Australia's Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd

PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

Let be begin by saying that I have no reason to believe you are anything other than a humane and decent man. I am not an Australian citizen, nor have I had any great exposure to your country’s domestic politics. I have no opinion either way on your stances concerning divisive issues such as the Iraq war and gay marriage.

This letter is motivated neither by a will to embarrass or discredit. I simply desire action.

As a user of social media and, no doubt, as a keen upholder of tasks mandated under your position as Australia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, I am sure you are aware of the case of Australian citizen Austin G. Mackell, who was arrested in Egypt last weekend and charged with incitement at a protest rally in the Nile basin city of Mahalla.

Austin is a journalist, and in case his ordeal has not registered on your agenda, details of his bogus arrest and incarceration can be perused here.

Given your previous declarations on Egypt’s transition to democracy, I can only assume you are aware of the climate in which foreign journalists operate in and around Cairo, and that you take a keen interest in it. You yourself last year stressed the need for reform and progress to “ensure the opportunity and freedoms that ordinary Egyptians have been calling for.” One such call, Mr. Rudd, was for a free press.

As I have already confessed relative ignorance over Australian realpolitik, I am compelled to assume that when you took the opportunity to inform the world of your hope over Egypt’s future, you did so out of genuine concern for its inhabitants, and not from a perspective of grandstanding or opportunism. We are all proud of what the Egyptian people have achieved Mr. Rudd, and I believe we can all agree that sharing in their revolutionary euphoria is legitimate so long as words are corroborated with action.

I referred to you as something of a social media aficionado; I see now you have more than 1 million followers on Twitter. You (or, more likely, a member of staff) tweet with pleasing regularity. The problem that myself and many other users have encountered in recent days is that our messages about Austin’s predicament seem to be passing you by. I have no evidence to suggest your engagement with micro-blogging is a misguided attempt to stay relevant to a younger electorate and continue the slow dissemination of 140 characters of valedictory spin, but you will – I hope – forgive the thought having crossed my mind these past few days.

I know that your schedule as the Foreign Minister of Australia is extremely taxing on the time and concentration of yourself and your team, and for that I sympathise. There are surely complicated diplomatic considerations at play, out of the view of the general public, which need to be taken into account before the Foreign Minister can utter so much as a word on the situation. But to have successive requests for assistance ignored, and to see your country’s mission in Egypt respond in so underwhelming a manner to the plight of one of its citizens has, I am afraid to say, sapped most of our patience with the quiet diplomacy approach.

While I appreciate that there must be a fair amount of hysterical requests bombarding you at the time of writing, I am fortunate enough to be a trained and qualified journalist. So, Mr. Rudd, for your guidance, the facts:

Austin Mackell is being wrongly investigated for crimes that could carry a significant punishment. His passport has been confiscated and a travel ban is in place. He has been threatened on the street and propaganda insinuating to the public that such treatment is tacitly approved by the state has appeared in newspapers and on television. His accommodation has been raided and he is currently homeless. He is a journalist and an Australian citizen. You are the Foreign Minister of Australia. You can do something about this.

There is no need for me to point out Austin’s total innocence; the courts will, I have faith, eventually determine this truth in an official capacity. Nor do I need to mention the thousands of human rights abuses and unlawful arrests that continue within Egypt, for they are not my concern within this letter (and you follow Egyptian affairs closely as it is).

I do hope my take on your silence on the matter so far has been accurate and received in the hopeful manner it was conceived. I would hate to think that a politician of your standing and gravitas would be so pusillanimous as to deliberately ignore requests for assistance.

I remain firmly convinced the former is the case. But I think it is only fair to tell you, Mr. Rudd, that we will not let this drop; that the case of Austin Mackell is not something you will be able to avoid or ignore indefinitely. We will keep up the noise, and you will have to listen. If you do so voluntarily, then I shall be pleased for Austin and pleased that my initial assessment of your compassion and professionalism was correct after all.

Yours Sincerely

Patrick Galey

It didn’t take long for the conspiracy theories. As soon as the news broke that dozens of fans had been killed during a football match in Port Said, Twitter became flooded with people trying to rationalise the horrific violence. The incident had, variously, all the hallmarks of Mubarak, SCAF, the Ministry of Interior, the ultras, foreigners.

