Arab Spring: Egypt
Protests began in Egypt on 25 January 2011, chosen because it was Police Day, and brought down Hosni Mubarak after thirty years in eighteen days. The immediate trigger was Tunisia, where Ben Ali had fled ten days earlier. The underlying grievances were older: emergency law in force since 1981, systematic torture in police stations, a rigged parliamentary election in November 2010, youth unemployment, food prices, and the visible preparation of Mubarak's son Gamal to succeed him. The Facebook page We Are All Khaled Said, named for a young man beaten to death by police in Alexandria in 2010, was one of the organising centres. Hundreds of thousands occupied Tahrir Square. The police were withdrawn after three days of street fighting and the army deployed and declined to fire. Mubarak cut the internet, offered concessions in successive speeches, and sent men on horses and camels into the square on 2 February. Around 850 people were killed. He resigned on 11 February and power passed to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. What followed disappointed most of those in the square. The Muslim Brotherhood, the only organised force, won the parliamentary elections and then the presidency for Mohamed Morsi in 2012 by a narrow margin. Morsi's constitutional decree granting himself immunity from review produced mass protests in 2013, and the army under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi removed him in July. Hundreds were killed clearing the Rabaa sit-in. The repression since exceeds Mubarak's. Mubarak was tried, convicted, acquitted on appeal, and died at home in 2020. Morsi collapsed and died in a courtroom cage in 2019.
- Year: 2011 CE
- Category: Political
