Egypt: Crackdown on Peaceful Pro-Democracy Protests · Global Voices
Eman AbdElRahman

On the second anniversary of the first call for civil disobedience in the history of modern Egypt, new protests broke out through out the country. Egyptian police violently beat and randomly detained people to disperse protests calling for constitutional reform – especially downtown in front of the People's Assembly and the Shura Council.
It started back when the April 6 Youth Movement, along with other political movements, called for peaceful demonstrations in front of the People's Assembly. In addition some prominent intellectuals, such as announcer Hamdi Qandeel, asked all Egyptians to join the protests this time.
@Sarahcarr shared a photo of the Shura Council protest just before it was violently broken up.
From the morning on, news about the detention of activists was starting to come in from different places in the country.
Hebamorayef, a female activist, was in Tahrir Square and sent eyewitness updates:
1# Groups of plainclothes security on every street corner between Tahrir and Maglis el Shaab [People's Assembly]
2# Saw Four Dragged away from demo in front of shaab.
3# Beating and kicking of demonstrators arrested. 20 so far.
Malek, who was doing excellent minute by minute reporting on the situation in Arabic, mentioned that when protesters tried to run to the lawyers’ or journalists’ syndicates, news spread that both syndicates had been shut down. He also commented on the way of treating female protestors, and on how the police were using female officers, maybe for the first time:
2# اول مره اشوف العدد دا من الناشطات مضروب, واول مره اشوف طريقة التعامل دا مع بنات من وقت مظاهرة مايو 2005 اللي تم التحرش بها بالفتيات
3# الأمن المصري يستخدم عناصر نسائيه للمره الاولى لمطاردة ناشطات حركة 6 إبريل, العناصر النسائية ترتدي ملابس شرطة.
2# The first time I've seen that number of female activitists beaten up, and the first time I've seen this way of treating girls since the May 2005 protests where girls were sexually harassed
3# Egypt security uses uniformed women police officers to chase 6 April Movement female protestors for the first time
Journalist and blogger Sarah Carr, who was near the Shura Council, shared a short video of policemen removing people from the protest. She also said riot police were using batons to hit protestors; people were hit as they were dragged away.
Another video can be found here. People were chanting “leave him, leave him”.
Protests and clashes with the Egyptian police were not only in Cairo, but in other governorates, according to updates from bloggers and activists on Twitter.
In Alexandria, Dalia Al Marghani reported:
In Mansoura, Mohamed Maree reported a crackdown on an exhibition by the April 6 Movement:
(Picture of the exhibition in Al Mansoura university before it was burnt.)
Mohamed Maree also confirmed there were demonstrations in other places:
There were Demonstrations all over Egypt Today in Zagazig, KafrElsheikh, BanySweif #6april
The same thing was echoed by Mohamed Adel, one of the April 6 youth leaders who was in a demonstration; he listed the approximate number of students who joined protests at different universities:
In Ain Shams university (in Cairo) the situation was different. Nawara Negm wrote a blog post condemning the concert that was held on the university campus at the same time as the protest to distract students from joining. She then commented on the protests themselves:
Later on, many confirmed the block of the April 6 movement's website. Zeinobia said:
The official website of the 6th April movement is blocked and its server is down. http://www.6april.org/ I am not an expert but it seems that someone has hacked the main server.
At the end of the day, RamyRaoof who was also closely following the protests and working on the Front to Defend Egypt Protesters website wrote:
we were able to confirm the names of 73 activist detained at Cairo-Ismailiya road. #6April #EgyDefense
Fustat later confirmed:
The number of detainees are now 90 , and they are all held at a central security facility in Madinat al Salam http://bit.ly/bMnnex #6April
Many bloggers circulated the “Egyptian Revolution” video edited by James Buck of Nasser Nouri‘s photographs from Mahalla on April 6, 2008, with chants saying “We are not afraid. Freedom. Down Down Mubarak”.
The day ended with a glimpse of hope; Ahmed Adawy reported:
Updates throughout the day came from Mohamed Maree [Ar], Kareem El Behairy [Ar] and Zeinobia [En], as well as the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information[Ar], Egypt Protest Defense[Ar/En]. You can of course follow the hashtag #6April on Twitter.