The protest movement in Egypt

The Egyptian revolution succeeded the Tunisian revolution that saw Tunisian president Ben Ali end his twenty-five years regime and flee into exile (Chossudovsky, 2010).Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on The protest movement in Egypt specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More In Egypt, the revolution started on 25th January 2011 with emphasis on peaceful protest in airing out their views on issues that have not been addressed in the county for a longer time with the participants comprising of civil society and the other citizens who organized a series of demonstrations, civil disobedience, marches as well as labor strikes demanding to overthrow the regime of Hosni Mubarak (Bengali, 2011). The protest took place in Alexandria, Cairo and other major cities of Egypt that resulted into resignation of the President Mubarak with their grievances focusing mainly on social, economic and political issues such as police brutality, free and fair elections, freedom of speech, state of emergency laws, and corruption in public sector among others with labor unions putting more pressure on government officials to join the demonstrators (Chossudovsky, 2010). The Egyptian revolution was caused by several factors, to start with, police force in Egypt were brutal to the citizens with constant corporal punishment regardless of the offence committed by an individual(Khalil,2011). This behavior of the law enforcing agencies caused panic among the citizens who were not able to report cases affecting them to the police for fear of victimization and corrupt dealings before the case is handled (Bengali, 2011). The human right agencies documented larger number of people to have been tortured to death by the police between 1993 and 2007 as multiple witnesses claimed many citizens have been killed by the police (Chossudovsky, 2010). Secondly, the .demonstrators blamed the government of much corruption within the public sector as a result of prolonged presidency power of Mubarak as several great business persons were close allies close to the president’s party National Development Party enjoyed monopoly of all the companies in the country (Roi, 2010). This created a picture â€Å"where wealth fuels political power and political power buys wealth†. Moreover, during the parliamentary elections of 2010, the opposition groups complained of serious harassments of individuals with information in regard to corruption cases in the country making citizens shy away and not able to give information to the law enforcing agencies (Bengali, 2011).Advertising Looking for essay on government? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Similarly, the Emergency law in Egypt that was enacted in 1967 and suspended in 1980 by President Sadat for eighteen month in 1981 continued to affect the lives of citizens as the law extended the power of police and gave the government power to imprison individual indefinitely without any reason (Roi, 2010). The law also bares any non-governmental organization from participating in political activity such as participating in street demonstration and giving financial assistance to the needy with government under President Mubarak citing terrorism as the major cause of extending the emergency laws claiming that groups such as Muslim Brotherhood are likely to incite citizens and be able to ascend to power (Balluch, 2011). This led to arrest of several members of the group between 5000and 10000 to serve long-term detention and media crackdown in December 2010 hence the protest. In addition, Egyptian revolution was caused by power rivalry between the various groups in Egypt who were against the power inheritance. From the year 2000, Hosni has been grooming his son Gamal Mubarak to be his successor when he retires making Gamal to enjoy media coverage as the next president of Egypt and even represented his father in nat ional functions since the country lacked vice president (Roi, 2010). This move was greatly opposed by various party groups most of which are non official parties, they campaign against aristocratic leadership in the country that does not give chance to other deserving citizens to lead (Balluch, 2011). However, both Mubarak and his son denied the claim as baseless and tailored to spoil their names. Moreover, the economic situation in Egypt promoted a move to the revolution .Egypt had a closed centralized economy under President Gamel Abdel Nasser that was opened up by Sadat and promoted by Mubarak who later postponed further economic reforms leading to a fall in economic growth in 2009 (Khalil, 2011). However, despite of high economic growth in the past years ,citizens continued living below average life with basic necessities difficult to come by with majority population being poor with unemployment rate of 10 making university and college graduates sort for other means of earning a living (Balluch, 2011).Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on The protest movement in Egypt specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More In conclusion, the Egyptian revolution that was initiated and organized by the majority youths ended with the resignation of the long serving President of the republic. The international community led by USA appealed to the President Mubarak to accept the voices of the people so as to enhance peace to the nation after his resignation, several initiatives to improve the living standards of the people have been put in place under the leadership of former Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif (Khalil, 2011). References Balluch, M. 2011. The Protest movement in Egypt, Global Research Web. Available at:  http://www.peacealliancewinnipeg.ca/ [Accesed] 21st September 2011 Bengali.H. (2011).Day of departure’ ends with Mubarak still in power. Alexandria: Alexandria Publisher Chossudovsky, M. (2010).The pr otest movement in Egypt: â€Å"Dictators† do not dictate, they obey orders. Cairo. Cairo Printing press Khalil, M. (2011). Invisible Victims of the Protest Movement in Egypt. Cairo: Al Ahram Al Arabi Printing Press Roi, Y. (2010).From encroachment to involvement: a documentary study of Egyptian peace movement. Alexandria: Al Ahram Al Riyadi PublishersAdvertising Looking for essay on government? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Annotated Bibliography Three authors working independently, researched on the protest in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya to test the hypothesis that dictators obey orders of their subjects. They interviewed several citizens of Tunisia, Egyptian and Libya on one to one basis to ascertain his claim by interrogating investigating the activities of the security forces, provision of employment and the law making processes on how their government protect and listen to the views of the citizens. Chossudovsky found out that the hypothesis strongly supported the previous Egyptian regime of President Sadat and not the Mubarak regime. Due to the large number of years in service the President made himself an absolute law maker and did not listen to anyone’s opinion. Khalili cited below discovered that most of the dictatorial laws are made by the citizens themselves and rulers only ensure their implementation. To achieve this, more strict regulations laws are enacted to give room for dictatorshi p as they claim to implement what is according to their own citizens. In contrast, Bengali saw no relationship between the ruled and the rulers and claimed the rulers usually make and implement their own laws without the consent of the ruled who are forced to adhere to the needs of the rulers. The authors then concluded contrary to their hypothesis which had been approved earlier by Roy in his investigation. This essay on The protest movement in Egypt was written and submitted by user Kael Macias to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.