After July 2013, when Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi took control of Egypt’s political scene first as the leader of the military coup and then as president from June 2014 onward, his authoritarian rule has led to widespread human rights violations. These include significant restrictions on freedom of opinion and expression, peaceful assembly, and protest. Through repression and its manifestations, the regime has successfully suppressed any peaceful gatherings that aim to protest or demand reforms. Moreover, the totalitarian nature of his regime has extended into the lives and bodies of Egyptians, fostering strict self-censorship of their speech and appearance, both individually and collectively.
How did authoritarian control over public space begin? What forms did the self-censorship imposed by citizens take? And how were citizens’ bodies excluded from specific areas and spaces for authoritarian purposes?
The Battle between Power and Society over Public Space
Following the January Revolution’s victory in its primary demand which’s to topple the Hosni Mubarak regime, the Egyptian masses realised that they had the right to peaceful assembly, and not only the right to express and protest against the policies of the authority in the public space, but that through their citizenship, their voice is heard. Their demands are met, they actually ‘own’ the public space, and several practices were witnessed to demonstrate this claim. The most prominent of these practices were the constant presence in the streets, cleaning and embellishing them through graffiti painting, gathering in public squares to sing and practice all performing arts, as well as the founding of several initiatives whose daily work was in the streets among Egyptians, awareness-raising, cultural, and artistic initiatives. A watershed moment in the history of Egyptian society, when the Egyptian police disappeared from the streets and institutions on the evening of 28 January 2011, the Friday of Anger or Rage, and popular committees were formed to protect private and public properties from any aggression, this was an official moment for citizens to own their country, their public and private space.
State Violence and the Seizure of Public Space
Egyptians’ enjoyment of public space was short-lived. With the military coup led by current President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and the enforcement of his security apparatus and mechanisms of repression, the peaceful gatherings opposing the authority’s policies began to vanish.
The oppressive practices of Al- Sisi’s authoritarianism were not random or unsystematic in nature: These policies were initiated by the largest mass killing in Egypt’s modern history, on the day of the dispersal of Rabaa al-Adawiya Square sit-in, where protesters were calling for the overthrowing the military coup and the return of ousted President Mohamed Morsi, until 18 August 2013, when Egyptian security forces dispersed the sit-in through direct killing. More than 600 people were killed in a few hours, according to data from the Egyptian Ministry of Health (the number may be more, according to some human rights institutions’ documentation). The direct killing was not only to break up the sit-in and end the protests, but also represented the new regime’s need for a decisive and visible moment of violence in front of the public, i.e. all Egyptians, as the dispersal of the sit-in was in broad daylight and broadcasted by TV channels, with that moment, the legitimacy of the current regime was effectively established, or what is known as the state’s “monopoly” on violence and its forms.
After that, Sisi’s authoritarian regime no longer permitted any peaceful gatherings—this time under a legal façade. In November 2013, then-interim President Adly Mansour ratified the “Law Regulating the Right to Public Meetings, Processions, and Peaceful Demonstrations,” commonly known as the Protest Law. According to Amnesty International, the law grants the Ministry of Interior sweeping powers to manage protests and imposes vague conditions under which demonstrators can be accused of violating the law. Since the enactment of this legislation, thousands of Egyptian citizens have been imprisoned on charges related to violating the Protest Law. This period was marked by widespread demands for justice for those killed during the violent dispersals of the Rabaa and Nahda sit-ins and other protests, alongside calls for the overthrow of the military coup, and protests against the Protest Law itself.
Representations of Citizens’ Self-Censorship
The discourse surrounding prisons within Egyptian society intensified, encompassing all the associated aspects of this topic after the rise of Sisi’s authoritarianism to power. Accordingly, Egyptian society has realised that prison is not far away, but relatively close, and very close when discussing politics or opposing power. It is evident that a multitude of Egyptian and international human rights organisations have documented a plethora of egregious violations against prisoners, resulting in the demise of numerous individuals due to medical negligence, in addition to a substantial number of suicide attempts over the past years.
The presence of prison in memory, from reality, as an eternal punishment, in addition to the heavy security presence in public spaces, squares, streets, cafe houses, parks, subways and train stations, etc. have made citizens practice self-censorship on themselves, their tongues and bodies, how they speak and look, the contents of their mobile phones, and their numbers, even in their ordinary sessions.
For example, the body is presented in a way that does not draw attention or raise suspicion from security personnel. Security personnel are suspicious of young people who carry backpacks, have long hair, and wear any “accessories” with slogans or flags related to political or liberation issues, such as the Palestinian flag, the Syrian “revolution” flag, or even the Egyptian flag itself, or any T-shirt painted or written with phrases or figures referring to the revolution or any of the concepts of dignity and freedom, as happened to the young an ‘Mahmoud Hussein’, known as the “T-shirt prisoner”, who was arrested by the security forces and imprisoned for years simply for wearing a T-shirt with the words “Homeland Without Torture”.
This form of self-censorship manifested itself in the manner of discourse, whereby interlocutors in public spaces, such as cafés or public transportation vehicles, spoke in a subdued tone, particularly when the subject matter pertained to criticism of the Egyptian authorities’ policies and their president, Al-Sisi. Furthermore, a significant proportion of young people opt to leave their smartphones at home when venturing out, to avoid any potential searches by police while walking in public. In addition, they meticulously strive to maintain a standard of appearance that does not raise any suspicion among security personnel, particularly in prominent public squares. Tahrir Square and the downtown Cairo area have become no-go areas for citizens with a history of arrest or those with politically sensitive views, due to the risk of detention and investigation. Consequently, these places, which are public spaces in which citizens are supposed to have the right to be, have become off-limits, even for those simply passing through.
