Egypt’s Arab Spring just a memory
“Respect for the rights of women and minorities has deteriorated since the Arab Spring catapulted some Islamist forces to power. Poverty remains widespread, and opportunity for economic advancement is nonexistent for huge proportions of unusually young populations.”
Five years on, the Arab Spring has turned to winter, its bright hopes dashed in all but Tunisia, and the Arab world is worse off than ever. Egypt has come full circle, once again chafing under an authoritarian-military dictatorship.
On Jan. 25, 2011, following upon the ouster of Tunisian strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali 11 days earlier, demonstrations erupted against Egypt’s long-serving autocrat, Hosni Mubarak.
On Feb. 11, he stepped down from the presidency after three decades, forced to give way to the massive protests that had raged throughout the country, and in particular in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
But now the anniversary of that event has been marked by sullen resignation. For the few who turned up to remember the occasion, they faced thousands of police officers patrolling the streets of Cairo and public squares.
Chanting “Down with the tyrant!” against President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, they were soon dispersed.
In advance of the anniversary, a crackdown by security forces saw activists rounded up, art houses closed and the administrators of opposition Facebook pages detained. “The security and stability of nations are not to be toyed with,” Sisi had warned Egyptians in a speech.
A retired field marshal, Sisi had led the military in ousting Mubarak’s Islamist successor, Mohammed Morsi, in 2013 following mass protests, a year after the Muslim Brotherhood leader had become the country’s first democratically elected head of state.
After his overthrow, Morsi faced several charges including inciting the killing of opponents, espionage, and terrorism, and was sentenced to death, along with other defendants, last May. The sentence is being appealed.
Meanwhile, Sisi had himself elected president in 2014. Since he came to power, more than 1,000 people have been killed and 40,000 are believed to have been jailed in a sweeping crackdown on dissent.
Most of them have been supporters of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, but secular activists have also been prosecuted. Meanwhile, Mubarak and his cronies, not to mention the police responsible for killing hundreds in the clashes of 2011, are all out of jail.
Amnesty International has stated that Egypt is now “mired in a human rights crisis of huge proportions” as the country “reverts back to a police state.” Sisi’s new constitution grants sweeping powers to the president and the army, while “peaceful protesters, politicians and journalists have borne the brunt of a ruthless campaign against legitimate dissent by the government and state security forces,” according to Said Boumedouha, Amnesty’s deputy Middle East and North Africa director.
There have been cases of socalled “enforced disappearances, “where people have disappeared into a network of secretive detention centers, where they are held without charge or access to a lawyer, for weeks and sometimes months. Some turn up dead, their bodies dumped in morgues.
The region’s governments, Egypt’s among them, remain among the most corrupt on the planet.
Respect for the rights of women and minorities has deteriorated since the Arab Spring catapulted some Islamist forces to power. Poverty remains widespread, and opportunity for economic advancement is nonexistent for huge proportions of unusually young populations.
The hopes raised by the Arab Spring for people who were hoping for more inclusive politics and more responsive government have been dashed.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.