Back to the Streets: Down with Military Rule

Statement by the Revolutionary Socialists

Despite repression, arrests, and the protest ban law, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets today to protest the military dictator Sisi’s decision to surrender the islands of Tiran and Sanafir to his Gulf masters. The protesters’ chants widened to encompass far more than the issue of the islands, rising to demands for freedom, justice, the release of detainees, Sisi’s removal, and the overthrow of military rule.

Security forces responded with their usual brutality and oppression, dispersing most demonstrations with birdshot and tear gas while arresting dozens of protesters in Cairo, Alexandria, Dakahlia, Suez, Ismailia, Beheira, and other cities. Meanwhile, the violent campaigns targeting young people in the streets around downtown Cairo continue unabated. Our primary demand is the immediate release of these detainees, along with all those imprisoned in the military’s jails. We must stand in solidarity and defend them through every possible means against the violations they face.

Today, however, marks the first time in nearly two years that thousands have broken through the barriers of fear, repression, and the regime’s confiscation of public spaces and the streets. They have created a deep fissure in the solid wall built by Sisi and his regime since the military coup in the summer of 2013, followed by massacres and crimes against the Egyptian people and their freedoms. Thousands of protesters openly threw the protest ban law to the wind—a repressive law under which the ruling authorities have imprisoned thousands. This bold act of defiance is undoubtedly the most significant achievement of the day.

Today represents a fresh start for the popular movement, a turning point that Sisi and his regime did not anticipate. This momentum will likely grow as thousands more join, primarily as the regime’s worsening crisis drives it to escalate economic and political pressures. Sisi will not escape accountability for his crimes—murder, arrests, the torture of tens of thousands, the suppression of freedoms, the deepening of poverty, and the plundering of the people’s resources, wealth, and land to sell them off.

Now is the time to escalate the fight against this brutal dictator’s regime, particularly as it faces a severe crisis on all fronts—economic, political, and international. Let us continue the battle to overturn the decision to surrender the islands, building on this struggle to dismantle this regime and overthrow military rule. Let the widespread protests that drew thousands today serve as a new beginning for the popular movement—one in which the issue of the islands opens the door to addressing broader issues of economic exploitation, austerity, political repression, torture, arrests, and the regime’s corrupt alliances with the reactionary monarchies and counterrevolutionary forces in the Gulf.

Our next rendezvous is April 25. Let us raise the slogans: Freedom for the detainees, justice for the poor and oppressed, and Tiran and Sanafir belong to the people.