Egyptian Revolution of 2011

The Egyptian Revolution of 2011 ‎ ,Revolution of 25 January , took place following a popular uprising that began on 25 January 2011. It was a diverse movement of demonstrations, marches, plaza occupations, riots, non-violent civil resistance, acts of civil disobedience and labor strikes. Millions of protesters from a variety of socio-economic and religious backgrounds demanded the overthrow of the regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. There were also important Islamic, anti-capitalist, and feminist currents of the revolution. Violent clashes between security forces and protesters resulted in at least 846 people killed and 6,000 injured.Protesters also burned upwards of 90 police stations, though international media and politicians attempted to minimize that aspect of the revolt.Protests took place in Cairo, Alexandria, and in other cities in Egypt, following the Tunisian revolution that resulted in the overthrow of the long-time Tunisian president.
Grievances of Egyptian protesters were focused on legal and political issues  including police brutality, state of emergency laws, lack of free elections and freedom of speech, corruption,and economic issues including high unemployment, food price inflation and low wages. The primary demands from protesters were the end of the Hosni Mubarak regime, the end of emergency law, freedom, justice, a responsive non-military government and a say in the management of Egypt's resources. Strikes by labour unions added to the pressure on government officials.
During the uprising the capital city of Cairo was described as "a war zone"  and the port city of Suez saw frequent violent clashes. The protesters defied the government imposed curfew and the police and military did not enforce it. The presence of Egypt's Central Security Forces police, loyal to Mubarak, was gradually replaced by large restrained military troops. In the absence of police, there was looting by gangs that opposition sources said were instigated by plainclothes police officers. In response, watch groups were organised by civilians to protect neighbourhoods.
International reactions have varied with most Western states saying peaceful protests should continue but also expressing concern for the stability of the country and the region. The Egyptian revolution, along with Tunisian events, has influenced demonstrations in other Arab countries including Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, Syria and Libya.
Mubarak dissolved his government and appointed former head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate Omar Suleiman as Vice-President in an attempt to quell dissent. Mubarak asked aviation minister and former chief of Egypt's Air Force, Ahmed Shafik, to form a new government. Mohamed ElBaradei became a major figure of the opposition, with all major opposition groups supporting his role as a negotiator for some form of transitional unity government. In response to mounting pressure, Mubarak announced he had not intended to seek re-election in September.
On 11 February 2011, Vice President Omar Suleiman announced that Mubarak would be stepping down as president and turning power over to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and Mubarak resigned from office.The military junta, headed by effective head of state Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, announced on 13 February that the constitution would be suspended, both houses of parliament dissolved, and that the military would rule for six months until elections could be held. The prior cabinet, including Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik, would continue to serve as a caretaker government until a new one is formed.Shafik resigned on 3 March, a day before major protests to get him to step down were planned; he was replaced by Essam Sharaf, the former transport minister.On 24 May, Mubarak was ordered to stand trial on charges of premeditated murder of peaceful protestors and, if convicted, could face the death penalty.
On 2 June 2012, Mubarak was found guilty of complicity in the murders of the protestors and sentenced to life imprisonment, but this sentence was later overturned on appeal. Numerous protesters upset that others tried with Mubarak, including his two sons, had been acquitted, took to the streets. On 19 June, protesters, many belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, protested in Cairo's Tahrir Square, angry that the SCAF had taken some of the powers that had formerly belonged to the President. Protesters also accused the SCAF of launching a coup. On 24 June, the State Election Commission announced that Islamist Mohammed Morsi had won the presidential election. On 30 June, Morsi was inaugurated as the 5th President of Egypt.

 

 

Princess of Euro 2012

KIEV (Reuters) - Anna darts gleefully around the two sparsely-furnished rooms situated through an archway off a steep street that climbs up from Kiev's Independence Square. She is a general showing off her new headquarters.

"This is going to be our training room for our Euro strikes," she says.

"That's for the girls to get fit on for when they scrap with the police or have to run away from them," she says, pointing to a set of wall-bars and an overhead muscle-tone pulley-bar by the front door.

The topless activists of the Femen women's rights group, whose eye-catching antics have made them the cover girls of international feminist protest, are shouting loud and clear that their attendance at next month's Euro-2012 soccer tournament - welcome or not - can be counted on.

Bare-breast public appearances - flash-mob-style - by the neo-feminist group are guaranteed throughout a month-long Euro soccer feast expected to draw a million or so foreign visitors.

