Photo Diary of my trip to Revolutionary Cairo so far

This is my first attempt at a photo-diary/essay. Comments and tips would be very much appreciated. People and NGO’s are free to use these photos so long as they credit me and link to this blog. Businesses need my express permission and will be expected to pay. A written post is coming soon.

Out my window on the flight out of Syndey.

It was a long flight....

I met Omar at Changi airport in Singapore. This photo was taken at a bar in Dubai Airport during our wait for a connecting flight to Cairo. He was very excited to be flying home at this historic juncture.

Me, approaching the 24 hours on-planes-or-in-airport mark.

This beautiful landscape is, I'm pretty sure, part of Saudi Arabia, where dissent is brewing against the US backed dictatorial monarchy.

More of the mountains of the Arabian Peninsula.

An Egyptian internet provider attempts to cash in on the revolutionary spirit of the times.

 

A presumably Egyptian man crossing the Nile on a motorbike.

 

Omar Mostafa catches up with a dear old friend, and according to Omar, the best mechanic in Cairo.

A bunch of Egyptian men who were curious about the foreigner, and very friendly. Soon after I took this photo I was the first time of many some apparently random dude would come up to me and start asking me, in a very hostile tone, who I was and what I was doing.

I snapped this graffiti outside a very chill cafe/bar not far from Tahrir that my old friend and flatmate Monty took me to on my first night in Cairo. I actually tried going there again yesterday, after fleeing Tahrir SQ. It was closed, another sign things are getting worse, before, inshallah, they get better.

Egypt’s feared interior ministry was set ablaze. Some say by its enemies, some say by its former employees, to destroy the evidence of their crimes. State security offices across the country would later be stormed by protesters in an attempt to stop further destruction of evidence, and in the hope of finding political prisoners held within. Almost all the offices have been stormed but one in Cairo, which the army, and armed “civillians” (read regime paid thugs) drove protester away from with violence.

Woah-oh-oh-oh he’s a workin’ class man.

I was at a protest by striking teachers (one of the many labour actions that have taken place across Egypt since the revolution began) and had the increasingly familiar, but still unnerving experience of being questioned in a very hostile manner by seemingly random dudes.

A 34 year old sociology graduate and teacher named Ammar holds up his contract. It states his pay is 110 Egyptian pounds ($18.60 US) a month with an annual Labour Day bonus of ten pounds ($1.69).

A striking public servant (ministry of justice employee) holds up a sign saying "Salute to the Martyrs of the Revolution"

Striking workers outside the Ministry of Justice. While paid nearly ten times as much as the teachers striking round the corner, they still consider their pay unfairly low. Especially considering the healthy salaries of the politicians who command them.

An Egyptian soldier brandishes his rifle in an attempt to disperse a spontaneous protest that erupted after the alleged murder of a minibus driver by a police officer over a road rage incident (see my post "Road Rage, Murder, Protest and Repression in New Maadi, Cairo" for more info).

Protesters in Tahrir Square hold up a newspaper showing eight dictators who have faced or will face insurrection from their people.

My old friend from Beirut, award winning film maker Montasser Bayoud, and his cousin Ali, at a friday protest in Tahrir

Young men celebrating their freedom, prematurely it would seem, in Tahrir square on Friday 16 February. That night the army sent in masked troops armed with tazers and batons. The high command of the army apologised the next day, but similar things have happened to protesters since on multiple occasions.

I hope these kids were home by the time the violence started.

Another beautiful Egyptian family in Tahrir. Again, one can only hope they were safe.

Egyptian men praying in Tahrir Square during a friday protest.

Monty looks back towards the crowd as we make our way home. Just after midnight the army would descend violently on the few hundred protesters who remained with the intention of staying over night.

An Egyptian protester lights up Tahrir Square by setting off a flare

This was a small protest held separately, at the Egyptian parliament, just outside Tahrir. It was run by a group of more hardcore protesters who were demanding the immediate removal of the then Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, a late in the game Mubarak appointee. Shafiq would go, but not before these protesters were cordoned off and brutally attacked.

Graffiti outside the art school in Zamalek, the posh area of Cairo (an island on the Nile actually) where I have parked my bourgeoise arse.

A Banksy appropriation (I don't think it's an original, but you never know with that guy... maybe he was here... maybe he started the whole thing). This was also in Zamalek, just next to the piece displayed above.

A protester in Tahrir holds out bullets he says were fired at protesters by the army.

On Wednesday the 9th of March protesters in Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt, were attacked by the army and men in civillian clothes, who many say are paid thugs. At least fifteen were injured (the actual total is definitely many more). The army and the thugs then destroyed the tent city that the protesters had been staying in. This is them proudly proclaiming their victory. While the army had used force against protesters many times since promising it wouldn't, seeing them work side by side with the hated "baltagiya", in the middle of the day, in Tahrir, was a turning point. Check out my previous post "Egyptian Army and Thugs clear Tahrir Square with force" for more details.

Another shot back towards Tahrir after we had been driven out along with the protesters. They pulled down everything but the flag.

I took this shot just after leaving Tahrir, from the balcony of a fellow journalists hotel room.

What I think was a group of pro-democracy activists discussing their options after being booted from Tahrir forcefully.

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