "I’m sorry, my son. I’m sorry to your generation. We had dreams and ambitions to bequeath to you a democratic society that preserves human dignity. But you only inherited the prison cells that once confined me." Any comment on your father’s words?
ALAA ABD EL-FATTAH: Well, I did respond to them in this epic article I smuggled out of prison about what my inheritance is and which—you know, both my inheritance directly from my parents and also the collective inheritance we all inherited from the previous generations, with its murky—you know, and this whole military versus the Brotherhood thing is born out of the intra-World War era, and we have to pay its price now, and it’s just completely crazy. It’s like most of this country has been born after the end of the Cold War, and none of this makes any sense to any of us. But you have these people talking about Nasserism and neo-Nasserism, and you have these people talking about reversing the mistake of dissolving the Ottoman Empire.
But, yeah, I also worry that—like, what is Khaled, my son, going to face? Because it’s not just that we—we hand over the prison cell; it’s also the things that are actually getting worse. The state institutions have lost any semblance of doing their advertised function. Like, if you spend any time in prisons in Egypt, it makes you wonder, I mean: What is the function of the criminal justice system? And it has absolutely nothing to do with security or confronting crime and so on. Most people in prison are there for very petty crimes. A very, very massive number is there for debt. There’s hardly anyone in prison that’s a danger to society in that sense.
But you could extend that to, like, the public hospitals are—most of them are not functioning at all. Like the smaller ones are really not functioning at all. They’re just empty shells. The ones that do function, it’s quite random what you’re going to get there. You know, the doctors are trying hard, but there’s absolutely no resources, and it’s so corrupt. Basically, there’s a very high possibility that, you know, the treatment you get there is—that you’d be better off not getting it.
Schools, universities—and now, this year, universities have just become not places of learning, but places of conflict and places where—and it’s the whole discourse from the state, and even from the university staff and so on, is about how youth are a problem that we need to control. So, now Al-Azhar University, Al-Azhar has a higher percentage of Islamic students. There are more Azhar students—you know, more students from Azhar in prison than from any other university. More students from Azhar have been killed in the dispersal of the Rabaa sit-in than from any other university. So they’re just treating Al-Azhar as—even the staff that works there, they’re just treating the Azhar students as a security threat. And so, now it has massive walls that look like the apartheid wall in Palestine. They have armed anti-riot police present in—you know, around the university, ready to intervene at any moment in time, if—and students have been killed inside their dorms.
I think it was going in decline for a long time, but it has become a completely dysfunctional state with coercion and oppression as its one and only tool, not just its main tool. Even the Mubarak regime was a much more complicated organism. And it’s not just terrorism that people—that they’re trying to treat with only, you know—with security measures only. It’s everything. It’s like housing they’re trying to—you know, people are building—[in Arabic], how do you say that?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Informal?
ALAA ABD EL-FATTAH: Yeah, so like, you know, people are building informal settlements, because the housing prices are crazy now. There are many well-documented reasons for why we have a housing crisis and how—and there are many proposed solutions and so on, but they’ve been doing nothing about it for years and years and years, and people have been basically just inventing their own solutions. But people have been inventing their own solutions. This usually entails, you know—informal settlements could be dangerously built, or they—it could be that they’re built on agricultural land, which means, you know, that we have less space to grow food and so on.
So they decided to solve this via security measures. They just go in, storm the place, demolish it and arrest people. And so everything—I could cite probably six examples of economic or social problems that are being solved just via security, and that’s it. So if this is what Khaled is inheriting, then—and I think that’s what motivates me, that this is a completely untenable and unlivable situation, and it’s why it’s worth fighting against. But we had a couple of years in which we felt that it was possible to make major victories, that a dignified life is possible, a different world is possible. And it looks very bleak right now.
Right now I have to tell people that all state institutions are completely corrupt and need to be dismantled. And this scares them, because—so, you know, what do you do after? And obviously there are also other threats that they’re scared about, that they think, reasonably so, that the vacuum created by even diminishing the power of things like the military is quite dangerous. Armed insurrections by Salafi and jihadi are happening around our borders. People see Sinai as a threat. Obviously, Sinai is a state-created threat. It’s been—you know, there is a war there now, where the state is—where the military is using tactics that we’ve only seen from—well, I was going to say only from Israelis, but from the Israelis and the Americans and the British and so on, but, you know, from an occupying alien force, where they—I mean, it’s almost as if they’re copying from the Israelis. They actually uproot olive trees, demolish houses—you know, when an attack against the military happens, they go and demolish the houses of the families that are related to the people they accuse of the attack. They’re fighting this war with Apaches, you know, not with [inaudible]. And things have been that in Sinai for years and years and years and years and years.
And so, obviously now, where the state only aligns via Hellfire missiles, it becomes a space where human trafficking and drug trafficking and arms trafficking and also terrorism and jihadis and so on flourish. But then you use that fact to make people live in fear, fear of Sinai, which is part of the country, which is a part of the country that we went to war for and, you know, people died for. And now it’s being treated as an alien threat. And now it’s being—it has become—I mean, they have mismanaged it until—I’m not—I mean, there is a real threat. Yes, there is a real threat. They created it. But now we’re stuck with it. And so, people are scared of change.