Indeed, Anna Hutsol, a small 27-year-old with close-cut, flame-dyed hair and the group's main ideologue, is warning of a blitz of stunts to dramatize Femen's view that Euro-2012 will only fuel prostitution and the former Soviet republic's sex industry which it says demeans women.

Ukraine's police, gearing themselves to control hundreds of thousands of rowdy visiting fans, might find themselves just as busy with the small army of activists that Femen plans to field.

"We are going to do everything we can to interrupt and disrupt, to break up these (Euro) events," Anna said.

She says she has 40 or so Femen activists on stand-by for action in Kiev with two or three in each of the other Euro cities -- Lviv, Kharkiv and Donetsk.

"We've got people coming from abroad too - a Brazilian woman and someone from France," she said.

So what do they plan for the tournament, which opens in Ukraine on June 9 and runs for the whole month? Will they "streak" onto a pitch? Will they raid a VIP box? Will they pull off an en masse Femen spectacular at the July 1 final in Kiev ?

"I can't give you concrete details. But we'll be staging all sorts of strikes - at stadiums and alongside, at press conferences and at cup ceremonies, everywhere," she said.

"Of course, we'll be going to Poland, too," she said. Neighboring Poland is co-host of the tournament.

For Femen, Euro-2012 is both a target to be disrupted and a platform for protest. Far from being a showcase for a modern European state as the authorities envisage, the Euros will only hurt Ukraine's future by boosting prostitution and making it a sex tourism destination in Europe, Femen says.

It is an event the group has spent at least two years sharpening its knives for.

Some critics question the sincerity of their beliefs and dismiss the young women, all in their 20s, as attention-seekers.

Don't their topless antics only provide images for a prurient, sex-obsessed media and re-inforce the stereotype of Ukrainian women that Femen is fighting against? Do their tactics help or hurt their cause?

Eccentric and contradictory though it might seem to some, stripping down to the waist publicly is the only effective weapon the group has found to get attention, Femen says.

"Euro-2012 will not help Ukraine develop. The only thing that will develop is the sex industry here. Euro-2012 will help make Ukraine one big Euro brothel," says Sasha Shevchenko, a tall, blonde 24-year-old and a regular participant in topless actions.

SEX TOURISM

Other Femen core activists are Oksana Shachko, 25, a waif-like icon painter who handles design for the group, and Inna Shevchenko, 21, a blonde, former journalist who has the same surname as Sasha but is no relation.

Since the group set itself up in 2008 - then using a downtown cafe as its operational base - it has gone on to establish itself as a global reputation.

There is something to Femen's complaints about sex tourism.

Any online 'Ukraine' search on the Internet soon throws up a dating ad for Ukrainian girls "looking for" foreign men.

Though prostitution is illegal in Ukraine, pimps regularly work central Kiev streets, such as the Khreshchatyk boulevard, handing out visiting cards for erotic massage parlors or walking up to foreign men to direct them to apartments for sex.

Equally, young women often complain they are approached on the streets and propositioned for sex by foreigners.

Prostitution parlors have sprung up in many apartment blocks in advance of the Euros, Femen says.

Femen's argument is that Ukraine's authorities and UEFA, Europe's governing soccer body, have turned a blind eye to the directors of the sex trade who have set up shop well in advance.

"UEFA has social programs like, for instance, 'football without racism'. Why can't it set up the program 'football without prostitution or sex tourism'?," asked Anna.

She is echoed by fellow activist Sasha Shevchenko.

"At the start we had high hopes that UEFA would speak out against prostitution. But after several protests we realized that UEFA and the Euro organizers have an interest in Ukraine becoming one big bordello," she said.

FIRST SHOTS

With a new operational base close to Kiev city centre, Femen has already fired its first shots.

On a sunny Saturday afternoon in the Kiev this month, 23-year-old Yulia Kovpachyk loped up the ramp of an open-air exhibition where the Euro soccer trophy was on public display, ostensibly to be photographed alongside it like hundreds of other sightseers.

She then pulled down her T-shirt to reveal the words "Fuck Euro 2012" - Femen's current slogan - etched in black paint across her torso.

She was seized by security guards, but not before she had grabbed hold of the 60 centimeters (two feet) high cup with both hands.

"Yulia got the usual fine of 119 hryvnias (nearly $15) for the administrative offence of hooliganism," said Anna. "But, of course, we don't pay these fines."

The group has started going further afield too.

For a protest last year outside the Paris apartment of the former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, three activists provocatively dressed up as hotel chamber maids - an allusion to his arrest in New York on accusations of attempted rape. He was later cleared and released.

