Updated: Few images of military attack on Tahrir square december 17 despite media blackout

First military attack on Tahrir square by @mostafasheshtawy



Army solider strip the shirt off a female protestor beat and abuse her



if you look closely you see the attack on her and what appears to be a young boy from another angle



One of the final livestreams of the military attack on Tahrir square



all live streams shut down in attempt for media blackout

Tents before


and after the attack



the field hospital in the middle of the square reportedly had the same plight

more raw footage of blatant military violence, live fire wounds on demonstrators



main road to Tahrir square closed off with a barricade and then later with a wall



Next military clear nearby squares





and chase protesters into the upper class nieghborhood of zamalek



later in the early afternoon



This report from aljazeera english was their last



soon thereafter





In his public address, the Ganzouri reiterates a promise he made when the military generals appointed him after the most recent massacre in Tahrir square end of November

"I said and I am still reiterating that we will never confront any peaceful demonstrations with any kind of violence, even the verbal kind," he said. "I am committed to this."

after seeing these images, judge for yourself

other reports of cameras confiscated, broken, journalists harassed and threatened by phone

thank you world for believing in our "democratic transition," this is why we don't go to vote. the generals overseeing this massacre oversee our elections

the reason we held the #occupycabinet sit-in at the parliament building was to protest the illegitimacy of the appointment of x-muburak era prime minister kamal ganzouri who justified all these attacks, calling to an end to military trials of civilians, calling for the trial of those carrying out these violent crimes

in an attempt to quash any resistance to the illegitimate military that is trying to snuff out a revolutionary spirit of a people suppressed and exploited for decades

around 6pm December 17th a massive march streams into Tahrir square in memory of Sheikh Effat, one of the demonstrators the military had murdered the day before.



and all this in light of yesterdays violent attacks, arrest, torture, murder of demonstrators

that all began with the kidnap and torture of one protester called Aboudi from the #occupycabinet sit-in



more videos here

Egyptian Security caught off guard, use excessive force against anti-torture march

مداهمة الأمن المصري ، واستخدام القوة المفرطة ضد المشاركين في مسيرة ضد التعذيب


Security agents were caught completely off guard when an anti-torture protest in downtown Cairo re-located from the completely police besieged Tahrir Square to a march that started at the nearby Bab el-Luq square. The march that started with approximately 50 protesters increased to 200-250 people. Security agents and plain clothes police started arriving at the scene and followed the march on either side of the road. Marchers were chanting "down with Husni Mubarak" and "look, here are the youth of Egypt."

فوجئ رجال الامن تماما عندما غيرت مظاهرة مناهضة للتعذيب موقعها من ميدان التحرير المحاصر تماما من قبل قوات الشرطة و تحولت إلى مسيرة بدأت من ميدان باب.اللوق. المسيرة التي بدأت بنحو 50 متظاهرا وصل عددهم إلى 200-250 شخص. بدأ ورجال الأمن وشرطة يرتدون ملابس مدنية الوصول الى مكان المظاهرة وتابعوا المسيرة من على جانبي الطريق. المتظاهرون كانوا يهتفون "فليسقط حسني مبارك" و "انظروا، ها هم شباب مصر"
توقفت السيارات للسماح للمشاركين في المسيرة بالمرور وهم يهتفون "حرية ، حرية".




Cars stopped to let marchers chanting "freedom, freedom" pass by... drivers often clapped and chanted along.

صفق السائقين في كثير من الأحيان ورددوا الهتافات.

Egyptian security started arriving en mass @:22 (in final video), blocking the road ahead of the march with trucks and police. They started surrounding part of the group, then picking protesters out of the crowd one-by-one. The protesters replied with chants "we are not afraid, we are not afraid" @01:52


بدأت قوات الأمن المصرية بالوصول في مجموعات كبيرة @ : 22 (في الفيديو الاخير) ، و سدت الطريق أمام المسيرة بشاحنات كبيرة ورجال الشرطة. وبدأوا يطوقون اجزاء من المجموعة ، ثم بدأوا في التقاط المتظاهرين من الحشد واحد تلو الاخر و رد المتظاهرون بهتافات "لسنا خائفين ، ونحن لسنا خائفين" @ 01:52


Both police and plain clothes security agents started using excessive force. @04:25 you will see an unidentifiable protester or protesters getting crushed under severe blows of policemen. @02:42 security try to cordone off a large section of protesters. Security agents tried to get everyone to stop filming and taking pictures @4:00. @4:50 plain clothes security picked one person off the sidewalk next to me, @5:30 another is taken.


