Friday, January 28, 2011

Cairo Protests - Friday 3 AM


Friday 3 AM, January 28th 2011:
The government has shut down all main servers providing internet throughout Egypt, no network is available. It's not until now that I've realized just how serious the situation is. Egypt, a country which is supposed to be a paradise full of mysterious historic sites, shisha smoking and beautiful beaches now looks more like a war zone than anything else. Our phones are being tapped. I can no longer communicate with my family or friends through internet or have a private conversation over the phone. I can't study online and I'll fall behind on papers and assignments.

The only good thing about all this is that the Egyptian government is afraid of the power of the people. They know that they are being threatened and are now fighting back by all means possible. They think that they will make it harder for the people to communicate and share information about the protests while in fact they're just giving them further reasons to continue to express their anger.

This is bad people, really, really bad. I don't even know when I'll be able to post this.

We went to get some water in a nearby shop who was about to put all their wares inside the small shop space while under normal circumstances the shop is open 24 hours. To the question about why they were doing that they said that they have to get everything inside since they'll be closed during Friday.

”Tomorrow will be catastrophic, a disaster” the shop owner said and adviced us to stay indoors and not to leave the building. Indeed, Cairo is preparing for the worst day so far during the protests. As a result of the people planning mass demonstrations after the Friday prayers, the government answered with closing down every major mosque in central Cairo. Now every muslim in the country will respond with rage and even those that didn't participate in the protests so far will undoubtly join now. We're being censored and monitored and I have no idea what it will look like here after the Friday prayers. I have to admit that I'm a bit scared.

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