And I somehow have to find a way to explain to people why we need to dismantle the state and build a different one and appease their fears and actually find a way of confronting all the chaos that they are unleashing right now and all the chaos that they will continue to unleash and all the chaos that will be unleashed when they collapse. And they are going to collapse. That current military regime is—I mean, it could last for years and years. But this current state of emergency is not temporary. I mean, that’s—violence is the only thing they have. They’re absolutely incapable of even producing discourse that young people, even young people who are not revolutionary, you know, or radical in any way, just even people who would love to believe them, and they keep alienating them. They keep alienating them. It was very clear in the referendum when basically most—almost all young voters did not show up. The discourse they use is so poor, you know, that it’s just—and you’re talking about most of the country if you’re saying young people. But even—even the people who believed them, the people who rallied to Sisi and, you know, created the Sisi cult and so on, they were being promised security, stability and food and work and so on. And they have absolute—and they have an energy crisis, which they’re going to solve with coal, which is going to create a massive environmental and health crisis. The healthcare is in collapse. Education is in collapse. Staples are completely dependent on—we’re completely dependent on imports for food staples, which means that we’re very dependent on hard currency. And, you know, their plan is to just borrow a lot of money from Saudia and Emirate, and that’s not going to last.
And when they collapse, it’s going to be scary. It’s not going to be—you know, when Mubarak collapsed, it was beautiful. And there were months in which the regime was so—I mean, they never lost complete control, but there was—but the revolution was so strong, and the regime was so weakened, that at least in public space and in the street and so on people were liberated and could imagine a completely different world. The moment even when they collapse, unless we do something about it, you know, the sense that is going to prevail is not a sense of liberation but a sense of fear. And that’s going to get the worst reactions out of people. We’ve seen that when Morsi’s rule collapsed. Everybody was scared of everybody. Everybody was being paranoid. And so, for a couple of months during July and—most July—July and August, there was civilian-on-civilian violence. I think something around 200 people were killed in civilian-on-civilian violence that had absolutely no logic and was so chaotic and so—so scary. Even though the police and the military were all over the place, police completely collapsed in January 2011, and we spent months with no authority on the ground. But they were safe months. You know, people were not killing each other. There wasn’t a wave—there wasn’t a crime wave. Prisons were opened. All the detainees were out in the street, and nothing happened, nor not much happened; while you had these months of absolute military control, but people were scared and paranoid, and so we had chaos. And I think we’re going to get more of that, unless we do something about it.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: You’ve said the word "defeat" a couple of times. Do you think the revolution is over?
ALAA ABD EL-FATTAH: No. I mean, I don’t know if the revolution is over or not. That’s a—you know, the revolution is a historical process that you—you can really only talk—I mean, when we talk about the revolution while living it, we are talking about a dream, you know, a wish, something that we’re trying to fulfill, something that we’re trying to create. But you can only talk about it as being over or not and so on in the distance, you know, while you’re looking back. And so, when I say "defeat," I mean, you know, in a sense of in a battle.
But we’ll continue to exist, and since we’ll continue to exist, there will continue to be other struggles and so on. It’s not like you have a choice. I mean, an individual might have a choice, if they have a way out. But most people don’t have a choice. You know, we cannot all emigrate, and it’s not like migrant labor gets a good deal anywhere in the world. So, I mean, if what you’re trying to do is to achieve a life of dignity and safety and prosperity for yourself and for your loved ones, then you have no choice. But even if you’re just trying to live, the current situation is so bad that, you know, you’ll end up struggling. Like these waves of strikes that are just happening right now, they’re mostly by people who probably were very supportive of the overthrow of Morsi, but also of Sisi. You know, they’ve joined in these—I’m guessing, obviously. I’m saying it just fits the pattern. But then they have to go on strike because their wages are not good enough. And, you know, the unemployed—so, you have constant flow of unemployed youth. What are they going to do? I mean, if the revolution is defeated, they’re not going to cease to exist, so they will continue to resist. They might resist by joining the informal economy, which means that they’ll have to confront the state constantly, you know, and violently to fight for a piece of the street in which they could sell something or, you know, set up something. They might resist through politics, you know, and protest politics, essentially, because party politics is not going to get them anywhere. But they’re not just going to disappear.
But for it to be a revolution, you have to have a narrative that brings all the different forms of resistance together, and you have to have hope. You know, you have to be—it has to be that people are mobilizing, not out of desperation, but out of a clear sense that something other than this life of despair is possible. And that’s, right now, a tough one, so that’s why right now I talk about defeat. I talk about defeat because I cannot even express hope anymore, but hopefully that’s temporary.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s one of Egypt’s most prominent political activists, Alaa Abd El-Fattah, speaking with Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous in his first extended interview since his release from prison after nearly four months behind bars in Egypt. Special thanks to Omar Robert Hamilton and Sherine Tadros.
To see our interview with Sharif last week about the 529 members of the Muslim Brotherhood who were sentenced to death, visit our website, democracynow.org, as well as all our coverage of Egypt.

