Will the unprecedented energy that seized Egyptian politics abate following the recent state clampdown on public dissent? There is much guesswork, writes Gihan Shahine At the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) a cohort of veteran political activists and analysts expressed regret and concern over the future of political and civil liberties in Egypt. There was clear consensus that Egypt is currently witnessing a genuine crisis in light of the recent crushing of political dissent, an issue that the local and international press have been having a field day discussing and speculating future scenarios. Whether an almost two-year "golden era" of protest is over and whether political powers and the opposition will have to change gears or put on the brakes for at least a while are all questions yet to be answered. "We are in a state of real crisis," claimed CIHRS Director Bahieddin Hassan. Adel Eid, an equally despondent leading member in the Egyptian Movement for Change, Kifaya, concurred. "I would safely say that the way peaceful protesters were crushed in recent weeks is even more brutal than the atrocities committed against Palestinian civilians." "How can Egyptians have any dignity when they have their judges beaten with shoes, when the intellectual elite is crushed, detained and tortured and women are sexually harassed for no reason other than practising the right to peaceful demonstration?" asked Abdel-Hamid El-Ghazali, a leading member in the Muslim Brotherhood. In recent weeks the security apparatus has escalated its clampdown on street protests with anti-riot police far outnumbering peaceful protesters. Plainclothes security men have beaten, clubbed and detained people demonstrating in support of judges demanding independence from the executive. In April, Egypt's parliament agreed to a two-year extension of an emergency law, in force since 1981, which gives the government power to detain without charge and restricts civil liberties. Hassan said the emergency law is "extensively in use now more than ever before, resulting in the detention of at least 600 political activists who are currently facing interrogation." Analysts would immediately rebut official claims that the recent clampdown on demonstrators -- once described by Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif as "street thugs terrorising Egypt's streets" -- is a security issue and one that needs to be "handled carefully". "There are many signals showing that confiscating people's right to demonstrate is a political decision, not a security matter," Hassan maintained. The systematic targeting of local and, for the first time, foreign media, the extensive use of power against protesters and the legislative reforms that analysts say will only allow further restrictions on civil and political liberties are all cases in point. Many analysts would agree with Cairo University professor of political science Hassan Nafaa that the way the regime deals with political dissent is symptomatic of "scare and confusion". Eid explained that Kifaya activists never actually obtained the right to demonstrate but rather the regime allowed a margin of freedom in attempts to relieve mounting US pressure to democratise. The leeway resulted in an unprecedented spate of mass protests which swept the country -- in some circles viewed as a public awakening after long years of stagnation -- and the rise of the Brotherhood in parliamentary polls to seize one-fifth of all parliamentary seats. "The regime allowed relatively fair competition in the first two rounds of parliamentary polls to use the rise of the Brotherhood as a tactic to scare the US that democratisation would only result in the undesirable rise of Islamism," Nafaa said. The government then used all "possible ways of violence and rigging when it felt in danger of losing ground to the Brotherhood. The ruling party then illegitimately usurped two-thirds of parliamentary seats," Nafaa added. The fact that public dissent reached the stolid quarters of faculty clubs, the uprising in one of the cornerstones of the Egyptian regime -- the judiciary -- and the convergence of all political powers calling for political reforms were all equally alarming. "Political activists, including Islamists, leftists and Marxists, seemed to cross all red lines when, for the first time, they all joined forces with judiciary calls for independence and reform," Eid said. "This constituted a turning point in the attitude of the regime which now seems indifferent to uncovering its true face and revealing its false claims of reform." The message is apparently being sent: political dissents will be subject, in the words of Hassan, to "the filthiest modes of abuse". Or at least that is the message which Kifaya activist Ahmed Salah received upon his release from detention where he spent a month in torture. "Now, when you demonstrate, you go to jail," -- that was what senior police officials told Salah. Salah told reporters, "senior police investigators made it clear that the almost two years of protests had been no more than a little break that has drawn to a halt." Does that mean we are back to square one? Will the opposition stop protesting or devise new tactics for political dissent? Perhaps providing the only optimistic tone in the gathering, Osama El-Ghazali Harb, chief editor of Al-Ahram's Al-Siyasa Al-Dawlia and a former member in the ruling National Democratic Party, said there was much more going on in the political scene than just street protests. "The very fact that activists from different ideologies and the society are uniting on the urgency of democratic change is one important sign that we are not back to square one," Harb argued. For Harb, protests are only one sign of public discontent, which "nonetheless will continue to snowball since the regime has proved its failure in providing basic services." What really matters for Harb is that "crisis- ridden opposition parties grab the historic moment, revisit their agenda and re-organise in a way that conforms with the needs of the people they represent." For their part, members of Kifaya and the Brotherhood vow to continue their dissent until they change what some call Egypt's "undemocratic regime". Yet there was no clear mention of whether that dissent meant taking to the streets in protest. Kifaya's Eid said there would be no stopping the movement from changing the "illegitimate regime. "We will resort to external powers who are capable of forcing change upon our government," Eid said, alluding to what some people believe is the inability of street protests alone to affect change. Meanwhile, Eid said that Kifaya members had managed to take pictures of "police thugs involved in beating and clubbing peaceful demonstrators, and will pursue charges against them in court." The Brotherhood's El-Ghazali said the group, albeit having a similar target, "seemed to have a longer agenda of change through a faith-based building of youth and gradual and peaceful reform of legislation and laws in a way that would allow real plurality and political freedom." Arguing that "opposition powers and activists need to devise new tactics for the game," Nafaa provides a pessimistic perspective of a society "that is hardly qualified to provide an alternative to the current illegitimate regime at the moment." "Perhaps the coming generations will be able to make that change. Let's hope so.
