Khaled Fahmy trudged down to Tahrir Square in Cairo four years ago to join what he expected to be another small demonstration crushed by overwhelming police forces. Instead he found himself alongside tens of thousands of fellow Egyptians calling for the downfall of Hosni Mubarak and the end of a 30-year dictatorship. Day after day they returned, believing finally their voice was being heard. A new slogan spread, symbolising the demand for dignity: “Irfa’ rasak fo’. Inta Masri” (Lift up your head. You’re Egyptian.)
How distant those heady days now seem, how naive those expectations of democracy. Mubarak was ousted, yet Egypt is now gripped by a worse military dictatorship “that has arrested our friends, imprisoned our comrades and quashed our dreams”. Kangaroo courts have passed hundreds of death sentences and journalists and human rights activists have been jailed, while security forces carried out one of the biggest killings of protesters in recent memory. Despite this, the west continues to support and sell arms to this hideous regime.
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