That "Brotherhood" would not be so strong if the Mubarak's government wasn't so much of a disaster. Had the Mubarak's government been adopting Singapore policies to the local conditions the opposition to that government would not be as strong as it is.
--- In Politics_CurrentEvents_Group@yahoogroups.com, Alexandra Avraham <alexandraavraham@...> wrote:
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> Are the protests for the right cause? Yes Egyptians might have had enough of the "oppressive" regime of Mubarak , but one can't help thinking that the Brotherhood is behind these protests since their followers are growing in number in Egypt and their charitable grass roots actions do seem to buying the masses over unlinke the "negligent" actions/inactions of the current regime.An important point of note is that the Mubarak regime has battled hard to be on good terms with Israel and its other Arab neighbours, if the Brotherhood seizes power - this is not unlikely - this will all change , then not only will Egypt have internal problems , but would create an enemy out Israel , which I am sure would not be viable for the Egyptians . Which is the lesser of the two evils - The Mubarak regime or the Brotherhood ?
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> --- On Tue, 1/25/11, Gary <garyrumor2@...> wrote:
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> From: Gary <garyrumor2@...>
> Subject: [Politics_CurrentEvents_Group] Protests In Egypt
> To: Politics_CurrentEvents_Group@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Tuesday, January 25, 2011, 6:36 PM
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> Egyptian Protests Emulate Tunisia Events
> January 25th, 2011 Things are getting hot In Egypt as thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands joined protests against the dictatorship of Mubarak. This is exactly what I predicted would happen after the example of Tunisia. There is so much suppressed rage in the Middle East against these dictators and their corrupt cronies propped up by the USA and their European allies.
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> Hillary Clinton speaks typical doublespeak, calling for restraint and reform at the same time claiming that the Mubarak regime is stable. Like all regimes based on repression of its citizenry, it is only as stable as the military and police apparatus that supports it. Those depend on the lifeline of support from the USA, the EU and the Gulf Oil states. The real purpose for all this repression is to protect the access to oil for the western states, Japan and now China and India. The people of the Middle East all suffer due to the politics of oil where the status quo is maintained for as long as possible.
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> These revolts are civil society events, not controlled or manipulated by the Islamic forces in the case of Tunisia and Egypt. On the other hand in Lebanon there are religious factions that are tearing up the country again being manipulated by outside powers with an interest in keeping this central nation weak and off balance.
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> It seems that we are seeing the long expected rising up of the peoples of the Middle East. I congratulate them and hope they are successful in overthrowing the repressive regimes and replacing them with social democracies. It is incumbent on us in the west to stop our governments from interfering and to cut off aid to the dictatorships and allow the civil societies within the region an opportunity to take hold and restructure their nations to reflect the will of the people.
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> From Al Jazeera
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> Egypt protesters clash with police
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> Police fire tear gas at anti-government demonstrators in Cairo as thousands call for ouster of president Hosni Mubarak.
> Last Modified: 25 Jan 2011 15:26 GMT
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> Inspired by Tunisian demonstrators, thousands of Egyptian protesters on Tuesday gathered in Cairo and other major cities, calling for reforms and demanding the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, Al Jazeera's correspondents have reported.
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> The anti-government protesters, some hurling rocks and climbing atop an armoured police truck, were chanting slogans against Mubarak, who has ruled the country for three decades.
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> Downtown Cairo came to a standstill with protesters chanting slogans against the police, the interior minister and the government, in scenes that the capital has not seen since the 1970s.
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> Demonstrators marched toward what Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh called the "symbols of their complaints and their agony," the headquarters of the ruling National Democratic Party, the foreign ministry and the state television.
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> But police responded with blasts from a water cannon and set upon crowds with batons and acrid clouds of tear gas to clear demonstrators crying out "Down with Mubarak" and demanding an end to the country's grinding poverty.
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> At least 30 people have reportedly been arrested in Cairo, according to official sources.
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> Protests also broke out in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, the Nile Delta cities of Mansura and Tanta and in the southern cities of Aswan and Assiut, witnesses said.
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> Earlier on Tuesday, Rageh reported from the protests, calling them "unprecedented" in the leniency showed by security forces who allowed demonstrators to march through the capital.
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> The Egyptian government had earlier warned activists hoping to emulate Tunisian pro-democracy protesters that they faced arrest if they went ahead with Tuesday's mass demonstrations, which some labelled the "Day of wrath".
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> The rallies have been promoted online by groups saying they speak for young Egyptians frustrated by the kind of poverty and oppression which triggered the overthrow of Tunisia's president.