I took a trip up to Port Said this afternoon, and the mood was among the tensest I’ve experienced. It’s not unusual to be accused of being a spy here by people in the street, but there was sustained and genuine hostility towards me and other members of the media. The most striking thing, as was the case watching footage of the killings last night, was the absence of anything resembling law enforcement or security activity.

Whereas yesterday, riot police inside Al-Masry Stadium were largely inert in the face of unfolding violence, today they were simply absent. Several people I spoke with voiced their concern that the residents of Port Said were sitting ducks, nervously awaiting a potential backlash from Ahly fans – and there are millions in Egypt, mainly in Cairo.

I interviewed one teenager, who had been at the game, and he showed me footage of the events inside the arena on his mobile phone. It was chilling. There were people literally being thrown off one stand to the floor below. Blood was everywhere.

The majority of people I spoke with laid the blame for the 70+ deaths at the feet of the Central Security Forces, who have been cowed from intervening in clashes throughout the year (and when they did get involved, the results were not pretty). The prevailing sentiment was that the police were guilty of inaction, of looking the other way and failing to properly scan and check people for weapons when they entered the ground, as well as not stopping them being used once inside.

I headed back to Cairo and down to Mohammed Mahmoud where, at the time of writing, anti-SCAF protestors and ‘ultras’ from Al-Ahly and Zamalek (both Cairo-based football clubs) are clashing with riot police outside the Ministry of Interior.

The street was the sight of deadly fighting in November. Back then, a wall was erected to keep the Tahrir lot from the ministry building. Today protesters decided they had had enough and started systematically dismantling the whole thing. I was about to climb on to the wall when the earth physically shook as a huge concrete boulder hit the floor.

If the mood was celebratory at the beginning of Mohammad Mahmoud, then the hardcore – a couple of thousand – almost at the doors of the ministry were getting railed by teargas. Volley after volley was fired, as well as rubber bullets as ambulances, motorbikes and people struggled to clear the way for the wounded on Yousef al-Gendy street.

Time after time the protestors were forced back by the gas, and time after time they made their way back to the front line. Tomorrow promises to be a big – both in terms of protestor numbers and significance – as mass marches are planned. Stay tuned.

Jan. 25 is the date that the revolution began, and hundreds of thousands of Egyptians marked its anniversary this week. But ask anyone who participated in the uprising and they will likely tell you than Jan. 28 was when Egypt changed irrevocably. It was a violent and damaging day, but one full of significant and tangible gains for the revolutionaries.

Today was again dubbed the Friday of Rage, and saw protestors convene in their thousands in Tahrir and outside Maspero after coordinating several marches across Cairo.

I mentioned in my Jan. 25 post that the various motivations of the million or so people in Tahrir had produced tension, and today I saw a continuation – indeed, an escalation – of that.

In the centre of the square, the Muslim Brotherhood had erected a stage. Right next to it was a stage for The Revolution Continues. Both competed for attention through deafeningly loud PA systems, as MB supporters clashed with other revolutionaries. At the time of writing, these were nothing more than sporadic fist-fights that were soon enough broken up by the masses.

Protestors raise their hands to object to the Muslim Brotherhood playing Quranic verses over a PA in Tahrir Square

Whereas Jan. 25 saw a very large turnout for MB supporters, today saw them far outnumbered by partisans of other groups. At one point, the MB stage began blaring out Quranic suras, presumably in an attempt to drown out some the abuse it had received throughout the afternoon. The crowd responded with a hail of jeers and a volley of water bottles and other projectiles.

I spoke with Ahmed, a shopkeeper who had travelled to Cairo from Mansoura. In a view shared by the hundreds of civilians hurling more than just insults at the stage, he was disparaging of the MBs attempts to religionize the protests.

“Religion is for a man and his God. I came here from the mosque, but what place does Islam have in the square?” he asked. “The ikhwan are making a mistake. We all love our religion; it is a vital part of all our lives. But it has no place in government, and no place in politics.”

A man raises his shoe in protest

More generally, there was hostility aimed at the MB in the form of allegations that the party were carrying out the whims of the Scaf  (“Get down, you are one of Tantawi’s dogs” went the chant).

