Egypt

Campaigners internationally have welcomed the news that human rights lawyer Mahienour el-Massry and trade unionist Moatasem Medhat were released from an Egyptian prison on 16 January.

They had both been jailed in November 2017 for allegedly breaching Egypt’s repressive anti-protest law, for “insulting the president”, and for thuggery during the protests over the transfer of Egyptian islands Tiran and Sanafir. The charges against the duo were dropped after an appeal, while three other activists were tried and charged in absentia.

On the fifth anniversary of the Arab Spring revolutions the rumblings of discontent continue to cause panic in the regimes. Arab rulers remain terrified of the ghost of revolution.

As Egyptian security forces moved to clamp down on any event to mark the uprising, protests in Tunisia erupted once again, sparking memories of the 2011 Arab revolutions. The demonstrations, which began in the city of Kasserine and spread to other Tunisian cities, demanded “Work, freedom, dignity”.

The left in Egypt is gripped by an intense debate over the question of how revolutionaries should relate to the Islamist movement in general, and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular. The starting point was a statement published by the Revolutionary Socialists (RS) on 19 July, followed by a longer document calling on the left to rethink its attitude to the Muslim Brotherhood in order to build more effective opposition to the military regime of Abdelfattah al-Sisi.

A crisis caused by uncollected rubbish has triggered the biggest popular protest in Lebanon for a generation. And in Iraq, discontent over electricity shortages has galvanised a movement for an end to corruption and the sectarian wars.

The fast pace of neoliberal reforms in Egypt has pushed workers in the civil service to call for a million-man protest march in September, while low-ranking police officers have staged a series of strikes despite the threat of harsh penalties.

The Egyptian state has once again arrested Mahienour el-Massry.

Mahienour, along with renowned revolutionary Youssef Shaaban and six others, has been charged with storming the al-Raml police station in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria in March 2013.

On the day a small group of demonstrators staged a protest outside the trial of policemen accused of murdering political blogger Khaled Said, whose death triggered the 25 January revolution.

On 13 March Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi will open the Egypt Economic Development Conference (EEDC) in Sharm el-Sheikh. The event’s slick website (egyptthefuture.com)urges attendees to “join world leaders and the international investment community in shaping an unprecedented plan for Egypt’s prosperity”.

The heartbreaking murder of a young woman activist has exposed the fragility in the rule of Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. Shaimaa al-Sabbagh, a well respected member of Egypt’s left wing Socialist Popular Alliance Party, was shot in the chest by riot police as she was preparing to lay a wreath in Tahrir Square on the fourth anniversary of the revolution.

The new university year in Egypt kicked off with a series of demonstrations by students angry at draconian anti-protest laws passed by the goverment of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Students across the country are demanding the removal of the private security firm Falcon Guards from campuses as well as an end to new laws banning protests.

This much-anticipated and authoritative book by Anne Alexander and Mostafa Bassiouny tracks the role of the Egyptian working class movements in the 2011 Revolution. It is a closely argued, detailed and thorough examination of the dynamics of the revolution and the potential for workers to make a profound change in Egyptian society.

Alexander and Bassiouny begin with the definition of the Egyptian military — not a neutral body standing above society mediating between different interests, nor is it simply a charmed circle of personalities, but a brutal agent of class rule.

"We have seen a massive turnout at the polls culminate in Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's election as president with 93 percent of the vote in the midst of massive popular celebrations."

This is the picture which the counter-revolution's media is falsely presenting to summarise the presidential elections.

The reality is more complex. It is necessary for revolutionaries at every moment of the struggle, whether during a period of upturn or retreat, to analyse the situation and set the tactics needed to advance towards revolution, and towards building the revolutionary party.