Shymaa Adel
“I felt so happy. We went to all the places that witnessed demonstrations in Cairo during the past weeks. We were singing. We didn’t feel tired, we were walking all over the city.” – recalling Mubarak’s resignation. Shymaa Adel is a war correspondent with Al Watan newspaper. She is an active defender of human rights. She was subsequently imprisoned covering student protests in Sudan in 2012 before President Morsi intervened and brought her home. |
Shymaa recounts how the presence and persistence of the women in Tahrir Square inspired men to make certain sacrifices: "if she can do it, so can I", the men admitted to her. She also explained how the “blue bra incident” moved otherwise un-engaged women to “get off the coach” and get actively involved in the protests Twitter: @shymaaadel2 |
Interview
Interviewed on 8-May-2012 in Cairo by Tatiana Philiptchenko.
Translation by Makar Barsoum. Transcription by T.Philiptchenko Q: Where were you on January 25th 2011? I went to El-Mahalla El-Kobra to cover the revolution of anger and rage. El-Mahalla El-Kobra is a city of workers and blue collars and in 2008 they staged a major strike. We thought that the January 25th revolution would start there. Things were calm but we heard that they were lots of young activists in Tahrir Square on the next day. So we got to Tahrir on the next day on 26th of January 2011. Police were emptying the square but people kept on coming back. We didn’t think that there will be any major uprising or revolution. On the 28th, which was a Friday, the situation was different. On Fridays people go to mosques to pray, and after prayers at noon, they start assembling. So, on the 28th, we knew they will start assembling and will go to Tahrir Square. I was praying at Amr Ibn Al-As mosque which is second largest mosque in Egypt. We were excepting a large number of people going from the Mosque to Tahrir Square. On Friday morning when I woke up I knew there will be trouble: the telephone networks were down, the government had cut all communications. In the mosque I heard somebody shouting “the people want to end the regime”. There were lots of state security forces outside the mosque. As the prayers finished and we started going out of the mosque, the police started using teargas bombs to disperse the crowds, so the people started using side streets. Regular people who were in the buildings started helping the activists and the demonstrators by giving them water or shelter or helping them out. The demonstrators in turn were asking the people in the building to join them. Some of them did and then the confrontations started. Amr Ibn Al-As mosque is in Old Cairo in a poor district suffering from very high unemployment, so when the police started hitting hard on the demonstrators with guns and teargas, the situation started going out of hand. The confrontations continued and it became hit-and-run and we had to walk from the mosque to Tahrir Square, which we reached after an hour. I had a problem. I had to go back to the newspaper to deliver the journalistic work I had done. There was lots of fighting on the street I was on between the young activists and the police. The teargas bombs were flying all over our heads and it was giving us lots of problems. I was trying to find a place, a little bit in retreat, so I could work on my article and deliver it. I went to the beginning of the street and there was a group of young guys sort of manning the security. I told them, “I’ve got to go back to the newspaper to deliver the article”. They told me I was crazy, “Where do you want to go?”. There was lots of fighting and the police was in pursuit of the people. I insisted and I finally got to the newspaper offices. I realized that they had set up a sort of shelter in the newspaper offices to help out those who were on the street and who were bleeding or something. In the office I could see from the window the teargas bombs flying over in front of us. We felt this was not the usual protests movement. Normally people will demonstrate for a day or two and then will get back to life as usual. But this time, the number of people and police and the confrontation were very unusual. This whole thing started on the 25th of January so at this point it had been three days. The 28th of January was a very difficult day, many demonstrators got shot and killed and the quantity of teargas bombs raining on the crowds was just too much. The demonstrators were unarmed and they had nothing to defend themselves with. All they could do was put the coca bottles in front of their eyes trying to protect their eyes against the teargas. This went on until the army came on to the streets and Martial law was declared and a curfew was instated. People were happy to see the army on the street. People were thinking that they would calm things down. I was personally In Qasr El Ani street which ends in Tahrir Square so I was one the first to see the tanks rambling towards Tahrir Square. I tried to contact friends to tell them tanks were on the way to Tahrir, that it wasn’t a rumor, that I had seen them myself. People were happy although they didn’t know how events would unfold. We all spent the night in the newspaper offices. The girls went into the closed rooms and the guys stayed in the open office area in the middle. We had to all sleep on the floor. In the office we were about six or seven girls and the boys started to form “people’s committees” to protect the newspaper. The newspaper office is in a building which also houses a bank on the first floor and there were lots of shady characters mixed in with the demonstrators. My male colleagues went down to the entrance of the building to protect it from intruders. The day went by and the next day some girls went home and the rest of us continued working. The most difficult day was the 2nd of February 2011. This was the day when demonstrators got attacked by men riding camels(1). These were some strong armed guys who were paid and the camels were brought in from around the pyramids area. They started by attacking El Shourouk Newspaper to prevent it from publishing and they were on the way To Al Masr El Youm where I worked to continue their job of preventing it publishing any bad news. The editor Mr. Magdy Al Galad asked all the girls to go back home. I was not at the office. I was covering a story in Tahrir Square. When I got back to the office a female colleague met me at the entrance downstairs and will not let me go upstairs. I told her I had to deliver the work but she wouldn’t let go of me. She urged me to run with her. I wasn’t sure where we were running or why until we met a male colleague who put us in a taxi and told us to get the hell out of there. I couldn’t deliver my article. We ended up spending the night at one of my colleague’s friend’s called Sohair. I couldn’t go back home because my home was very close to Tahrir Square and it was very dangerous to get back to that area. So I had to spend the night at Sohair’s. We heard on the news that there was lots of injuries in Tahrir Square and that many people were getting killed and that there was a huge need for medical supplies to help the people injured and to take care of them. I felt I needed to go there because there was so much work needed to be done at the square. The son of Sohair, the lady where we were staying at, wanted to go to the square too. His mother didn’t want to let him go because he was the only son who was taking care of her and she couldn’t bear the idea of losing him. Finally, he told his mother that he had to go to the square no matter what, that people were dying on the square and that his mother won’t respect him if he let the people die alone on the square. I told him I was going to go with him to Tahrir Square. He said I was out of my mind. I said I would work on my article and also I would help get supplies for the wounded. Finally, he agreed and I went with him. It was a surreal situation because Ali is a known comedian and wherever we went people would recognize him, they will shake hands with him and they also took pictures with him. |
