هذا التقرير متاح أيضًا بـ العربية
Egypt has seen a range of political, professional and rights protests over the past several days, both at home and abroad. They come as the security grip on public life tightens and the space for political and civic action shrinks. Meanwhile, the government is preparing to hold its conference at the end of this month to present its achievements to the public.
It began on 16 September, when leading figures and groups from the Egyptian opposition abroad held a general conference in The Hague, in the Netherlands, attended by various opposition figures. They discussed political reform and conditions for prisoners of conscience, among other issues, and presented ideas for Egypt’s future and the period ahead.
Protests soon followed inside Egypt, focusing this time on professional freedoms and rights. Vigils and sit-ins were held at the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate after six journalists from the investigative platform Matsada2sh were arrested at once, an unprecedented incident in modern Egyptian history. The arrests sparked anger among journalists, prompting calls for symbolic action and a gradual escalation of protests to press for their release and defend the freedom to practise journalism.
Meanwhile, calls have intensified in recent weeks for action under the banner “October Is the Beginning,” demanding the release of detainees, better detention conditions and an end to prolonged pretrial detention. The announced actions are scheduled for 7, 8 and 9 October.
Egypt has seen political, professional and rights protests of varying scale and impact in previous years. What distinguishes the latest actions is that they are taking place at the same time, across different settings and involving a range of groups. This raises a question: is there a common thread linking them, or is their timing simply a coincidence?
Beyond the question of coordination lies another about what comes next. Are these simply sectoral protests confined to their respective groups, offering those affected a seasonal outlet for their distress? Or is a broader moment of social mobilisation taking shape, with methods and language different from those used in earlier political mobilisation?
Several actions, one question
These protests have different backgrounds, motives and contexts. They span political, rights and professional concerns, both inside Egypt and abroad. Yet, despite the different settings and participants, they seem to converge on one central question: who has the right to speak, protest and raise their voice?
That question helps explain an important aspect of the recent protests. Activists and rights advocates report chants and protest actions by detainees, including prisoners of conscience, despite the severe restrictions imposed on them. Events at the high-security Minya prison may be one example: prisoners demanding the right to speak about the abuses they face. According to activists, the prison administration responded with tighter restrictions, although the Interior Ministry has issued a denial.
Outside prison walls, the same question appeared to underlie the protests at the Journalists Syndicate. Journalists at the solidarity vigil did not limit their demands to the release of their jailed colleagues. They also raised the broader issue of journalists’ right to speak, work and express themselves without fear of prosecution or detention. In their chants and statements, they stressed that journalism and opinion are not crimes, and that freedom of expression is guaranteed by the constitution and the law.
The same idea was present at the Egyptian opposition conference in The Hague, although in an explicitly political context: the right to speak, criticise, expose shortcomings and demand reform. That message extended to events after the conference, including a vigil organised by activists outside the Egyptian Embassy in The Hague in support of demands concerning freedoms, detainees and freedom of expression.
Although there is no evidence that these movements had a common organising centre or coordinated their actions, the political thread linking them appears clearer than any organisational one. A prisoner raising his voice from his cell, a journalist protesting inside his union and an opposition figure speaking from abroad each acts from a different position, with a different demand. Yet they share a call for greater freedom to express themselves, object and participate in public life.
What is new this time?
The current mobilisation has several notable implications. Some reinforce earlier conclusions about Egypt, while others offer new indications of how the nature of protest, its methods and its direction may develop in the period ahead.
One is the limits of a security-led approach to political and social tension. The harshness of imprisonment, along with the restrictions and abuses described in rights testimonies, has not prevented some prisoners from expressing their views and demanding their rights. Their main demands include the release of those not convicted of criminal offences and an end to prolonged detention in cases concerning opinion and expression.
A similar pattern, with different details, is evident among journalists. Journalists and rights organisations describe restrictions on the media, professional and economic pressures, and measures ranging from prosecution and detention to website blocking and the closure of workplaces. Yet dissent has not disappeared entirely. At certain moments, some journalists challenge the limits imposed on their profession, demanding press freedom, professional dignity and the release of journalists imprisoned over their views or writings.
