Revolutionary Socialists (Egypt)
June 18, 2012 -- http://www.e-socialists.net/node/8845 -- The signatories to this statement announce their complete rejection of the Supplementary Constitutional D
The Egyptian military's December 16 attack on protesters provoked outrage.
December 23, 2011 -- Socialist Worker (USA) -- The military regime that has ruled Egypt since the fall of Hosni Mubarak has taken a harsh turn toward repression, symbolised by this month's barbaric attack against protesters outside the cabinet's headquarters.
Now the generals and their allies are singling out the Revolutionary Socialists among other leading voices of Egypt's left. In a pattern that activists say is consistent with past propaganda campaigns, the regime is trying to whip up a hysteria about the group, using videotape of a meeting at which leading members talked about the need for Egypt's mass movement to break the power of the state and the army. Clips from that meeting showed up on the Interior Ministry website, and on television stations run by the state and by hardline Islamists, known as Salafists, who now support the military.
In this statement, the respond to the smear campaign. [Below that, a range of political forces on the left also offer their solidarity.]
Dozens of activists gather at the military prosecutor's headquarters in Cairo on May 31, 2011, after Hossam el Hamalawy and Reem Maged are summoned after criticising the army on live TV. Filmed and edited by Simon Hanna.
STOP PRESS: May 31, 2001 -- "Hamalawy and Maged not questioned but asked to provide evidence of military police violations".
May 31, 2011 -- menasolidaritynetwork -- Journalists Hossam el-Hamalawy, Reem Maged and Nabil Sharaf al-Din have been summoned to appear before military judges on May 31. Mostafa Sheshtawy has a useful post here, which provides a translation of Hossam’s comments which have upset the military so much (he called for an end to the practice of military trials for civilians and said he held the head of the military police, Hamdy Badeen, responsible for the torture and mistreatment of detainees).
By Mohamed El Hebeishy
May 11, 2011 -- Ahram online -- Five Egyptian political parties and movements unite to form the Coalition of Socialist Forces, they announced in a meeting on May 10, 2011. The newly formed coalition is made up of the Social Party of Egypt, the Democratic Labour Party, the Popular Socialist Coalition Party, Egypt Communist Party and the Revolutionary Socialists. It aims to include under its umbrella other socialist movements in Egypt, which are considered fragmented.
“We [social political activists] are optimistic that the Coalition of Socialist Forces will bring a stronger socialist presence onto Egypt’s political scene”, said Gigi Ibrahim, a political activist.
During the May 10 meeting, there were intense discussions regarding the recent turn of events in the country and how it impacts the revolution.
The Coalition of Socialist Forces has appealed to all Egyptians, irrespective of their ideologies, to amass in Tahrir Square on Friday May 13 in a bid to protect the demands of revolution and for national unity.
By Alastair Beach
March 26, 2011 -- Al Masry Al Youm -- Gehan Shaaban has come a long way since her youthful days as a radical Trotskyist student. In the early 1990s she joined forces with a small group of far-left political activists in Egypt and founded an organisation called the Revolutionary Socialists. They were inspired by radical Palestinian-British politician Tony Cliff, who was born in 1917 to a Jewish family living in the Holy Land and became a fervent anti-Zionist after emigrating to the UK.
In those days, said Shaaban, things were very bad for the left. “There was no movement at all”, she said. “In the 1990s it was a time when you could not say the word “socialism” because it was the era of the new liberalism and the end of the USSR.”
But now things are beginning to change. With the fall of former president Hosni Mubarak a new political left is emerging in Egypt.