Not even an attempt by once emcee to find common ground (“yaskot yaskot 7okm el 3askar” ["Down with Scaf"]) could silence the critics. The MB has scouts deployed across the square, and they were having a hard time of it today; several exchanged heated words with small groups before hurrying off with tails between legs (not that I endorse the accusation of them being dogs. It’s a figure of speech).

Just as it’s easier to tear a building down that put one up, so the unity of the people of Tahrir is getting harder to piece back together as Egypt’s transition to democracy progresses. Protestors from various groups have vowed to stay in the square and continue their marches across the country. Tomorrow is Jan. 28, a year to the day since the Army stormed anti-Mubarak protests as the NDP building went up in flames. Expect some fireworks.

P.S. On Jan. 25, myself and some colleagues went to the square for Fagr (dawn) prayers, and came across a makeshift prison close to Mugamaa. Austin Mackell blogs about it here.

One of the most frequently stressed aspects of Egypt’s fractious and flawed transition to democracy is that Islamist parties have gained the most from the revolution. With two-thirds of the People’s Assembly vote going their way, governments and commentators from the  Western Hemisphere have been vocal in the need for administrations across the world to support a Muslim Brotherhood/Al-Noor led parliament. We will support the Islamists, the caveat always runs, as long as their power is representative of public opinion. It has been an awkward shift for major players such as the US to undertake, with the realisation that Islamism is not diametrically opposed to democracy. Islamists love democracy in Egypt; they win.

In the run up to the anniversary of Jan. 25, much has been made of the way that Egypt is apt to be governed by an Islamist majority, one that has always, even under oppression, most closely accommodated the needs of civilians, be that through social provision or pastoral guidance. On the other side of the coin, features have ran on how the revolutionaries – a nebulous and troublesome term within itself – feel betrayed due to their demands not being met. Fine, Egypt may have a corollary of democratic executive power, but under Emergency Law and the threat of military trials, it is hardly Sweden.

Poverty and corruption, two pillars railed against during the 18 days, have increased in a year. The economic situation is deteriorating at a frightening rate; Egypt has frittered away more than half of its foreign currency reserve in 12 months and tens of millions of civilians are in danger of falling into extreme poorness.

The success or failure of 2011 depends, as ever, on who you ask. The diverging narratives that have emerged – variously, that Egypt needs to get back on its feet and the MB, in cooperation with the Army and its vast business interests (albeit back in its barracks) are the right people for the job; or, that while Mubarak may have departed, his brutal regimen of repression and nepotism has not – are distant, but not necessarily irreconcilable.

If we are to decide where the weight of public opinion falls – however inexact a science that may be – a good place to start might be yesterday, where more than a million people took to the streets of Cairo to mark the revolution’s anniversary.

The differing commemorative approaches by groups were marked, and more than merely symbolic. The MB erected a huge stage in the middle of the square, and its supporters monopolised a large portion of Tahrir early on in the day. Marches organised by various other factions deliberately started from geographically diverse locations, before making their way to the historic plaza.

For the MB, positioning themselves in the middle of Tahrir was a show of tenure, a consolidation of the gains they had made through due democratic process. For others, the marches across Cairo was a display of diversification, of harnessing disparate support from outside of Tahrir, both to counter the accusation that their popular support is limited to a small faction of tent dwellers and protestors and to perpetuate momentum complementary to their cause.

As tens of thousands of marchers – be they revolutionary or liberal, or espousing any other ideology – crossed Qasr al-Nil bridge, the two groups came together. Chants of “this is a revolution, not a party” erupted from the crowd, directed not only at the SCAF and its declaration that Jan. 25 would be a celebration but also at the MB, who, given their gains in recent months, might well have been in the mood for celebration.

For all the imagery produced by shots of a million or more in Tahrir a year on from the start of the revolution, the positioning and movement of different groups produced yesterday’s sharpest metaphor. The MB got their first – they were organised and have occupied a position of wide public – and electorally corroborated – support. The ‘revolutionaries’ were late to the party, in terms of the democratic process birthed by Mubarak’s ousting, and continue to mobilise to fight for their cause(s).

