Egypt: The revolution is being televised...sort of

Al Jazeera Photo

Egypt is facing serious uprising right now and it is burning [Live feed on English Al Jazeera] - really, they are on the brink of full scale revolution. This comes just days after a Tunisian uprising of the same type. The situation is complex and hard to get your arms around. Thomas Peters from American Papist has a post where he found a source that sums things up rather succinctly:

What’s happening? Inspired by the recent protests that led to the fall of the Tunisian government and the ousting of longtime Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Egyptians have joined other protesters across the Arab world (in Algeria, notably) in protesting their autocratic governments, high levels of corruption, and grinding poverty. In Egypt, tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets.

Why are Egyptians unhappy? They have basically no more freedom than Tunisians. Egypt is ranked 138th of 167 countries on The Economist’s Democracy index, a widely accepted measure of political freedom. That ranking puts Egypt just seven spots ahead of Tunisia. And Egyptians are significantly poorer than their cousins to the west.

AP Photo - 1/25/11

There are reports that the military has now been called in, and various reports of gunfire. Clearly the people and the region need our prayers. Oddly, there is some cheering as the military has moved in to deal with the protestors which number almost 100,000 in some places. (There seem to be protests - demonstrations in various cities: Cairo, Alexandria, etc...)

The main struggle seems to be between demonstrators which seem to mostly be youth and students, and the police. January 25th is a holiday to celebrate the police allegedly, and so the reason for the intensification of the protesting and the out-lash against them seems to have some connection. The odd thing is that the protestors seem to be welcoming and even cheering the army.

A big catalyst for this problem is the fact that President Mubarak has waged an info-war. The internet has been "shut-down", media outlets are completely ignoring the protests, the ministry of information is sending certain newscasters on vacation, and state controlled TV is showing areas of complete peace and calm. This is all in juxtaposition to the various news outlets that are getting information out, and then back into Egypt. Much of the demonstration is occurring near and around the Ministry of Information, the National Democratic Party (The Ruling Party), and other state news information buildings.

The people need our prayers so please pray for peace and safety - but also freedom for the people. This is a pretty fluid situation, and a good source of information is honestly Al Jazeera - English which is broadcasting a lot of live images. The odd thing to watch is that the military is being welcome by the protestors while the police are being attacked... this might be the beginning to a much larger situation...

**UPDATE - 12:48 ET**:
Hilary Clinton spoke about 30 minutes ago on the subject, spent about 10 minutes and moved on. It was actually very odd. Now Egyptian State TV has announced that a curfew has been imposed for all areas. Also, the Internet is still "Off" and the flow of information is very limited in the country. Getting news out from international sources seems to continue to flow as of right now, but any information between folks on the ground there is almost non-existent.

N.B.:
I will continue to post further updates on the blog's Twitter feed, on the left side bar. It is rather cumbersome to update the post itself. Unless of course there is a need for more than 140 characters.

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