The Egyptian revolution: An inside story
Interview transcript
Interview: Haidy Tarek Zakaria
Narrator: Mustafa Nasr
Date: 07.03.2011
Place: Room P001, Library, The American Universty in Cairo.
College: The American Universty in Cairo
Professor: Dr. Kimberly Fox
Date completed: 08.03.2011
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Persons present: Haidy Zakaria
Mustafa Nasr
Haidy: Say your name, your major and your age
Mustafa: Mustafa Nasr, 20 years old, political science and international affairs,
Senior
Haidy: Were you in the square on the 25th?
Mustafa: Oh yea absolutely
Haidy: Were you there only on the 25 or for the rest of the revolution?
Mustafa:
I was there on the 25th but we got kicked out on the 25th coz we got beat of at
night. Well first of all before the 25th I was in Taba and we got a text message from a
few friends and they said that there is an attempt to try to overthrow the
government starts to take place on the 25th . We didn't actually believe it but we
thought ah what the hell lets give it a shot. Then we went on the 25th, I ended up in
Tahrir square very early in the morning at like maybe even before noon but there
was no one there. The central security forces had it all surrounded and all under
control. So, I called a few of my friends who were trying to start up a demonstration
“Nour Ayman” and “Eslam Soroor” “Henawy” like a couple of people that were “Jiji
Ibrahim” a couple of people with us on the 25th. And then what we ended having to
do is go all the way back to Dokki. It started off in “Mohy el Deen Abo el Ez” street
again and we had to sort of lead those demonstrations out. There were a few
hundred at first but then we grew to a few thousand because all people from around
Dokki and Mohandeseen started to gather around and we ended up on the “Galaa”
bridge trying to pass through in order to get to Tahrir square.
Haidy: So just people started filtering in or were they all filled in that they supposed
to meet there?
Mustafa:
Well it started off at certain key point places mainly in Shubra, Dokki. There
were a couple of more places, there were a couple of places in downtown but these
guys couldn’t take off because of the extremely secure central security forces. And so
it was little bit of a problem for them to do anything until we showed up and sort of
penetrated through.
When we ended up at Glaa Bridge it was at least a few thousand of us then.
They had it pretty toppled up with a few central security forces and then we sort of
had to penetrate in. Now what they did is that they opened it up at first so maybe
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about 70 or 80 protesters got on top of the bridge and then they closed of the other
side of the bridge and it was extremely peculiar then they shut it off again. So the
other ones were sort of clashing along with the central security forces while me and
a few of my friends got onto the bridge, we couldn’t get back or forth. We were just
trapped there for at least an hour.
Well at first the police forces were not aggressive at all. We were going on, I
was talking to one of the police chiefs trying to get them to pass through. He said he
was going to let them to pass through; he needed a little bit of time. But then all of a
sudden another group of seven or eight hundred kicked in from another
neighborhood and then another one and then it just ended up being over 5000
people waiting on top of the bridge that’s when it started to get a little messy with
the central security forces didn’t sort of start off like that.
They completely blocked it and then certain clashes happened, they started
hitting us with the batons and whatnot. But at least a couple of hundred more
people got through the Galaa bridge and then the other line was just a single line so
we were able to get through that easily although we got beat up pretty bad. We
didn't know what to do because they were heading at you and they were beating
you. If you go back you’re still getting beat, so they only thing that you could do is
sort of run forward towards your original destination and it happened in that
particular way.
Haidy: How did you get back to the square? You said you were trapped on the bridge
and that you had to run but how did you get back if it was blocked by the police
forces?
Mustafa:
Well, the bigger central security forces lines were on the back of the bridge,
the one that have already passed. But there was only 80 of us and they had another
line at the end of the bridge. Now what they did is that they tried to open up that line
at the end of the bridge so that we’d be tempted to go by ourselves 70 or 80 which
still be able to disseminate us then. But we sort of tried to wait for the other people
to get across. And what happened is that all of a sudden they started getting orders
to beat us with the batons so all we could do is to run in the direction and we all
favored to run in the direction where we were headed to anyway. I got beat up a
couple of times, my girlfriend got beat up in the head, it was pretty bad but
regardless.
We ended up just sort of penetrating our way through we just have to push
hard enough because on the 25th there was only lines with the batons there was
hardly any tear gas unless, until we got to the square itself. They didn’t use tear gas
until the very end of it.
They were using water cannons at the square starting maybe three or four
p.m. By the time we got there, there were more and more people coming across and
the people at the Galaa bridge ended up having to take a turn, come back from the
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October bridge. Everybody ended up making it to the Tahrir square anyway. And for
a few hours most entrances to the Tahrir Square were blocked except for one where
people can get in and out freely. It was sort of a response demonstration and there
weren’t any problems going through until maybe five or six p.m. when it started to
get a little violent because people started to advance a little bit. And then central
security forces started throwing rocks at people; they’d wait in, pick up rocks and
then throw them and when they get thrown back at them they don’t react until they
get orders to throw the rocks back.
