Nazly Hussein speaks from outside the military courts which this afternoon (Friday 12th March) was supposed to address the people the army harrassed and arrested last Wednesday during a brutal attack on those occupying Tahrir Square. Nazly describes how several hundred plain clothes thugs were deployed against people in the square on Wednesday, who set about pulling down tents and beating people up. The army, under the pretence of ‘protecting’ those remaining in the Tahrir then began beating, arresting and electrocuting people within the the pro democracy movement. Over 170 people where arrested, most of whom where later released without charge. Many had been beaten and tortured with electrocution.
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In a statement, the Irish Anti-War Movement (IAWM) has welcomed the victory of the Egyptian revolution over the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak as a “world historic victory for people power over tyranny, corruption and imperial interference in the affairs of the Middle East.”

by James Petras
To understand the Obama regime’s policy toward Egypt, the Mubarak dictatorship and the popular uprising it is essential to locate it in an historical context.  The essential point is that Washington, after several decades of being deeply embedded in the state structures of the Arab dictatorships, from Tunisia through Morocco, Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority, is attempting to re-orient its policies to incorporate and/or graft liberal-electoral politicians onto the existing power configurations.

By David Swanson
The danger of permitting the Egyptians democracy, rather than replacing a dictator with his (and our) torturer lies, let us be honest, not in the possibility that Egyptian politics will approach the religiosity of our own Republican Party, and not in the possibility that the civil liberties we have helped deny Egyptians for decades won't all be immediately established, and certainly not in the possibility that the Egyptians would commit collective suicide by attempting to attack the United States, but rather in the possibility that other peoples would be inspired to attempt self-rule as well, and -- more directly -- in the probability that Egypt would cease to uphold the collective punishment of the people of Gaza.