The Tottering Regime of Hosni Mubarak

Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo replaced Tienanmen Square as a symbol of peoples resistance against state repression. The world saw through the television screens the protests of nearly a million strong people calling for the end of the brutal Hosni Mubarak regime in Egypt. The world was humbled at the sight of young men, women and children expressing outrage against the criminally violent regime of Mubarak.

The sheer intensity of public outrage against Mubarak forced the 82 year old despot to appear before the State controlled TV to assure his people that he would step down from office in September and relinquish power. The seemingly conciliatory offer of Mubarak failed to reassure the pro democracy demonstrators. It fueled fresh suspicions that Mubarak was buying time. The chants of the protesters assumed urgency-Quit now! Quit Egypt

The bankruptcy of the regime was revealed when the peaceful demonstration at Tahrir square was attacked by the so called pro-Mubarak supporters with knives, stones and petrol bombs. Soon bloody skirmishes broke out in the streets of Cairo marring the essential peaceful nature of the spontaneous protests. The sense of outrage deepened into mob anger when it was discovered that the pro- Mubarak supporters were largely from the ranks of criminals and the hated security police of the Mubarak regime. The bloody clashes left at least 500 injured.

The revolt in Egypt is spearheaded by the educated lower middle class and middle class young people who do not have jobs. The slogans that reverberate in the streets of Cairo are for dignity, jobs and respect for human rights. The anger is also directed against routine police abuse and torture which is systemic in the Mubarak regime.

In the torture chambers of Mubarak

According to the Egyptian Organization of Human Rights 460 cases of torture were reported for the period between the years 1993 to 2008. There were 167 reported cases where the detainees died under torture. Most of the cases involving torture go unreported as the police intimidate victims of torture and prevent them from lodging complaints.

Apart from subjecting suspects to torture, the police also torture the relatives of suspects to extract information. The most horrific account to come to light in 2008 was the case of the police officers bursting into the home of absent suspect and hitting the sister of the suspect with a baseball bat. The suspects sister who was pregnant at that time fell from the stairs and died.[i]

While police violence and inhuman treatment of political prisoners are widespread in Egypt under Mubarak, it was the case of a 28 year old Khaled Mohammed Said which led to public outcry and protests in Egypt. According to Amnesty International, Khaled was picked up from a cyber-caf by the police. Eye witnesses said that the police asked him for money. When he did not pay he was savagely beaten up by the police. Khaled was dragged into the street where he died. Later a police car came and picked him up. The police tried to hush up the matter by saying that he died of drug use. The photographs of Khaled at the morgue tell a different story: they show that he died of multiple jaw and skull fractures.

Issandr El Amrani, a human right activist, sums up:

. Human rights groups have long been saying that torture is systematic and endemic in Egypt, this is what this means in practice. It also points to the criminalization of the police not only is the Ministry of Interior coming out in full force to protect its own, but the officers in question appear to be involved in drug dealing. What this shows is that Egypt is continuing its slide from authoritarian state to mafia state, where the authorities dont even have to answer to institutions.[ii]

The Mubarak regime has scant respect for political freedom as the draconian Emergency laws ensures that the state

can imprison any one indefinitely without trial any citizen who is suspected of being a threat to national security. The powers under the Emergency laws are so wide that they can be used to impose curfew, ban political meetings, shut down news papers critical of the Mubarak government. Protesters and journalists are often beaten up by the secret police of Mubarak.

A special relationship

It is a well established fact that for decades Egypt under Mubarak has been a willing accomplice to promote the USIsraeli geo-political interests in the Middle East. As Corinna Mullin, a lecturer at the School of Oriental and African studies says [Egypt] has provided invaluable support in promoting US geo-strategic interests vis-a-vis the IsraelPalestine conflict, the war on terror, energy security, as well as promoting US-backed neoliberal economic reforms in the region. The cables disclosed by Wiki leaks offers an insight into the close relationship between US and Egypt under Mubarak despite the fact that the regime is a political embarrassment to the international image of US as a protector of human rights. As the cables of the US government make it clear the tangible benefits to our [military] relationship are clear: Egypt remains at peace with Israel, and the US military enjoys priority access to the Suez Canal and Egyptian airspace.[iii]

Mubarak also played the religious hardliner fear card to frighten the US government to back his repressive regime. His clinching argument to US government was either you back us or get religious extremists hostile to your geo-political interests. The US government chose its geo-political interests over human rights of the Arab people.

Post 9/11 the war on terrorism launched by Bush administration cemented ties with the Mubarak regime. The US government in its war on terror implemented its notorious extra-rendition programme of kidnapping suspected terrorists and transferring them in planes run by CIA to torture prisons in Middle East like Morocco, Egypt and Jordan.

Mubarak became an important ally of the US by renting out his torture chambers and the vicious professional torturers to the Bush administration. One of them was the present Vice-President of Egypt Omar Suleiman, who was the chief of the Egyptian general intelligence service (EGIS) since 1993. Described quaintly by Aljazeera as distinguished and respected, Suleiman personally took part in the torture of a suspected Al Queda detainee Mamdouh Habib who was an Australian citizen. Habib was tortured with high voltage electricity, fingers broken, and immersed in water up to his nostrils. When he did not crack, Suleiman ordered the guard to brutally kick another prisoner to death in his presence.

Another infamous case was Ibn al Sheikh al-Libi who was tortured in Egypt by Suleimans intelligence service to obtain false confession linking Sadaam Hussain to Al Queda. The concocted evidence obtained under torture was used as a justification by the Bush administration to go to war with Iraq.

For the services rendered the Mubarak regime has been financially rewarded by the US. According to Chris Hedges the United States has subsidized Egypts armed forces with over $38 billion in aid. Egypt receives about $2 billion annually-$1.3 billion in foreign military financing and about $815 million in economic and support fund assistancemaking it the second largest regular recipient of conventional U.S. military and economic aid, after Israel.[iv] But the aid does not benefit ordinary Egyptians as the aid is used to fund the military spending of Mubarak regime.

Lessons of Tahrir Square

The pro-democracy protests in Cairo and other cities like Alexandria nails the canard that Arab people have no yearning for democracy and that they are politically docile. The revolt in Egypt should alter that perception decisively.

The revolt has also sent the message to Western and US leaders: that puppet regimes would be overthrown if they do not serve the interests of the people. The revolt also underscores the point that people in Middle East want leaders who understand their aspirations and socio-economic goals.

The people of Egypt have demonstrated in no uncertain terms that that they refuse to be inert objects for the benefit

of foreign powers. They have shown to the world that they are imbued with the spirit of freedom and that they are willing to lose their life and limb for it.

Perhaps during the tumultuous days of the uprising against a repressive regime, the Egyptian people were inspired by their poet Ahmad Shawqi who wrote- Freedom lies behind a door, closed shut. It can only be knocked down with a bleeding fist.[v]

C.R.Sridhar

[i] Mubaraks Human Rights Record- Emily Loftis.

[ii] The murder of Khaled Said- Issandr El Amrani- Arabist.net

[iii] Why the US must end its support for undemocratic regimes- Corinna Mullin- counterpunch.org

[iv] Outsourcing torture- Chris Hedges-truthdig.com

[v] Quoted in The Making of Egypts Revolution- Eslam Al- Amin- counterpunch.org

C R Sridhar