2011 Egyptian revolution
Encyclopedia
The 2011 Egyptian revolution ( thawret 25 yanāyir, Revolution of 25 January) took place following a popular uprising that began on Tuesday, 25 January 2011 and is still continuing as of November 2011. The uprising was mainly a campaign of non-violent civil resistance
Civil resistance
The term civil resistance, alongside the term nonviolent resistance, is used to describe political action that relies on the use of non-violent methods by civil groups to challenge a particular power, force, policy or regime. Civil resistance operates through appeals to the adversary, pressure and...

, which featured a series of demonstrations
Demonstration (people)
A demonstration or street protest is action by a mass group or collection of groups of people in favor of a political or other cause; it normally consists of walking in a mass march formation and either beginning with or meeting at a designated endpoint, or rally, to hear speakers.Actions such as...

, marches, acts of civil disobedience
Civil disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. It is one form of civil resistance...

, and labour strikes. Millions of protesters from a variety of socio-economic and religious backgrounds demanded the overthrow of the regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
Hosni Mubarak
Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak is a former Egyptian politician and military commander. He served as the fourth President of Egypt from 1981 to 2011....

. Despite being predominantly peaceful in nature, the revolution was not without violent clashes between security forces and protesters, with at least 846 people killed and 6,000 injured. The uprising took place in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

, Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...

, and in other cities in Egypt, following the Tunisian revolution
Tunisian revolution
The Tunisian Revolution is an intensive campaign of civil resistance, including a series of street demonstrations taking place in Tunisia. The events began in December 2010 and led to the ousting of longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011...

 that resulted in the overthrow of the long-time Tunisian president. On 11 February, following weeks of determined popular protest and pressure, Mubarak resigned from office.

Grievances of Egyptian protesters were focused on legal and political issues including police brutality
Police brutality
Police brutality is the intentional use of excessive force, usually physical, but potentially also in the form of verbal attacks and psychological intimidation, by a police officer....

, state of emergency
Emergency law in Egypt
Emergency law in Egypt was first enacted in 1958, as Law No. 162 of 1958 and has remained in effect since 1967, except for an 18-month break in 1980...

 laws, lack of free elections and freedom of speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...

, uncontrollable corruption, and economic issues including high unemployment, food price inflation, and low minimum wage
Minimum wage
A minimum wage is the lowest hourly, daily or monthly remuneration that employers may legally pay to workers. Equivalently, it is the lowest wage at which workers may sell their labour. Although minimum wage laws are in effect in a great many jurisdictions, there are differences of opinion about...

s. The primary demands from protest organizers were the end of the Hosni Mubarak
Hosni Mubarak
Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak is a former Egyptian politician and military commander. He served as the fourth President of Egypt from 1981 to 2011....

 regime and the end of emergency law; freedom, justice, a responsive non-military government, and a say in the management of Egypt's resources. Strikes by labour unions
Trade unions in Egypt
There are currently 24 registered trade unions in Egypt. The oldest is the Lawyers Union, founded in 1922. Among the labor organizations in Egypt are:* Egyptian Trade Union Federation* Federation of Egyptian Trade Unions...

 added to the pressure on government officials.

During the uprising the capital city of Cairo was described as "a war zone," and the port city of Suez
Suez
Suez is a seaport city in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez , near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same boundaries as Suez governorate. It has three harbors, Adabya, Ain Sokhna and Port Tawfiq, and extensive port facilities...

 was the scene of frequent violent clashes. The government imposed a curfew
Curfew
A curfew is an order specifying a time after which certain regulations apply. Examples:# An order by a government for certain persons to return home daily before a certain time...

 that protesters defied and that the police and military did not enforce. The presence of Egypt's Central Security Forces
Central Security Forces
The 350,000 strong Central Security Forces CSF organization is an Egyptian Paramilitary force which is responsible for assisting the Egyptian National Police for the security of governmental fixed sites, foreign embassies & missions, riots & crowds control, publicly crowded events, high risk...

 police, loyal to Mubarak, was gradually replaced by largely restrained military troops. In the absence of police, there was looting
Looting
Looting —also referred to as sacking, plundering, despoiling, despoliation, and pillaging—is the indiscriminate taking of goods by force as part of a military or political victory, or during a catastrophe, such as during war, natural disaster, or rioting...

 by gangs that opposition sources said were instigated by plainclothes police officers. In response, watch groups were organised by civilians to protect neighbourhoods.

International response to the protests was initially mixed, though most called for peaceful actions on both sides and moves toward reform. Most Western governments expressed concern about the situation. Many governments issued travel advisories and made attempts to evacuate their citizens from the country. The Egyptian Revolution, along with Tunisian events, has influenced demonstrations
Arab Spring
The Arab Spring , otherwise known as the Arab Awakening, is a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests occurring in the Arab world that began on Saturday, 18 December 2010...

 in other Arab countries including Yemen
Yemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....

, Bahrain
Bahrain
' , officially the Kingdom of Bahrain , is a small island state near the western shores of the Persian Gulf. It is ruled by the Al Khalifa royal family. The population in 2010 stood at 1,214,705, including 235,108 non-nationals. Formerly an emirate, Bahrain was declared a kingdom in 2002.Bahrain is...

, Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...

, Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

 and Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....

.

Mubarak dissolved his government and appointed military figure and former head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate
Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate
The General Intelligence Services , often called the Mukhabarat , is an Egyptian intelligence agency responsible for providing national security intelligence, both domestically and transnationally, with a counter-terrorism focus....

 Omar Suleiman
Omar Suleiman
Omar Suleiman is a former Egyptian army general, politician, diplomat, and intelligence officer. A leading figure in Egypt's intelligence system beginning in 1986, Suleiman was appointed to the long-vacant Vice Presidency by then-President Hosni Mubarak on 29 January 2011...

 as Vice-President in an attempt to quell dissent. Mubarak asked aviation minister and former chief of Egypt's Air Force, Ahmed Shafik
Ahmed Shafik
Ahmed Mohamed Shafik is a former senior commander in the Egyptian Air Force and politician who served as Prime Minister of Egypt from January 2011 to March 2011....

, to form a new government. Mohamed ElBaradei became a major figure of the opposition, with all major opposition groups supporting his role as a negotiator for some form of transitional unity government. In response to mounting pressure, Mubarak announced he would not seek re-election in September.

On 11 February Vice President Omar Suleiman announced that Mubarak would be stepping down as president and turning power over to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces consists of a body of 20 senior officers in the Egyptian military. As a consequence of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, the Council took the power to govern Egypt from its departing President Hosni Mubarak on February 11, 2011.The junta meets regularly, as...

. On 24 May, Mubarak was ordered to stand trial on charges of premeditated murder
Premeditated murder
Premeditated murder is the crime of wrongfully causing the death of another human being after rationally considering the timing or method of doing so, in order to either increase the likelihood of success, or to evade detection or apprehension.State laws in the United States vary as to definitions...

 of peaceful protestors and, if convicted, could face the death penalty.

The military junta, headed by effective head of state Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, announced on 13 February that the constitution would be suspended, both houses of parliament dissolved, and that the military would rule for six months until elections could be held. The prior cabinet, including Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik
Ahmed Shafik
Ahmed Mohamed Shafik is a former senior commander in the Egyptian Air Force and politician who served as Prime Minister of Egypt from January 2011 to March 2011....

, would continue to serve as a caretaker government until a new one is formed. Shafik resigned on 3 March, a day before major protests to get him to step down were planned; he was replaced by Essam Sharaf
Essam Sharaf
Essam Abdel-Aziz Sharaf is an Egyptian academic who has been Prime Minister of Egypt since 3 March 2011. He served as Minister of Transportation from 2004 to 2005.-Early life and education:...

, the former transport minister.
Although Mubarak resigned, the protests have continued amid concerns about how long the military junta will last in Egypt; some are afraid that the military will rule the country indefinitely.

Naming

In Egypt and the wider Arab world, the protests and subsequent changes in the government have generally been referred to as the 25 January Revolution ( Thawrat 25 Yanāyir), Freedom Revolution ( Thawrat Horeya), or Rage Revolution ( Thawrat al-Ġaḍab), and less frequently, the Revolution of the Youth ( Thawrat al-Shabāb), Lotus
Nelumbo
Nelumbo is a genus of aquatic plants with large, showy flowers resembling water lilies, commonly known as lotus. The generic name is derived from the Sinhalese word Nelum. There are only two known living species in the genus. The sacred lotus is native to Asia, and is the better known of the two...

 Revolution , or White Revolution ( al-Thawrah al-bayḍāʾ).

Background

Hosni Mubarak
Hosni Mubarak
Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak is a former Egyptian politician and military commander. He served as the fourth President of Egypt from 1981 to 2011....

 became head of Egypt's semi-presidential
Semi-presidential system
The semi-presidential system is a system of government in which a president and a prime minister are both active participants in the day-to-day administration of the state...

 republic government following the 1981 assassination of President Anwar El Sadat, and continued to serve until 2011. Mubarak's 30-year reign made him the longest serving President in Egypt's history, with his National Democratic Party (NDS)
National Democratic Party (Egypt)
The National Democratic Party , often simply called Al-Ḥizb al-Waṭaniy – the "National Party", was an Egyptian political party. It was founded by President Anwar El Sadat in 1978....

 government maintaining one-party rule under a continuous state of emergency. Mubarak's government earned the support of the West and a continuation of annual aid from the United States by maintaining policies of suppression towards Islamic militants and peace with Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

. Hosni Mubarak was often compared to an Egyptian pharaoh
Pharaoh
Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...

 by the media and by some of his critics due to his authoritarian rule.

Inheritance of Power




Gamal Mubarak, the younger of Mubarak's two sons, began being groomed to be his father's successor as the next president of Egypt around the year 2000. Gamal started receiving considerable attention in the Egyptian media, as there were no other apparent heirs to the presidency. Bashar al-Assad
Bashar al-Assad
Bashar al-Assad is the President of Syria and Regional Secretary of the Ba'ath Party. His father Hafez al-Assad ruled Syria for 29 years until his death in 2000. Al-Assad was elected in 2000, re-elected in 2007, unopposed each time.- Early Life :...

's rise to power in Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

 in June 2000, just hours after Hafez al-Assad
Hafez al-Assad
Hafez ibn 'Ali ibn Sulayman al-Assad or more commonly Hafez al-Assad was the President of Syria for three decades. Assad's rule consolidated the power of the central government after decades of coups and counter-coups, such as Operation Wappen in 1957 conducted by the Eisenhower administration and...

's death sparked a heated debate in the Egyptian press regarding the prospects for a similar scenario occurring in Cairo.