The most distinctive development this time, however, concerns the ideas put forward by some members of the Egyptian opposition abroad at the Netherlands conference. Attendance was relatively limited, and the conference did not attract broad media coverage. Nevertheless, participants sought to move beyond the condemnation, protest and rejection of the ruling authority that had characterised part of the opposition’s discourse for years. They attempted to propose an alternative and set out visions for what the opposition calls “the day after”: the shape of the state, possible routes through a transition and how to manage the period they envisage after the current authority comes to an end.
Whatever the comments and reservations about the conference, the realism of its proposals or their prospects of becoming a workable political programme, this shift from asking why the status quo should be rejected to asking what the alternative might be marks a notable change in the participating groups’ discourse. It is also an attempt to address one of the Egyptian opposition’s most persistent problems in recent years: the lack of a comprehensive vision for an alternative.
Another equally important development is the gradual shift from specialist institutions and activists taking the initiative on rights issues to those directly affected and their families doing so. One example is “Enough Prisons — Women for Justice“, launched by women from detainees’ families. It called for the release of women detained over their opinions, an end to prolonged detention and what it describes as “rotation” and the continuation of detention for long periods.
These initiatives seek to redefine the issue. They present detainees’ cases not as separate individual matters but as an ongoing crisis extending beyond individual prisoners to their families and wider social circles, with economic, social and human costs accumulating over the years. They therefore call for a political and legal decision that addresses detention over opinion and expression comprehensively, rather than case by case.
This may point to one of the most important implications of the current protests: protest is no longer necessarily confined to traditional methods or organised political and rights groups. Prisoners protest from their cells; journalists mobilise within their union; the opposition tries to move from protest to proposing an alternative; and detainees’ families are beginning to move from waiting for a solution to applying pressure for one. Despite the absence of any indication linking these groups, their actions show the range of settings in which similar political and rights demands are now being expressed.
Sectoral protests or a new popular wave?
It is too early to reach a firm judgement about the current mobilisation in Egypt, whether as the prelude to a new wave of popular protest or merely a limited sectoral movement. So far, its immediate scale remains limited: an opposition conference abroad with a limited organisational and geographical reach and impact; a small sit-in by journalists inside their syndicate; and prison protests that are not, in themselves, a new phenomenon.
But the limited scale of these movements does not necessarily limit their significance. There are reasons to interpret them differently from earlier protests, particularly their timing and the spread of dissent across different settings and groups within a short period: the political opposition abroad, a professional institution at home and prisons. The coincidence in timing is difficult to ignore, even without evidence of direct coordination.
This timing is more significant while the factors fuelling social tension persist: pressures on livelihoods and the economy, rights grievances, shrinking freedoms and restrictions on public life, alongside the deadlock that political and rights groups believe affects the country as a whole. These conditions do not necessarily mean widespread protests will erupt. But they must be considered when assessing whether limited movements could spread beyond the groups in which they began.
Viewed in this light, the current moment can be seen as a new test for Egypt’s public sphere: a professional body acting to defend its members; prisoners trying to turn separate individual cases into collective action; and an opposition abroad seeking to reshape its discourse, moving from protest and denunciation of the status quo to proposing an alternative and discussing visions for “the day after.”
The central question ultimately concerns whether these groups can move beyond their current limits. Will the three strands remain separate, each with its own audience, language, demands and methods? Or could they broaden and gradually intersect with other social, professional and political groups? Can the opposition abroad bring other currents and forces, at home and abroad, under a broader umbrella? Can professional dissent spread from the Journalists Syndicate to other unions and professions? Will prison protests remain confined behind prison walls, or resonate with other groups facing different economic or rights grievances?
The answers will largely determine the significance of what is happening on the ground. The difference between a sectoral protest and a broader social wave lies not only in more ambitious slogans, but also in whether separate demands can converge, reach wider sections of society and create a shared forum for different political, professional, rights and livelihood demands.