In Switzerland on a bitter cold day in January, Femen activists took off their tops and scaled a security fence at the Davos economic summit.

And in March they went topless at a Moscow polling station against Putin's certain re-election. Oksana's breasts were emblazoned with: "I steal for Putin!"

Their actions typically end with them being bundled away - often physically carried off kicking and screaming - by local police.

But a bare-breast action in the former Soviet republic of Belarus against the country's hardline leadership turned into something far more serious.

Inna, Oksana and a third activist were seized, apparently by members of Belarus's KGB state security agency. Inna says they were driven off to woodlands away from the capital where they were interrogated and made to undress and dress again several times.

Green dye was poured on their heads and, before being abandoned in woodlands, they were told never to return to Belarus.

"It was the very worst experience we have had. Thank God we have not reached the stage of being like Belarus," Inna said.

CAMPAIGN VICTORIES

Anna herself does not take part in topless protests, but reels off recent successes with the pride of a general listing his campaign victories.

"We grabbed the UEFA cup of course. We had our 'sex bomb' action on the metro. There was the protest in the bell tower of St Sophia's cathedral. We staged an action in Turkey in March, then there was Putin and we carried out our action at the Indian embassy," she said.

There are unanswered questions about the group - notably about the funding which allows Anna, Sasha, Oksana and Inna to devote themselves full-time to Femen activities, and pays for travel abroad, legal counsel in numerous court actions and a stack of other overheads.

Anna ducks the question, speaking broadly of "charitable help" from inside the country and abroad and income raised from Femen's online shop which sells branded T-shirts, sweat shirts, handbags and hats.

"The biggest part of our supporters are people abroad. They understand what a woman's movement is all about. Ukrainian society is less ready to help and sympathize. But now we can afford to go to McDonald's whereas before it was a yoghurt and a stick of bread," she said.

And the question remains over just what long-term effect their brash protests will have in improving women's rights. Have they made a difference?

"I can see progress and I can't help but be happy about it," said Anna. "We have new supporters springing up in different countries and they are organizing themselves. This shows that our ideas are not being confined to our country and this city."

"The Euro organizers now know who they have to be afraid of. They have to be afraid of us and they will have to get ready for us appearing at every Euro event," says Inna.

As she leans forward to make her point, the black scrawl of a partly-visible Femen slogan shows at the neckline of her denim jacket.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FEMEN!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FEMEN!

Leave a reply

Join me to say Happy Birthday To Femen and all women who support freedom for all women. If you know about FEMEN – then bravo! They’ve been at it for some years now. If you want to know more about them and their activities then visit http://www.femen.org

FEMEN is a Femen

FEMEN  is a  Femen Ukarina Protest group in kiev , founded in 2008. The organization became internationally known for organizing controversial topless protest against sex tourists,

 Anna Hous founded the FEMEN movement on 10 April 2008 after she became aware of sad stories of Ukrainian woman duped into going abroad and then taken advantage of sexually. Initially Femen gained attention by demonstrating in skimpy or erotic clothing, for example on 21 September 2008 in front of the Turkish embassy a dozen FEMEN members were dressed as sexy nurses with smudged makeup and high pink heels, however at the 24 August 2009 demonstration on Ukranian independence day Oksana went topless. Since this approach obtained such great publicity it rapidly became FEMEN's trademark approach. While most of the protests have been confined to bare breasts, in October 2010 Shachko exposed her Buttoks outside a locked toilet in a demonstration to protest the lack of public toilets in Kiev and four of the group members staged a similar protest in Kiev in February 2011.

religious institutions, international marriage agencies, perceived sexism and other social, national and international topics. In October 2012 the organization claimed it had about 40 activists in Ukraine, and another 100 who had joined their protests abroad,as well as tens of thousands of supporters via the social network Vkontakte.

The organisation has stated that its goals are: "To develop leadership, intellectual and moral qualities of the young women in Ukraine" and "To build up the image of Ukraine, the country with great opportunities for women FEMEN activists have been regularly detained by the Ukrainian police in response to their protests
FEMEN has several international branches.

Since May 2011 a host of international news outlets have started to report about the organization's actions; this has sharply heightened FEMENs international profile.
From late 2011 the Ukranian FEMEN activists started to do more international protests.In December 2011 three FEMEN activists claimed that the State Security Committee of the Republic of Belarus had abducted and terrorized them after they staged topless protests .