In the years after Mubarak's 2005 reelection
Egyptian presidential election, 2005
The Egyptian presidential election of 2005, held on September 7, 2005, was the first allegedly contested presidential election in Egypt's history. Hosni Mubarak, the former President of Egypt, won a fifth consecutive six-year term in office, with official results showing he won 88.6% of the vote...

 several political groups (most in Egypt are unofficial) on both the left and the right, announced their sharp opposition to the inheritance of power. They demanded political change and asked for a fair election with more than one candidate. In 2006, with opposition rising, The Daily News Egypt reported on an online campaign initiative called the National Initiative against Power Inheritance which demanded Gamal reduce his power. The campaign stated, "President Mubarak and his son constantly denied even the possibility of [succession]. However, in reality they did the opposite, including amending the constitution to make sure that Gamal will be the only unchallenged candidate."

Over the course of the decade perception grew that Gamal would succeed his father. He wielded increasing power as NDP deputy secretary general, in addition to a post he held heading the party's policy committee. Analysts went so far as describing Mubarak's last decade in power as “the age of Gamal Mubarak.” With Mubarak’s health declining and the leader refusing to appoint a vice-president, Gamal was considered by some to be Egypt's de-facto president.

Both Gamal and Hosni Mubarak continued to deny that an inheritance would take place. There was talk, however, of Gamal being elected; with Hosni Mubarak's presidential term set to expire in 2010 there was speculation Gamal would run as the NDP party's candidate in 2011.

After the January–February 2011 protest, Gamal Mubarak stated that he would not be running for the presidency in the 2011 elections.

Emergency law

An emergency law
Emergency law in Egypt
Emergency law in Egypt was first enacted in 1958, as Law No. 162 of 1958 and has remained in effect since 1967, except for an 18-month break in 1980...

 (Law No. 162 of 1958) was enacted after the 1967 Six-Day War
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...

. It was suspended for 18 months in the early 1980s and has otherwise continuously been in effect since President Sadat's 1981 assassination. Under the law, police powers are extended, constitutional rights
Constitution of Egypt
The Constitution of the Arab Republic of Egypt was the fundamental law of Egypt. It was adopted on September 11, 1971 through a public referendum. It was later amended in 1980, 2005 and 2007. It was proclaimed to update the democratic representative system in assertion of the rule of law,...

 suspended, censorship is legalised, and the government may imprison individuals indefinitely and without reason. The law sharply limits any non-governmental political activity, including street demonstrations
Demonstration (people)
A demonstration or street protest is action by a mass group or collection of groups of people in favor of a political or other cause; it normally consists of walking in a mass march formation and either beginning with or meeting at a designated endpoint, or rally, to hear speakers.Actions such as...

, non-approved political organizations, and unregistered financial donations. The Mubarak government has cited the threat of terrorism in order to extend the emergency law, claiming that opposition groups like the Muslim Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is an Islamist religious, political, and social movement. Following the 2011 Revolution the group was legalized, and with an estimated 600,000 members or supporters it's considered the largest, best-organized political force in Egypt...

 could come into power in Egypt if the current government did not forgo parliamentary elections and suppress the group through actions allowed under emergency law. This has led to the imprisonment of activists without trials, illegal undocumented hidden detention facilities, and rejecting university, mosque, and newspaper staff members based on their political inclination. A parliamentary election
Egyptian parliamentary election, 2010
The Egyptian parliamentary elections of 2010 first voting round was held in Egypt on 28 November 2010 and the second round was held on 5 December 2010....

 in December 2010 was preceded by a media crackdown, arrests, candidate bans (particularly of the Muslim Brotherhood), and allegations of fraud involving the near-unanimous victory by the ruling party in parliament. Human rights organizations estimate that in 2010 between 5,000 and 10,000 people were in long-term detention without charge or trial.

Police brutality

According to a report from the U.S. Embassy in Egypt, police brutality has been common and widespread in Egypt. In the last five years, the Mubarak regime has denied the existence of torture or abuse carried out by the police. However, many claims by domestic and international groups provide evidence through cellphone videos or first-hand accounts of hundreds of cases of police abuse.

According to the 2009 Human Rights Report by the U.S. State Department, "Domestic and international human rights groups reported that the Ministry of Interior (MOI) State Security Investigative Service (SSIS), police, and other government entities continued to employ torture to extract information or force confessions. The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights documented 30 cases of torture during the year 2009. In numerous trials defendants alleged that police tortured them during questioning. During the year activists and observers circulated some amateur cellphone videos documenting the alleged abuse of citizens by security officials. For example, on 8 February, a blogger posted a video of two police officers, identified by their first names and last initials, sodomizing a bound naked man named Ahmed Abdel Fattah Ali with a bottle. On 12 August, the same blogger posted two videos of alleged police torture of a man in a Port Said police station by the head of investigations, Mohammed Abu Ghazala. There was no indication that the government investigated either case."

The deployment of plainclothes forces paid by Mubarak's ruling party, Baltageya, , has been a hallmark of the Mubarak government. The Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights has documented 567 cases of torture, including 167 deaths, by police that occurred between 1993 and 2007. Excessive force was often used by law enforcement agencies. The police forces constantly squelched democratic uprisings with brutal force and corrupt tactics. On 6 June 2010 Khaled Mohamed Saeed died under disputed circumstances
Death of Khaled Mohamed Saeed
During an interview with the opposition party, El-Ghad's, newspaper, Mosbah described, "They dragged him to the adjacent building and banged his head against an iron door, the steps of the staircase and walls of the building...Two doctors happened to be there and tried in vain to revive him but ...

 in the Sidi Gaber
Sidi Gaber
Sidi Gaber is a neighbourhood in Alexandria, Egypt.The interior section of the neighbourhood contains the Sidi Gaber railway station, the main rail entry point to Alexandria for most travellers...

 area of Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...

. Multiple witnesses testified that Saeed was beaten to death by the police. A Facebook page called "We are all Khaled Said" helped bring nationwide attention to the case. Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency
International Atomic Energy Agency
The International Atomic Energy Agency is an international organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. The IAEA was established as an autonomous organization on 29 July 1957...

, led a rally in 2010 in Alexandria against alleged abuses by the police and visited Saeed's family to offer condolences.

During the January — February 2011 protests, police brutality was high in response to the protests. Jack Shenker, a reporter for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

, was arrested during the mass protests in Cairo on 26 January 2011. He witnessed fellow Egyptian protesters being tortured, assaulted, and taken to undisclosed locations by police officers. Shenker and other detainees were released after one of his fellow detainees' well-known father, Ayman Nour
Ayman Nour
Ayman Abd El Aziz Nour is an Egyptian politician, a former member of the Egyptian Parliament and chairman of the El Ghad party.He was imprisoned in January 2005 by the government of President Hosni Mubarak. Nour was released on health grounds on February 18, 2009...

, covertly intervened.

Corruption in government elections

Accusations of corruption, coercion to not vote, and manipulation of the election results have occurred during many of the elections over the past 30 years. Until 2005, Mubarak was the only candidate to run for the presidency, on a yes/no vote. Mubarak has won five consecutive presidential elections with a sweeping majority. Opposition groups and international election monitoring agencies have accused the elections of being rigged. These agencies have not been allowed to monitor the elections. The only opposing presidential candidate in recent Egyptian history, Ayman Nour
Ayman Nour
Ayman Abd El Aziz Nour is an Egyptian politician, a former member of the Egyptian Parliament and chairman of the El Ghad party.He was imprisoned in January 2005 by the government of President Hosni Mubarak. Nour was released on health grounds on February 18, 2009...

, was imprisoned before the 2005 elections. According to a UN survey, voter turnout is extremely low (around 25%) because of the lack of trust in the corrupt representational system.

Restrictions on free speech and press

Even though the Egyptian constitution provides for the universal freedom of speech (Egypt Constitution, Article 47 – 49), the government has frequently sanctioned home raids, torture, arrests, and fining of bloggers and reporters that criticize the government in any way. Under the current state of emergency laws, the government can censor anything if it is considered a threat to “public safety and national security”. If any reporter or blogger violates this law by criticizing the government, they could be legally penalized with a fine of 20,000 pounds ($3,650) and up to five years in prison. The Moltaqa Forum for Development and Human Rights Dialogue reported that between January and March 2009, 57 journalists from 13 newspapers faced legal penalties for their governmental critiques. The Egyptian government owns stock in the three largest daily newspapers. The government controls the licensing and distribution of all papers in Egypt. The Egyptian government shut down the Internet to most of Egypt during the recent protests in order to limit communication between protest groups.

Demographic and economic challenges

Unemployment and reliance on subsidized goods


The population of Egypt grew from 30,083,419 in 1966 to roughly 79,000,000 by 2008. The vast majority of Egyptians live in the limited spaces near the banks of the Nile
Nile
The Nile is a major north-flowing river in North Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world. It is long. It runs through the ten countries of Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Egypt.The Nile has two major...

 River, in an area of about 40000 square kilometres (15,444.1 sq mi), where the only arable land
Arable land
In geography and agriculture, arable land is land that can be used for growing crops. It includes all land under temporary crops , temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow...

 is found. In late 2010 around 40% of Egypt's population of just under 80 million lived on the fiscal income equivalent of roughly US$2 per day, with a large part of the population relying on subsidized goods.

According to the Peterson Institute for International Economics and other proponents of demographic structural approach (cliodynamics
Cliodynamics
thumb|Clio—detail from [[The Art of Painting|The Allegory of Painting]] by [[Johannes Vermeer]]Cliodynamics is a new multidisciplinary area of research focused at mathematical modeling of historical dynamics.-Origins:The term was originally coined by Peter...

), a basic problem in Egypt is unemployment driven by a demographic youth bulge: with the number of new people entering the job force at about 4% a year, unemployment in Egypt is almost 10 times as high for college graduates as it is for people who have gone through elementary school, particularly educated urban youth—the same people who were out in the streets during the revolution.

Poor living conditions and economic conditions
Egypt's economy was highly centralised during the tenure of President Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death. A colonel in the Egyptian army, Nasser led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 along with Muhammad Naguib, the first president, which overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan, and heralded a new period of...

 but opened up considerably under President Anwar Sadat and Mubarak. From 2004 to 2008 the Mubarak-led government aggressively pursued economic reforms to attract foreign investment and facilitate GDP growth, but postponed further economic reforms because of global economic turmoil. The international economic downturn slowed Egypt's GDP growth to 4.5% in 2009. In 2010 analysts said the government of Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif
Ahmed Nazif
Ahmed Nazif served as the Prime Minister of Egypt from 14 July 2004 to 29 January 2011, when his cabinet was dismissed by President Hosni Mubarak in light of a popular uprising that led to the Egyptian Revolution of 2011...

 would need to restart economic reforms to attract foreign investment, boost growth, and improve economic conditions. Despite high levels of national economic growth over the past few years, living conditions for the average Egyptian remained poor, though better than many other countries in Africa.

Corruption among government officials

Political corruption in Mubarak administration's Ministry of Interior
Ministry of Interior (Egypt)
The Ministry of Interior of Egypt is part of the Cabinet of Egypt. It is responsible for law enforcement in Egypt. The current minister is Mansour el-Essawy, appointed 5 March 2011....

 rose dramatically due to the increased level of control over the institutional system necessary to prolong the presidency. The rise to power of powerful businessmen in the NDP, in the government, and in the People's Assembly led to massive waves of anger during the years of Prime Ministers Ahmed Nazif's government. An example is Ahmed Ezz
Ahmed Ezz
Ahmed Ezz is a Egyptian businessman and one-time politician, the owner of Ezz Steel and the former chairman of Egypt's national assembly's budget committee...

