April 6 Youth Movement
Encyclopedia
The April 6 Youth Movement is an Egypt
ian 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. , 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 April 6 movement is using the same raised fist
symbol as the Otpor! movement from Serbia
, that helped bring down the regime of Slobodan Milošević
and whose nonviolent tactics were later used in Ukraine
and Georgia
.
Rashed is a banker. Rashed has traveled to Algeria, USA , Greece , United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Bahrain, Qatar and Lebanon and has been arrested several times by the Egyptian police for his political activism. Since 2005 he was a member of the Kafaya movement, also known as the Egyptian Movement for Change. From 2009-2010, he worked in Qatar, where he was the coordinator of the National Association of Change and organized the Egyptians in the area to support the change of regime
. In its official pronouncements, the group stresses that it is not a political party
. Ahmed Maher, one of the founders of the group, was arrested by the Egyptian authorities in May 2008 in an attempt to shut it down.
In July 2008, Maher was again arrested, along with 14 other members of the group, and charged with "incitement against the regime". He also claimed that Egyptian state security officers threatened to rape him in custody.
On April 6, 2009 the group was subjected to attacks, suspected to have been orchestrated by the Egyptian government. Several websites supporting the group were hacked simultaneously, and protests in Cairo were confronted by plain clothed Egyptian policemen and numerous arrests.
On January 29, 2011 a WikiLeaks
document was revealed which showed that the United States considered the movement to be "outside (the)
mainstream of opposition politicians and activists" and described the goals of the movement for democracy as "unrealistic" yet still supported it in various ways, including pressing "the MFA for the release of April 6 activists".
On January 31, 2011 the movement promoted participation of at least a million in a march on Tuesday, February 1, 2011.
On Feb 03, 2011 the Hisham Mubarak Law Center
which was providing meeting space for the April 6 Youth Movement as well as providing medical and legal aid to the protesters was raided by security forces who arrested Amal Sharaf and other members of April 6.
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
group started in Spring 2008 to support the workers in El-Mahalla El-Kubra
El-Mahalla El-Kubra
El-Mahalla El-Kubra is a large industrial and agricultural city in Egypt, located in the middle of the Nile Delta on the western bank of the Damietta branch. It is known for its dominant textile industry...
, 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
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
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...
, Flickr
Flickr
Flickr is an image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community that was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to...
, 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
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
has identified the movement as the political Facebook group in Egypt with the most dynamic debates. , 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
Nepotism
Nepotism is favoritism granted to relatives regardless of merit. The word nepotism is from the Latin word nepos, nepotis , from which modern Romanian nepot and Italian nipote, "nephew" or "grandchild" are also descended....
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 April 6 movement is using the same raised fist
Raised fist
The raised fist is a symbol of solidarity and support. It is also used as a salute to express unity, strength, defiance, or resistance. The salute dates back to ancient Assyria as a symbol of resistance in the face of violence.-History:Assyrian depictions of the goddess Ishtar show her raising a...
symbol as the Otpor! movement from 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...
, that helped bring down the regime of Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...
and whose nonviolent tactics were later used in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
and Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
.
Founders
- Ahmed MaherAhmed Maher (youth leader)Ahmed Maher, , 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....
was a participant in the anti-Mubarak demonstrations in EgyptEgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
in 2011.
- Waleed RashedWaleed RashedWaleed Rashed 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. ,...
, born November 15, 1983 in El Sharkia, Egypt) is one of the co-founders of the April 6 Youth Movement and a participant in the anti-Mubarak demonstrations in Egypt in 2011
Rashed is a banker. Rashed has traveled to Algeria, USA , Greece , United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Bahrain, Qatar and Lebanon and has been arrested several times by the Egyptian police for his political activism. Since 2005 he was a member of the Kafaya movement, also known as the Egyptian Movement for Change. From 2009-2010, he worked in Qatar, where he was the coordinator of the National Association of Change and organized the Egyptians in the area to support the change of regime
- Asmaa MahfouzAsmaa MahfouzAsmaa 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...
posted a video blog that went viralViral videoA viral video is one that becomes popular through the process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites, social media and email...
