From the blog of a photojournalist in Egypt - Sarah Carr - Excellent coverage of protest

[Oilwellian]

The descent into murky hatred coincides with a concerted state media campaign against foreigners and sinister “foreign agents” who are behind the Tahir protests, a continuation of previous campaigns against foreigners which have targeted e.g. Palestinians, religious minorities, gays, Shias…etc. State media is an extension of the regime. Add this to a security vacuum and the withdrawal of the police and a desperate regime and uncertainty and you get this, another highly convenient instance of manufactured discontent.

The use of hired thugs is classic Mubarak. The regime’s relationship with its people has always depended on intimidation and violence, which proved problematic with the wave of demonstrations and labour protests that have been a growing phenomenon since 2003 – acts of public police rage tend to put the tourists off. In 2005 elections young men were paid to sexually assault female protestors. Last year during the trial of two policemen accused of involvement in the death of Khaled Said a rowdy group of teenagers stood outside the courtroom and accused anti-torture protestors of being Israeli spies, before launching missiles at them. During the elections boys in matching t-shirts danced in front of polling stations while burly colleagues intimated voters on behalf of National Democratic Party candidates.



Mubarak’s regime is a cancer that has metastasized and spread to every part of Egyptian society. It has stripped the act of earning a living of its nobility and cheapened the currency of dreams; on our way home we talked to a taxi driver who expressed support for Mubarak. We asked him how exactly he had benefited from Mubarak’s rule and he said “stability”- not opened up new horizons for his children, not given him the opportunity to consider a life of doing something other than taxi-driving. Mubarak has simply ensured that Egypt does not enter into external conflict while declaring a war of never-ending grinding attrition on his own people.

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