Haidy: That was all in the first day!
Mustafa:
That was in the first day, that was on the 25th. It was at Asr El Einy off of
Tahrir Square. But they had to advance to lock a center Tahrir square because they
hadn’t advanced yet. They had to throw rocks, they had to fire rubber bullets, they
hadn’t started off bug shots on the 25th. And there were two deaths reported on the
25th I think two or three. And there was at least one in Cairo, one in Tahrir square
and it was just rocks because they threw them extremely hard, they just sort of
shoved them off at us. I received a rock or two, never bother with that. But mainly
we ended up in Tahrir Square for five or six more hours again chanting, nothing was
going on until suddenly at midnight the cars start decided to advance off across a
few people. People tried to push it but the cars was just pushing back three and four
in a row. They gone in the square and they fired at least 20 to 30 tear gas canisters
in the square pushing everybody out. Now, no one was used to tear gas but that
particular point in time everybody was panicking, everybody was chocking and they
locked us in the square for a few minutes so that we’re almost bloody dead and then
they let us out so that we wont do it again, they didn't want it to be just oh a tactical
thing to drive us out, they wanted people mainly to have some certain kind of fear to
want to go home afterwards.
Then we got off, started another protest, tried to get into shubra to get with
the people that were marching from there and they met us in the tunnel that was
leading there and they were just (F#%^) attacking, they didn’t have orders to do a
line, they didn’t have orders to do anything if it’s past midnight it just bloody attach.
They came in at us, started attacking. They didn’t differentiate different
nationalities, men, women, children, old. It was just the whole same thing, they
started throwing rocks at people, they got a guy in the tunnel who was heavily
injured. They just started throwing a bunch of rocks at him and he fell in the middle
of it and then everybody just stepped over him. And that more or less ended the 25th
no body was able to do anything.
Haidy: After that, they said that some people from the police force, they just wore
civilian clothes and then started hitting people again. Was that true or was it just?
Mustafa:
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That started on the 26th and the 27th. I mean the way I saw it, it was just
people in civilian clothes trying to collect the ones that they suspected were heads of
the revolution. I sort of had to stay low, had to lay low then. I mean “Nour Ayman”
was taken, I think on the 27th or early on the 28th before the protests got serious. I
have a couple of friends that were taken off as well. They were able to garner lists on
the 25th way too many of them, myself included. I got a call, a couple of my friends
got a call in the morning from. I mean I had a lawyer that was a friend of my uncle’s
and he said, “well you’re on the wanted list of state security” and it happened to at
least two to three hundred people that were in the protests that very particular day.
Basically everybody who was sort of trying to get a little vocal about it they
garnered their name down. But more importantly on the 26th and on the 27th they
were very successful in just curbing protests the minute they started off. We saw
one on the 26th before we could join it, it surrounded them, beat them up garnering
them through.
Friday the 28th, that was, that was basically when it all started. I mean, they
cut off the Internet the day before then, I’m sure you know that, and when we went
to. It started off mosques and churches we stayed near a mosque while the prayer
went through, I was with a few international students actually and what ended up
happening is that the minute they were done with the prayers, it didn't take a
second before they started chanting against the regime. And so the reaction was
very much immediate they fired water cannons into the mosques, they were tear
gas. We were in Saqa mosque in Giza. There was a tear gas canister that got in
through and the sheikh that was preaching just started flipping the hell out too. And
he went along in the protests even though he was preaching, “oh you must obey
your regime” and whatnot before hand. But it was just the excessive use of force that
just of sort of got everybody mobilized. They’d divide people into seven and eight
different groups but what the problem was is that they started mobilizing from
every single center in Cairo. It was just impossible to contain them because if you
get divided you’ll find another group. If you get divided you’ll find another group
either way. And everybody knew their destination which was Tahrir square which
was pretty determined.
We ended up by the Giza zoo trying to get into to penetrate through that line,
no body could. They got in the center of security armor trucks and they were coming
across ramming people. Basically come across at 70 or 80 miles an hour and
somebody would just be standing there and it would just take em off. There were a
couple of deaths then by the Giza zoo and then we ended up having to go into the
zoo itself after we got completely gassed. They’d fire rubber bullets in the air, water
cannons. And they’d intimidate people basically by these cars running across. A
bunch of people tried to put in stones to prevent the cars from getting but at the
very beginning it wasn’t very effective.