Also within these representations, gatherings between young people, whether in the streets, cafés, or even when riding buses, for example, any large gathering, more than five people on one café, has become something that raises the suspicion of security personnel, and cafes in Egypt are always under suspicion and search by the authorities. Hence, friends prefer to gather in numbers less than five. Also, when taxis or subway/metro cars pass through a security checkpoint (ambush), friends separate from each other, so that if one of them is suspected or arrested, the others are not harmed, so in Egypt, citizens avoid arrest by maintaining a low profile in their daily activities: sitting, walking and living completely alone. In this context, the manifestation of authoritarianism can be likened to that of a substantial entity that is inherently fearful of the formation of any congregation that might potentially constitute a formidable opposition—given their considerable capacity to congregate and thereby engender a state of apprehension and destabilization. So, it started by liquidating and dispersing sit-ins and demonstrations, since they are huge gatherings that can worry and destabilise the authoritarianism, and then monitored, suspected, and terrorised any other gatherings, in cafes, streets, transport forums, and other places where citizens gather on a daily, social, and ordinary basis.
Body Exclusion from Public Space.
Authoritarianism has not only deprived the Egyptian populace of their right to freely and naturally exist in public spaces but has also practised a form of social exclusion characterised by the imposition of bans on specific bodies deemed undesirable by the authoritarian regime.
This has led to a situation where individuals feel compelled to live in a state of constant oppression and subjugation, driven to evade any environment where the authority figures and their representatives are present. About partial exile, it occurs by combining certain areas at specific times, meaning that when the processes and official visits of officials in Egypt pass, and from other countries, the region that will witness the process of the procession or the visit must be it and the bodies in which there is a polish. For example, in the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron to the Khan Al -Khalili area in Cairo, from the photos and videos that were broadcast, and found that the region was ready to visit the two presidents, the Egyptian and the French together, some pictures of President Macron commented on the walls of the building, as well as the exaggerated greetings to them from the people, which indicated the arrangement of the region before their arrival, as well as the security mentality of the state, which requires security combing The truth of the area and everyone in it, to prevent any inflammatory work of any kind that spoils or distorts the visit ceremony.
Citizens as Prisoners
This partial combing is analogous to its symbolism and some of its forms, as seen in similar occurrences in Egyptian prisons, where prison authorities work to enhance the quality of life for prisoners. This is achieved through a variety of measures, including the cleaning of wards and cells, opening the inside doors to prisoners for exercise, and serving food of good quality during visits from human rights delegations, whether local or international. This enhancement is limited to one day or even for a specific hour, in contrast to what they used to do permanently. This approach bears a striking resemblance to the methods employed by political authorities in external penitentiaries with impoverished communities. It has a propensity to disregard them; however, should it happen to pass by or visit them, it is compelled to enhance and refine them, as well as the individuals within them. This is achieved through the implementation of a cordon, the function of which is to prevent undesirable entities, such as outcasts, from emerging through the lens of the authority. This is done to maintain the integrity of the public visual space, which has been meticulously curated for visits and diplomatic delegations.
Exclusion in the Name of Development.
The total negation of these rights is exemplified by the ongoing ‘urban development and elimination of informal settlements’ project. The state has not initiated any such initiative unless there is a greater benefit to be gained, such as the attraction of foreign investment or the development of tourism in the area in question. A case in point is Warraq Island in Giza, where the government offered the residents a nominal price for the relinquishment of their land. For many years, the residents have been engaged in a protracted struggle for their survival and against displacement to new urban spaces, as exemplified by the Asmarat project in Cairo. For an extended period, the island’s residents have been engaged in a persistent struggle with the authorities to retain their residency and avoid displacement to newly developed urban areas, including the Asmarat and Mahrousa projects in Cairo, as well as other regions such as the Maspero Triangle, Bulaq Abu al-Ala, Manshiyet Nasser, Duweiqa, Rawd al-Farag, and others. The residents have asserted that these areas are deemed to be unsafe for their inhabitants.
Realistically, however, the issue of safety is not the genuine reason for the authority, as it has always viewed the residents of these areas with suspicion and watchfulness, as its economic policies impoverish them and make their lives harsher each year. The Maspero Triangle was one of the shields and protectors of the Tahrir Square revolutionaries, and the residents of these neighborhoods were adept at resisting police policies aimed at quelling any protest movement, as the memory of the protests during the 18 days of the January Revolution attests.
The authority works to dismantle and relocate, i.e. isolate, these bodies that are prone to explode/ which could blow up/ in their faces at any time, by moving them to distant urban centres, at times and places they may not be able to live with, due to the financial and material difficulties they will face in travelling from their new residence to their former place of employment, in addition to dismantling ties and relationships they have formed for decades amongst them. In other words, the authority has dismantled its ‘symbolic power’, as defined by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, and made them prisoners in the air, constantly monitored within the walls of these security buildings, to ensure that any bodies that might gather to protest its policies are banished.
Following the consideration of the aforementioned practices and representations in which Egyptians coexist within their visions, it is evident that the Egyptian populace experiences a sense of alienation and dispossession regarding their right to public space, concomitant with feelings of hatred and submission to the land and authority that are taking root within them.
The notion of the place, ‘public space’, with all its concomitant implications, can be regarded as a safe incubator for citizens in Egypt. The more it’s increasingly being denied to them, the more they feel a sense of alienation from it and their existence. The daily experiences of brutal repression, surveillance, fear, impoverishment, and exclusion compound this alienation. Consequently, they would not find a safe haven, nor would they have a genuine sense of belonging to their homeland. As the space available to them is reduced, they become increasingly alienated from both the space and their own existence.
