Egyptians have many reasons to protest and little area to do so, but for several days, at the end of September, something new happened. In towns and cities stretching from Damiette in the north to Luxor and Aswan in the south, a small but widespread street Protests broke out basically in some of the poorest and most remote areas of the country.
Protests began on September 20, the first anniversary of the 2019 protests called through Mohamed Ali, a self-exiled whistleblower and former army contractor. Last month’s protests responded to the government’s crackdown but also, according to credible analyses, emerging poverty rates, the consequences of Covid-19, and a new government policy that requires millions of citizens living in homes built without an entry permit to pay costly fines to “legalize” their homes or confront the eviction and demolition of homes.
Security forces used tear gas,, bullets and live ammunition to largely disperse nonviolent protests, as reported through Amnesty International and videos on social media. Security forces also shot dead at least two men, Owais al-Rawy in Luxor and Samy Basheer in Giza.
As in 2019, the government arrested many protesters and passers-by last month. The Independent Egyptian Commission on Rights and Freedoms (ECRF) has documented 944 arrests in 21 governorates, adding at least 72 young people, some as young as 11. much higher. Attorney General Hamada al-Sawi said on 27 September that he had released 68 young men arrested in what he called “riots. “Most detainees face the same rates as always: protest without government permission, call unauthorized demonstrations, enroll in a terrorist group, spread fake news, and abuse social media platforms. ECRF and other teams also said the security forces had disposed of dozens of other people arrested for days, arresting them in unofficial arrests before presenting them to prosecutors.
Mass arrests and a backlash to protests, seven years after president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s government eliminated almost all political and civic participation options, show how much the government is concerned about mass protests. But what these protests tell us is that Egyptians have not renounced their human rights, even though they live under a government that makes it very expensive to exercise those rights.
As the tenth anniversary of the January 2011 uprising approaches, the September protests remind the government that repression cannot guarantee stability.