Lazoughly Protest
Yesterday, a group of about 200 (Kifaya-ish types) gathered in Lazoughly Square to protest against torture in Egypt. The protest coincided with the International Day for Victims of Torture.
The protest’s site was highly symbolic. Held in a square named after Mohamad Ali’s first interior minister, Lazoughly is where State Security and the Ministry of Interior are located. So the protesters demonstrated where a lot of torture is said to happen in Cairo.
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Pictures of the latest Protest are available here.
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The demo was scheduled to take place before a press syndicate function where groups would launch a declaration against torture. So the Demo started at 430pm (and it was hot!).
Everyone gathered on a sidewalk under al-Gad restaurant in Lazoughly as al-Amn al-Markazi (CSF) closed in on them to confine their demo.
Now, there were a lot of signs denouncing torture and detailing individual cases on poster boards. But there were no original slogans about torture.
Instead, it turned into a anti-Mubarak (and anti-top regime figures) protest very quickly. With Kifaya leaders like Mohamad Abd al-Qaddos and Kamal Khalil leading chants, it resembled a Kifaya protest except with many of the younger faces recently new to street politics. Other than Abd al-Qaddos and Khallil, however, this looked by a protest by the women’s group al-Sharaa Lina (the Street is Ours) and Youth for Change (The Y4C people did not like being called that - they prefer to be nameless and independent).
Perhaps upset that the CSF was blocking the street or just a sign of the movement’s building frustration that is loosely together on their anti-Mubarak message but different politically, the protesters tried to make a hole in the CSF line to take the streets.
At first, they were successful. Then the barricades were brought for crowd control. As noted, it was hot and people started to faint, which led to more tension between the CSF and the demonstrators.
Not contented to be on a small part of the street, the protesters began wrestling with CSF conscripts over the barricades. The yellow and black painted metal was lifted into the air in what seemed to resemble a dangerous game tug-of-war.
It did not take long for the protesters to want to break the CSF’s lines again. So push turned to shove, as they say. After the CSF boys came under pretty sustained pressure, some of them panicked and pulled their long truncheons.
They began waving them more out of fear than anything. Their superiors had not given the order and so it looked undisciplined. A couple people received some hits to the head but no one was seriously injured while I was there.
These types of scuffles flowed and ebbed.
There would be tension and shoving for 20 minutes and then protesters spent 20 minutes recovering before having another go at the CSF.
In one break, water arrived. Many of the protesters offered the CSF water which they all resolutely refused.
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I know that the CSF is the tool of repression but I sympathized with them during the protest. Most of them were scared of the protesters. They were all trying to look tough but underneath they were worried.
The mistake was, I think, that the protesters wanted out of the security cordon and the CSF was ordered to hold the line. So when the shoving started, the CSF conscripts took it personally as pockets of them defended themselves and each other.
This was not a case of the nasty regime employing its repressive apparatus arbitrarily although you can sure argue the fact they are there in the first place is the root of the problem, which is undeniable.
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I don’t know where Kifaya is going but I feel it is splitting. The movement is disorganized during protests. While some protesters challenged the CSF, others led witty Anti-Mubarak chants. There is also a divide that runs along generational lines. What started out as an umbrella organization welcoming all trends is now several groups willing to cooperate on a strictly Anti-Mubarak platform only. Beyond that, I don’t see much communication.
The numbers in the demos are decreasing as summer pushes along and I have not seen Abd al-Halim Qandil, Geroge Ishaq, Hani Anani, or other top Kifaya brass since the Saad Zaghloul candle-light vigil where around 1000 people showed up.
There is another outing on Wednesday.
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I received a call last night which said after the protest ended. A semi-march through downtown Cairo took place by a faction of the Lazoughly protesters. There were about fifty people chanting slogans en route to the Syndicate. There seems to have been more scuffles.
I heard Alaa and Lelia Soueif were beaten by security (again). Alaa’s group also had two cameras stolen by the plain-clothed police.
I was not there so I cannot confirm this last development.
Categories: Egypt.
