The Arab tweet in Egypt is not happy.
Tahrir Square has been cleared, according to the army because there was drug taking and fornication going on inside the tents. The roundabout has been flooded, to prevent the encampment reappearing: and those caught resisting have been taken to the Museum of Antiquities and given a good beating. The lucky ones have been released, but around 170 people have appeared before military tribunals, without a lawyer, and sentenced to between 1 year and 3 years in detention.
A curfew still exists, as does the State of Emergency, and though several hundred political prisoners have been released, including the man behind the assassination of Anwar Sadat, there is little evidence of the promised dismantling of the State Security apparatus.
And on top of all this, the political crisis has created stage bedfellows in the form of the NDP and the Muslim Brotherhood both campaigning for a ‘yes’ vote in the forthcoming referendum on the constitution.
Perhaps the most controversial proposal is that only an Egyptian, who has an Egyptian family, can run for the Presidency; a proposal that has been condemned by the presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei as being tantamount to the racial purity laws of Nazi Germany.
The pro-Democracy Arab tweet is torn between a boycott and a ‘no’ vote. One thing that they can agree on is that the spirit of Jan 25th is in danger of being crushed by the tectonic shifts of vested interests.
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