1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

January 25, a crowd gathered on Tahrir Square in Cairo. The demonstration was originally conceived as a protest against the police who for decades had forcefully cracked down on any serious opposition to President Mubarak.

Inspired by the upheaval in Tunisia, the call for revolt spread via mobile phones, Facebook and Twitter, and soon thousands demanded regime change in the largest country in the Arab world. A country characterized by poverty, corruption and unemployment; a country where millions of young Egyptians grow up with no prospects of a job and therefore few opportunities to move away from home and eventually get married.

Day by day the crowd grow bigger and the demonstrators refused to leave the Square before President Hosni Mubarak resigns from office.

Even though the demonstrators on Tahrir Square where stormed several times by Mubaraks security forces and attacked by groups of Mubarak supporters, they dug in and built barricades, first-aid stations and large encampments. They were surrounded by the military and by a country unsure of which side it should support. The atmosphere on the square hovered somewhere between the fear of a massacre and the euphoric sensation that Egyptians could stand in the middle of Cairo with a placard and say nasty things about the president.

The public pressure increased, as did the pressure from the outside world and from the army that has propped up all modern Egyptian rulers. After 18 days – release came when Mubarak resigned on February 11. Tahrir Square emerged as the victor of the first round, but no one knows if the demonstrators will achieve the freedom and democracy they fought for in the streets. Time will tell.

***

A wounded Anti-Mubarak demonstrator has returned to the frontline to help defending the barricades against pro-Mubarak demonstrators trying to enter the square.