's monopolising
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...

 the steel industry in Egypt by holding more than 60% of the market share. Aladdin Elaasar, an Egyptian biographer and an American professor, estimates that the Mubarak family is worth from $50 to $70 billion.

The wealth of Ahmed Ezz
Ahmed Ezz
Ahmed Ezz is a Egyptian businessman and one-time politician, the owner of Ezz Steel and the former chairman of Egypt's national assembly's budget committee...

, the former NDP Organisation Secretary, is estimated to be 18 billion Egyptian pound
Egyptian pound
The Egyptian Pound is the currency of Egypt. It is divided into 100 Qirsh , or 1,000 Milliemes ....

s; the wealth of former Housing Minister Ahmed al-Maghraby is estimated to be more than 11 billion Egyptian pounds; the wealth of former Minister of Tourism Zuhair Garrana is estimated to be 13 billion Egyptian pounds; the wealth of former Minister of Trade and Industry, Rashid Mohamed Rashid, is estimated to be 12 billion Egyptian pounds; and the wealth of former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly is estimated to be 8 billion Egyptian pounds.

The perception among Egyptians was that the only people to benefit from the nation's wealth were businessmen with ties to the National Democratic Party; "wealth fuels political power and political power buys wealth."

During the Egyptian parliamentary election, 2010
Egyptian parliamentary election, 2010
The Egyptian parliamentary elections of 2010 first voting round was held in Egypt on 28 November 2010 and the second round was held on 5 December 2010....

, opposition groups complained of harassment and fraud perpetrated by the government. Opposition and civil society activists have called for changes to a number of legal and constitutional provisions which affect elections.

In 2010 Transparency International
Transparency International
Transparency International is a non-governmental organization that monitors and publicizes corporate and political corruption in international development. It publishes an annual Corruption Perceptions Index, a comparative listing of corruption worldwide...

's Corruption Perceptions Index
Corruption Perceptions Index
Since 1995, Transparency International publishes the Corruption Perceptions Index annually ranking countries "by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys." The CPI generally defines corruption as "the misuse of public power for private...

 (CPI) report assessed Egypt with a CPI score of 3.1, based on perceptions of the degree of corruption from business people and country analysts (with 10 being clean and 0 being totally corrupt).

Lead-up to the protests

To prepare for a possible overthrow of Mubarak, opposition groups studied the work of Gene Sharp
Gene Sharp
Gene Sharp is Professor Emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He is known for his extensive writings on nonviolent struggle, which have influenced numerous anti-government resistance movements around the world.-Biography:Sharp was born in Ohio, the son of an...

 on non-violent revolution and worked with leaders of Otpor!, the student-led Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

n uprising of 2000. Copies of Sharp's list of 198 non-violent "weapons", translated into Arabic and not always attributed to him, were circulated in Tahrir Square during its occupation.

Tunisian Revolution

After the ousting of Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali is a Tunisian political figure who was the second President of Tunisia from 1987 to 2011. Ben Ali was appointed Prime Minister in October 1987, and he assumed the Presidency on 7 November 1987 in a bloodless coup d'état that ousted President Habib Bourguiba, who was...

 due to mass protests, many analysts, including former European Commission President Romano Prodi
Romano Prodi
Romano Prodi is an Italian politician and statesman. He served as the Prime Minister of Italy, from 17 May 1996 to 21 October 1998 and from 17 May 2006 to 8 May 2008...

, saw Egypt as the next country where such a revolution might occur. The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...

commented, "The Jasmine Revolution [...] should serve as a stark warning to Arab leaders – beginning with Egypt's 83-year-old Hosni Mubarak – that their refusal to allow more economic and political opportunity is dangerous and untenable." Others held the opinion that Egypt was not ready for revolution, citing little aspiration of the Egyptian people, low educational levels, and a strong government with the support of the military. The BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 said, "The simple fact is that most Egyptians do not see any way that they can change their country or their lives through political action, be it voting, activism, or going out on the streets to demonstrate."

Self-immolation

Following the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi
Mohamed Bouazizi
Mohamed Bouazizi was a Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire on 17 December 2010, in protest of the confiscation of his wares and the harassment and humiliation that he reported was inflicted on him by a municipal official and her aides...

 in Tunisia on 17 December, a man set himself ablaze on 17 January in front of the Tunisian parliament; about five more attempts of self-immolation followed.

National Police Day protests

Opposition groups planned a day of revolt for 25 January, coinciding with the National Police Day
National Police Day (Egypt)
National Police Day is a national holiday in Egypt that occurs each year on January 25.The holiday commemorates and is a remembrance for 50 police officers killed and more wounded when they refused British demands to hand over weapons and evacuate the Ismaïlia Police Station on 25 January 1952...

. The purpose was to protest against abuses by the police in front of the Ministry of Interior
Ministry of Interior (Egypt)
The Ministry of Interior of Egypt is part of the Cabinet of Egypt. It is responsible for law enforcement in Egypt. The current minister is Mansour el-Essawy, appointed 5 March 2011....

. These demands expanded to include the resignation of the Minister of Interior, an end to State corruption, the end of Egyptian emergency law
Emergency law in Egypt
Emergency law in Egypt was first enacted in 1958, as Law No. 162 of 1958 and has remained in effect since 1967, except for an 18-month break in 1980...

, and term limit
Term limit
A term limit is a legal restriction that limits the number of terms a person may serve in a particular elected office. When term limits are found in presidential and semi-presidential systems they act as a method to curb the potential for monopoly, where a leader effectively becomes "president for...

s for the president.

Many political movements, opposition parties, and public figures supported the day of revolt, including Youth for Justice and Freedom, Coalition of the Youth of the Revolution
Coalition of the Youth of the Revolution
The Coalition of the Youth of the Revolution is a coalition of organisations of young people involved in the Egyptian Revolution of 2011.-Members:Members include:* The April 6 Youth Movement* A youth organisation of the Muslim Brotherhood...

, the Popular Democratic Movement for Change and the National Association for Change
National Association for Change
National Association for Change is a loose grouping of the various Egyptian of all political affiliations and religion, men and women, including representatives of civil society and young people aims to change Egypt. There was general agreement on the need to unite all the voices calling for...

. The 6 April Youth Movement was a major supporter of the protest and distributed 20,000 leaflets saying "I will protest on 25 January to get my rights". The Ghad, Karama
Dignity Party (Egypt)
The Dignity Party is a left-wing Nasserist political party founded in Egypt in 1996....

, Wafd
Wafd Party
The Wafd Party was a nationalist liberal political party in Egypt. It was said to be Egypt's most popular and influential political party for a period in the 1920s and 30s...

 and Democratic Front supported the protests. The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition group, confirmed on 23 January that it would participate. Public figures including novelist Alaa Al Aswany
Alaa Al Aswany
Alaa al-Aswany is an Egyptian writer, and a founding member of the political movement Kefaya.-Biography:Alaa Al Aswany studied to be a dentist, first in Egypt, and then later Chicago....

, writer Belal Fadl
Belal Fadl
Belal Fadl is a screenplay writer, ex-journalist and a column writer at Almasry Alyoum born and raised in Cairo, Egypt. Fadl has roots from Alexandria.- Filmography :Belal Fadl's work:*Haha we tofaha -...

, and actors Amr Waked
Amr Waked
Amr Waked is an Egyptian film, television, and stage actor, known for his roles portraying Middle Eastern and Mediterranean characters. He is best known to international audiences and in Hollywood as the terrorist leader in the 2005 film Syriana...

 and Khaled Aboul Naga announced they would participate. However, the leftist
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...

 National Progressive Unionist Party
National Progressive Unionist Party
The National Progressive Unionist Party is a socialist political party in Egypt. The party is considered to be the defender of the principles of the 1952 Revolution...

 (the Tagammu) stated it would not participate. The Coptic Church urged Christians not to participate in the protests.

Twenty-six-year-old Asmaa Mahfouz
Asmaa Mahfouz
Asmaa Mahfouz is an Egyptian activist and one of the founders of the April 6 Youth Movement. She has been credited by journalist Mona Eltahawy and others with helping to spark mass uprising through her video blog posted one week before the start of the 2011 Egyptian revolution...

 was instrumental in sparking the protests. In a video blog posted two weeks before National Police Day, she urged the Egyptian people to join her on 25 January in Tahrir Square to bring down Mubarak's regime. Mahfouz's use of video blogging and social media
Social media
The term Social Media refers to the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into an interactive dialogue. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0,...

 went viral
Viral video
A viral video is one that becomes popular through the process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites, social media and email...

 and urged people not to be afraid. The Facebook group set up for the event attracted 80,000 attendees.

Timeline

25 January 2011: The "Day of Revolt": Protests erupted throughout Egypt, with tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Cairo and thousands more in cities throughout Egypt. The protests targeted President Hosni Mubarak's government, and mostly adhered to non-violence. There were some reports of civilian and police casualties.

26 January 2011: "Shutting down The Internet and Mobile Services": After several Facebook groups were created and tweets (from Twitter) called for mass demonstrations, the Egyptian government shut down internet access for most of the country. This was done to cripple one of the protesters' main organizational tools and to impede the flow of news and people.

28 January 2011: The "Friday of Anger" protests began. Hundreds of thousands demonstrated in Cairo and other Egyptian cities after Friday prayers. Opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei arrived in Cairo. There were reports of looting. Prisons were opened and burned down, allegedly on orders from then-Minister of the Interior Habib El Adly. Prison inmates escaped en masse, in what was believed to be an attempt to terrorise protesters. Police forces were withdrawn from the streets, and the military was deployed. International fears of violence grew, but no major casualties were reported. President Hosni Mubarak made his first address to the nation and pledged to form a new government. Later that night clashes broke out in Tahrir Square between revolutionaries and pro-Mubarak demonstrators, leading to the injury of several and the death of some.

29 January 2011: The military presence in Cairo increased. A curfew was declared, but was widely ignored as the flow of defiant protesters to Tahrir Square continued throughout the night. The military reportedly refused to follow orders to fire live ammunition, and exercised restraint overall. There were no reports of major casualties.

1 February 2011: Mubarak made another televised address and offered several concessions. He pledged to not run for another term in the elections planned for September, and pledged political reforms. He stated he would stay in office to oversee a peaceful transition. Small but violent clashes began that night between pro-Mubarak and anti-Mubarak groups.

2 February 2011: "Battle of the Camel". Violence escalated as waves of Mubarak supporters met anti-government protesters, and some Mubarak supporters rode on camels and horses into Tahrir Square, reportedly wielding swords and sticks. President Mubarak reiterated his refusal to step down in interviews with several news agencies. Incidents of violence toward journalists and reporters escalated amid speculation that the violence was being encouraged by Mubarak as a way to bring the protests to an end.