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> Mamdouh Khayrat, 23, travelled from the governorate of Qalubiya to attend protests in Cairo. He spoke to Al Jazeera's Adam Makary. "We want a functioning government, we want Mubarak to step down, we don't want emergency law, we don't want to live under this kind of oppression anymore," he said.
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> "Enough is enough, things have to change, and if Tunisia can do it, why can't we?" Khayrat added.
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> Mohamed Ahmed, 36, a demonstrator from Boulaq told Al Jazeera's Makary: "We might be trying to copy what happened in Tunisia. If Egyptians manage to even come close to what they did then I can proudly say today was successful but we still have a long way to do."
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> "The reaction [to join the protest] has been overwhelming," Rageh said. "The people we have seen taken to the streets today are not the 50 or 60 activists that we have been seeing protesting in Egypt for the past five or six years. These were normal Egyptians, older women, younger men, even children."
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> Organisers have called for a "day of revolution against torture, poverty, corruption and unemployment".
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> "Our protest on the 25th is the beginning of the end," wrote organisers of a Facebook group with 87,000 followers.
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> "It is the end of silence, acquiescence and submission to what is happening in our country. It will be the start of a new page in Egypt's history, one of activism and demanding our rights."
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> The banned Muslim Brotherhood, seen as having Egypt's biggest grassroots opposition network, has not called on members to take part but said some would join in a personal capacity.
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> Organisers have called for protesters to not display political or religious affiliations at demonstrations. The Facebook page says: "Today is for all Egyptians."
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> Commenting on the wave of public unrest in Tunisia, Adli, the interior minister, said talk that the "Tunisian model" could work in other Arab countries was "propaganda" and had been dismissed by politicians as "intellectual immaturity".
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> "Young people are very excited, and this time there will be much more than any other time," Ahmed Maher, one of the founders of the opposition youth movement said.
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> "This is going to be a real test of whether online activism in Egypt can translate into real action," Al Jazeera's Rageh reported.
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> "Anger has been on the rise in Egypt for the past couple of years, but we have seen similar calls fizzle out. The main difference now is that these calls are coming after what happened in Tunisia, which seems to have not only inspired activists, but actually ordinary Egyptians, a dozen of whom we have seen set themselves on fire in copycat self-immolations similar to the one that had sparked the uprising in Tunisia."
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> Sympathisers across the world have said they plan to protest in solidarity. In Kuwait, security forces detained three Egyptians on Monday for distributing flyers for the protests, while large demonstrations have also been planned outside the Egyptian embassies in Washington, DC, and London.
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> http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/01/201112511362207742.html
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> From Christian Science Monitor
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> Inspired by Tunisia, Egypt's protests appear unprecedented
> Egypt's protests today appear to be the largest public call for democratic reform and an end to the Mubarak regime for years.
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> By Dan Murphy, Staff writer / January 25, 2011
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> Though tens of thousands took to the streets of Cairo in 2005 calling for democratic reform, today's protests are far beyond the action in the capital. Reporters and activists on the scene in Cairo say there was a spirit of anger and defiance in the crowds and there were protests of varying sizes in at least a half-dozen Egyptian cities.
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> By late afternoon, thousands of protesters converged in Tahrir Square, not far from the US embassy, the Interior Ministry, and the five-star hotels looming over the Nile. Police water cannons and tear gas barrages did little to deter them.
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> For now, it's hard to imagine the aging Mr. Mubarak and the apparatus of the state being swept from power in the same way that President Ben Ali was chased from Tunis. Egyptian military spending is much higher than in Tunisia and the circle of people who have everything to lose if the system is upended much wider.
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> But the riveting images beamed into millions of Egyptian homes of the Tunisian uprising appear to have led to a shift in the public consciousness, at least for today. A small group of leftists and democracy activists have been trying to organize protests like today's for years, but have generally failed to get large numbers out on the streets. Average Egyptians, mired in poverty and afraid of the consequences of participating in protests they suspect are doomed to failure, have stayed away.
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> That clearly changed today. Activists were reporting on their twitter feeds (until twitter service was shut down in Egypt at about 3:30 pm local time) that thousands from working-class neighborhoods like Shubra, a warren-like neighborhood with millions of mostly poor residents, joined the protest marchers as they passed, and joined in shouts for Mubarak, his son and presumed heir Gamal, and Interior Minister Habib el-Adly to be driven from power.
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> Monitor Correspondent Kristen Chick is among the crowd in Tahrir Square, where marchers from at least three different locations converged by mid-afternoon. She says it briefly got ugly, with protesters tearing up pavement and throwing rocks as the police brought tear gas and water-cannon to bear, but that the police soon backed off, ringing the square but leaving the protesters unmolested for the moment.