When we got to Tahrir: He said “I will go to the field hospital”. When I finished my journalistic work someone told me that Ali, he got wounded in the head. I found him and he was indeed wounded. He had a big bandage on his head. I felt I was responsible of him and his blood pressure was very low. I took him to the newspaper and made him coffee and he got to rest. I really had to watch him because even if he was wounded, he wanted to go back to Tahrir Square. Finally, I was able to accompany him to his home but I didn’t want to go up with him because I felt bad vis-a-vis of his mother. This was the most difficult day for me because of all these events. I had so much pressure this day. Some people were also unhappy with me because they said that I was bringing an outsider to the newspaper in an already dangerous situation. Q: Where were you when Mubarak resigned and what did you feel on February 11, 2012? We had the feeling that Mubarak was going to leave. I was eating with some friends downtown and a lady told us: ”that’s it, Mubarak left”. We left our food and started walking on the street. I felt so happy. We went to all the places that witnessed demonstrations in Cairo during the past weeks. We were singing. We didn’t feel tired, we were walking all over the city. Today I feel sad because too many people died; this makes me feel very sad. Just lately there was the Port Said riots(2). Those who went to the morgue to identify the dead said they saw more that more than 190 people killed and a few weeks ago there was the Al Abbassiya events (in Cairo) where demonstrators died too. The sad thing is that we have not been able to avenge any of these people. We have not been able to bring the responsible to trial. Q: What is your assessment of the situation, over a year after the start of the revolution? In the beginning we felt that the army had the country’s interest at heart, especially after Major General Mohsen El-Fangari saluted the martyrs of the revolution(3). So everybody was happy and we didn’t continue the revolution we felt it was in safe hands with the army. Of course, the army has a very strong grip on matters now and I was always afraid that the army would want to keep in power once it tasted the power. When I expressed my fear about this, many people told me that if they wanted too (hold onto power) they could have done that from the very beginning, but they obviously are not interested in power. Of course we have to make a distinction between the army and the SCAF that is eighteen generals that have been all hand picked by Mubarak and they are part of the old regime. They are sort of a political entity not only an army base. Now I feel that Mubarak, who has been looting the country for 30 years, is staying in a seven star hospital and nobody can touch him while if a normal Egyptian steals a loaf of bread, he goes to prison. Q: Did your life change since the revolution? This is a difficult question. Since the revolution I have been working much more and traveling a lot so it doesn’t leave me much time to see my friends. I just feel that now there’s more important things to do than meet with friends. I am trying to find ways to help people to become useful. Q: Is the situation of Egyptian women after the revolution better or worst ? I have to tell you that women have proven that their role was very important during the revolution and I will give you examples of this. A lot of women were spending their nights in Tahrir Square during the revolution and that was a great moral booster for everybody. One of my male colleagues was telling me that when he felt like going home he would look on one of the woman spending the night there and he will tell himself “if she can spend the night here, I surely should also spend the night here and not go home”. Women also helped a lot in taking care of the injured and providing medical care for the demonstrators. And that incident, after that famous picture of the girl in the blue bra with the policemen pulling her. This picture made the rounds. After that event, many women went to a big demonstration that chained the army for doing that. A lot of women now are very politically involved and some women are leading political actions in these events. There’s also another woman (see interview with Samira Ibrahim on this website) who is bringing a civil suit against SCAF for the virginity tests performed on female demonstrators. Q: Do you think the authorities are now more careful when dealing with women in demonstration for example? The “girl in the blue bra” scandal brought lots of sympathy towards Egyptian women and changed some attitudes. For example: I took a picture of a seventy year old lady with a placard denouncing Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi .The words said: “you made me leave my sofa and come down and demonstrate”. The sofa has a special meaning in Egypt as it refers to the people seating at home watching TV who usually lay the blame on the victims. For example before they would have laid the blame on the girls saying something like: “why did they join a demonstration in the first place?”. So the event of “the girl in a blue bra” changed the minds of many people and they started going down on the street and blaming the supreme commander of the army, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi. That event definitely helped women, but women are still afraid. One of my friends got caught by the army during the Abbassiya events and she was held by a group of soldiers(4). She was standing in the middle of soldiers who were hitting her on her body and the officer supervising them didn’t do anything to protect her. They knew that she won’t be showing later the traces of their beating on her body because she will not go naked in front of strangers. 1- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTnhgN-cvU8 2- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16845841 3- http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/egypts-protesters-revile-an-army-that-they-once-adored 4-http://blog.notesfromtheunderground.net/2012/07/retelling-abbasiya-most-brutal-military.html |
