Mubarak Mobs and Street Vendors: Welcome to Egypt

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Mubarak Mobs and Street Vendors: Welcome to Egypt by Medea Benjamin

The democracy forces in Tahrir Square have braved tear gas, water cannons, rocks, sniper fire and mobs storming in on horses and camels.
February 4, 2011 |

I was in the middle of buying some mints from a street vendor on Cairo’s Talat Harb Street—right off Tahrir Square--when the rocks started flying. I had given a 20-cent coin to the vendor. He gave me one pack of mints, and all hell broke loose.

“Run, run,” people yelled at me. I saw a group of men running down the street, carrying a man whose face was streaming with blood. Then I saw the pro-Mubarak thugs, armed with rocks, metal pipes, whips. “Run, Run,” the Egyptians on the street told me. I ran for shelter as fast as I could.

This has become a pattern the past few days. Thugs hired by the regime, many of them plain-clothes police, try to create chaos on the streets just outside the entrances to Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the Egyptian Revolution. They randomly attack people, including us foreigners. Many of us have been beaten, our cameras smashed. My CODEPINK colleague Tighe Barry had been picked up on this very street two days ago, thrown into a car, roughed up, and later dumped out with a warning to stay way.

please read the rest, the end is great, at - http://www.alternet.org/vision/149801/mubarak_mobs_and_street_vendors:_welcome_to_egypt


A tweet Medea sent four hours ago said, "still in #cairo. briefly detained by military but let go. 3 of our folks held for 12 hours, blindfolded, then released." Scary stuff, but I know they're very excited to be in the middle of history happening. I hope they stay safe.