Category: Photos

Around 200 Kefaya supporters demonstrated today in front of Sayyeda Zeinab Mosque to protest the exponential increase in prices of basic commodities, marking also the 30th anniversary of the 1977 Bread Intifada.

Demonstrators chanted against Mubarak, his son, State Security, torturers, Nazif government, US, World Bank, IMF, the ruling Egyptian National Democratic Party and Israel.

El-Sayyeda Zeinab Square was under occupation by the Central Security Forces. The usual faces of State Security plainclothes officers were also there, together with some uniformed police generals and brigadiers.

I will update this posting, with more details and photos either later tonight or tomorrow…

UPDATE: I uploaded some photos I took of the demonstrators and my favorite Gestapo agents:

UPDATE: AP journalist and friend Nadia Abou El-Magd reports on the demo:

Egyptians protest high prices, corruption on 30th anniversary of bread riots
CAIRO (AP) _ Demonstrators waved pieces of bread, garlic cloves and onions in a protest against high prices Thursday that marked the 30th anniversary of the “bread riots” that shook Egypt.
The roughly 200 protesters standing outside the Sayeda Zeinab mosque also chanted slogans against the alleged corruption and carelessness in the government of President Hosni Mubarak.
“Oh, you who have been stealing from the poor, contaminating their blood, drowning their sons, and burning them _ Kifaya!” the demonstrators chanted, using the Arabic word for ‘enough,’ which is also the name of a largely secular, reform movement that emerged two years ago. Police are investigating a lawmaker who is alleged to have sold contaminated blood to hospitals.
Egyptians have been hit by a series of price increases during the past year, in particular the cost of gasoline, electricity and water. An outbreak of bird flu, and the slaughter of millions of chickens and turkeys, caused the prices of meat and fish to jump 35 percent, although they subsequently came down somewhat.
More than 20 percent of Egypt’s 75 million people live under the poverty line, according to the World Bank.
“Oh, Mubarak, enough! We can’t take it any more! We don’t want you! A quarter of a century is more than enough,” the protesters chanted, referring to their 78-year old president who has been in power since 1981.
More than 200 riot police cordoned off the protesters in downtown Cairo, trying to prevent passers-by from joining the demonstration.
Thursday was the anniversary of the riots that broke out across Egypt on Jan. 18, 1977 in reaction to the government’s hiking the price of bread and numerous other subsidized foodstuffs. The rioters set fire to buildings, clashed with police and forced President Anwar Sadat to leave the southern city of Aswan in a hurry.
“Despite the passing of three decades since the food riots,” Kifaya’s coordinator George Ishaq said in a statement he read out to reporters, “the overwhelming majority of the Egyptian people are still suffering from oppression, robbery and humiliation. They all live under the burden of poverty, unemployment, hunger, disease, illiteracy and backwardness, owing to the policies of the ruling authority.”
One pedestrian who did manage to join the protest was Um Mohammed, 60.
“Our life is very tough,” she said, with wet eyes. “Our children are unemployed. They can’t find enough food or get married. People are committing suicide from desperation.”
The corruption monitoring group Transparency International reported last year that Egypt has a poor record for clean government, ranking 70th on the world scale.

UPDATE: And here’s an AFP report:

30 years after bread riots, Egypt reform moves forward
by Paul Schemm
CAIRO, 21 jan 2007 (AFP) – Three decades ago, millions of Egyptians took to the streets across the country to protest the government’s removal of subsidies on basic commodities in an explosion of violence that shook the regime to its core and appeared to end any further talk of economic reform.
Yet 30 years later to the day, in the ballroom of one of Cairo’s glittering five-star hotels, a gathering of Egyptian businessmen and government officials was congratulated for lifting subsidies and attracting foreign investment.
“This government has demonstrated a continuing commitment to economic reform that has made noticeable progress in the areas of taxes and subsidies,” said US Chamber of Commerce president Tom Donohue on Thursday at the monthly luncheon of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt.
“You’ve been very busy, you are doing very well,” he added, in a nod to the reformist government of Prime Minister Ahmad Nazif which since 2004 has done more than any previous government to do implement free market reforms.
Though it effectively forestalled the issue of addressing Egypt’s ruinously expensive subsidies for decades, the 1977 demonstrations in which at least 70 people died were the death knell for popular activism in Egypt.
“Those who raise prices are the agents of colonialism,” shouted leftist activist Kamal Abu Eita into a megaphone at a sparsely attended protest commemorating the riots’ anniversary in a low-income neighborhood not half a mile from where the businessmen toasted economic reform.
Hemmed in by hundreds of black-clad security police, the protesters comprised some 200 political activists — fewer than the number of people eating seafood salad and veal medallions at the lunch.
Passers-by spared a quick glance for the protest before scurrying about their business under the harsh gaze of burly security officers.
“It’s all just so tired,” said one cab driver as he steered his car through congested streets away from the demonstration. “So they demonstrate and tomorrow nothing changes.”
In recent years, the prices of basic commodities have soared as the government peeled back fuel subsidies and freed the exchange rate.
Inflation has tripled from 3 percent in December 2005 to nearly 12 percent in October 2006, and last July the government hiked the price of gasoline by 30 percent.
“The Nazif government reform has worked, there is no denying it,” said Samir Radwan, managing director of the Economic Research Forum, noting a 6 percent annual growth in 2006 and a six-fold increase in foreign direct investment to 6.1 billion dollars over two years.
“But they (the reforms) are only one year old, so they have not trickled down to the ordinary citizen,” he added.
These straitened circumstances, however, show no signs of producing anything like the mass protests that rocked every major city in 1977.
“Today people are too tired from chasing after morsels of bread,” said the cab driver. “Back then people worked hand in hand, and they looked out for each other.”
In the wake of Egypt’s defeat by Israel in 1967, a new spirit of activism, largely inspired by leftist ideas, seized the country and there were waves of student demonstrations and strikes.
“The Egyptian people for the first time were convinced that we must have a democratic regime,” recalled Hussein Abdel Razeq, secretary general of the leftist opposition Tagammu Party.
“At that time from 1967 to 1976, we had many demonstrations in Cairo University and other universities asking for democracy.”
As part of the attempt to open up the economy, the government signed on to an International Monetary Fund structural adjustment programme for loans in exchange for reforms.
On January 17, 1977, the cancellation of more than 250 million dollars in subsidies was announced, triggering riots that were only brought under control three days later when the subsidies were reinstated.
“The understanding then was the government would look after you,” said Radwan. “Suddenly the government decided to do away with the subsidies and float prices and the shock was very strong given that culture.”
“Now in 2007 the whole issue of liberalisation has been internalised, people are getting more and more used to the fact that they have to fend for themselves,” he added.
Human rights organizations also report that security services deal harshly with those hoping to organize new protests. “Talk to anyone in the streets,” said one demonstrator who preferred not to be named. “Everybody here is intimidated.”
But Radwan is optimistic that the reforms will soon trickle down to provide relief in the form of more jobs. Until then, however, the government will be very careful to keep subsidies in place on bread and cooking gas.
“You have to be very careful with the Egyptian people — there is a tacit contract, a red line,” to provide basic needs, he said. “If this red line is crossed then something can happen like 1977.”