Workers Solidarity Movement

Mark Malone speaks to Nazly Hussein about recent detentions and torture, much of it within the Egyptian National Museum just off Tahrir Square, Cairo.  Whilst the world's eye has moved to Libya, the army has attempted to squash down the demands of Egypts revolutionaries via violence and military courts

Many people don’t see eye to eye with the police, Anarchists much included. While this opposition can manifest itself physically when the police employ repressive tactics, it must be stressed that it has far more to do with ideology and the harsh realities of disaster-capitalism than it does with being beaten off the streets.

In an initiative launched by the Minister for Social Protection Éamon Ó Cuív, about three million 'Public Services Cards' will begin to issue in the coming months to 'people over 16 years of age who can access public services'. The 'Public Services Card' will include security features such as laser engraving personalisation similar to that used in the latest Irish passports, a contact chip, a signature, photograph and an expiry date.

Following the refusal of Mubarak to resign a mob of his supporters attempted to fight their way into Tahir square in Cairo where anti-Mubarak protests demanding democracy have rallied over the last week. Some of the mob who have been captured were carrying police ID's. The intention appears to be to either drive the democracy protesters off the streets and/or create an excuse for army intervention to 'restore stability,'  something the official opposition is now calling for. The UN has issued a statement fearing that 300 have been killed and 500 injured, its unclear if this refers just to today's events.

Live broadcasts from Al Jazeera indicate that there have been serious injuries including a journalist who has been stabbed. Footage showed the attack opening with men mounted on camels and horses charging into the square and into the line of anti-government protesters that had linked arms with some people being trampled and some attackers pulled off their horses.  

A member of NEFAC our East coast USA Anarkismo.net  sister organisation recorded this interview with a revolutionary in Tahir square late in the evening

‘End this Corrupt Regime’   - That’s what one young man screams into a camera as thousands of people clash with cops on the streets of Cairo. Just how corrupt is this regime.  Mubarak may have started his career commanding an air force against Israel, but in the 30 years in power, he has become another champion of enterprise and the neo-liberal open economy.  Democracy occasionally held up like some beacon has constantly been promised but never really acted upon.  2011 is the year that has scheduled Presidential Elections, but obviously the Egyptian masses aren’t happy with the promises of something better to come.

On Saturday December 18th last, the Tunisian police stopped Mohamed Bouaziz, an unemployed university graduate, and seized the hand cart of fruit and vegetables he had been selling to support himself and his family. Enraged by the injustice and despairing of any escape from destitution and starvation in Tunisia’s impoverished economy, increasingly ravaged by rising food prices, the young man set fire to himself in protest outside the town hall in Sidi Bouzid, 200km south-west of the capital Tunis. The young man was later to die in hospital.

On 5 January, the frustration, deep unease, and hopelessness of young Algerians exploded onto the streets. Since then, they have been throwing stones, burning tires and brandishing any object that they can turn into a weapon. By Amel Yacef

After a dramatic 24 hours when Tunisia's dictator president Ben Ali first tried promising liberalisation and an end to police shootings of demonstrators and then, this evening at 16:00, declaring martial law, he has finally fallen from office. While the rumours are still swirling, one thing is clear, Ben Ali has left Tunisia and the army has stepped in.

A mass wave of riots by ordinary people against the government have swept Tunisia for the last three weeks under a near-total media blackout in the West. We look at what's been happening and why it's being kept off our TV screens.

Sevinc Karaca, a Turkish anarchist and feminist, describes the fine line that Muslim women must navigate between Islam and the West. "In all Muslim countries, women had to wait until the 1970s and 1980s for a feminist movement that questioned the practise of religion and its role in the oppression of women. As Feminists in the West beat around the bush with an air of multi-culturalist political correctness and go out of their way to show respect for exotic religions, there is a growing number of feminists in countries like Turkey and Iran and among the diaspora in non- Muslim countries whose policies and strategies for feminism do not take the route of Western Liberal Feminism. The majority of feminist ideologies and activism in the developed world today do not address and support the struggle of their Muslim comrades openly, directly or sufficiently."