Egypt Protests: Wow.

Last night, I found the pamphlet being distributed non-digitally throughout Egyptian cities, giving demonstrators some tips on how best to get out their message, and survive, during today's planned biggest-demonstration-yet. I looked at it, thought long and hard about posting it before now, decided against, and tried to go to sleep to blog another crazy news day.
I failed in the sleeping bit. It just felt like what was brewing was going to be really intense.

Lo and behold, within seconds of Friday prayers letting out, it was.

They detained ElBaradei after they saw him in the streets. They shut down the internet and texting functions again, "in select areas" (namely, anywhere a protest was likely--upwards of 8 cities all over the country). The UN issued a stern fingerwag, as they are wont to do.

Some selections from the excellent Guardian.co.uk liveblog that I am checking every 3 minutes:

A Human Rights Watch advocate on the scene says that police are withdrawing in the city he's in.

Journalists from every stripe have been beaten--AP, Reuters, the Guardian, Al Jazeera, CNN...mostly by plainclothes police.

In Suez, two soldiers were disciplined overnight for refusing to fire on demonstrators. Al Jazeera now has footage of police throwing tear gas canisters....and demonstrators throwing them back.

In Cairo, a female protester has been killed in the central plaza--but the police are throwing teargas canisters away and siding with the protesters.

In East Alexandria, as soon as security arrived they began shooting teargas and rubber bullets. When they ran out of those, the protesters blocked in police in the yard of a mosque. Now they're begging the protesters to stop--and the protesters are begging them to join them.

It's afternoon prayers, and police are putting down their weapons and praying with the people in the streets.

This whole situation is absolutely blowing me away--and I could wax poetic all day about the right to democracy or about how the Egyptian example is an amazing, brave and ballsy physical manifestation of the desire for government accountability in the face of overwhelming craziness. But everything that I could say turns into paltry internet crap--watch the footage. Be inspired that people from all walks of life care enough about their situation that they put their lives on the line to change it for the better.

Praying, in Alexandria. With the people previously trying to bash your head in.
Amazing.

The US and the UK are both on the fence, issuing largely ambiguous statements calling both sides to end the violence. This is probably due to the fact that their significant aid money to Egypt paid for every bullet being fired at those protesters--and to the fact that they already knew about the huge problem with police brutality in Egypt. Thanks, cables!


Meanwhile, a protest begins in Jordan...