Creative Commons LicenseThe original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

#occupy STATE OF THE UNION, ETC. #jan25 #Egypt


#occupy STATE OF THE UNION, ETC. #jan25 #Egypt



          How weary can one get with all the B.S. going on is this election year?  Well, as soon as the Super Bowl is over, it’s about all that will be left until April, so have fun.

          The President gave his “State of the Union Speech,” this week and it was really a campaign speech.  Much of what he said sounded like a repeat of what he said during the 2008 election. 

Well, as the great President George the Younger once said (and this is as close as I can come) “Fool me once, and shame on you.  I mean, it’s a same.  I mean you can’t fool me all of the time.”  Frankly, I remember him debating in his original election primary when the participants were asked “Who is you favorite philosopher.”  The only one, the first, who knew what a philosopher was turned out to be Forbes who said “Hobbes.”  To me, that figured.  Then Georgie answered “Jesus Christ.”  What?  Yeah.  Well, it all went down hill from there, to Afghanistan, Iraq, Wall-Street, and so on.

So now we have Barack (or “good luck” in Arabic).  He is intelligent and capable and really screwed up things well.  That is why I had hoped for Rick Perry to become President.  He is feckless enough to mess things up much better and perhaps not do the empire expansion as Obama has.  Well, now we have Newt and Mitt, along with Jesus and Paul.

We thought a few comments on the speech and a few other things were in order, so we have Ralph Nader in a post-speech interview and then another interview of great interest on the Egypt revolution anniversary:



"He Says One Thing and Does Another": Ralph Nader Responds to Obama’s State of the Union Address

