Thousands of Egyptian activists marched to the Ministry of Defense headquarters in Cairo on Friday, demanding an end to military rule as the country prepares to mark the first anniversary of President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation. The activists rallied outside the building and renewed calls for Egyptians to join them in a general strike, beginning on Saturday and continuing until the military council that has ruled Egypt since Feb. 11, 2011, cedes power to a civilian council.
Perhaps indicating how ad hoc the military administration of the country remains after a full year, one activist, Lilian Wagdy, recorded an interesting moment of dialogue between one of the protesters and a military police officer during the rally. Speaking across a barbed-wire barricade outside the building, the protester asked, “Do you think anyone can get their rights through the law?” In reply, the officer said simply, “I don’t know.”
As The Associated Press reports, the military council, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, issued a statement late Friday vowing never to “bow to threats, nor succumb to pressures, nor accept ultimatums.”
Responding online, activists mocked the statement, which was read aloud on state television hours before the anniversary.
#SCAFmessage: We do not yield to threats and we do not succumb to pressure. #Egypt #SCAF #Feb10
— Egyptocracy (@Egyptocracy) February 10, 2012
SCAF: Blah blah blah blah
— Mostafa Hussein (@moftasa) February 10, 2012
Ahram Online, a Cairo news site, reported earlier that one of the marchers was Asmaa Mahfouz, an Internet activist who helped rally support for last year’s revolution in a video message calling for Egyptians to join the first protests. As she marched, she said in an interview with Al Jazeera that just as Mr. Mubarak now “faces charges of instigating the killing of protesters during the revolution,” the military council “should also be tried for the crimes committed under its rule.”
A year after Ms. Mahfouz helped galvanize the protest movement with her viral video, other activists have posted more elaborate short films on YouTube to explain the call for a general strike. On Wednesday, The Lede featured one of those films, “Egypt’s Military, Inc.,” which examined the large chunk of the Egyptian economy under the control of the generals and was produced by Aalam Wassef.
SCAF r not in the habit of “handing” things over. Any gains in the past year have been taken not given. It’s important to accept that #feb11
— Shahira Abouellail (@fazerofzanight) February 10, 2012
Here is another film, “General Strike: No Sweat for Those Who Shed Our Blood,” in which the activists Omar Kamel and Shahira Abouellail look back at the failures of the military government and explain the planned escalation of the protests.