بدأت كل من رجال الشرطة ورجال الأمن بملابس مدنية باستخدام القوة المفرطة. @ 04:25 سترون متظاهر او بعض المتظاهرين غيرمغروف هويتهم يسحقون تحت ضربات شديدة من قبل رجال الشرطة. @ 02:42 يحاول رجال الأمن تطويق جزء كبير من المتظاهرين. و حاولوا منع التصويروالتقاط الصور @ 04:00. @ 4:50 التقط رجال الأمن بالملابس المدنية شخص واحد من الرصيف المجاور لي ، @ 05:30 قبض علي آخر.


Trying to film as much as possible without getting my phone or my self confiscated I was suddenly attacked by this massive policeman @6:35 who yelled "don't film boy" and hit me in the face, then kicked me as I picked up the phone and managed to escape.. the phone kept filming.


احاول التصويرلاطول فترة ممكنة دون مصادرة هاتفي أو يقبضوا علي و فجأة تعرضت لهجوم من قبل شرطي ضخم @ 6:35 و الذي صاح "لا تصوير يا ولد" وضربني في وجهي ، ثم ركلني وأنا احاول التقاط هاتفي وتمكنت من الفرار.. ظل الهاتف يصور.



This is the violence of the decaying police state apparatus that Egyptians get to witness on our streets. What you don't see behind the closed doors of the torture chambers of police stations and ministry of interior holding stations, is much worse still.

The latest resports (via Ramy Raoof) are that 55 protesters were disappeared, by 21:00 most of these were released. Abdelqader is reporting that security agents are leaving protesters stranded on the road in the faraway new Cairo suburbs.

At sundown protesters continue their chants calling for the release of all fellow marchers

By 21:00 security agents release all kidnapped protesters (though money, ids stolen), for today the protests come to an end.

Egyptian police state apparatus down 0:1

هذا هو عنف الدولة البوليسية المتدهورة الذي يشهده المصريين في شوارعنا.و ما لا تراه خلف ألابواب المغلقة من غرف التعذيب في مراكز الشرطة ومراكزالاحتجازفي وزارة الداخلية ، مازال أسوأ بكثير 

آخر التقارير (عن طريق رامي رؤوف) هي اختفتاء 55 المتظاهرين ، أفرج عن معظمهم في الساعة 21:00 .

قدم عبد القادر تقرير ان رجال الامن تركوا الماظاهرين على الطريق في ضواحي القاهرة الجديدة 

عند غروب شمس واصل المتظاهرون الهتافات للأفراج عن جميع المحتجزين من المشاركين في المسيرة

 و في الساعة 21:00 قام رجال الامن باطلاق سراح جميع المتظاهرين المختطفين (على الرغم من سرقة ما معهم من مال، وهوياتهم )

، لهذا اليوم وصلت المظاهرات نهايتها.

أجهزة شرطة الدولة المصرية 00:01

Protesting Egyptian Normalization

On Saturday Egyptians protested on the 31st anniversary of the Egyptian "peace" agreement with Israel at Camp David. The accord has translated into the selling out of the Palestinian people.

In recent days meanwhile Egyptian state security forces have maintained a detention craze by arresting students all over Egypt speaking out against Israeli acts of aggression at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem:

Cairo, March 27, 2010
The Arabic Network for Human Rights strongly condemned the escalation of the systematic crackdown on students waged by state security. The crackdown reached its climax when SSI arrested Ibrahim Megahed, 18 years, because of a wall journal he posted at the Poly Technique Institute of Quaisna, Menoufia. SSI also kidnapped three other students :Ibrahim Ali Farag, Mohamed Samir and Mohamed Nasr Ahmed in front of the Faculty of Engineering Zagazig University on Tuesday, March 23, 2010.

The student, Ibrahim Megahed, had posted a wall journal reporting on the risks threatening Al Aqsa Mosque due to the violations committed by the Israeli occupation forces. He was arrested on campus and physically abused. Instead of releasing him as per prosecution order, SSI detained him in Damanhur prison, where he was denied contact with lawyers or family.