We ended up having to go into the zoo but there was a very strategic point
concerning the 28th and Tahrir Square. The majority of the people that were able to
get there were able to get through Qasr el Nile bridge because of Galaa Square and
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the Sheraton area were the majority of the police officers there just gave up. First of
all because I mean they didn't want to fight the protests on one hand and the guy
just said, “oh, we’re with you” we didn't want his help we just sent him home. But
regardless it was the way that this place functioned, it was almost impossible. The
one by the Sheraton, there were two gas stations and there was another, a set of gas
tanks that were lined across it was impossible to fire any kind of tear gas bomb or
bullet. So all the, all the protesters met. Basically they just had to pierce into the
lines and if they’re able to get that, if they’re able to do that they can’t be any gas
bombs or any sort of live ammunition fired because of this, blow the whole place up.
So just people strategized in that place, waited for a few hours so people from every
certain kind of neighborhood came in and there was at least over 100 thousand sort
of gathered around the area trying to get into Tahrir through Qasr el Nile bridge.
Haidy :ok, how about the day of the pro/against Mubarak fights?
Mustafa: Wednesday February second?
Haidy: Yea
Mustafa: That was, I mean after Mubarak speech, the majority of people were still
angry in Tahrir. It was a little bit of a split up position I don’t particularly know why
or what went into it. But on the second of February at around maybe one or two
p.m. or maybe a little bit earlier, I wasn’t particularly keeping track of time, there
was reports of people throwing stones and whatnot by the pro-Mubarak supporters.
No body paid that much attention to it. A few minutes later all of a sudden people
talking about horses and camels coming in and then we see a flock, maybe about
seven or eight camels, five or six horses and a bunch of people walking along with
them. They had, they had very conventional weapons but they knew how to
properly use them. And not only that but when the battle started off they killed a
couple of people it was extremely bloody and the people would jump on the horses
and the camels to get them down but something else which is heavily overlooked
that day which was the fact that there were snipers on top of the Ramses Hilton.
Haidy: Did you actually see them or just hear gunshots?
Mustafa: We’d hear gunshots and we’d see people getting sniped, getting shot that
were on top that were basically overlooking Ramses area. So the majority of people
were able to guess that off and then a team of the army went along and actually
captured one. They captured a couple on top of the buildings up then, no one I mean
the majority of people anticipated there are people on top of the Ramses Hilton
maybe they were able to escape. There were definitely on top of buildings that were
around Ramses Hilton and on the Ramses Hilton itself so it was sort of this kind of a
perimeter where the snipers were shooting off from. They killed in Al Ahram news
reporter and they killed these three or four protestors and there were three of four
more deaths resulting from the camels and horses and other fights and there were a
couple of deaths at night from because at around 11 to midnight they started fights
with Molotov cocktails again between rocks and Molotov cocktail between a bunch
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of Mubarak supporters that were on top of the October bridge overlooking Ramses,
overlooking the Egyptian museum. The Egyptian museum almost caught on fire
then. So it brought the total death to around anywhere between 11 to 13.
Haidy: ok, these fights, they lasted for how many days? The pro/against Mubarak
fights.
Mustafa: they didn't last for long; they lasted for a couple of days. Well basically, it
was February the second I think or February the third and it would just less and less
violent but the peak of it was on the first when they came with the camels and the
horses because after that the army put in barbed wire all across and around Tahrir
square. I mean they made it more difficult for protestors to get in and I mean no
body knows exactly where the army stands on this or was standing or regardless of
their position. They also made it extremely difficult for any pro-Mubarak supporters
and definitely anybody on a camel or a horse to try to penetrate through the
perimeter. They shut it off from around and across. They tried to narrow down the
perimeter in order to open up a street but protestors would sleep inside the, across
the tanks, under the tanks, and inside the sort of inside the gears of the tanks. They’d
do all they can for the tanks not to move.
Haidy: so the pro Mubarak people just like disappeared or just dissolved?
Mustafa: They were in on Wednesday, they came in on Thursday but they were
outnumbered because after that battle happened flocks and flocks of people came
into Tahrir square. We barricaded ourselves, we built a shit load of barricades and
there ended up to be, there were checkpoints all over the place they couldn’t get in
and there were people getting prepped up with stones and weapons across the
sides. They would almost, they would always be a flock of a hundred to two hundred
Mubarak supporters, nobody knew whether or not they were actually violent.
They’d come in and see how many there were and either retreat back, if they tried to
throw rocks we just go, they’d call in from the central broadcast station in the
middle of Tahrir square. We wana send in a few thousand just to intimidate them
and just the minute they see seven to eight thousand just standing in front of them
they’d just go back. No body could tell whether or not they were genuine proMubarak supporters or sort of paid thugs and mercenaries but on Wednesday it was
definitely a group of people that were paid because we ended up interviewing a few
of them. But after that it just came in very few disorganized numbers that were less
and less violent and less and less able to take on the people that were in Tahrir
Square so you wouldn’t know who they are but they weren’t that much of a threat
we were able to hold them off repeatedly until Friday came and the minute the
numbers increased on Friday it just became a fortress because they decreased as
much.
