Let´s start with the West. The West missed its right. For years and years lobbying, asking for them to put pressure on [former Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak to allow for more freedom, human rights, to respect human rights and a more democratic measures? We were told security was number one. Security in the region, stability, war, all of this. We said, “There is no security and stability without democracy and human rights.
There is no stability without democracy and human rights. Radicalism is an obvious result of injustice. There is an excuse. There is fertile ground to recruit young people to become violent, fanatical, when they have suffered injustice, when they´re marginalized, when they are already victims. So we talked about all of this. And you know, after the revolution they realized, “Egyptians can be civil.
They don´t actually kill each other necessarily and just for the sake of it. And actually without democracy and human rights people will not be silent.” And this revolution, we´re lucky because it didn´t take a violent anger but maybe if things don´t get better the revolution of the hungry will erupt. And so, that´s why it´s important if the West still wants to play a role, if it wants to catch the other team and take credit for some form, it knows what it can do now.
The SCAF [Supreme Council of Armed Forces] is not behaving well. To accept that not true democratic transition to take place. The army– no one is holding the army accountable. And no one is actually holding those in power responsible for the lack of security in Egypt. There is a minister of interior. There is a police force. There is an army of unemployed Egyptians that´s got to be trained in the police academy and they can graduate and we can have a new generation of a police force, a security system that respects human rights. Why does it have to be under conditions? Why are we still fighting for the same things that we fought for on the 25th of January?
Sally Sami has been a human rights defender for nearly a decade. She was one of the main coordinators of the Front to Defend Egypt’s Protesters (FDEP) during the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. Sami continues to defend human rights, but has become involved in politics and currently is a leading member of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party and has been elected its Secretary General for Civil Society Affairs.
Twitter: @salamander
With a history dating back to the 10th millennium B.C., Egypt has long played a central role in the Middle East. Egypt is the largest Arab nation and has an influential voice in Arabic and Middle Eastern culture. Egypt has a diverse economy, but has struggled to create sustained economic growth and opportunities for its population of 84 million people.
The country has little experience with representative democracy. From 1956 to 1970, President Gamal Abdel Nasser ruled Egypt with a strong hand, nationalizing the Suez Canal and taking the country into conflict with the new state of Israel. Upon his death, Anwar al-Sadat became president. Together with other Arab nations, Sadat launched the October War against Israel in 1973. In 1979, Sadat signed a groundbreaking peace treaty with Israel.
From Sadat’s assassination in 1981 until the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, Egypt was governed by President Hosni Mubarak. For all of Mubarak’s time in office, and for much of the time since his resignation, Egypt has been under “Emergency Law,” which allows the government to suspend constitutional rights, including limiting political activity and restricting free speech. Emergency Law also allows the government to use summary arrests against political opponents.
For four successive terms, Mubarak was reelected in referenda without an opponent. In 2005, under domestic and international pressure, Mubarak proposed a constitutional amendment to allow Egypt’s first multicandidate presidential elections. Because the amendment would have imposed severe restrictions on the eligibility of opposition candidates, opposition groups boycotted the vote. Mubarak claimed to have won the September 2005 presidential election with an official 88 percent of the vote, amid widespread allegations of fraud and vote rigging. The main opposition leader, Ayman Nour, was subsequently prosecuted by the government for forging signatures on petitions and was sentenced to five years in prison, provoking protests from the United States and other democratic countries.
Following the example of the Tunisian Revolution, large protests swept Egypt in early 2011. The military, led by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), withdrew its support of Mubarak. On February 11, 2011, Vice President Omar Suleiman announced that Mubarak had resigned. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) headed by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi then assumed power in Egypt. SCAF dissolved the parliament and suspended the constitution.
In November 2011, Egypt held parliamentary elections that were reportedly fair and democratic. In June 2012, Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi was elected President, in part because liberal and secular forces failed to coalesce around a single candidate. Morsi’s popularity declined as he declared his orders immune from challenge, removed judicial review processes, and was accused of taking steps towards the implementation of Islamist policies. Conflict arose between those supporting Islamist policies and those seeking a more liberal and secular government. Protests occurred throughout his presidency until Morsi was ousted by the military in July 2013. Muslim Brotherhood leaders were arrested and their camps and offices raided. Until new elections are held, a SCAF-installed provisional government led by acting President Adly Mansour is in control.
In its most recent report, the independent watchdog group Freedom House classifies Egypt as “partly free.” On its scale where 1 is the most free and 7is the least free, Egypt earned scores of 5 in both the civil liberties and political rights categories.
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