At Zagazig University in Sharkia , security services disregarded the sanctity of campus and kidnapped three students at the Faculty of Engineering in a proactive step lest they would stage or take part in a protest march against the continued arresting of students who would express anger over the Israeli aggression against Al Aqsa Mosque. The three students Ibrahim Ali Farag, Mohamed Samir and Mohammed Nasr Ahmed disappeared four days ago and could not be traced so far.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information said, “Law is no longer of any value to SSI. No student was ever arrested because of a wall journal but in Egypt. This is a bare faced, unashamed violation of freedom of expression, of the law and of all international treaties ratified by Egypt.”

Beirut-Cairo: Protesting Egypt's Wall of Shame

A protest organized in Cairo in coordination with activists in Beirut, called for an end to the construction of the Wall of Shame. The steel barrier being built between northern Sinai and the Gaza Strip will aid the Zionist strategy of increasing the siege on the population of the Gaza Strip. The wall is also trying to force Hamas into concessions with the Israeli policies that are not in the interest of the Palestinian public.

Over a hundred protesters from various parties and movements gathered at the Journalist Syndicate in downtown Cairo under the usual state security clampdown.

Ashraf from Arish, the bordering town to the Gaza Strip, explained the dangerous effects of the wall on regional politics. Never before has an Egyptian regime coordinated so closely with Zionist state policies. Never before have Egyptian politics reached so low a level that the Egyptian government allows for natural gas to be exported to Israel at subsidized prices while a crisis rages on Egyptian streets due to gas shortages.

Also briefly attending the protest was Gamal, a worker from the Tanta Flax Company. On their 36th day of strike and their 6th day (day and night) protest in front of the Prime Minister's Office the workers are demanding their rights. The representative stated his support for the protest against the Wall of Shame. A group of participants from the Gaza protest joined the Tanta Flax workers the same night.

The protest started a full week of actions protesting the Wall of Shame.

One Year On

On the third night of my abduction by Egyptian authorities last year, after intermittent interrogation and being handcuffed and blindfolded in a two by two meter cell, a state security officer asked me why I had so many "international relationships." The following night my kidnappers drove me home. I was never given a reason for why state security agents kidnapped me from a march protesting the ongoing siege on Gaza. Though, judging from the focus of the interrogation, the reason had something to do with the two years I lived and worked in Gaza and solidarity efforts I have been involved in since then.

Upon being reunited with my family I started realizing the explanation of what "Nour" -- my main interrogator -- must have meant by "international relations." During my abduction by the Egyptian state security apparatus, protests were staged around the world, letters were sent to embassies, some friends initiated a widespread Internet campaign and the press covered the story extensively.

During Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip the Egyptian authorities kidnapped or arrested many Egyptian activists that protested or expressed criticism of the Egyptian government's role in the Israeli attacks on the Palestinian enclave. Most of these activists were beaten, deprived of sleep and tortured. Likely due to my second (German) citizenship I was only threatened with torture during my abduction. From the start I was treated with a different standard than Egyptians without a second passport.

And yet, my quick release I attribute to the multitude that stepped into action around the world. These included friends, family members but also a mass of people I don't know and who, one year later, can't thank enough. My final days of interrogation were extremely sped up -- though under intense mental pressure of heightened interrogation and accusations. Suddenly "Nour" and his compatriots simply wanted to get rid of me and get this "story" off their backs.

Fast-forward to December 2009. Members of various civil society and human rights groups from around the world organized the Gaza Freedom March (GFM) in response to the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip in December 2008/January 2009 and the ongoing siege. The marchers from over 42 countries had set out with a similar message to the 15 person strong march that I had been abducted from earlier that year -- an end to the siege of the Gaza Strip. The reason it had been that small is that we knew how the Egyptian state apparatuses work. They follow online organizing and tap phone calls, so we had to organize clandestinely if we were to get anywhere.

The organizers and participants of the GFM who I know are committed activists, and collectively they had an incredible capacity for networking with activists around the globe. Prominent Palestinian activists in Gaza and elsewhere in Palestine provided vital backing to the march and a steering committee was formed to lead the events. Yet, some curious decisions were made early on that should be questioned in retrospect.

