Egyptian military junta carries out deadly crackdown on protesters

by T Tue Nov 22, 2011 19:38

Here are two further reports and updates from Cairo.

The first is from: http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/11/22/the-muslim-broth....html

One of the interesting things about the gigantic turnout on Tahrir Square is that it is happening even as the Muslim Brotherhood has officially opposed the protests and most Salafists done the same, in the name of calming the streets before the elections. This decision is very reminiscent of January 25, when they refused to take part in the first protests leading to the overthrow of the Mubarak regime. The same goes for the Salafists, who apart from Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, have opposed protests and even tried to intervene to stop them in Alexandria yesterday........

The second is a video dispatch from: http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/11/22/video-dispatch-a....html
The

Caption: Video Id: 32520070 Type: Vimeo
Video author: I shot this footage this afternoon, near the center of the fighting, concentrating on how the organization of medical services is taking place.

Caption: Video Id: 32478270 Type: Vimeo
Video author: A stroll around Tahrir Square as thousands more join the protest, now in its third day.

by loin_de_loeil Wed Nov 23, 2011 09:34

"Egypt, Insights Into a Revolution" A documentary about the Egyptian revolution

Cairo, April 2011. Two months after the fall of Mubarak regime, bloggers, activists, artists, opinion leaders or simple citizens revisit their Egyptian revolution. How did they felt during the eighteen days of protests who eventually forced Mubarak to abdicate on February 11, 2011 after some thirty years of an autocratic presidency? How did the revolution change their lives? What are their hopes and fears whereas Egypt is slowly moving towards democracy?

A film by Sebastien Saugues

With: Wael Abbas, Dalia Ziada, Mahmoud Salem "Sandmonkey", Hany Adel (Wust el-balad), Amir Eid & Sherif Hawary (Cairokee), Aya Hemaida, Samia Jaheen & Achraf Nagaty (Eskenderella), Mohamed Safi (Nile Fm), Fath’allah Mahrous, Engy Khirfan, Seif Khirfan.

by T Wed Nov 23, 2011 14:22

It looks like this Revelution 2.0 is beginning to address things they just glossed over the first time and they are beginning to realize they were had.

This is a major taboo being broken, with the call of for the indictment of the head of the Central Command, General Ruweini (considered third most powerful person on SCAF) and the head of the military police:

Five human rights organizations said today that the past three days' brutal attacks on demonstrators, carried out by the Interior Ministry's security forces and military police forces under the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez, Ismailiya, Assyut, and other cities, constitute criminal offences. These offences are without a statute of limitations and the perpetrators and instigators must be brought before criminal trials......

Full text at link below

by T Thu Nov 24, 2011 00:27

The two images below are frame grabs from the video above. The first is of a human lane has been formed to allow the clear and rapid transfer of injured from the fighting front back up to the field hospital setup in Tahir Square. The fighting was occuring off a street of the square where the police were holding a line against the protestors advancing on the Interior Ministory. In the image, you can see a group of people in the distant who are carrying an injured person heading up towards the camera

The 2nd is a view back towards the square and the people chanting for the resignation of the field marshall. You can see them with their fists in the air

Human lane formed to allow rapid evacuation of injured

Chats for resignation of the Field Marshall

by pat c Thu Nov 24, 2011 14:39

An update from WSWS. Fulltext at link.

On Tuesday, millions of workers and youth staged protests and strikes all over Egypt, demanding the downfall of Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi and the US-backed Egyptian junta.

In Cairo, mass demonstrations headed to Tahrir Square from Cairo and Ain Shams Universities, the working class districts of Shubra and Sayda Zeinab and other parts of the capital. Marchers shouted slogans against the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), and for unity between Muslims and Copts.

Early yesterday evening, Tahrir Square was packed with hundreds of thousands of protesters. In Alexandria over one hundred thousand gathered in front of Al-Qaed Ibrahim Mosque and marched to the Northern District military command and the police headquarters. In Suez tens of thousands protesters gathered on Arbaeen Square, one of the epicenters of the January 25 protests that ultimately forced President Hosni Mubarak from office.

Other marches took place in major cities all over Egypt, including Mansoura, Ismailia, Qena, Beni-Soueif, Al-Sharqiya, and Al-Wadi Al-Gadid, al-Minya and Assiut.

Peaceful protests were met with continued violence by military and police forces, which have launched a brutal crackdown since the early hours of Saturday, killing dozens and injuring thousands. Protesters carried the coffin of a protester who had been killed through Tahrir Square.

by pat c Thu Nov 24, 2011 14:42

More from WSWS.

Clashes continued yesterday in cities across Egypt, on the fifth day of mass protests demanding the overthrow of the US-backed Egyptian military junta. The protests started Saturday, when police used live ammunition and rubber bullets against a sit-in by a few hundred protesters in Tahrir Square, in Cairo.

Demonstrations have spread across the country, with hundreds of thousands filling Tahrir Square and clashing with police outside the Interior Ministry, which oversees Egypt’s hated police forces. Demonstrations also shook Alexandria, Port-Said, Qena, Aswan, Assiut, and other cities. There are calls for a million-man march in Cairo tomorrow.

These are the most powerful demonstrations since mass strikes and protests in February forced out pro-US dictator President Hosni Mubarak. The masses are turning against the military, whose leaders control much of the wealth of the country and formed the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) junta led by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi to replace Mubarak. Protesters rejected Tantawi’s proposals on Tuesday to erect a civilian caretaker government next year, correctly fearing that this would only be a façade for continuing military rule.

