Egypt has adopted a new law severely restricting public gatherings. The police must be informed of, and approve, any rally or protest no less than three days in advance, and even as many as 10 people gathered together in the street may be considered as organized protesters, and be charged as holding an illegal gathering.
OK. This had to happen, and I would hope that no one would be surprised. Not because of the kind of obvious fact that, you know, military dictatorships are slightly different from democracies. I mean, one just kind of expects things like martial law and curfews and bans on public gatherings in countries ruled by generals. But that isn’t actually why it was inevitable.
It was inevitable because the reality is that Mursi wasn’t the problem. Not only that, actually Mubarak wasn’t the problem either. It was inevitable because you can’t pretend that people are rising up for political change when they are actually rising up for socioeconomic change.
The only way you can get away with that recasting of the narrative is to repress the population, so they can’t contradict you. The people have been consistently protesting on basically the same set of issues from the beginning until now, and these issues continue to be disregarded.
The army had two choices when they overthrew Mursi. They could have actually responded to the demands of the people (who are not, remember, their constituents), or they could suppress them. Their choice shouldn’t really come as a surprise.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25079696
External Context سياق خارجي
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25079696