Haidy: when did it actually calm down in Tahrir?
Mustafa:
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By Friday the fifth or sixth, I’m not particularly sure but the Friday after the
Friday of the protests. Basically it started to get a little bit more secure mainly
because of the barbed wire because of the fact that when the first battle happened
the people in Tahrir weren’t exactly outnumbered but there were only a few
thousand of them. After that people came in tens of thousands. There were over a
hundred thousand at some point, there were tens of thousands that were sleeping in
so it just became increasingly difficult to penetrate through them.
Haidy: that was the million-man march?
Mustafa:
The million-man march was the day before the battle happened. It was Tuesday
the first of February but people completely decreased after then and by Wednesday
there were only a few thousand.
Haidy: And how did the day go in Tahrir after it calmed down? How did a usual
day go?
Mustafa: how did a normal day after the million-man march?
Haidy: yea
Mustafa: They’d be a ridiculous amount of people in the morning by five or six
p.m. basically by the Maghreb prayer the majority of people would just sort of take
off. Families, the children and whatnot. The only, I mean the majority of people that
would stay are very hard lined men and women that are determined to sleep in
there, that are usually between the ages of 18 to 30 that are within that sort of…
Haidy: Age zone
Mustafa: Like stamina set up but they’re willing to stay in there, they’re willing to
sleep in and they’d have camps, they’d have tents to stay in for weeks even. And
these were the kind of people that stayed in the night. The problem was that the
amount of people that were there in the morning is completely different than what
you’d find there two or three a.m.
Haidy: How did you get the news over there?
Mustafa: Well, it was basically sort of, as for regards to alarms there were people
beating on the light poles or people beating on the any sort of metallic object that
would disseminate the sound and that you know there was an attack coming. There
was three main general stations that they sort of broadcast from. There was one on
the side of Tahrir Square, one by "Makram Ebeid" and another one by the tanks
which was mainly sort of muslin brotherhood oriented. They reflected more or less
different political tides. But there were a lot of microphones in Tahrir Square and
there was a lot of word of mouth. And by after the 28th, I mean the 28th it was
extremely difficult to get the news to make anything true or hearing things about
Suez about Alexandria, about Ismailia and no body knew what was going on and
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people were getting beat with live bullets and it was just chaos. But after that, after
were able to set camp, mobile phones were back through, there was at least a couple
of people that were in contact with their families telling them what’s going on a daily
basis it proved very helpful. There were people with Internet in the middle of Tahrir
square, service planes and whatnot. So the news wasn’t that huge of a problem after
maybe the second or third of February.
Haidy: was there really a jumbo screen over there to see the news?
Mustafa: There were a few projectors and there a couple of screens that were in
the cafes that were right across. But for the particular speeches that Mubarak or any
of the presidential committee gave, they sort of put it on a projector in the middle of
Tahrir square. Which is basically a big giant lump of piece of cloth and it was
projected and it was able to get it done but it wasn’t a huge screen.
Haidy: ok how about the day when he finally stepped down, what happened then?
Mustafa:
It was it was mass euphoria but more important than that was the day before he
stepped down on Thursday when people cam in- in the millions expecting him to do
so and once he gave out a speech, they pulled out their shoes and started throwing it
practically everywhere, I got a shoe in the head. But on Friday we were actually, I
wasn’t in Tahrir Square, I was at the national, I was at the TV central and it was in
downtown still and we didn't know what was going on but half an hour before he
stepped down somebody from the building came out and just started signaling to us.
And a bunch of people were able to figure out that he was saying that the president
was gonna step down and that the conference was gonna get aired in a second. And
then a half an hour before the president stepped down the cameras that were on top
of the TV station center just started to light up so all of a sudden we were able to
figure out that we were on TV which was pretty peculiar which just sort of marks a
change in the way national TV has been functioning in the past few weeks and then
the minuet the announcement came the majority of the people didn't even know. It
was so short, it was, because usually they say “ well there is going to be a
presidential announcement tonight” and it takes until 11 p.m. or midnight to go
through and people just didn't expect it and it ended being 30 seconds, it ended up
being arbitrary. So, I would say at least 90 percent of the people that were outside
on that day and there were a lot of people that were out didn't know that the
president had stepped down then. And then the news just started to disseminate
slowly. When it started off everybody just told the other one to just sort of butt off.
And then it just came to that everybody was receiving a phone call from a family
member or a friend that was at home telling them that the president actually
stepped down and it was mass euphoria started then and people started to go down
in the streets again. And it wasn’t just Tahrir square it was every single street. But
Tahrir square was its own obviously. Millions of people in there. The checkpoints
started to dismantle.
Haidy Zakaria
Haidy: All right, thank you
Mustafa: absolutely.
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