Responding to President Obama’s State of the Union address, longtime consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader says Obama’s criticism of income inequality and Wall Street excess fail to live up to his record in office. "[Obama] says one thing and does another," Nader says. "Where has he been for over three years? He’s had the Justice Department. There are existing laws that could prosecute and convict Wall Street crooks. He hasn’t sent more than one or two to jail." On foreign policy, Nader says, "I think his lawless militarism, that started the speech and ended the speech, was truly astonishing. [Obama] was very committed to projecting the American empire, in Obama terms." [includes rush transcript]
Guest:
Ralph Nader, longtime consumer advocate and former presidential candidate. His latest book is called Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism: Build It Together to Win.
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AMY GOODMAN: We are joined right now by Ralph Nader to talk more about President Obama’s State of the Union address, longtime consumer advocate, former presidential candidate. His latest book is Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism: Build It Together to Win."
Ralph Nader, your response to the State of the Union address? It could be President Obama’s last. It could be the beginning of a new President Obama for a second term. What do you think?
RALPH NADER: Well, I think his lawless militarism, that started the speech and ended the speech, was truly astonishing. I mean, he was very committed to projecting the American empire, in Obama terms, force projection in the Pacific, and distorting the whole process of how he explains Iraq and Afghanistan. He talks about Libya and Syria, and then went into the military alliance with Israel and didn’t talk about the peace process or the plight of the Palestinians, who are being so repressed. Leaving Iraq as if it was a victory? Iraq has been destroyed: massive refugees, over a million Iraqis dead, contaminated environment, collapsing infrastructure, sectarian warfare. He should be ashamed of himself that he tries to drape our soldiers, who were sent on lawless military missions to kill and die in those countries, unconstitutional wars that violate Geneva conventions and international law and federal statutes, and drape them as if they’ve come back from Iwo Jima or Normandy. So I think it was very, very poor taste to start and end with this kind of massive militarism and the Obama empire.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And on the economy, Ralph Nader, on the economy, your response to what Obama said last night?
RALPH NADER: A lot of good-sounding words. He’s very good at that. I’m glad he focused on Wall Street abuses on more than one occasion. I’m glad that he focused on renewable energy. But notice that he just mentioned climate change but didn’t go anywhere on that one. He still is not able to use the word "poverty." It’s always the middle class, which is shrinking into poverty. But you’ve got 60, 70, 80 million people living in poverty in the United States, and child poverty.
And the most amazing gap was his promise in 2008 to press for the raising of the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $9.50 by 2011. So, he went for equal pay for equal work for women, but millions of people in this country, one out of every three full-time workers, are earning Wal-Mart wages, many of them not far over the $7.25 rate. Now, the $9.50 minimum wage would still be less in inflation-adjusted terms than it was in 1968, when worker productivity was half of what it is today.
So, a lot of his suggestions, like the attitude toward foreign trade—well, he said that in 2008 he wanted to revise NAFTA. He didn’t lift a finger. So how credible are his words vis-à-vis China, for example, in the trade area and importing hazardous products into this country? How credible are his words? How credible are his words when he says he wants to start a financial crimes unit in the Justice Department? I mean, what does that mean, unless he demands a much larger budget for prosecutors and law enforcement officials against the corporate crime wave? Maybe he needs a subscription to the Corporate Crime Reporter to tell him that we’ve been through these kinds of rhetorics before by prior presidents. They’re going to establish an enforcement unit here and there, but without a major budget, it’s going to go nowhere.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me play President Obama’s announcement last night of a new unit devoted to investigating major financial crimes.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We’ll also establish a financial crimes unit of highly trained investigators to crack down on large-scale fraud and protect people’s investments. Some financial firms violate major anti-fraud laws because there’s no real penalty for being a repeat offender. That’s bad for consumers, and it’s bad for the vast majority of bankers and financial service professionals who do the right thing. So pass legislation that makes the penalties for fraud count. And tonight I’m asking my attorney general to create a special unit of federal prosecutors and leading state attorneys general to expand our investigations into the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis. This new unit will hold accountable those who broke the law, speed assistance to homeowners, and help turn the page on an era of recklessness that hurt so many Americans.
AMY GOODMAN: That was President Obama announcing that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman will head this unit. I’m going back to the—to August, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman being kicked off a 50-state task force negotiating a possible settlement with the nation’s largest mortgage companies, the move coming just a day after the New York Times reported that the Obama administration was pressuring Schneiderman to agree to a broad state settlement with banks over questionable foreclosure tactics. Ralph Nader, your response?
RALPH NADER: Well, that’s the double standard that he’s such an expert at, Obama. He says one thing and does another. Where has he been for over three years? He’s had the Justice Department. There are existing laws that could prosecute and convict Wall Street crooks. He hasn’t sent more than one or two to jail. So, it is important to strengthen the corporate criminal laws through congressional legislation, but what has he done? This financial crimes unit, that’s like putting another label on a few doors in the Justice Department without a real expansion in the budget.