6 February 2011: A multifaith Sunday Mass is held with Egyptian Christians and Egyptian Muslims
Islam in Egypt
The republic of Egypt has recognized Islam as the state religion since 1980. Egypt is predominantly Muslim, with around 80 million Muslims, comprising 94.7% of the population, as of 2010...

 in Tahrir Square. Negotiations involving Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman
Omar Suleiman
Omar Suleiman is a former Egyptian army general, politician, diplomat, and intelligence officer. A leading figure in Egypt's intelligence system beginning in 1986, Suleiman was appointed to the long-vacant Vice Presidency by then-President Hosni Mubarak on 29 January 2011...

 and representatives of the opposition commenced amid continuing protests throughout the nation. The Egyptian army assumed greater security responsibilities, maintaining order and guarding The Egyptian Museum of Antiquity
Egyptian Museum
The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display, the remainder in storerooms....

. Suleiman offered reforms, while others of Mubarak's regime accused foreign nations, including the US, of interfering in Egypt’s affairs.

10 February 2011: Mubarak formally addressed Egypt amid speculation of a military coup, but rather than resigning (as was widely expected), he simply stated he would delegate some of his powers to Vice President Suleiman, while continuing as Egypt's head of state. Reactions to Mubarak's statement were marked by anger, frustration and disappointment, and throughout various cities there was an escalation of the number and intensity of demonstrations.

11 February 2011: The "Friday of Departure": Massive protests continued in many cities as Egyptians refused the concessions announced by Mubarak. Finally, at 6:00 pm local time, Suleiman announced Mubarak's resignation, entrusting the Supreme Council of Egyptian Armed Forces with the leadership of the country. Nationwide celebrations immediately followed.

13 February 2011: The Supreme Council dissolved Egypt’s parliament and suspended the Constitution in response to demands by demonstrators. The council declared that it would hold power for six months, or until elections could be held. Calls were made for the council to provide more details and specific timetables and deadlines. Major protests subsided but did not end. In a gesture to a new beginning, protesters cleaned up and renovated Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the demonstrations, although many pledged they would continue protests until all the demands had been met.

17 February 2011: The army stated it would not field a candidate in the upcoming presidential elections. Four important figures of the former regime were detained on that day: former interior minister Habib el-Adly, former minister of housing Ahmed Maghrabi former tourism minister Zuheir Garana, and steel tycoon Ahmed Ezz
Ahmed Ezz
Ahmed Ezz is a Egyptian businessman and one-time politician, the owner of Ezz Steel and the former chairman of Egypt's national assembly's budget committee...

.

2 March 2011: The constitutional referendum
Egyptian constitutional referendum, 2011
A constitutional referendum was held in Egypt on 19 March 2011, following the 2011 Egyptian revolution. More than 14 million were in favour, while around 4 million opposed the changes; 41% of 45 million eligible voters turned out to vote....

 was tentatively scheduled for 19 March 2011.

3 March 2011: A day before large protests against him were planned, Ahmed Shafik
Ahmed Shafik
Ahmed Mohamed Shafik is a former senior commander in the Egyptian Air Force and politician who served as Prime Minister of Egypt from January 2011 to March 2011....

 stepped down as Prime Minister and was replaced by Essam Sharaf
Essam Sharaf
Essam Abdel-Aziz Sharaf is an Egyptian academic who has been Prime Minister of Egypt since 3 March 2011. He served as Minister of Transportation from 2004 to 2005.-Early life and education:...

.

5 March 2011: Several State Security Intelligence
State Security Intelligence
The Egyptian State Security Investigations Service was the highest national investigating authority in Egypt. Estimated to employ 100,000 people, the SSI was the main security apparatus of Egypt's Ministry of Interior and had the role of controlling opposition groups, both armed groups and those...

 (SSI) buildings were raided across Egypt by protesters, including the headquarters for Alexandria Governorate and the main national headquarters in Nasr City
Nasr City
Nasr City is a district of Cairo, Egypt. It is located to the east of the Cairo Governorate and consists mostly of condominiums. It was established in the 1960s as an extension to neighboring suburb of Heliopolis. The establishment of the district was part of the Egyptian Government's plan to...

, Cairo. Protesters stated they raided the buildings to secure documents they believed to show various crimes committed by the SSI against the people of Egypt during Mubarak's rule.

6 March 2011: From the Nasr City headquarters, protesters acquired evidence of mass surveillance
Mass surveillance
Mass surveillance is the pervasive surveillance of an entire population, or a substantial fraction thereof.Modern governments today commonly perform mass surveillance of their citizens, explaining that they believe that it is necessary to protect them from dangerous groups such as terrorists,...

 and vote rigging, and noted rooms full of videotapes, piles of shredded and burned documents, and cells where activists recounted their experiences of detention and torture.

19 March 2011: The constitutional referendum was held and passed by 77.27%.

22 March 2011: Parts of the Interior Ministry building catch fire during police demonstrations outside.

23 March 2011: The Egyptian Cabinet
Cabinet of Egypt
The Cabinet of Egypt is the chief executive body of the Arabic Republic of Egypt. It consists of the Prime Minister and the cabinet ministers....

 orders a law criminalising protests and strikes that hampers work at private or public establishments. Under the new law, anyone organising or calling for such protests will be sentenced to jail and/or a fine of LE500,000 (~100,000 USD).

1 April 2011: The "Save the Revolution" day: Approximately four thousand demonstrators filled Tahrir Square for the largest protest in weeks, demanding that the ruling military council move faster to dismantle lingering aspects of the old regime. Protestors demanded trial for Hosni Mubarak
Hosni Mubarak
Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak is a former Egyptian politician and military commander. He served as the fourth President of Egypt from 1981 to 2011....

, Gamal Mubarak
Gamal Mubarak
Gamal Al Din Mohammed Hosni Sayed Mubarak , , is the younger of the two sons of ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and former First Lady Suzanne Mubarak...

, Ahmad Fathi Sorour
Ahmad Fathi Sorour
Ahmad Fathi Sorour is an Egyptian former politician who was the speaker of the People's Assembly since 1990, until the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. According to Article 84 of the Egyptian Constitution, Sorour, as speaker of the People's Assembly, was first in the order of succession to become...

, Safwat El-Sherif
Safwat El-Sherif
Mohamed Safwat El Sherif is a former Egyptian politician and the former speaker of the Egyptian Shura Council. He was one of the founder members of the National Democratic Party in 1978 and served for a time as the Secretary-General of the NDP...

 and Zakaria Azmi
Zakaria Azmi
Zakaria Azmi is the former chief of presidential staff in Egypt.Zakaria Azmi was the National Democratic Party's deputy for el-Zeitoun district in eastern Cairo and chief of the presidential staff. He had joined the NDP following its establishment in 1978, was elected to the People's Assembly in...

 as well.

8 April 2011: The "Friday of Cleaning": Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators again filled Tahrir Square, criticizing the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces for not following through on revolutionary demands. They demanded the resignation of remaining regime figures and the removal of Egypt’s public prosecutor due to the slow pace of investigations of corrupt former officials.

27 May 2011: The "Second Friday of Anger" (a.k.a "Second Revolution of Anger" or "The Second Revolution"):
Tens of thousands of demonstrators filled Tahrir Square in Egypt's capital Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

, besides perhaps demonstrators in each of Alexandria, Suez, Ismailia, Gharbeya and other areas; in the largest demonstrations since ousting Mubarak's Regime. Protestors demanded No Military Trials for Civilians, the Egyptian Constitution to be made before the Parliament Elections and for all the old regime gang and those who killed protestors in January and February to be put on fair Trial.

1 July 2011: The "Friday of Retribution"; Hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in Suez, Alexandria and Tahrir Square in Cairo, to voice frustration with the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces for what they called the slow pace of change five months after the revolution, some also feared that the military is to rule Egypt indefinitely.

8 July 2011: The "Friday of Determination"; Hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in Suez, Alexandria and Tahrir Square in Cairo. They demanded immediate reforms and swifter prosecution of former officials from the ousted government.

15 July 2011"': Hundreds of thousands continue to protest in Tahrir Square.

23 July 2011: Thousands of protesters try to march to the Defense Ministry. They are met with thugs that have sticks, stones, cocktails and other things. The protests are set off by a speech commemorating the 1952 coup led by Mohammed Tantawi.

1 August 2011: Egyptian soldiers clash with protesters, tearing down tents. Over 66 people were arrested. Most Egyptians supported the military's action.

6 August 2011 Hundreds of protesters gathered and prayed in Tahrir Square. After they were done, they were attacked by the military.

9 September 2011: The"Friday of Correcting the Path"; Tens of thousands of people protested Suez, Alexandria, Cairo, and other cites. Islamist protesters were absent.

Cities and regions : Mass civil disobedience

Cairo
Cairo has been at the epicentre of much of the crisis. The largest protests were held in downtown Tahrir Square, which was considered the "protest movement’s beating heart and most effective symbol." On the first three days of the protests, there were clashes between the central security police and protesters and on 28 January, police forces withdrew from all of Cairo. Citizens formed neighbourhood watch groups to keep the order as widespread looting was reported. Traffic police were reintroduced to Cairo on the morning of 31 January. An estimated 2 million people protested at Tahrir square.

Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...

, the home of Khaled Saeed
Death of Khaled Mohamed Saeed
During an interview with the opposition party, El-Ghad's, newspaper, Mosbah described, "They dragged him to the adjacent building and banged his head against an iron door, the steps of the staircase and walls of the building...Two doctors happened to be there and tried in vain to revive him but ...

, had major protests and clashes with the police. A demonstration on 3 February was reported to include 750,000 people. There were few confrontations as not many Mubarak supporters were around, except in occasional motorised convoys escorted by police. The breakdown of law and order, including the general absence of police on the streets, continued through to at least the evening of 3 February, including the looting and burning of one the country's largest shopping centres, Carrefour Alexandria protests were notable for the presence of Christians and Muslims jointly taking part in the events following the church bombing
2011 Alexandria bombing
The 2011 Alexandria bombing was an attack on Coptic Christians in Alexandria, Egypt, on Saturday, 1 January 2011. Twenty three people died as a result of the attack, all of them Coptic Christians. Some 97 more people were injured...

 on 1 January, which saw street protests denouncing Mubarak's regime following the attack.

Mansoura
In the northern city of Mansoura there were protests against the Mubarak regime every day from 25 January onwards.

On 27 January, Mansoura was dubbed a "War Zone". On 28 January, 13 were reported dead in violent clashes. On 9 February, 18 more protesters had died.

One protest on 1 February was estimated at one million people,
The remote city of Siwa
Siwa Oasis
The Siwa Oasis is an oasis in Egypt, located between the Qattara Depression and the Egyptian Sand Sea in the Libyan Desert, nearly 50 km east of the Libyan border, and 560 km from Cairo....

 had been relatively calm. Local sheikhs, who were reportedly in control of the community, put the community under lockdown
Lockdown
There are several definitions for the term lockdown, the most common of which pertains to a state of containment or a restriction of progression....

 after a nearby town was "torched
Arson
Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...

