Tens of thousands of Egyptians protested in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday against the ruling military in a unified call to the generals to return control of the government to civilian power and prohibit ex-regime members from running in the upcoming presidential elections.
Both Islamists and the secular liberals that sparked the revolution over a year ago showed up to demonstrate the widespread anger at the Supreme Council of Armed Forces for their persisting grip on power and the instability they’ve caused in trying to sideline democratic processes.
“Down with military rule,” protesters in Tahrir chanted as and banners hung around the plaza denouncing candidates as “remnants” from Mubarak’s regime.
The military rulers recently barred ten presidential candidates from the election, including two front-runners, one in the Muslim Brotherhood’s party and the other Omar Suleiman, Mubarak’s former apparatchik. The U.S. is still sending billions of dollars in aid to Egypt and continues to arm the military rulers, even as they have brutalized peaceful protesters and inhibited a swift return to civilian rule.
We must rename the Egyptian revolution as a revolt or a rebellion that it really is, rather than a revolution. In a real revolution such as the French or the Iranian one there are radical and fundamental changes in the organization and the system of government. What we see in Egypt now is that a dictator has been placed by a western-friendly military dictatorship —and you know what that means. The Egyptians failed to hang all Mubarak-appointed military generals from the light posts.
It is so tragic when one hears that General Omar Suleiman, the former President Mubarak's intelligence chief, is actually running for president; and it becomes even more hilarious when one finds out that he was actually Mubarak’s vice-president in the last days of the uprising.
If he somehow comes out of the ballot box as the new president of Egypt, Mubarak will die laughing as he keeps saying: Why did you people revolt when I appointed him as vice president?
Some unbiased media reported it as more than a million people.
"Unbiased media" is an oxymoron.
I submit, you are absolutely right.