But then, when he said to the American people, "no more bailouts, no more handouts, and no more cop-outs" — but that’s what’s been going on. And it’s going on today and it went on last year under his administration. Washington is a bustling bazaar of accounts receivable. They’re bailing out and they’re handing out all kinds of subsidies to corporations—handouts, giveaways, transfer of technology, transfer of medical research to the drug companies without any reasonable price provisions on drugs, giveaway of natural resources on the federal lands. You name it, it’s still going on. And as far as a cop-out, how about his deferred prosecution gimmicks with these corporations under the Justice Department, where they never have to plead guilty, they never have to make themselves vulnerable to civil lawsuits so they pay back the American people what they’ve stolen from them?
So, obviously, State of the Union speeches are full of rhetoric, they’re full of promises, but it’s good to measure them against the past performance of the Obama administration and what his promises were in 2008. They don’t really stand up very well.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Ralph Nader, I want to turn to the Republican response to the State of the Union address. Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, a former budget director under President George W. Bush, delivered the response to his address, to Obama’s address. He slammed Obama for halting the Keystone XL pipeline project that would transport oil from Canada to Texas, equating the move to a, quote, "pro-poverty policy."
GOV. MITCH DANIELS: The extremism that stifles the development of homegrown energy, or cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands, or jacks up consumer utility bills for no improvement in either human health or world temperature, is a pro-poverty policy. It must be replaced by a passionate pro-growth approach that breaks all ties and calls all close ones in favor of private sector jobs that restore opportunity for all and generate the public revenues to pay our bills.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Ralph Nader, your response?
RALPH NADER: Well, first of all, the XL pipeline is basically shipping very dirty Albertan oil down through the United States, over very, very sensitive aquifers and other environmental conditions, down to the Gulf in order to ship it abroad. That’s the big farce of this pipeline project. It’s not going to be brought to make this country more reliant on Canada instead of the Middle East. It’s basically an export pipeline.
And the second is, Mitch Daniels would have done the public a great service, in his speech, if he would have urged the corporations in this country, who are sitting on $2 trillion of cash, like Cisco and Apple and Google, to start giving some of that cash back to shareholders in terms of dividends and to pension funds and mutual funds, which would increase consumer demand and create more jobs, just the way a minimum wage increase would increase consumer demand to create more jobs. Instead, he didn’t say that. And Obama has constantly restricted any kind of stimulant to tax breaks, to tax incentives, to tax reductions, which of course will not do much to build up the government’s resources for a major job-producing public works program in every community, good-paying jobs repairing America— schools, bridges, public transit, drinking water systems—jobs that cannot be exported abroad. So, we need to develop a very concrete critique of these politicians’ statements up against what they could do if they had the courage of their office.
Imagine Obama never mentioning the Occupy movement. Imagine Obama never mentioning the Occupy Wall Street movement, the main citizen awareness movement to be coupled with his alleged concern with Wall Street abuses. And yet he talks about advancing human dignity for all people abroad, and he never talks about a major human dignity initiative, the Occupy initiative, based on peaceful resistance to oligarchy and plutocracy. He’s a political coward. He’s got to repair back to the Oval Office and ask himself why he can’t stand for the people in this country who are really aware and trying to improve our democracy and advance justice and make government and corporations accountable.
AMY GOODMAN: Ralph, you have written a new book called Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism: Build It Together to Win. People may be listening to you right now and agreeing with a lot of what you are saying, and also saying, "What is the alternative here? Mitt Romney? Newt Gingrich?" What is your response to that?
RALPH NADER: Well, this is the book, and I’m going to drop it off at the White House soon. I think he should read it, because the left is not making any demands on Obama because they’re so freaked out by the Republicans and their crazed rhetoric on their debates. Well, if that is going to continue for 2012, that means the corporations are pulling on Obama and the Democratic Party. The Republicans are pulling on Obama and Democratic Party, because they’re getting all the media, because they have a vibrant primary process, and there’s no primary challenge to Obama, so the progressive agenda is not getting any media at all, week after week.
So the alternative, Amy, is for the left, such as they are — progressive, liberal people, I like to call them "justice seekers" — to make demands on Obama, to make demands for improving the rights of labor, improving the rights of small farmers, improving the rights of small business, the environmental demands that need to be made, the crackdown on corporate crime, a whole panoply of corporate reform agenda, the kind of crackdown on these global corporations that have abandoned America and shipped jobs and industries to fascist and communist regimes who know how to keep workers in their place.
But there is no pull, because they’re so freaked out by the Republicans. So, one can really say the Republicans could sit around in a smoke-filled room and say, "Let’s be even more crazed. Let’s be even more corporatist." This will create a good vacuum for the Democrats to move into, because both parties are dialing for the same corporate dollars, and it will bring the left to their knees, because they’ll say, "We’ve got nowhere to go."
Well, the reason why this speech was so failing, especially in foreign and military policy, the reason why it was so failing is because Obama doesn’t have to worry about tens of millions of people who call themselves progressives or liberals, because they have signaled to him that they got nowhere to go. Well, I think if they believe they got nowhere to go, that they don’t want to vote for a third party or Green Party, they can at least, in April, May, June, hold his feet to the fire and present him with a set of progressive demands, in order to tell him that they do have a place to go: they can stay home. And that’s what hurt the Democrats in 2010. People can just stay home.
AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, I want to thank you for being with us. His book is called Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism: Build It Together to Win.