."

Suez
The city of Suez
Suez
Suez is a seaport city in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez , near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same boundaries as Suez governorate. It has three harbors, Adabya, Ain Sokhna and Port Tawfiq, and extensive port facilities...

 has seen violent protests. Eyewitness reports have suggested that the death toll there may be high, although confirmation has been difficult due to a ban on media coverage in the area. Some online activists referred to Suez as Egypt's Sidi Bouzid, the Tunisian city where protests started. A labour strike was held on 8 February. Large protests took place on 11 February.

On 3 February, 4,000 protesters went to the streets to call for Mubarak's departure.

Tanta
Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets from the first day (25 January) and most of the days after until 11 February. Crowds exceeded a hundred thousand many times. Some hospitals reported casualties during the clashes of 28 January.

Beni Suef
Beni Suef
Beni Suef
- Overview :Beni Suef is an important agricultural center, which grew from a small village at the turn of the century and now hosts a population of over 200,000. It was famous for its linen manufacturing in the Middle Ages, and continues to be heavily involved in cotton-spinning and carpet-making....

 had repeated protests in front of the City Hall on el Kourneish, in front of the Omar abd el Aziz Mosque, and in El Zerayeen Square, on most days during the revolutionary period. Twelve protesters were killed when police opened fire at mass groups protesting in front of the Police Station in Beba, South Beni suef. Many others got injured. Thugs and outlaws have robbed governmental garages and burned down several Government buildings.

Luxor
There were also protests in Luxor
Luxor
Luxor is a city in Upper Egypt and the capital of Luxor Governorate. The population numbers 487,896 , with an area of approximately . As the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open air museum", as the ruins of the temple...

.

Dairut
Police opened fire on protesters in Dairut
Dairut
Dairut is a city in Egypt. It is located on the west bank of the Nile, in the Asyut Governorate....

 on 11 February.

Shebin el-Kom
Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Shebin el-Kom on 11 February.

El-Arish
Thousands protested in the city of El-Arish, in the Sinai Peninsula, on 11 February.

Sohag
Large protests took place in the southern city of Sohag on 11 February.

Minya
Large protests took place in the southern city of Minya
Minya, Egypt
Minya is the capital of Minya Governorate in Upper Egypt. It is located approximately south of Cairo on the western bank of the Nile River, which flows north through the city...

 on 11 February.

Ismailia
Nearly 100,000 people protested in and about the local government headquarters in Ismaïlia
Ismaïlia
-Notable natives:*Osman Ahmed Osman, a famous and influential Egyptian engineer, contractor, entrepreneur, and politician, was born in this town on 6 April 1917....

 on 11 February.

Kafr El Sheikh
Large protests took place on 28 January and 4 February all over Kafr el-Sheikh
Kafr el-Sheikh
Kafr el-Sheikh is the capital of Kafr el-Sheikh Governorate, Egypt, about 134 km north of Cairo, in the Nile Delta. As of November 2006, the town had a population of 147,380 inhabitants.-Factories:...

.

Zagazig
Over 100,000 protesters gathered on 27 January in front of the city council in Zagazig
Zagazig
Zagazig is a town in Lower Egypt. Situated in the eastern part of the Nile delta, it is the capital of the governorate of Sharqia.As of 1999, its population was approximately 279,000. It is built on a branch of the Fresh Water or Ismaïlia Canal and on al-Muˤizz Canal , and is 47 miles by rail...

.

Sinai Peninsula
Bedouins in the Sinai Peninsula
Sinai Peninsula
The Sinai Peninsula or Sinai is a triangular peninsula in Egypt about in area. It is situated between the Mediterranean Sea to the north, and the Red Sea to the south, and is the only part of Egyptian territory located in Asia as opposed to Africa, effectively serving as a land bridge between two...

 fought security forces for several weeks.

As a result of the decrease in military forces on the borders, Bedouin groups protected the borders and pledged their support to the ongoing revolution.
  • Sharm-El-Sheikh
  • No protests or civil unrest took place in Sharm-El-Sheikh on 31 January. All was still calm as Hosni Mubarak and his family left on 11 February.

Deaths

Leading up to the protests, at least six cases of self-immolation
Self-immolation
Self-immolation refers to setting oneself on fire, often as a form of protest or for the purposes of martyrdom or suicide. It has centuries-long traditions in some cultures, while in modern times it has become a type of radical political protest...

 were reported, including a man arrested while trying to set himself on fire in downtown Cairo. These cases were inspired by, and began exactly one month after, the acts of self-immolation in Tunisia triggering the 2010–2011 Tunisian uprising. Six instances have been reported, including acts by Abdou Abdel-Moneim Jaafar, Mohammed Farouk Hassan, Mohammed Ashour Sorour, and Ahmed Hashim al-Sayyed who later died from his injuries.
As of 30 January, Al Jazeera reported as many as 150 deaths in the protests. The Sun reported that the dead could include at least 10 policemen, 3 of whom were killed in Rafah
Rafah
Rafah , also known as Rafiah, is a Palestinian city in the southern Gaza Strip. Located south of Gaza, Rafah's population of 71,003 is overwhelmingly made up of Palestinian refugees. Rafah camp and Tall as-Sultan form separate localities. Rafah is the district capital of the Rafah Governorate...

 by "an enraged mob".

By 29 January, 2,000 people were known to be injured. The same day, an employee of the Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...

i embassy in Egypt was killed while returning home from work in Cairo; the next day Azerbaijan sent a plane to evacuate citizens and opened a criminal investigation into the death.

Funerals for the dead on the "Friday of Anger" were held on 30 January. Hundreds of mourners gathered for the funerals calling for Mubarak's removal. By 1 February, the protests had left at least 125 people dead, although Human Rights Watch said that UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay claimed that as many as 300 people may have died in the unrest. This unconfirmed tally included 80 Human Rights Watch-verified deaths at two Cairo hospitals, 36 in Alexandria, and 13 in the port city of Suez, among others; over 3,000 people were also reported as injured.

An Egyptian Governmental Fact-Finding mission Known as " Fact-Finding National commission About 25 Jan Revolution" announced on 19 April that at least 846 Egyptians died in the nearly three week long popular uprising.

International reactions

International reactions have varied with most Western states saying peaceful protests should continue but also expressing concern for the stability of the country and the region. The European Union's Foreign Affairs Chief issued a statement saying "I also reiterate my call upon the Egyptian authorities to urgently establish a constructive and peaceful way to respond to the legitimate aspirations of Egyptian citizens for democratic and socioeconomic reforms." The United States, Britain, France, Germany and others issued similar statements calling for reforms and an end to violence against peaceful protesters. Many states in the region expressed concern and supported Mubarak, in particular Saudi Arabia, which issued a statement saying it "strongly condemned" the protests, while others, like Tunisia and Iran, supported the protests. Israel was most cautious for a change, with Israeli Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Israel
The Prime Minister of Israel is the head of the Israeli government and the most powerful political figure in Israel . The prime minister is the country's chief executive. The official residence of the prime minister, Beit Rosh Hamemshala is in Jerusalem...

 Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu is the current Prime Minister of Israel. He serves also as the Chairman of the Likud Party, as a Knesset member, as the Health Minister of Israel, as the Pensioner Affairs Minister of Israel and as the Economic Strategy Minister of Israel.Netanyahu is the first and, to...

 asking his government ministers to maintain silence, and urging Israel's US and European allies to curb their criticism of President Mubarak; however, an Arab-Israeli parliamentarian supported the protests. There were also numerous solidarity protests for the anti-government protesters around the world.

NGOs also expressed concern about the protests and the ensuing heavy-handed state response. Amnesty International described attempts to discourage protests as "unacceptable". Many countries also issued travel warnings or began evacuating their citizens, including the US, Israel, Great Britain, and Japan. Even multinational corporation
Multinational corporation
A multi national corporation or enterprise , is a corporation or an enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country. It can also be referred to as an international corporation...

s began evacuating their expatriate
Expatriate
An expatriate is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing...

 workers. Many university students were also evacuated.

Post-ousting

Many nations, leaders, and organizations hailed the end of the Mubarak regime. There were celebrations in Tunisia, and Lebanon. World leaders including Angela Merkel, David Cameron joined in praising the Revolution. United States President Barack Obama praised the achievement of the Egyptian people and encouraged other activists by saying "let's look at Egypt's example" Amid the growing concerns for the country, on 21 February, David Cameron
David Cameron
David William Donald Cameron is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Conservative Party. Cameron represents Witney as its Member of Parliament ....

, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, became the first world leader to visit Egypt since Mubarak was ousted as the president 10 days previously. A news blackout was lifted as the prime minister landed in Cairo for a brief five-hour stopover hastily added at the start of a planned tour of the Middle East. On 15 March United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Egypt, she was the highest ranking US official to visit Egypt after the handover of power from Mubarak to the military. Clinton urged the military leaders to begin the process of a democratic transition and offer support to those who had been protesting, as well as reaffirming ties between the two nations.

Results

On 29 January, Mubarak indicated he would be changing the government because despite a "point of no return" being crossed, national stability and law and order
Law and order (politics)
In politics, law and order refers to demands for a strict criminal justice system, especially in relation to violent and property crime, through harsher criminal penalties...

 must prevail, that he had requested the government, formed only months ago, to step down, and that a new government would be formed. He then appointed Omar Suleiman
Omar Suleiman
Omar Suleiman is a former Egyptian army general, politician, diplomat, and intelligence officer. A leading figure in Egypt's intelligence system beginning in 1986, Suleiman was appointed to the long-vacant Vice Presidency by then-President Hosni Mubarak on 29 January 2011...

, head of Egyptian Intelligence, as vice president and Ahmed Shafik
Ahmed Shafik
Ahmed Mohamed Shafik is a former senior commander in the Egyptian Air Force and politician who served as Prime Minister of Egypt from January 2011 to March 2011....

 as prime minister. On 1 February, he spoke again saying he would stay in office until the next election in September 2011
Egyptian presidential election, 2011
A presidential election is expected to be held in Egypt in March or April 2012. It will be the second even remotely competitive presidential election in Egypt's history, following the 2005 election and presidential confirmation referendums in 1999, 1993, and earlier...

 and then leave without standing as a candidate. He also promised to make political reforms. He made no offer to step down.

On 31 January, Mubarak swore in his new cabinet in the hope that the unrest would fade. The protesters did not leave and continued to demonstrate in Cairo's Tahrir Square to demand the downfall of Mubarak. The vice-president and the prime minister were already appointed. He told the new government to preserve subsidies, control inflation and provide more jobs.

On 1 February, Mubarak said he never intended to run for reelection in the upcoming September presidential election
Egyptian presidential election, 2011
A presidential election is expected to be held in Egypt in March or April 2012. It will be the second even remotely competitive presidential election in Egypt's history, following the 2005 election and presidential confirmation referendums in 1999, 1993, and earlier...