13 Responses to “Lazoughly Protest”
- 1 Trackback on Jun 28th, 2005 at 12:19 pm
- 2 Trackback on Jun 28th, 2005 at 8:13 pm
- 3 Trackback on Apr 9th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Josh, I wasn’t at the front lines so i didn’t see as much of CSF’s behaviour vis a vis the protestors, but while I agree with you that the protestors could have been more restrained, I don’t think it’s justified to say they didn’t have the right to break the security cordon. CSF were trying to hem the protest in and surround it, very early on, and squeezing the protestors into a smaller and smaller space. That was my impression. They did back off occasionally when their higher-ups told them to, but I thought were also quite trigger-happy as it were, though veterans of Cairo protests found them to be fairly restrained yesterday. Would others care to comment?
SP,
Fair enough..if the CSF and the higher ups wanted a delineated space for protesters then they should of had the barricade-thingies ready and positioned from the beginning. And if they were squeezing the circle, then it is understandable that protesters’ tempers would flare.
Perhaps this is what caused the shoving match. Naturally though, after the first such scuffle, then some of the protesters were looking for a fight.
As for the CSF being trigger-happy, I don’t think they were. When the CSF is ordered to go, it is much more brutal and relentless than a couple scared conscripts waving their truncheons. I think they pulled their sticks out of fear rather than wanting to have a go at the protesters.
The joys of a police state…
What did y’all make of the low turnout? I was actually expecting that more people would be willing to protest against torture than attend a general Kefaya event.
the tension was because we wanted to march down the street to the ministry, the attempts to break the baricades where leade by people like Mohammed Abd El Kodos and Laila Soueif, and not the young people.
then there was the trying to squeeze us thing which naturally lead to more tension.
but what caused the big fight was how they prevented a large group of protesters from joining us, we ended up being two groups seperated by a wall of security we shoved till we managed to break the lines and join the two groups.
after the protest we had a scuffle with security and 12 of us where trapped inside another barricade for an hour or so in front of the justice ministry, they beat us up and stole two cameras.
josh-
i remember during the protests against the iraq war there was a lot of sympathy among the conscripts manning the barriers. they tended to agree with the protesters and moved with the crowds to a certain extent, allowing giant surges to push through the barricades every now and then. most of the actual beatings were at the hands of the regime thugs, not amin al-markazy. if you’ll recall, a running theme of these protests was as much anti-mubarak as it was anti-america, anti-war, largely because of what i percieved to be frustration with the government’s impotence in the face of american power.
now to my question. you noted repeatedly that the conscripts exhibited nervous behavior and at times seemed intimidated by the protestors. in previous photo spreads, you’ve also documented soldiers reaching out for candles, smiling in the background, etc. what do you suppose the level of identification is with the protesters? is there any? and if not identification, how aggressive are they in restraining their fellow egyptians… or is most of the actual abuse being left ot the hired thugs? i’m just curious, should things escalate, what level of resistance the CSF would actually provide… at what point would they break.
as always, thanks for being on the ground when we can’t be.
well, mostafa and i were the ones beaten up and we had our cameras stolen by state security plain clothed agents.. it happened when we were leaving and most protestors had left and there was no media. mostafa and i were taking photos of security agents dragging protestors away..
mostafa’s account:
http://mostafa.foolab.org/node/96
my account:
http://digressing.blogspot.com/2005/06/blog-post_27.html
seems like alaa, prof. nabil and dr.leila soueif were also beaten up while mostafa and I were away recieveing the same treatment:
alaa’s account:
http://www.manalaa.net/they_beat_us_again
manal’s account:
http://www.manalaa.net/anti_torture_demonstration_in_lazoughly
Reading everyone’s post-protest accounts is frustrating.
Sorry to those of you that were subject to the thievery and beatings by plain-clothes MoI minions.
gah anti underscore conspiracy, the links:
Amr tells his story
Manal ’s account
Alaa account
got to write something to avoid spam filter, sheesh
I respect those guys who keep on going out every week and getting beaten every other week. Good job, and good luck.