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 Egypt: Sharif Abdel Kouddous Reports from Cairo as Crowds Mark 1 Year of Revolution in Tahrir Square

As tens of thousands of Egyptians gather in Tahrir Square to mark the first anniversary of the start of the revolution that ended Hosni Mubarak’s three-decade reign, we go to Cairo to speak with Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who has reported on the popular uprising since it began. "What happened on January 25th was really an uprising that was 10 years in the making, a growing resistance movement to the Mubarak regime, to a regime that was characterized by a sprawling police apparatus that engaged in quashing of dissent and torture, a paralyzed body politic, and rampant corruption," Kouddous says. "People speak about the barrier of fear being broken, but I really think it was a lack of hope. And that was the gift that Tunisia gave to Egypt: [it] was that here is the dream you can achieve, and here’s the hope that you can change, if you take to the streets." [includes rush transcript]
Sharif Abdel Kouddous, independent journalist based in Cairo. He is a correspondent for Democracy Now! and a fellow at The Nation Institute. He is featured in the new HBO documentary, In Tahrir Square: 18 Days of Egypt’s Unfinished Revolution, airing on HBO2 at 8:00 p.m. EST on Jan. 25.
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AMY GOODMAN: We go directly to Cairo. Nermeen?
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Tens of thousands of Egyptians are gathering in Tahrir Square to mark the first anniversary of the start of the revolution that ended Hosni Mubarak’s three-decade reign. Inspired by the uprising in Tunisia, tens of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets on January 25th, 2011. Over the following 18 days, the protests grew across Egypt despite a violent crackdown.
While Mubarak resigned on February 11th, the uprising is an unfinished revolution for many Egyptians. The Egyptian military remains in control one year later. In the first seven months of military rule, nearly 12,000 civilians were tried in military courts—more than the total number during the past three decades under Mubarak.
On Tuesday, the military announced a partial lifting of Egypt’s emergency laws, which have been in place since 1981. Military leader Mohamed Hussein Tantawi made the announcement in a nationally televised address.
MOHAMED HUSSEIN TANTAWI: [translated] Now that the people has voiced its word and has chosen its members of parliament, I have taken the decision to end the state of emergency throughout the republic, except when facing crimes committed by thugs. This decision will take effect as of the 25th of January, 2012.
AMY GOODMAN: Ahmed Maher, one of the founders of the April 6 Youth Movement, says the protesters and the military have different visions of the revolution that began a year ago today.
AHMED MAHER: [translated] After the difference became clear concerning vision of the revolution’s meaning between the youth and the military ruling council, the youth seized this revolution as being about changing the regime, as being about freedom, dignity, social justice and changing the whole regime. But only the military council sees the revolution simply as preventing the inheritance of the throne by Mubarak’s son and keeping the regime as intact. Of course, that is not what we want. So the protests increased in March and April. The raids in Tahrir Square started, the torture of some activists and many injuries. There was also the killing of protesters.
AMY GOODMAN: Joining us now in Cairo, Egypt, in a studio overlooking Tahrir Square, is Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous. He has covered the uprising for Democracy Now! for this entire last year, also now a fellow at The Nation Institute. In a moment, we’ll be joined by the HBO documentary makers who have just done a piece on—a documentary that will air tonight on Sharif covering the revolution.
Sharif, though, describe what you are seeing right now and where you are.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, Amy, I’m standing just on the outskirts of Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the Egyptian revolution. And as you can see behind me, it’s an absolutely packed day, that one year after this revolution began, it still is very much continuing.
What happened on January 25th was really an uprising that was 10 years in the making, a growing resistance movement to the Mubarak regime, to a regime that was characterized by a sprawling police apparatus that engaged in quashing of dissent and torture, a paralyzed body politic, and rampant corruption. And that uprising ignited on January 25th. People speak about the barrier of fear being broken, but I really think it was a lack of hope. And that was the gift that Tunisia gave to Egypt, was that here is the dream you can achieve, and here’s the hope that you can change, if you take to the streets. And so, that’s what—that’s what happened. People had hope that they could cause change, and they started this revolution on January 25th, one that really reverberated across the world, one that changed the way, I think, many people think about themselves as citizens in a country and in participatory democracy. And that revolution succeeded 18 days later in toppling Mubarak.
But what happened on February 11th wasn’t the end of the revolution. It was really only the beginning, because, as you mentioned, the Supreme Council of Armed Forces took control of the country on February 11th, led by Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, who was Mubarak’s loyal defense minister for 20 years. And what has happened over these past 12 months, as you can see behind me what’s happening now, is that the revolution has really progressed from this uprising against the Mubarak regime into a deeper struggle that is targeting the real backbone of modern autocracy in Egypt, which is the military, the regime that has ruled Egypt for the past 60 years, that enjoys a special political and economic autonomy outside of any kind of civilian control. And this is the regime that SCAF embodies. And so, the revolution has really become much more radical, I think, in targeting that aspect of Egyptian autocracy.
If you remember, right after the 18 days finished, the common chant in Tahrir was "The people and the army are one hand," and the army was applauded for not firing on protesters, which is a dubious accolade in and of itself. But they enjoyed widespread popularity. And over the past 12 months, they’ve seen a real plummeting of authority, a plummeting of legitimacy, due to their really bumbling decision making over the course of the last 12 months in their transitional process, really erratic decision making, and a very—what’s been increasing crackdown on dissent, on protest and on the media. In the past three months alone, over a hundred people have been killed protesting, many of them in the square you see behind me. The bloodiest day of these past 12 months came at the hands of army soldiers, not of police. It was on October 9th, when army soldiers drove armored personnel carriers into a crowd of Coptic Christians and their supporters, killing 27 people in a single day.
So, while we’ve had this kind of crackdown and this more severe suppression of dissent, we’ve also seen growing resistance. So, as you mentioned, perhaps one of the most egregious things that the Supreme Council has done is put 12,000 civilians on military trial. These are really a big deterioration in basic due process rights. But perhaps the most successful grassroots campaign of 2011 was the "No to Military Trials" campaign. The practice has all but been abolished. An extra 2,000 people were just let go, who had been put on military trials today. We’ve also seen a burgeoning, growing independent media movement here that’s really blossoming and engaging in citizen journalism that is countering this clampdown on the media and countering a very vicious propaganda campaign by the SCAF. And so, what you’re seeing behind me is, I think, an embodiment of a revolution that is still going and still has a long way to go.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Sharif, can you say what the response in Egypt has been to Tantawi’s announcement yesterday of a partial lifting of the state of emergency?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, that’s right. Tantawi went on the air yesterday and announced he would lift the state of emergency, but said except in cases of thuggery. So this is a very, very broad exception. Many protesters have been put on military trials over the past 12 months, being called thugs. So it gives them a broad—very broad leeway to exercise the law. It really reminds me of what Mubarak said in 2010 when he said he would only apply the emergency law in cases of terrorism or drug-related offenses. And, of course, as Human Rights Watch said in a statement, this really gives them the leeway to do whatever they want. I think it was seen largely as a way to try and quell the protests, to try and reduce their size, by giving some kind of concession. By releasing almost 2,000 prisoners who had been jailed in military trials, I think was a move, as well, to try and placate the crowd, and also the decision to have the first session of parliament happen two days before the anniversary of the revolution.
Of course, as we know, the Muslim Brotherhood is kingmaker in parliament, capturing about 47 percent of the seats. The ultra-conservative Salafi Nour party has about 25 percent. And a very distant third are an older liberal party called Wafd, and behind that, some of the newer liberal parties. But the parliament is seen as having wide legitimacy in Egypt. Many of the revolutionary youth boycotted the revolution—the elections, but it wasn’t a widespread boycott, by any means. The main charge of this parliament right now is to appoint a 100-member constituent assembly that will draft a constitution. Many people now, what they’re calling for, what they’re calling for in the streets, are for a quicker handover of power, saying that SCAF has—the Supreme Council has no right—no role anymore in the transitional process, now that we have an elected body. And so, they’re asking for a handover of power immediately.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re speaking to Democracy Now!'s Sharif Abdel Kouddous. He's overlooking Tahrir Square in Cairo. When we come back, we’ll continue this discussion and also talk about a new HBO documentary that covered Sharif covering Tahrir in the first 18 days of Egypt’s unfinished revolution. Stay with us.