, though his candidacy had previously been announced by high-ranking members of his National Democratic Party

In his speech, he asked parliament for reforms:
Various opposition groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brothers is the world's oldest and one of the largest Islamist parties, and is the largest political opposition organization in many Arab states. It was founded in 1928 in Egypt by the Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna and by the late 1940s had an...

 (MB), reiterated demands for Mubarak's resignation. The MB also said, after protests turned violent, that it was time for the military to intervene. Mohammed ElBaradei, who said he was ready to lead a transitional government, was also the consensus candidate by a unified opposition including: the 6 April Youth Movement, We Are All Khaled Said Movement, National Association for Change
National Association for Change
National Association for Change is a loose grouping of the various Egyptian of all political affiliations and religion, men and women, including representatives of civil society and young people aims to change Egypt. There was general agreement on the need to unite all the voices calling for...

, 25 January Movement, Kefaya and the Muslim Brotherhood. ElBaradei formed a "steering committee". On 5 February, a "national dialogue" was started between the government and opposition groups to work out a transitional period before democratic elections.

Many of Al-Azhar Imams
Al-Azhar Mosque
Al-Azhar Mosque is a mosque in Islamic Cairo in Egypt. Al-Mu‘izz li-Dīn Allāh of the Fatimid Caliphate commissioned its construction for the newly established capital city in 970. Its name is usually thought to allude to the Islamic prophet Muhammad's daughter Fatimah, a revered figure in Islam...

 joined the protesters on 30 January all over the country. Christian leaders asked their congregations to stay away from protests, though a number of young Christian activists joined the protests led by Wafd Party member Raymond Lakah
Raymond Lakah
Raymond Lakah, born Rami Lakah , is a French-Egyptian, Roman Catholic Christian magnate, and former owner of the French newspaper France Soir....

.

The Muslim Brotherhood joined the revolution on 30 January, calling on all opposition groups to unite against Mubarak, and for the military to intervene. They joined other opposition groups in electing Mohammed el Baradei to lead a National Salvation Government in the interim period.

The Egyptian state cracked down on the media, and shut down internet access, a primary means of communication for the opposition. Journalists were also harassed by the regime's supporters, eliciting condemnation from the Committee to Protect Journalists
Committee to Protect Journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent nonprofit organisation based in New York City that promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journalists.-History:A group of U.S...

, European countries and the United States.

Reform process

The protests initiated a process of social and political reform by articulating a series of demands. Reform began with President Mubarak's announcements that concessions would be made towards reform and was highlighted by his resignation 18 days after the protests started. The list of demands for broader changes in Egyptian society and governance, articulated by protesters and activists, includes the following:
Demands of the protestors
Demand Status Date
1. Resignation of President Mohammed Hosni Mubarak. Met. 11 February 2011
2. Canceling the State of Emergency (colloquially referred to as "The Emergency Law
Emergency law in Egypt
Emergency law in Egypt was first enacted in 1958, as Law No. 162 of 1958 and has remained in effect since 1967, except for an 18-month break in 1980...

").
Not Met. TBA
3. Dismantling the State Security Investigations Service
State Security Investigations Service
The Egyptian State Security Investigations Service was the highest national investigating authority in Egypt. Estimated to employ 100,000 people, the SSI was the main security apparatus of Egypt's Ministry of Interior and had the role of controlling opposition groups, both armed groups and those...

.
Claims to be met. 15 March 2011
4. Announcement by (Vice-President) Omar Suleiman
Omar Suleiman
Omar Suleiman is a former Egyptian army general, politician, diplomat, and intelligence officer. A leading figure in Egypt's intelligence system beginning in 1986, Suleiman was appointed to the long-vacant Vice Presidency by then-President Hosni Mubarak on 29 January 2011...

 that he will not run in the next presidential elections.
Met. 3 February 2011
5. Dissolving the Parliament
Parliament of Egypt
The Parliament of Egypt is the currently dissolved bicameral legislature of Egypt. The Parliament is located in Cairo, Egypt's capital. As the legislative branch of the Egyptian government, the Parliament enacts laws, approves the general policy of the State, the general plan for economic and...

.
Met. 13 February 2011
6. Release of all prisoners taken since 25 January. Ongoing 20 February 2011
7. Ending of the recently imposed curfew. Met. 15 June 2011
8. Removing the SSI
State Security Intelligence
The Egyptian State Security Investigations Service was the highest national investigating authority in Egypt. Estimated to employ 100,000 people, the SSI was the main security apparatus of Egypt's Ministry of Interior and had the role of controlling opposition groups, both armed groups and those...

-controlled university-police.
Claims to be met. 3 March 2011
9. Investigation of officials responsible for violence against protesters. Ongoing 28 February 2011
10. Firing Minister of Information Anas el-Fiqqi
Anas el-Fiqqi
Anas el-Fiqqi is an Egyptian politician....

 and stopping government owned media propaganda.
Met; minister fired, ministry
Ministry of Information (Egypt)
The Ministry of Information of Egypt was the ministry in charge of media and information in Egypt. Its headquarters were in Cairo. The position of Minister was held by Anas el-Fiqqi from 2004 until he resigned from the position during the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. The position was abolished when...

 canceled, propaganda still ongoing
12 February 2011
11. Reimbursing shop owners for losses during the curfew Announced but Not Met. 7 February 2011
12. Announcing the demands above on government television and radio Met. 11–18 February 2011
13. Dissolving the NDP
National Democratic Party (Egypt)
The National Democratic Party , often simply called Al-Ḥizb al-Waṭaniy – the "National Party", was an Egyptian political party. It was founded by President Anwar El Sadat in 1978....

.
Claims to be met. 16 April 2011
14. Arrest, Interrogation and Trial of (now-former) president Hosni Mubarak
Hosni Mubarak
Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak is a former Egyptian politician and military commander. He served as the fourth President of Egypt from 1981 to 2011....

 and his two sons: Gamal Mubarak
Gamal Mubarak
Gamal Al Din Mohammed Hosni Sayed Mubarak , , is the younger of the two sons of ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and former First Lady Suzanne Mubarak...

 and Alaa Mubarak
Alaa Mubarak
Alaa Mubarak , or Alā'-ud-dīn Muhammad Husni Sayyid Mubarak is an Egyptian businessman and the elder of two sons of ousted president Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, who served from 1981-2011, and his wife Suzanne Mubarak....

.
Met; All ordered to stand trial. 24 May 2011

On 17 February, an Egyptian prosecutor ordered the detention of three ex-ministers, former Interior Minister Habib el-Adli, former Tourism Minister Zuhair Garana and former Housing Minister Ahmed el-Maghrabi, and a prominent businessman, steel magnate Ahmed Ezz, pending trial on suspicion of wasting public funds. The public prosecutor also froze the accounts of Adli and his family members on accusations that over 4 million Egyptian pounds ($680,000) were transferred to his personal account by a head of a contractor company, while calling on the Foreign Minister to contact European countries and ask them to freeze the accounts of the defendants.

Meanwhile, the United States announced on the same day that it was giving Egypt $150 million in crucial economic assistance to help it transition towards democracy following the overthrow of long time president Mubarak. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that William Burns
William Joseph Burns
William J. Burns , an American diplomat, is the current Deputy Secretary of State and the highest ranked Foreign Service Officer in the United States. He is only the second serving career diplomat in U.S. history to become Deputy Secretary...

, the Under-secretary of State for political affairs, and David Lipton, a senior White House adviser on international economics, would travel to Egypt the following week.

On 19 February, a moderate Islamic party, named Al-Wasat Al-Jadid
Al-Wasat Party
Hizb al-Wasat al-Jadid , translated in English as the New Center Party but more commonly known as al-Wasat Party, is a moderate Islamic political party in Egypt.- Foundation :...

, or the New Center Party, which was outlawed for 15 years was granted official recognition by an Egyptian court. The party was founded in 1996 by activists who split off from the Muslim Brotherhood and sought to create a tolerant Islamic movement with liberal tendencies, but its attempts to register as an official party were rejected four times since then. On the same day, Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq said 222 political prisoners would be released. He said only a few were detained during the popular uprising and put the number of remaining political prisoners at 487, but did not say when they would be released.

On 20 February, Dr. a well known activist and law professor, announced (on TV channels) accepting a Vice Prime Minister position within the new government that will be announced on 21–22 February. He also announced the removal of many of the previous government members to alleviate the situation.

On 21 February, the Muslim Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brothers is the world's oldest and one of the largest Islamist parties, and is the largest political opposition organization in many Arab states. It was founded in 1928 in Egypt by the Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna and by the late 1940s had an...

 announced it would form a political party for the upcoming parliamentary election, called the Freedom and Justice Party
Freedom and Justice Party (Egypt)
The Freedom and Justice Party , is an Islamist political party in Egypt. The party is nominally independent but has strong links to the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, the largest and best organized political group in Egypt...

, which was to be led by Dr. Saad Ketatni. Its spokesperson noted that "when we talk about the slogans of the revolution – freedom, social justice, equality – all of these are in the Sharia
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...

 (Islamic law)."

On 3 March, Prime Minister Shafik submitted his resignation to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. The Council appointed Essam Sharaf
Essam Sharaf
Essam Abdel-Aziz Sharaf is an Egyptian academic who has been Prime Minister of Egypt since 3 March 2011. He served as Minister of Transportation from 2004 to 2005.-Early life and education:...

, a former Minister of Transport who began vocal criticism of the regime following his resignation, particularly after the Qalyoub rail accident in 2006, to replace Shafik and form a new government. Sharaf's appointment is seen as a significant concession to protesters, as he had been actively involved during the action at Tahrir Square. Sharaf appointed former International Court of Justice
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice is the primary judicial organ of the United Nations. It is based in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands...

 judge Nabil Elaraby
Nabil Elaraby
Nabil Elaraby is an Egyptian diplomat, currently the Secretary-General of the Arab League having been elected on 15 May 2011. Previously, he was Foreign Minister of Egypt in Essam Sharaf's government from March-June 2011.-Early life and education:Elaraby holds a J.S.D. and an LL.M...

 as Foreign Minister and General Mansour El Essawi as Interior Minister.

On 16 April, the Higher Administrative Court dissolved the former ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) and ordered its funds and property to be handed over to the government. On 24 May 2011, it was announced that Egypt's ousted President Hosni Mubarak and his two sons Gamal and Alaa are to be tried over the deaths of anti-government protesters in the revolution that began on 25 January.

Court trials of state officials accused of corruption

The ousting of Mubarak was followed by a series of arrests of, and / or imposed travel bans on high profile figures on charges of causing the death of 300–500 demonstrators, and the injury of 5,000 more, as well as charges of embezzlement
Embezzlement
Embezzlement is the act of dishonestly appropriating or secreting assets by one or more individuals to whom such assets have been entrusted....

, profiteering, money laundry, and abuse of human rights. Among these figures are Mubarak himself, his wife Suzanne Mubarak
Suzanne Mubarak
Suzanne Mubarak is married to the former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and was First Lady of Egypt until his ouster on 11 February 2011.-Early life and education:...