Of course, there are overlaps. Virtually everyone agrees that the rule of SCAF should end; it is the timing and manner of this where opinions differ. Political parties and the support they enjoy are unanimous that economic stability is paramount for Egypt’s future, but there are several takes on how this might be achieved.

In a way, the fact that yesterday’s turnout was so gigantic was significant enough within itself. It could be argued that people taking to the streets at all is more important than the reasons they had for doing so. But with motivation so entirely various, the tension between those who feel they’ve won the game and those who insist we’re still playing is not going away.

It has been a year since the revolution. 365 days have passed since civilians across Egypt took advantage of a national holiday (Police Day, ironically) to take to the streets with a simple, triple-pronged demand: Bread, Freedom, Social Justice.

I went down to Tahrir Square – the spiritual home of the revolution – twice, once in the morning for Fagr prayers and once as part of a mass march from Mustafa Mahmoud mosque in Mohandaseen, accompanied by (@austingmackell) and (@aliyaalwi). I will post a longer piece soon, but for now, here are some shots of today.

Heading in to the first anniversary of #Jan25, artists in Cairo have called for a “Mad Graffiti Week”. The idea is to intensify the graffiti work that has been daubed in downtown Cairo for the past year, and to spread the images outside of Tahrir. It is partly display of solidarity with protestors who have been killed or wounded in the ongoing unrest, and partly a riposte to the security services for painting over large swathes of stencilling that had appeared in the areas surrounding the square. Mad Graffiti Week is so mad, in fact, that it lasts a whole 10 days.

I went to meet an artist participating in MGW, in Heliopolis, close to Cairo Airport. He is a student at a nearby university, but since the revolution has taken up graffiti. The surrounding area is lit up with stencils of everything from Jim Morrison to lizards. Most are the work of Azooz.

Most of his work is light-hearted; he mainly focusses on music, but his pieces, somewhat unavoidably, have a political frisson. The work above, which he allowed me to film being painted, reads “We need tear gas with flavours,” a reference to the use by security forces on protestors at recent clashes in Tahrir.

Azooz doesn’t class himself in the same league as other artist/activist hybrids, some of whom have received stiff jail sentence for inflammatory or subversive work. He and his flatmate, Mahmoud, operate happily in broad daylight, without so much as look over the shoulder at nearby police officers.

The pair claim they are going to intensify their work over the coming few days, and hope to make it into town proper to graffiti close to Tahrir Square. There are many others like Azooz, and I will try and document some of their works leading up to the anniversary.

Some of Azooz's handiwork. The Arabic reads: "The people need tear gas in flavours"

With just two more Fridays left before Egypt marks the one year anniversary of its Jan 25 revolution, I headed down to Tahrir Square, where supporters of imprisoned army officers were demonstrating, demanding their release. Far more people there than this time last week. I’m still following up on their cases.

Some pics from today:

You’ve probably all heard about Kazeboon, an initiative aimed at getting activism operative outside of Tahrir Square. The organisers display films of army violence against protestors in the past year. Here are some pictures I took at the one held this evening, in Sphinx Square, Mohandaseen.

For more photos go to: http://www.flickr.com/people/patrickgaley/

For more on Kazeboon go to: www.facebook.com/pages/Kazeboon-كاذبون/249589071773470

Former US President Jimmy Carter at voting station in Shubra

Former US President and long-time monitor of elections in fledgling democracies Jimmy Carter is in town for a couple of days to take a look at voting for the People’s Assembly run offs. His group, the Carter Centre, has had 40 election monitors in Egypt since the first round of voting in November.

The Carter Centre organised press access to a voting station today at an all girls school in Shubra. Carter himself looked a little exasperated at the media scrum, even telling one reporter that all he’d been able so see so far were “cameras in my face.”

Carter has an obvious tie with Egypt, given his mediation between Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin that led to the signing of the Camp David Accords and the eventual peace treaty between the states.

I asked him about the peace treaty. He responded:

I believe the treaty will be observed no matter who gets elected.

Which is probably true – it at least seems like the majority won by the FJP is unlikely to renege.

Carter will unveil his official findings on the PA elections on Friday.