Creative Commons LicenseThe original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.
And:

January 25, 2012

"In Tahrir Square": HBO Doc on Egypt’s Revolution Through Eyes of Democracy Now!’s Sharif Kouddous

Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous is the central character in the new HBO documentary airing tonight, "In Tahrir Square: 18 Days of Egypt’s Unfinished Revolution." The film chronicles the uprising though the reporting of Kouddous, and it looks at what the protest meant for his uncle, Mohamed Abdel Quddoos, a longtime Egyptian dissident who was arrested dozens of times by the Mubarak regime. We’re joined by Kouddous in Cairo, as well as the team behind the film: Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill of Downtown Community Television; and independent filmmaker Jacquie Soohen of Big Noise Films. [includes rush transcript]
Guests:
Jon Alpert, co-director and producer of the new HBO documentary, In Tahrir Square: 18 Days of Egypt’s Unfinished Revolution. He is the co-founder and executive director of Downtown Community Television (DCTV) in New York City.
Matthew O'Neill, co-director and producer of the new HBO documentary, In Tahrir Square: 18 Days of Egypt’s Unfinished Revolution. He works at Downtown Community Television (DCTV) in New York City.
Sharif Abdel Kouddous, independent journalist based in Cairo. He is a correspondent for Democracy Now! and a fellow at The Nation Institute. He is featured in the new HBO documentary, In Tahrir Square: 18 Days of Egypt’s Unfinished Revolution, airing on HBO2 at 8:00 p.m. EST on Jan. 25.
Jacquie Soohen, co-producer of "In Tahrir Square" and co-founder of Big Noise Films
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NERMEEN SHAIKH: Sharif, I want to turn back to some of your original reports that first aired on Democracy Now! during the Egyptian revolution last year.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: In the middle of Tahrir, there’s a patch of grass where people have spent the night here for days. They’ve camped out. You can see some tents. Many have just slept out into the open. There’s rugs. And even though tens of thousands have been here refusing to leave Tahrir Square, there’s very little trash around. People are still picking up. And they are resolute. There’s people handing out water. There’s people handing out food. They’ve kept the place organized and clean. People are so determined to use this as their protest space here in Cairo.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Days later, Sharif reported on the violent crackdown on anti-Mubarak protesters inside Tahrir Square.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: We’re in an alleyway around the corner from Tahrir. And right over here is the hospital where many wounded are being cared for. [...] Inside this hospital, we see many wounded, different kinds of injuries—broken bones, broken hands, broken legs, many head injuries from rock throwing. And over here there’s a whole section for medical supplies that have been brought in. Some have been—many have been donated from people coming in to support this movement and support the struggle against Mubarak’s regime. It is quite a well-functioning clinic, but many, many have been wounded.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: The protests continued to grow in Tahrir Square, leading up to Hosni Mubarak’s resignation.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: So, I’m standing on a stage here, one of the many stages here in Tahrir. There’s just a sea of people behind me, as you can see. They’re giving the peace sign. They’re giving a peace sign for freedom. They’re waiting for Mubarak to leave. There’s electricity in the air tonight. And you can see Tahrir is just packed with people. Shoulder to shoulder they’re standing.
HADLI: My name is Hadli, and I’m one of these people who are here to support the roses that came up in the Egyptian soil. And we’re here to protect them and to protect the revolution. And I’m one of the believers that we should never have any new leaders. The people is the leader. The young people are the leaders.
AMY GOODMAN: Democracy Now!'s Sharif Abdel Kouddous is the central character in the new HBO documentary, _In Tahrir Square: 18 Days of Egypt's Unfinished Revolution_. The film chronicles the uprising through the reporting of Sharif and looks at what the protest meant for Sharif’s uncle, Mohamed Abdel Quddoos, a longtime Egyptian dissident who was arrested dozens of times by the Mubarak regime. This is an excerpt from the documentary that’s airing tonight, recorded as Sharif reported near Tahrir.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: There’s the sound of gunfire in the air. The military has fired shots. The army is stationed in tanks just at the foot of the bridge. It’s really surreal to see this part of Cairo look like this. The Mubarak forces seem to be pulling back. They’re running back. People are cheering. They’re cheering as they retreat.
PROTESTER 1: [translated] I have a right to elect someone who will represent me in parliament, not someone who rules with thugs.
PROTESTER 2: This country should change! This is enough, enough playing games with us! We need freedom!
AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt from the new HBO documentary, In Tahrir Square: 18 Days of Egypt’s Unfinished Revolution. The film premieres tonight on HBO2 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. The film was produced by Jon Alpert, Matt O’Neill of DCTV, Downtown Community Television, as well as Jacquie Soohen of Big Noise Films. Jacquie spent much of the past year in Egypt. All three filmmakers are joining us here in New York, with Sharif Abdel Kouddous himself in Cairo.
I want to start with Sharif in Cairo. Sharif, the experience of being covered covering the revolution?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, it was interesting. It certainly didn’t make things easier, but I think it really helped me also come to terms with how the revolution was affecting me personally as an Egyptian citizen, to, while I was covering the revolution, also kind of look within myself and how it was affecting myself. And you see at the end of the movie, I kind of break down and cry on the last day when Mubarak steps down. So, it was an interesting experience for me, but it was great having Jon and Matt and Jacquie here with me.
AMY GOODMAN: Jon Alpert, talk about why you chose to do this documentary, to head to Egypt and cover Sharif covering the revolution.