For many months, activists in Cairo remained in the dark as to who was organizing the Gaza Freedom March and what its intentions were. Although the idea of a march garnered much excitement, it left many in Egypt asking why they knew nothing more than the few details available on the GFM's public website. This was all the more confusing considering that the march was going to be launched from Cairo where numerous Palestine solidarity groups are based.

Many Egyptian activists who I know were excited to be involved in an event that would increase global awareness about the siege on Gaza. I called some of the organizers of CODEPINK during a trip to the US in October. They informed me that they had decided to follow the instructions of the Egyptian regime, which included no contact with Egyptian activists and meant they were providing the Egyptian authorities with a list of names of all the participants. Once the marchers arrived in Cairo I repeatedly heard justification that GFM organizers did not want to put Egyptian protesters at risk. Yet, Egyptians regularly protest in Egypt despite the risks. For a group of outsiders to justify the exclusion of our involvement without asking our opinion -- in spite of the good intentions of "protecting" us -- felt paternalistic and demeaning.

I believe from the start a political miscalculation was made: the colonization of Palestine and the siege on Gaza do not take place in isolation. The network of neo-liberal hegemony in the region includes Egypt as a key player and thus the regime acts as a partner with Israel when shared interests are at stake. Despite my reservations about the organizational dimensions of the march, I believe some very critical sporadic protests were staged all over Cairo that made an impact and caught Egyptian security completely off guard.

One week after most of the GFM participants had left Egypt, the site of a planned protest to commemorate the end of the Israeli assault on Gaza was completely overrun with Egyptian state security. Passersby were barely permitted to pass the square and the march had to be relocated to a less public place. The Gaza Freedom March was an important effort that reminded me of what I had learned upon my release from prison: our best weapon is numbers.

Fast-forward again to Saturday, 23 January 2010. In Beirut various factions including a movement called "The Campaign to Stop the Wall of Shame" staged a significant protest at the Egyptian embassy protesting the regime's construction of an underground steel barrier on the border with Gaza. This was powerful. When activists of a nearby country move to the street to protest the Egyptian government -- and an Egyptian multinational corporation's role in aiding the Israelis in besieging the Palestinians.

My question is, how do we take it a step further? Can we coordinate actions between Cairo, Beirut, Gaza and other cities against this wall of shame? On 13 February a joint protest against the wall is planned to happen in Beirut and Cairo. The Arab Contractors company that is constructing the wall along Egypt's border with Gaza operates in 29 countries. Let us move 29 countries to the streets and call for an end to complicity in the siege.

One year on from my abduction I have the liberty to move, act freely and live. The population of the Gaza Strip does not have that luxury. What we have on our side are numbers determined to end the siege on Gaza and call for justice in Palestine. Let us move together.

Gazans Cheer On Egyptians; Egypt Locks Up Gazans

Friday night Egypt beat Algeria 4:0.

Walking past Talat Harb square in downtown Cairo I saw a circle of policemen standing idly by as the masses took over the streets.

In Le Comte bar later that night, Waheed the bartender tells me, all is well in Egypt.. never mind the excessive economic gap between rich and poor, never mind that the only time the Egyptian public can let out any emotions is over football, any other form outcry or uprising results in police brutality and torture.

Meanwhile in Gaza, despite the Egyptian regime further caging in its neighbors and selling subsidized natural gas to the Zionist occupation, Gazans cheer on their neighbors.

This from a friend in Gaza City..

enjoyed watching the football game between Algeria vs Egypt ,GAZANs WAY: that's mean all gaza were watching the game -suppurating the Egyptian team- using generators bcz they DON'T HAVE ELECTRICITY,but the funny thing the generator-at the coffee shop where i was watching-was over from the fuel 3 minutes before the end o...f the game:(yes its sad,but despite that gazans went in the dark celebrating the Egyptian victory!

Shame on the criminal Egyptian regime.

Egypt's Police Day

Last night I asked a policeman on my street why he was working, wasn't it national police day?

"This is not a celebration for us, its for the people at the top," he said.

There are two versions to the story, you choose which to believe:

You can either celebrate with torture or with candy.

You pick your illusions.

International activists coming to Egypt to protest Israeli Siege and Violence on Gaza find themselves facing Egyptian Siege and Violence.

Bored Police one day turn Violent the Next:

Follow on with Sam and Ali.