Manal and Alaa's bit bucket

a little late to talk about last wednesday's protest I suppose. hamuksha, digressing and here, baheya and here and here and here , whirlpool and here, wa7da masreya and here and arabist and here and here told it all don't have much to add about this protest.

some photos and all the photos by me and mostafa

the day started with the very small university professors protest, and by small I mean less than 20 protesters but it was interesting to see how the security where acting.

they brought two amn marakzy battalions and surrounded us, then after a few minutes they realized how stupid it looks and pulled back the troops to the other side of the street.

now that was a mistake, the profs where distributing pamphlets about what happened on the 25th of may to students. the moment the security pulled back the two profs distributing pamphlets (my mom and dr nabil) hit the street, stopping cars and handing out pamphlets.

naturally this freaked out the security, they moved the two battalions back to surround them, it was a great scene two elderly (lets admit it they're no longer middle aged) university professor's each surrounded by their own amn markazy circle (talk about David and Goliath).

tab3an the security did not want to agitate the professors on their home turf, so the soldiers made wide circles around the pamphlet distributing profs and tried to shoo people away but did not approach the profs at all, what followed was a funny slow motion game of cops and robbers, the profs move to another spot and in two minutes the troops gets orders to follow them.

eventually they changed tactics and just sent officers and plainclothesmen to ask for pamphlets in an attempt to finish the batch and be done with it, "ma3lesh ya doctora we need to fill a report", or simply to pretend to be part of an eager and interested audience.

the profs had the resources of the university to use, when they ran out of pamphlets someone was dispatched to photocopy some at the faculty library, so the tactic wasn't very effective.

needless to say the spectacle attracted more attention than the protest would have.

now the light security presence encouraged people to approach us and ask questions, we have a real chance of increasing this movement if we get a breathing space, now I can see the reason behind the governments extreme reactions.

unfortunately we where not prepared for this direct interaction with the audience we should have had photos printed out and we should have had URLs printed out so we can show people where to go and learn more about what happened.

the protest lasted for an hour and then we moved on to the syndicate protest, we walked through the university towards the metro station with our banners and signs displayed, more questions from students and faculty, more URL dictating and explaining how people should stop believing al Ahram.

the syndicate protest was big by kefaia standards, and the journalists meeting was really big hope something will come out of this.

not much to say about the protest except that we can greatly improve the impact of our work if everyone pitches in, for instance the posters Nora did with al adli and the two high ranking butchers where very effective and got lots of attention, the banners by the university profs where more visible from a distance than the typical kefaia banners, and off course the citizen journalism we did the past week was very effective in making sure everyone involved knows all the details and in giving us material to work with (I just hope we can increase the reach of this effort, lets all push the never forget document all over the place.

the highlight of the day was when everyone went inside for the journalists meeting, after 1 hour of no activity the security pulled back the troops and the streets where empty, we still had a crowd of 150 or so and the شباب من أجل التغيير kids used the opportunity to do the first protest with no security presence ever.

that was an exciting moment, we where all chanting with vigor but it was also a sad spectacle.

like birds born in captivity who fly in circles when let free; we kept to our well known borders, we had no troops in front of us but it was like we couldn't believe it was happening instead of walking in the street and attracting more people we did the same routine.

by the time we realized our mistake and started calling for movement the security had assembled all traffic soldiers they could get their hands on and a bunch of amn markazy, eventually they got their full force and we lost a golden opportunity.

I don't think we'll get this chance again.

anyway it was funny, we all realized our mistake and laughed about it, its good to see we still retain a sense of humor.

the syndicate decided to meet every wednesday at 2pm to see if there is any progress in achieving their goals and demands, kefaia, the hamla and shabab agreed to do protests every wednesday until Al Adly resigns.

next protest will be a vigil with candles around Sa3d Zaghoul's mausoleum at 8pm (thats wednesday the 8th) come wearing black.

I'm trying to convince everyone to do one of the wednesdays after at al sayeda and implement my crazy plan of كنس السيدة على الظباط المفتريين I got some support this time from shabab maybe we will do it.

it was nice meeting many bloggers that day, we did look like a bunch of satanics with our black clothes and all though.