The army and security forces have responded with an orgy of violence, trying to smash the protests. Significantly, Egyptian state media have cited police repression of Occupy Wall Street protests in the United States as a justification for the army’s deadly violence against the Egyptian people.

As of yesterday morning, at least 35 protesters had been killed and an estimated 2,000 wounded by Egyptian security forces over the five days of protests. Three more protesters were reported shot and killed in Cairo yesterday morning, as protesters took the wounded to hospitals in ambulances or on scooters. Security forces also shot a 10-year-old boy in the head with a bullet; he was not expected to survive.

by W. Finnerty Sat Nov 26, 2011 05:18

"This ("British") empire is determined to set the nations of the world into a war with one another, which is intended that civilization as we've now known it, will no longer exist. This is not only a general prospect; this is the immediate situation this weekend. This is not a weekend like other weekends. We're now on the verge—and it's set in place right now—of a chain reaction, which could mean the extermination of civilization as we've known it."

Do warnings of this kind deserve to be taken seriously, or are they simply scaremongering of some kind?

My own independent research (for what it's worth), suggests that -- at the very least, and in the interests of the general safety of humanity -- they do deserve some serious consideration: by everybody (ideally).

The full text of the "warning" the above excerpt has been copied from (dated November 25th 2011), which is basically all centred around the warmongering now taking place in and around the Middle East, coupled with the growing chaos and uncertainties connected with the global financial crisis associated mainly with British interests based in Wall Street and the City of London, can be viewed at the following www address:
http://www.larouchepac.com/node/20479

by pat c Sat Nov 26, 2011 17:05

Interesting article by Alan Hart, author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. Full text at link.

The Arab Spring – hello or goodbye to democracy?

Israeli democracy fades to black (the black of the blank screen at the end of a film). That was the headline over a recent article by Lawrence Davidson, an American professor of Middle East history. He argued that the suppression of the democratic rights of non-Jews in Israel is coming full circle with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likudniks and settlers now targeting the rights of Jews as well. Events in Cairo provoked this question: Are we witnessing the fading to black of the prospects for freedom and democracy in Egypt, or, is resurgent people power going to make it impossible for the military to maintain its controlling grip? (Presumably there would be limits to how many Egyptian civilians Egyptian soldiers were prepared to kill even if the generals, desperate to protect their wealth and privileges, ordered the suppression by all means of protests and demands for real democracy).

Events still to unfold will determine the answer but in advance of them, and before Field Marshall Mohamed Hussein Tantawi demonstrated a degree of panic by announcing that the election of a civilian president would be brought forward, the assessment of many informed observers was in tune with that of Marina Ottaway, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She wrote: “In the early days of the Egyptian uprising, when violence threatened to engulf the country, the military did an admirable job of maintaining order without violence and easing Hosni Mubarak out of office. Ten months later, it has emerged as the most serious threat in the transition to democracy. Recent announcements leave no doubt that the military indeed rules Egypt and intends to maintain its control indefinitely.”

by pat c Sun Nov 27, 2011 17:02

Full text at link.

Millions demand downfall of US-backed Egyptian junta

By Johannes Stern
26 November 2011

On Friday millions of workers and youth protested against military rule in Egypt and demanded the downfall of the US-backed Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) junta. In Cairo hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered on Tahrir Square. By the early afternoon, the square was packed with protesters chanting, “The people demand the removal of the field marshal,” “We will not go, he should go” and “Down, down with military rule.”

Throughout the day, mass marches kicked off from different locations in the capital, all converging in Tahrir Square. Thousands of marchers tore down the banners and posters of parliamentary candidates on their way to Tahrir, protesting the decision to hold parliamentary elections under the thumb of the SCAF junta, and denouncing the political establishment as a whole.

In major cities all over Egypt, hundreds of thousands took to the streets. In Alexandria tens of thousands of protesters gathered in front of Al-Qaed Ibrahim Mosque shouting against military rule and marching towards the Northern Military Zone near Sidi Gaber. Thousands of protesters gathered on Arbaeen Square in Suez. There were demonstrations in Tanta, Mahalla al Kubra, Sohag, Ismailiya, Damanhour, in the Upper Egyptian cities of Luxor, Minya and Assiut, and on the Sinai.

Friday’s mass demonstrations were the seventh day of continuous mass protests against the junta. Protests erupted last Saturday after the notorious Amn Al Markazi (Central Security Forces) violently attacked a small sit-in on Tahrir Square. Thousands of workers and youth poured into the streets to defend the sit-in against Mubarak’s generals, who have continued the same anti-social and anti-democratic politics as the ousted dictator.

by W. Finnerty Wed Nov 30, 2011 14:03

Why is RTE silent on these extremely important Middle Eastern developments?
 
"With the delay of Britain's plans for World War III, due to the opposition coming from inside the military layers of the United States, Russia has stepped in, putting it’s own resources at risk, in a bold move to shut down the threat of war."
 
The 14 minute (or so) video at the address below shows (beyond all doubt it seems to me) that if NATO try to repeat what they they recently did in Libya, then Russia will undoubtedly respond in a major way: a process that already appears to have started in fact, thanks to the way that Russia has sent three of their war ships into the Mediterranean, which are now in position off the coast of Syria it appears.
 
Link to above mentioned video:
http://www.larouchepac.com/node/20565