. 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.
Public activism and arrests
Aside from discussing the state of the nation online, members of the group have organized public rallies to free imprisoned journalists and engaged in protests concerning the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict
The Gaza War, known as Operation Cast Lead in Israel and as the Gaza Massacre in the Arab world, was a three-week bombing and invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israel, and hundreds of rocket attacks on south of Israel which...
. In its official pronouncements, the group stresses that it is not a political party
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...
. Ahmed Maher, one of the founders of the group, was arrested by the Egyptian authorities in May 2008 in an attempt to shut it down.
In July 2008, Maher was again arrested, along with 14 other members of the group, and charged with "incitement against the regime". He also claimed that Egyptian state security officers threatened to rape him in custody.
On April 6, 2009 the group was subjected to attacks, suspected to have been orchestrated by the Egyptian government. Several websites supporting the group were hacked simultaneously, and protests in Cairo were confronted by plain clothed Egyptian policemen and numerous arrests.
On January 29, 2011 a WikiLeaks
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
document was revealed which showed that the United States considered the movement to be "outside (the)
mainstream of opposition politicians and activists" and described the goals of the movement for democracy as "unrealistic" yet still supported it in various ways, including pressing "the MFA for the release of April 6 activists".
On January 31, 2011 the movement promoted participation of at least a million in a march on Tuesday, February 1, 2011.
On Feb 03, 2011 the Hisham Mubarak Law Center
Hisham Mubarak Law Center
The Hisham Mubarak Law Center is an Egyptian law firm based in Cairo and Aswan which "works in the field of human rights through litigation, campaigns and legal research" and is "perhaps best known for its active support of torture victims and Egyptians subject to arbitrary detention." Founded by...
which was providing meeting space for the April 6 Youth Movement as well as providing medical and legal aid to the protesters was raided by security forces who arrested Amal Sharaf and other members of April 6.
See also
- Hazem Salah Abu IsmailHazem Salah Abu IsmailHazem Salah Abu Ismail is an Egyptian scholar and Islamic thinker. As an Egyptian Muslim - and a lawyer and spokesman in the Islamic thought and political affairs, and Islamic and public, his studies of constitutional law and legalities are extensive. He's thought to represent the Salafist...
- Saad Eddin Ibrahim
- Waleed RashedWaleed RashedWaleed Rashed 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. ,...
- Ayman NourAyman NourAyman 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...
– an Egyptian opposition leader, head of the Tomorrow PartyTomorrow PartyThe el-Ghad Party is an active political party in Egypt that was granted license in October 2004. El-Ghad is a centrist liberal secular political party pressing for widening the scope of political participation and for a peaceful rotation of power.... - Civil resistanceCivil resistanceThe 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...
- Nonviolent resistanceNonviolent resistanceNonviolent resistance is the practice of achieving goals through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, and other methods, without using violence. It is largely synonymous with civil resistance...
- Hosni MubarakHosni MubarakMuhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak is a former Egyptian politician and military commander. He served as the fourth President of Egypt from 1981 to 2011....
- Kefaya
- National Association for ChangeNational Association for ChangeNational 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...
- Hisham Mubarak Law CenterHisham Mubarak Law CenterThe Hisham Mubarak Law Center is an Egyptian law firm based in Cairo and Aswan which "works in the field of human rights through litigation, campaigns and legal research" and is "perhaps best known for its active support of torture victims and Egyptians subject to arbitrary detention." Founded by...
- Egyptian Revolution of 2011
External links
- 6 April Youth Movement official site (Arabic)
- April 6 Movement Facebook group page
- April 6 Movement Blog حركة 6 ابريل
- Documentary on April 6 Movement's involvement with the Egyptian Revolution
- Collected news coverage at Al-Masry Al-Youm
- hashtag: #6April