, his son Gamal
Gamal Mubarak
Gamal Al Din Mohammed Hosni Sayed Mubarak , , is the younger of the two sons of ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and former First Lady Suzanne Mubarak...

, his son Alaa
Alaa Mubarak
Alaa Mubarak , or Alā'-ud-dīn Muhammad Husni Sayyid Mubarak is an Egyptian businessman and the elder of two sons of ousted president Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, who served from 1981-2011, and his wife Suzanne Mubarak....

, the former Interior Minister Habib el-Adly, the former Housing Minister Ahmed El-Maghrabi, the former Tourism Minister Zoheir Garana and the former Secretary of the National Democratic Party for Organisational Affairs Ahmed Ezz
Ahmed Ezz
Ahmed Ezz is a Egyptian businessman and one-time politician, the owner of Ezz Steel and the former chairman of Egypt's national assembly's budget committee...

. Mubarak's ousting was also followed by widespread allegations of corruption against numerous other government officials and senior politicians On 28 February 2011, Egypt's top prosecutor ordered an asset freeze for Mubarak and his family. This was followed by arrest warrants, travel bans and judicial orders to freeze the assets of other known public figures, including the former Speaker of the Egyptian Parliament, Fathi Sorour, and the former Speaker of the Higher Legislative Body (Shura Council
Shura Council
The Shura Council is the upper house of Egyptian bicameral Parliament. Its name roughly translates into English as "the Consultative Council". The lower house of parliament is the People's Assembly....

), Safwat El Sherif. Arrest warrants were also issued against some public figures who left the country with the outbreak of the revolution. These warrants were issued on allegations of financial misappropriations, rather than human rights abuses. Among these public figures are Rachid Mohamed Rachid, the former Minister of Trade and Industry and Hussein Salem
Hussein Salem
Hussein Salem , is an Egyptian businessman, co-owner of the East Mediterranean Gas Company , and ally and advisor to former president Hosni Mubarak. He is also the chairman and CEO of HKS Group, a hospitality company that operates Maritim Jolie Ville Resort in Sharm El Sheikh...

, a business tycoon. Salem is believed to have left for Dubai

Trials of the accused officials started on 5 March 2011 when the former Interior Minster of Egypt, Habib el-Adli, appeared before the Giza Criminal Court in Cairo. The trials of el-Adli and other public figures are expected to run a lengthy course.

In March 2011, following the revolution, Abbud al-Zumar
Abbud al-Zumar
Abbud al-Zumar is an Egyptian Islamist and fundamentalist and former military intelligence colonel in the Egyptian Army.Born into one of the wealthiest and most prominent families in the Giza Governorate, he was founder and...

, one of Egypt's most famous political prisoners, was freed after 30 years. He was founder and first emir of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and implicated in the assassination of President Anwar Sadat on 6 October 1981.

On 24 May, former Egyptian President Mubarak was ordered to stand trial on charges of premeditated murder
Premeditated murder
Premeditated murder is the crime of wrongfully causing the death of another human being after rationally considering the timing or method of doing so, in order to either increase the likelihood of success, or to evade detection or apprehension.State laws in the United States vary as to definitions...

 of peaceful protestors during the 2011 Egyptian revolution and, if convicted, could face the death penalty. The full list of charges released by the public prosecutor was "intentional murder, attempted killing of some demonstrators...misuse of influence and deliberately wasting public funds and unlawfully making private financial gains and profits."

Regional instability

The Egyptian Revolution, along with the events in Tunisia, have sparked a wave of major uprisings
Revolutionary wave
A revolutionary wave is a series of revolutions occurring in various locations in a similar time period. In many cases, an initial revolution inspires other "affiliate revolutions" with similar aims....

. Demonstrations
Demonstration (people)
A demonstration or street protest is action by a mass group or collection of groups of people in favor of a political or other cause; it normally consists of walking in a mass march formation and either beginning with or meeting at a designated endpoint, or rally, to hear speakers.Actions such as...

 and protests have spread across the Middle East and North Africa
MENA
The term MENA, for "Middle East and North Africa", is an acronym often used in academic, military planning and business writing.The term covers an extensive region, extending from Morocco to Iran, including the majority of both the Middle Eastern and Maghreb countries...

. To date Algeria
2010–2011 Algerian protests
The 2010–2011 Algerian protests are a continuing series of protests taking place throughout Algeria from 28 December 2010 onwards, part of similar protests across the Middle East and North Africa. Causes cited by the protestors include unemployment, the lack of housing, food-price inflation,...

, Bahrain, Iran
2011 Iranian protests
The 2011 Iranian protests are a series of demonstrations across Iran which began on 14 February 2011, called "The Day of Rage". The protests followed the 2009–2010 Iranian election protests and were influenced by other concurrent protests in the region...

, Jordan
2011 Jordanian protests
The 2011 Jordanian protests are a series of protests occurring in Jordan in 2011, which resulted in the firing of the cabinet ministers of the government.Food inflation and salaries were a cause for resentment in the country....

, Libya
2011 Libyan civil war
The 2011 Libyan civil war was an armed conflict in the North African state of Libya, fought between forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and those seeking to oust his government. The war was preceded by protests in Benghazi beginning on 15 February 2011, which led to clashes with security...

, Morocco,Yemen
2011 Yemeni uprising
The 2011 Yemen Uprising followed the initial stages of the Tunisian Revolution and occurred simultaneously with the Egyptian Revolution and other mass protests in the Middle East in early 2011. In its early phase, protests in Yemen were initially against unemployment, economic conditions and...

, and Syria
2011 Syrian uprising
The 2011 Syrian uprising is an ongoing internal conflict occurring in Syria. Protests started on 26 January 2011, and escalated into an uprising by 15 March 2011...

 have all witnessed major protests. In addition, minor incidents have occurred in Iraq
2011 Iraqi protests
The 2011 Iraqi protests came in the wake of the Tunisian revolution and Egyptian uprising. It has resulted in at least thirty-five deaths, including at least twenty-nine on the 25 February "Day of Rage"....

, Kuwait, Mauritania
Mauritania
Mauritania is a country in the Maghreb and West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest...

, Oman
2011 Omani protests
The 2011 Omani protests were a series of protests in the Gulf country of Oman. They were a part of the revolutionary wave popularly known as the Arab Spring. It's the first protest to be ended among the Arab Spring....

, Saudi Arabia
2011 Saudi Arabian protests
The 2011 Saudi Arabian protests have been influenced by the Arab Spring that started with the 2011 Tunisian revolution. One of the main online organisers of a planned 11 March "Day of Rage", Faisal Ahmed Abdul-Ahad , was alleged to have been killed by Saudi security forces on 2 March, by which time...

, Somalia, and Sudan
2011 Sudanese protests
The 2011 Sudanese protests came in the wake of the 2010–2011 Middle East and North Africa protests. Unlike other Arab countries, popular uprisings in Sudan have managed to topple the government, twice, in 1964 and 1985.-Background:...

.

Religion and politics

The protests in Egypt were not centred around religion-based politics, but nationalism and a broad-based social consciousness. Before the uprising, the most organised and prominent opposition movements throughout the Arab world usually came from Islamist organisations that relied on a conviction of their faith, where members were motivated and ready to sacrifice. However, secular forces emerged from the revolution touting principles that religious groups shared with them: freedom, social justice, and dignity. Islamist organisations also emerged with greater freedom to operate. Although the cooperative, inter-faith revolution itself was no guarantee that partisan politics would not re-emerge in its wake, its success nonetheless represented a change from the intellectual stagnation created by decades of repression which simply pitted modernity and Islam against one another as conflicting and incompatible. Islamists and secularists both have been faced with new opportunities for dialogue and discourse, on matters such as the role of Islam and Sharia in society and freedom of speech, as well as the impact of secularism on a predominantly Muslim population.

Despite the optimism surrounding the revolution, several commentators have expressed concerns about the risk of increased power and influence for Islamist forces in the country and the region at large, as well as the difficulties of integrating the different groups, ideologies, and visions for the country among the population. Journalist Caroline Glick
Caroline Glick
Caroline Glick is an American-Israeli journalist for Makor Rishon and is the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. She is also the Senior Fellow for Middle East Affairs of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy.-Life:...

 argued that the Egyptian revolution portends a rise in religious radicalism and support for terrorism, citing a 2010 Pew
Pew
A pew is a long bench seat or enclosed box used for seating members of a congregation or choir in a church, or sometimes in a courtroom.-Overview:Churches were not commonly furnished with permanent pews before the Protestant Reformation...

 Opinion poll which found that Egyptians support Islamists over modernizers by a ratio of over 2 to 1. Journalist Shlomo Ben-Ami
Shlomo Ben-Ami
Prof. Shlomo Ben-Ami is a former Israeli diplomat, politician and historian.-Biography:Ben-Ami was born in Tangiers, Morocco, and immigrated to Israel in 1955....

 argued that Egypt's most formidable task is to refute the old paradigm of the Arab World that sees the only choices for regimes as between either repressive, secular dictatorships or repressive theocracies. He noted, however that with Islam such a central part of the society, any emergent regime is bound to be attuned to religion. In his view a democracy that excluded all religion from public life, as in France, could succeed in Egypt and no Arab democracy could disallow the participation of political Islam if it were to be genuine.

Since the revolution Islamist parties such as the Muslim Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brothers is the world's oldest and one of the largest Islamist parties, and is the largest political opposition organization in many Arab states. It was founded in 1928 in Egypt by the Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna and by the late 1940s had an...

 have shown unprecedented strength in the new more democratic landscape, taking leading roles in constitutional changes, voter mobilization, and protests. This was a noted concern among the secular and youth movements, who wanted any elections to be held later rather than sooner, so that they might catch up with the already well-organized groups. Elections are to be held in September 2011 and it is unclear which group or approach will prevail.

Women's role

Egyptian women
Women in Egypt
-Women in Ancient Egypt:From the earliest preserved archaeological records, women in Egypt have been thought to be considered nearly equal to men in Egyptian society, regardless of marital status. Women were stated lower than men when it came to a higher leader in the Egyptian hierarchy counting...

 were active throughout the revolution. Some took part in the protests themselves, were present in news clips and on Facebook forums, and were part of the leadership during the Egyptian revolution. In Tahrir Square, female protesters, some with their children, worked to support the protests. The diversity of the protesters in Tahrir Square was visible in the women who participated; many wore head scarves and other signs of religious conservatism, while others revelled in the freedom to kiss a friend or smoke a cigarette in public. Egyptian women also organised protests, and reported on the events; female bloggers such as Leil Zahra Mortada risked abuse or imprisonment by keeping the world informed of the daily scene in Tahrir Square and elsewhere. Among those who died was Sally Zahran, who was beaten to death during one of the demonstrations. NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

 reportedly plans to name one of its Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...

 exploration spacecraft in Zahran's honour.

The wide participation and the significant contributions by Egyptian women to the protests have been attributed to the fact that many, especially younger women, are better educated than previous generations, representing more than half of Egyptian university students. This has been an empowering factor for women, who have become more present and active publicly in recent years. The advent of social media has also helped provide tools for women to become protest leaders.