JON ALPERT: Well, actually Sheila Nevins of HBO is a fan of Democracy Now!, and she was watching Democracy Now!, saw Sharif and said, "Oh, my goodness, this is a really charismatic, interesting, intelligent person," and called—sort of put together a dream team of me, Matt, Jacquie and Pat McMahon, the editor, and said, "Why don’t you guys try to capture what’s going on by following Sharif?"
AMY GOODMAN: Jacquie, as you look at these images right now, you were right there in the thick of things, when the camels moved in, when the thugs were attacking those in Tahrir. Talk about that experience as you were holding the camera.
JACQUIE SOOHEN: It was amazing to be in a place where I had been years before and see what was going on. You could never have imagined what happened in the streets those days. But the most amazing thing, I think, was the feeling of being in Tahrir Square, which is what the film captures, I think is what it does best. And that’s what people are celebrating today, and celebrating with the idea that this revolution hasn’t stopped, it’s continuing. And the violence that we saw in January and February was intense. But what has happened since, like Sharif mentioned, in October and November and December, it’s gotten even worse. And people are still out in the streets. They’re still fighting. Tahrir lives on.
AMY GOODMAN: Thus, Matt, the subtitle about the "unfinished revolution." At the beginning, you had your camera confiscated, is that right?
MATTHEW O’NEILL: Yeah, we didn’t know what was going to happen when we got there. And when Jon and I came through the airport, we had a strategy. And I had a little, tiny consumer camera that I took apart, wrapped the camera in my underwear, and put the other pieces in other parts of my luggage, so I’d looked like a tourist. And Jon, acting sort of as a decoy, had the big camera with the big reporter bag. And we both tried to go through in separate lines. And Jon had his camera taken away. And I had my camera looked at, and as I insisted I was just a tourist, let through.
AMY GOODMAN: Typical tourist with a camera in your underwear.
MATTHEW O’NEILL: That’s right. Where else to store it?
AMY GOODMAN: Sharif, as you can—if you can describe, even as we’re talking now, because you’re live, you’re right there. We’re talking anniversary, going back a year, but this is a revolution that continues. What is happening right now as you look outside?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, Amy, I was on a march earlier today. There’s massive marches coming from working-class neighborhoods across Cairo that are still arriving in Tahrir right now. It really is a massive, massive presence, I think a testament to the fact that many believe the goals of the revolution are still unfulfilled. The chants are still the same, of "bread, freedom and social justice." But one chant that has really—signifies, I think, the clarion call of the revolution is "Down, down with military rule." That is really the vigorous chant that people say right now, because the Supreme Council of Armed Forces, as Jacquie mentioned, really has cracked down very hard on dissent, and especially in the past three months. They’ve used live ammunition, birdshot, astonishing amounts of tear gas on protesters. They have beaten many people. Many are blinded.
And there’s one man called Ahmed Harara who has really become a symbol of the revolution. He lost his left eye on January 28th in the uprising against Mubarak, from being shot by rubber bullets. On November 19th, in the uprising against the Supreme Council, he lost his right eye. And he’s now completely blinded. And he’s become really a symbol of this ongoing struggle against the military here in Egypt.
AMY GOODMAN: Jon, you have been covering revolutions for years, I dare say decades, Jon Alpert, one of the leading documentarians of our time. How did the Egyptian revolution—how do you fit it into this story?
JON ALPERT: I’ve seen good revolutions, I’ve seen bad revolutions. I like seeing successful revolutions. And those 18 days showed us that when people band together, their strength is astonishing. And they moved an immovable object that people said couldn’t budge. And they moved it. That doesn’t mean the work is done, but it’s really exciting. And I’m—I think—we also really admire Sharif and his family, the commitment, what they’ve done to educate us about the revolution. And I’m just curious, Sharif. You could have come back. You could have come back with us. Jacquie and Sharif chose to stay, but you’re still there, Sharif, at some danger to yourself. And why? Would you tell us what’s inside you that makes you want to stay there? Why did you change your life? And what did the revolution do to you?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, I think it—it gave me hope in my country, one that I grew up in here, where I grew up really under one president, with really no hope for change, and seeing millions of fellow citizens come to the streets, most of them much braver than myself. Many of them have died. Many of them have been injured. I’ve had friends who have lost eyes. I’ve seen people killed in front of me. And what’s amazing, I think, about this revolution and is really inspiring is when there is violence against protests, more people come in solidarity to the protests. They don’t run away. Actually, more people come to defend this right of dissent. And so, it’s been a very incredible year for me to rediscover a country that I grew up in. And I am very inspired every day by struggles that continue on the streets, in the labor movement, in the media. And it still has a long way to go, but I’m very, very confident of eventual success. It may take a long time, but I don’t think people will ever back down again here for a while to come.
AMY GOODMAN: Sharif Abdel Kouddous, I want to thank you very much for being with us and for bringing us the story of your country as it unfolds. Sharif joining us from Cairo, Egypt. And thank you so much to Jon Alpert, to Matt O’Neill and to Jacquie Soohen, who co-produced the new HBO documentary, In Tahrir Square: 18 Days of Egypt’s Unfinished Revolution. It airs tonight at 8:00 Eastern Standard Time on HBO. Tell your friends. And I look forward to moderating a panel with you as we watch it live on HBO tonight. For folks in New York, at 87 Lafayette Street at 7:00, join us for a very interesting discussion. Sharif will be joining us from Egypt.

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