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> "I've seen middle-aged women with expensive jewelry, women in niqabs (full black Muslim veils), guys with suits and briefcases, young people from the poor neighborhoods," she says. "They're demanding their rights, and end to unemployment, poverty and torture."
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> http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Backchannels/2011/0125/Inspired-by-Tunisia-Egypt-s-protests-appear-unprecedented
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> From Guardian.UK
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> Protests in Egypt and unrest in Middle East â€" live updates• Cairo a `war zone' as demonstrators demand president quit
>
> 5.40pm: Here are the full quotes from Hillary Clinton regarding Egypt:
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> We support the fundamental right of expression and assembly for all people and we urge that all parties exercise restraint and refrain from violence. Our assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people.
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> 4.56pm: The situation in Egypt seems to be escalating quite dramatically
> 4.32pm: The Associated Press news agency has filed a report on thousands of protesters, some throwing rocks and climbing on top of an armoured police truck, clashing with riot police in the centre of Cairo. Police responded with water cannon, batons and tear gas, as we have reported. Demonstrators were shouting "Down with Mubarak," a reference to Hosni Mubarak, the president, and "demanding an end to Egypt's grinding poverty, corruption, unemployment and police abuses".
>
> The news agency reports:
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> Protesters emerged stumbling from white clouds of tear gas, coughing and covering their faces with scarves. Some had blood streaming down their faces. One man fainted. Police dragged some away and beat a journalist, smashing her glasses and seizing her camera.
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> At one point, the protesters seemed to gain the upper hand, forcing a line of riot police to flee under a barrage of rocks. One demonstrator climbed into a fire engine and drove it away.
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> AP has interviewed some Egyptian protesters. Eid Attallah, a driver aged 50 said:
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> I want my 3-year-old child to grow up with dignity and to find a job just like the president.
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> He said he had heard about the planned protests from friends but didn't expect them to be so big.
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> Sayid Abdelfatah, a 38-year-old civil servant who marched with an Egyptian flag, said:
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> We are fed up; this is just enough. Tunisia's revolution inspired me but I really never thought we would find such people ready to do the same here.
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> Lamia Rayan, 24, said: "We want to see change just like in Tunisia."
>
> Radwa Qabbani, 26, said:
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> I am not protesting the police. They are citizens like me. I am protesting corruption, unemployment and high prices. We are just asking for the smallest dreams.
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> According to AP, nearly half of Egypt's 80 million people live under or just above the poverty line set by the United Nations at $2 (£1.27) a day. "Poor quality education, healthcare and high unemployment have left large numbers of Egyptians deprived of basic needs," the agency writes.
>
> There were also thousands of protesters in Alexandria, in the north of the country, the agency reports.
>
> Like the Tunisian protests, the calls for the rallies in Egypt went out on Facebook and Twitter, with 90,000 saying they would attend. Organisers used the site to give minute-by-minute instructions on where demonstrators should go in an attempt to outmanoeuvre the police. By late afternoon, access to Twitter appeared to have been blocked.
>
> In another parallel with Tunisia, the protests drew energy in large part from the death of one person: a young Egyptian man named Khaled Said whose family and witnesses say was beaten to death by a pair of policemen in Alexandria last year.
>
> His case has become a rallying point for Egypt's opposition. Two policemen are on trial in connection with his death.
>
> Tunisia's protests â€" which led to the ousting of the president â€" were also sparked by the death of one man, a poor Tunisian vegetable seller who set himself in fire to protest against corruption.
>
> 4.07pm: Jack Shenker has just sent me this dramatic update from Egypt. He calls central Cairo a "war zone".
>
> Downtown Cairo is a war zone tonight â€" as reports come in of massive occupations by protesters in towns across Egypt, the centre of the capital is awash with running street battles. Along with hundreds of others I've just been teargassed outside the parliament building, where some youths were smashing up the pavement to obtain rocks to throw at police.
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> We've withdrawn back to the main square now were thousands more demonstrators are waiting and a huge billboard advertising the ruling NDP party has just been torn down. Security forces are continuing to use sound bombs and teargas to disperse the crowd, but so far to no avail.
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> If the United States and its allies wish to exploit the Tunisian example to widen processes of democratic change in the Arab world, they will need to adapt as well. Tunisia holds lessons both for Arab autocrats and for Western promoters of democracy. Which lessons turn out to be decisive will depend, if only in part, on whether democracy promoters demonstrate the same flexibility and responsiveness shown by Arab regimes.
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/blog/2011/jan/25/middleeast-tunisia#block-26
>
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