Egypt: Mubarak in Detention  · Global Voices
Tarek Amr

This post is part of our special coverage Egypt Revolution 2011.
Just a few months ago, many Egyptians might have wished to see the country's then-President Mubarak in jail, yet almost certainly none of them imagined this wish might come true one day.
However, on Wednesday April 13, 2011, Egyptians woke up to the news of Mubarak's detention first thing in the morning. Here is how the moment was documented in the Egyptian social media scene.
Celebrating a dictator's detention
The Egyptian writer Ibrahim Farghali compared the moment [ar] to that of the first man in space:
Yesterday, Russia celebrated the anniversary of the first time a human being went into outer space, Yuri Gagarin. And today Egypt celebrates its former president Hosni Mubarak's journey to prison.
We hope that one day Egypt celebrates similar achievements like those of the first world, and we hope then that the revolutionary spirit continues to exist in the streets.
Zeinobia also wrote a new blog post about the moment, simply titled, “A Historical Moment“. She then elaborated how the president's sons were also detained:
Zeinobia then continued to explain that Mubarak is facing charges of murdering protesters and stealing public money; however, till now Mubarak is staying in a hospital for health reasons. Alaa and Gamal Mubarak are facing the same charges as their father.
Reactions of the people
Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff documented the moment by his own way, with a series of cartoon drawings.
Mubarak Before and After Jan25 Revolution, illustration by Carlos Latuff
The majority of Egyptian status updates on Twitter over the past couple of days have also been about Mubarak's detention as well.
Mubarak's voice recorded message [ar], which he sent to Al-Arabiya news channel and which turned out to have been written by the Egyptian well known lawyer Fareed El-Deeb, is believed to be the last nail in Mubarak's coffin:
In the past weeks, Torah Prison became not only host for Mubarak's sons, but it has also been hosting many of the pillars of Mubarak's regime. People on Twitter did not miss the chance to mock this fact:
Various fake Twitter accounts of Mubarak, his family (Suzanne Mubarak, Alaa Mubarak, Gamal Mubarak and his wife Khadija), and his regime (Fathi Sorour, Safwat El-Sharif and Ahmed Nazif) have also been created to make fun of them.
Car carrying banners in celebration of the detention of Mubarak, posted on Yfrog.
Finally, despite all this, and despite the list of Mubarak's anti-achievements written by Ahmed Hayman, some people still sympathise with the former president:
This post is part of our special coverage Egypt Revolution 2011.