Where Did All the Anger Go?

The scene on Saturday at noon in Cairo's Al-Sayeda Zeinab square was entirely predictable. An army of at least 3,000 anti- riot police armed with batons, shields and black helmets was lined up in impressive rows, backed by dozens of armoured personnel carriers (APCs) neatly lined up in all the streets leading to the square. It was clear, even from a distance, that the spot where the phalanx appeared most impenetrable was the reason for the powerful security display. At the entrance of the shrine to Al-Sayeda Zeinab (Prophet Mohamed's grand-daughter), a few hundred people were demonstrating against the planned American war against Iraq. The fluttering Palestinian and Iraqi flags and the anti-war, anti-US placards held high were the only sign, from even just a few metres distance, that a demonstration was taking place. Loudspeakers were forbidden, limiting the distance demonstrators' cries could carry.

Inside the security barricade, chaos reigned, as the protesters split into two and sometimes three mini-demonstrations; each chanting different slogans. A striking number of high-ranking police officers observed every minute of the demonstration for over three hours.

"We won't bow, we won't bow, we're sick of the quiet voice", demonstrators chanted, "Build more prison walls, tomorrow the revolution will come and leave no one".

"Freedom, where are you? Egypt's police stand between me and you"; "Down with America! Down with Blair!"; "There is no god but God, and the Zionists, the Americans and Tony Blair are the enemies of God"; "America is the source of terrorism"; "America, get your army out of here", were just some of the refrains that rang out in the square.

Hundreds of representatives of the nation's political forces -- Islamists, Nasserists, socialists, communists, liberals, the various syndicates -- along with activists, intellectuals, political figures, actors and actresses, writers and university professors participated in the demonstration, which was organised by several organisations, including popular solidarity committees with the Intifada and the Iraqi people.

On the same day, the frozen Islamist- oriented Labour Party held a smaller demonstration in front of the US Embassy, which was similarly cordoned off by hundreds of anti-riot police, blocking traffic in central Cairo for a few hours as a result. David Welch, US ambassador to Egypt, reportedly observed the demonstration for 10 minutes under heavy security.

Although this wasn't the first time the capital witnessed such small demonstrations, many Egyptians felt that the 15 February protests were embarrassing, because of their glaring contrast with the millions who marched worldwide against the war on the same day. "Where are the millions, where are they? Where are the Arab people, where?"; "Where is Arab anger?" Al- Sayeda Zeinab demonstrators chanted. British journalist Robert Fisk, who is viewed here as largely sympathetic to the Arabs, took notice in an 18 February article titled "A million march in London but, faced with disaster, the Arabs are like mice", published in the Independent. The article, which described the Arab demonstrations as "pathetic", was widely read and disseminated among educated Egyptians.

Activists naturally complain of police control. During the past two months, 15 activists, including a filmmaker and a journalists, have been arrested in connection with anti-war and Iraq solidarity activities. Only four have been released so far.

The timing of the arrests has drawn local and international criticism from rights groups such as Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR), the Geneva-based World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the Stop the War Coalition, which issued a solidarity statement by former Algerian President Ahmed Ben-Bella and British MP George Galloway on 14 February, demanding the release of the detainees. HRW also charged that eleven of the detainees had been physically abused.

On Monday, the Freedoms Committee of the Press Syndicate held a press conference in solidarity with the detainees where speakers, such as film director Yousef Chahine, Nasserist MP Hamdin El-Sabahi, and a journalist with the business daily Al- Alam Al-Youm, Ibrahim El-Sahar, who was arrested and released a few hours before the press conference, attacked what they called the "police state".

El-Sahar was arrested in the early hours of 7 February when security forces raided his apartment and, in his words, "searched it bit by bit, including a thorough search of my computer's hard drive". He was taken to State Security Investigation headquarters in Cairo and then to Mazra'at Tora Prison without being permitted contact with his family or legal counsel, he said. When asked to give his testimony El-Sahar, who founded the Centre for Socialist Studies, did not talk of his arrest but of what he described as the "inhumane" prison conditions of the detained Islamists he met while in jail. "What happened to me was nothing; the fact that I was beaten up and abused verbally and physically is nothing compared to what happens to the Islamists," he told his audience. "I salute those who were arrested because they said no to a war on Iraq and no to American imperialism, but above all, I salute the 30,000 detained Islamists. Those who imprisoned me did me a huge favour because, although I had known about what happens to the Islamist detainees, I didn't know the gruesome details," at which point loud applause erupted.

Islamist lawyers and rights groups claim that 30,000 suspected Islamists are being held in prison without trial.

Since the assassination of President Anwar El-Sadat in 1981 by high ranking Islamist army generals, Egypt has been under the emergency law which strictly bans street demonstrations and allows police to hold people in custody without pressing charges. Despite numerous efforts by opposition parties and rights groups to end the state of emergency, the government refuses to cancel the law, which it says is necessary to fight terrorism.

In his address, film director Chahine lashed out at the government. "I feel violated and humiliated in this country," he said. "I'm disgusted. Millions opposed the war in Europe, but what about us? What's our [government's] position? Who said we're a great people and descendants of the Pharaohs? We are cowards!"

But mounting public rage finally found its voice on Tuesday when thousands of students at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the branch of Cairo University in Beni Suef, Upper Egypt, and at Suez Canal University in Ismailiya held massive anti-US, anti-UK and anti-Israel demonstrations. The students tried to take their protest to the streets, but were prevented by riot police. Despite the "silence" of the Egyptian street, which observers blame on police repression, they, along with officials, warn of popular outbursts at the deteriorating economic conditions and anger at the regional political crisis. The slogans chanted in Al-Sayeda Zeinab, and at almost every demonstration over the past year have consistently linked poverty with politics.

A demonstration in front of Cairo University is scheduled for Saturday 22 February at noon.