LONDON (AP) – The Egyptians who took to the streets on January 25, 2011 knew what they were doing. They knew they were in danger of being arrested and even worse. But as their numbers increased in Tahrir Square in central Cairo, they were successful.
Police forces backed down and, within days, former President Hosni Mubarak accepted the cessation demands.
But the events did not turn out as many of the protesters imagined. A decade later, it is estimated that thousands of people fled abroad to escape the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, which is considered even more oppressive. The significant loss of academics, artists, journalists and other intellectuals, along with a climate of fear, have curbed any political opposition.
Dr. Mohamed Aboelgheit was one of those jailed in the southern city of Assiut in 2011 after joining calls for a revolt against police brutality and Mubarak. He spent part of the uprising in a narrow cell.
Freed in the midst of chaos, he enjoyed the atmosphere of political freedom in the most populous country in the Arab world: he protested, worked as a journalist, and joined a campaign for a moderate presidential candidate. But it didn’t last.
Provisional military rulers followed Mubarak. In 2012, Mohamed Morsi, a member of Egypt’s most powerful Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, was elected as the first civilian president in the country’s history. But his tenure was divisive. Amid mass protests, the army – led by then-Defense Minister el-Sissi – withdrew Morsi in 2013, dissolved parliament and finally banned the brotherhood as a “terrorist group”. There was repression of dissent and al-Sissi won two seats in elections that human rights groups criticized as undemocratic.
“I started to feel, by the way, more fear and threats,” Aboelgheit said. Friends were jailed, his critical writings with the government caught my attention and “I wasn’t going to wait until it happened to me,” he added.
After al-Sissi came to power, Aboelgheit left for London, where he published research reports on other parts of the Arab world.
At his former home in Egypt, national security agents asked for him. When Aboelgheit’s wife last returned to visit relatives, she was summoned to question her about her activities. The message was clear.
No one knows exactly how many Egyptians like Aboelgheit have fled political persecution.
World Bank data show an increase in migrants from Egypt since 2011. A total of 3,444,832 remained in 2017, almost 60,000 more than in 2013, when figures are available. But it is impossible to tell the economic immigrants of the political exiles.
They moved to Berlin, Paris and London. The Egyptians have also settled in Turkey, Qatar, Sudan and even Asian countries such as Malaysia and South Korea.
Human Rights Watch estimated in 2019 that there were 60,000 political prisoners in Egypt. The Committee to Protect Journalists ranks third in Egypt, behind China and Turkey, in detaining journalists.
El-Sissi maintains that Egypt has no political prisoners. The arrest of a journalist or news rights worker makes news approximately every month. Many people have been jailed on terrorism charges, for breaking the ban on protests or for spreading false news. Others remain in indefinite pre-trial detention.
El-Sissi argues that Egypt is curbing Islamic extremism, so it does not fall into chaos like its neighbors.
“Sissi wants to not only repeal the rights of the opposition and prevent any critical voice from being spoken, Sissi doesn’t really believe, not only in the opposition, but she doesn’t believe in politics,” said Khaled Fahmy, an Egyptian professor. of Modern Middle Eastern History at Cambridge University
Fahmy believes this is the worst period of personal rights in modern Egyptian history.
“It’s much more serious, it’s much deeper and much darker, what Sissi has in mind,” he said.
Those who can challenge el-Sissi abroad have decided not to return.
Taqadum al-Khatib, an academic who also worked in the nascent political scene after 2011, was researching Egypt’s ancient Jewish community in Germany when he learned that returning to his homeland was no longer an option.
The Egyptian cultural attaché in Berlin summoned al-Khatib for a meeting and an official questioned him about his articles, social media posts and research. He was asked to hand over his passport but refused. Shortly afterwards he was fired from his job at an Egyptian university. He feels lucky to be able to work towards a doctorate in Germany, but misses the bustle of Cairo.
“It’s a very difficult situation. I could not return to my home, “said al-Khatib.
Fahmy said he has sincerely expelled expatriates for their Egyptian citizenship.
A government press official did not respond to any requests for comment on how to target and intimidate Egyptians, whether abroad or at home, based on their work as journalists, activists or academics, or by express political opinions.
Journalist Asma Khatib, 29, recalls the gruesome days of 2011, when young people thought they could bring about change.
A reporter for a pro-Muslim Brotherhood news agency, Khatib covered Morsi’s short presidency amid criticism of using violence against opponents and seeking to monopolize power to turn Egypt into an Islamic state. After Morsi’s dismissal, his supporters took a seat for his reinstatement in a Cairo square. A month later, the new military leaders forcibly cleaned them and killed more than 600 people.
Khatib documented the violence. Soon, his comrades began to be arrested and he fled Egypt, first to Malaysia, then to Indonesia and Turkey.
She was tried in absentia on espionage charges in 2015, convicted and sentenced to death. Now, she and her husband Ahmed Saad, also a journalist, and their two children are seeking asylum in South Korea.
They hope they will never return, but they also realize that they are lucky to be free. On the day the sentence was announced, the journalist recalls saying to herself, “You no longer have a country.”
“I know there are many others like me. I’m no different from those in prison, “he said.
The exiles have had enough time to think about where the revolt in Egypt failed. The broad alliance of protesters – from Islamists to secular activists – was fractured without a common enemy like Mubarak, and the most extreme voices became the strongest. The role of religion in society remained largely unanswered, and liberal secular initiatives never gained strength. No one explained how many people would embrace figures from the previous regime, especially in a crisis.
Most Egyptians abroad have not been politically active as they fear for family and friends at home. But some have continued the path begun on January 25, 2011.
Tamim Heikal, who was working in the corporate world when the protests erupted, had doubted that the government could ever reform. But he soon became communications manager for an emerging political party. He later saw how other people were locked up and learned that it was his turn when he received an invitation from intelligence officers in 2017 to “come and have a coffee”.
He booked a ticket to Paris and has not returned.
Now 42, he wants to educate himself and others for when a popular movement emerges in Egypt. It is achieved with the media by editing, translating and doing consulting work for rights groups and trying to establish networks between the diaspora.
“It’s like I got infected with a virus after the revolution,” he said. “I do not know how to go back. I will not be able to relax until the change happens ”.
Others try to deal with strange lands. Asma Khatib and her husband are not sure what to say to their children when they ask where they are from.
Abouelgheit, the doctor turned journalist, worries that his son will not speak Arabic after so long in the UK.
He hopes to return home one day, but in the meantime he plans to return to the medical profession.