The military's role

The Egyptian Armed Forces enjoy a better reputation with the public than the police does, the former perceived as a professional body protecting the country, the latter accused of systemic corruption
Systemic corruption
Systemic corruption is corruption which is primarily due to a weaknesses of an organisation or process.It can be contrasted with individual officials or agents who act corruptly within the system....

 and illegitimate violence. All four Egyptian presidents since the 1950s have come from the military into power. Key Egyptian military personnel include the Defense Minister Mohamed Hussein Tantawi and General Sami Hafez Enan, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces. The Egyptian military totals around 468,500 well-armed active personnel, plus a reserve of 479,000.

As Head of Egypt's Armed Forces, Tantawi has been described as "aged and change-resistant" and is attached to the old regime. He has used his position as Defense Minister to oppose reforms, economic and political, which he saw as weakening central government authority. Other key figures, Sami Enan chief among them, are younger and have closer connections to both the US and groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. An important aspect of the relationship between the Egyptian and American military establishments is the 1.3 billion dollars in military aid provided to Egypt annually, which in turn pays for American-made military equipment, and allows Egyptian officers to receive training in the US. Guaranteed this aid package, the governing military council
Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces consists of a body of 20 senior officers in the Egyptian military. As a consequence of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, the Council took the power to govern Egypt from its departing President Hosni Mubarak on February 11, 2011.The junta meets regularly, as...

 is for the most reform-resistant. One analyst however, while conceding that the military is change-resistant, states it has no option but to facilitate the process of democratisation. Furthermore, the military will have to keep its role in politics limited to continue good relations with the West, and must not restrict the participation of political Islam if there is to be a genuine democracy.

Foreign relations

Foreign governments in the West including the US have regarded Mubarak as an important ally and supporter in the Israeli-Palestinian
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...

 peace negotiations. After wars with Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 in 1948, '56, '67 and '73, Egypt signed a peace treaty in 1979, provoking controversy in the Arab world
Arab world
The Arab world refers to Arabic-speaking states, territories and populations in North Africa, Western Asia and elsewhere.The standard definition of the Arab world comprises the 22 states and territories of the Arab League stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the...

. As provisioned in the 1978 Camp David Accords
Camp David Accords
The Camp David Accords were signed by Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on September 17, 1978, following thirteen days of secret negotiations at Camp David. The two framework agreements were signed at the White House, and were witnessed by United States...

, which led to the peace treaty, both Israel and Egypt receive billions of dollars in aid annually from the United States, with Egypt receiving over US$1.3 billion of military aid each year in addition to economic and development assistance. According to Juan Cole, many Egyptian youth feel ignored by Mubarak on the grounds that he is not looking out for their best interests and that he rather serves the interests of the West. The cooperation of the Egyptian regime in enforcing the blockade of the Gaza Strip was also deeply unpopular among the general Egyptian public.

Online activism and the role of social media

The April 6 Youth Movement (Arabic: حركة شباب 6 أبريل‎) is an Egyptian Facebook group started in Spring 2008 to support the workers in El-Mahalla El-Kubra, an industrial town, who were planning to strike on April 6.
Activists called on participants to wear black and stay home on the day of the strike. Bloggers and citizen journalists used Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, blogs and other new media tools to report on the strike, alert their networks about police activity, organize legal protection and draw attention to their efforts.
The New York Times has identified the movement as the political Facebook group in Egypt with the most dynamic debates. As of January 2009[update], it had 70,000 predominantly young and educated members, most of whom had not been politically active before; their core concerns include free speech, nepotism in government and the country's stagnant economy. Their discussion forum on Facebook features intense and heated discussions, and is constantly updated with new postings.

the founders of the movement
  • Ahmed Maher was a prominent participant in the anti-Mubarak demonstrations in Egypt in 2011.

  • Asmaa Mahfouz posted a video blog that went viral. She urged the Egyptian people to join her in a protest on January 25, in Tahrir Square to bring down Mubarak’s regime and urged people not to be afraid.

  • Waleed Rashed (Arabic وليد راشد ) born November 15, 1983 in El Sharkia, Egypt), is one of the co-founders of the April 6 Youth Movement and a prominent participant in the anti-Mubarak demonstrations in Egypt in 2011.


We Are All Khaled Saeed is a Facebook group which formed in the aftermath of Saeed's beating and death. The group attracted hundreds of thousands of members worldwide and played a prominent role in spreading and bringing attention to the growing discontent. As the protests began, Google executive Wael Ghonim
Wael Ghonim
Wael Ghonim is an Internet activist and computer engineer with an interest in social entrepreneurship....

 revealed that he was the person behind the account. Later after the revolution, in an TV interview in the presence of member of the ruling military council, it was revealed that AbdulRahman Mansour, a young underground activist and media expert shared the account with Wael Ghonim. Another potent viral online contribution was made by Asmaa Mahfouz
Asmaa Mahfouz
Asmaa Mahfouz is an Egyptian activist and one of the founders of the April 6 Youth Movement. She has been credited by journalist Mona Eltahawy and others with helping to spark mass uprising through her video blog posted one week before the start of the 2011 Egyptian revolution...

, a female activist who posted a video in which she challenged people to publicly protest. Previously, Facebook had suspended the group because some of its administrators were using pseudonyms, a violation of the company's 'Terms of Service.'

The usage of social media
Social media
The term Social Media refers to the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into an interactive dialogue. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0,...

 has been extensive.

As one Egyptian activist succinctly tweeted during the protests there, "We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world." Internet censorship has also been extensive, and in some cases comprehensive to the extent of taking entire nation-states practically off-line.

It is readily believed that a handful of people through Facebook, Twitter, and blogging sparked this uprising. One of which is Wael Ghonim
Wael Ghonim
Wael Ghonim is an Internet activist and computer engineer with an interest in social entrepreneurship....

 . Many believe Ghonim was the first contributor to spark the Egypt revolution when he created a Facebook page dedicated to Khaled Saeed entitled We Are All Khaled Saeed . Saeed, an Egyptian business man was beaten to death by police in June 2010. It is believed that this was in retaliation to a video he posted showing Egyptian police sharing the spoils of a drug bust. The Facebook page blew up to over 400,000 followers, creating an online arena where protestors and those discontent with the government could gather, vent, and organise. The page called for protests on 25 January, Known as the day of wrath. Hundreds of thousands of protestors flooded the streets to show their discontent with the murder and the corruption within their country. Ghonim was jailed the 28th and released 12 days later. Ghonim has also gained quite a large following through his Twitter account where he has been creating a narrative of the events happening day to day in Egypt. Ghonim is the Middle East and North African marketing manager at Google. He is currently on leave.

Another major contributor is Egyptian activist and member of the 6 April movement

Though these two are credited with being the first social media faces of this revolution, since the 25th people have posted videos, tweeted, and wrote Facebook comments to keep the world abreast of the turmoil in Egypt. Including videos posted of a badly beaten Khaled Said, disproving the first claims by the police that he had choked to death. Ali documents the various ways in which social media was used by Egyptian activists, some of the most prominent Egyptian celebrities, and as well by major political figures abroad to invigorate the protests.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous
Sharif Abdel Kouddous
Sharif Abdel Kouddous was born in California, United States and raised in Cairo, Egypt. He attended the British International School in Cairo and left for the United States when he was eighteen years old. He attended the Duke University and obtained a degree in economics and a minor in philosophy...

, a journalist with Democracy Now!
Democracy Now!
Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...

 had provided live coverage and tweets
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...

 from Tahrir Square during the protests and has also been credited with using new media to raise awareness regarding the protests.

The role of social media in the Egyptian uprising has since been widely written and debated about, including in the first edition of the Dubai Debates
Dubai Debates
Dubai Debates is an online video debating forum based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. According to its website, Dubai Debates offers "a platform for online opinion leaders, pundits, academics, journalists, politicians, activists and all interested users to exchange ideas through videos." In...

 on the question "Mark Zuckerberg – the new hero of the Arab people?"
Many have argued, based in part on the Egyptian revolution, that social media may be an effective tool in developing nations more generally.

Critics that claim social networking didn't instigate the Arab Spring, argue on five major points: that people in the Middle East generally don't use social networking sites, that social networking sites aren't private enough to evade authorities, that many people don't trust social networking as a source for news, that social networking sites were promoted by the media, and finally that social networking sites make non-activists feel involved in the revolutions.

After-Revolution Freedom of Establishing Political Parties

Freedom was given to establish political parties only by "notifying" concerned authorities, resulting in establishing several political parties named after or in relation to the 25 January revolution. See List of political parties in Egypt.

See also

  • Arab Spring
    Arab Spring
    The Arab Spring , otherwise known as the Arab Awakening, is a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests occurring in the Arab world that began on Saturday, 18 December 2010...

  • Tunisian revolution
    Tunisian revolution
    The Tunisian Revolution is an intensive campaign of civil resistance, including a series of street demonstrations taking place in Tunisia. The events began in December 2010 and led to the ousting of longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011...

  • Human rights in Egypt
    Human rights in Egypt
    The state of human rights in Egypt remains poor due to repressive government policies and brutal government crackdowns.-Rights and liberties ratings:...

  • Democracy in the Middle East
    Democracy in the Middle East
    According to the "Democracy Index" , the country in the Middle East with the highest Democracy Index score is Israel, with a score of 7.48, corresponding to the status of "flawed democracy"; the only one in the region.The next highest scores of countries of in the region are held by Lebanon and...

  • Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
    Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
    The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces consists of a body of 20 senior officers in the Egyptian military. As a consequence of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, the Council took the power to govern Egypt from its departing President Hosni Mubarak on February 11, 2011.The junta meets regularly, as...

  • Muslim Brotherhood
    Muslim Brotherhood
    The Society of the Muslim Brothers is the world's oldest and one of the largest Islamist parties, and is the largest political opposition organization in many Arab states. It was founded in 1928 in Egypt by the Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna and by the late 1940s had an...


  • Freedom in the World (report)
  • List of freedom indices
  • List of modern conflicts in the Middle East
  • List of modern conflicts in North Africa
  • 2007–2008 world food price crisis
    2007–2008 world food price crisis
    World food prices increased dramatically in 2007 and the 1st and 2nd quarter of 2008 creating a global crisis and causing political and economical instability and social unrest in both poor and developed nations. Systemic causes for the worldwide increases in food prices continue to be the subject...

     


External links

General
  • Egypt Resources from Google
    Google
    Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

     Crisis Response
  • Media library documenting Egypt's 25 Jan revolution with thousands of videos & photos
  • Middle East and North Africa in turmoil – Tracking the Protests. Chart provided by the Washington Post to keep up day by day with all of the anti-government protests which as off May 2011 are spreading rapidly through the Middle East and North Africa.

Live coverage
Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing is the act of sourcing tasks traditionally performed by specific individuals to a group of people or community through an open call....


Interviews
Documentaries
Analysis and criticism
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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