Ten years on from the uprising in Tahrir Square, Egyptians’ hopes of reform are in tatters
The country’s ruler for the last eight years, Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, has turned Egypt into a police state more repressive than it ever was under Hosni Mubarak or Anwar Sadat, writes Borzou Daragahi
It was a decade ago when thousands of mostly young Egyptians flooded the streets of central Cairo on National Police Day, 25 January, and sought to change the course of their nation.
They were inspired by the revolution that had toppled Tunisia’s ruler, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, 11 days earlier and enraged by the police killing of a young man in Alexandria the previous year, a tragedy compounded by the humiliating, sham parliamentary election in late 2010 that had solidified President Hosni Mubarak’s hold on power.
Despite a brutal response by Mubarak’s security forces, the movement caught fire, drawing in young supporters eager for change, as well as the country’s main opposition, the Muslim Brotherhood, which helped crowds push their way past riot police on the Qasr El Nil bridge and into the capital’s iconic Tahrir Square, chanting, “The people want the fall of the regime!”
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