LONDON (AP) – The Egyptians who took to the streets on January 25, 2011 knew what they were doing. They knew they were in danger of being arrested and worse. But as their numbers increased in Tahrir Square, in the center of Cairo, they experienced success.
Police forces backed down, and within days, former President Hosni Mubarak agreed to the resignation demands.
But the events did not go the way that many of the protesters imagined. A decade later, thousands are estimated to have fled abroad to escape the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, considered even more oppressive. The significant loss of academics, artists, journalists and other intellectuals, along with a climate of fear, has undermined any political opposition.
Dr. Mohamed Aboelgheit was among the prisoners in the southern city of Assiut in 2011, after joining calls for revolt against police brutality and Mubarak. He spent part of the revolt in a tight cell.
Released in the midst of chaos, he reveled in the atmosphere of political freedom in the most populous country in the Arab world – protesting, working as a journalist and joining a campaign for a moderate presidential candidate. But it didn’t last.
The interim military rulers followed Mubarak. In 2012, Mohamed Morsi, a member of Egypt’s most powerful Islamic group, the Muslim Brotherhood, was elected the first civilian president in the country’s history. But his management proved to be divisive. Amid massive protests, the military – led by then Defense Minister el-Sissi – removed Morsi in 2013, dissolved parliament and finally banned the Brotherhood as a “terrorist group”. A crackdown on dissent ensued and el-Sissi won two terms in elections that human rights groups criticized as undemocratic.
“I gradually started to feel more fear and threats,” said Aboelgheit. Friends were arrested, their criticism of the government drew attention and “I would not wait until it happened to me,” he added.
After el-Sissi came to power, Aboelgheit left for London, where he published investigative reports in other parts of the Arab world.
At his former home in Egypt, national security agents asked about him. When Aboelgheit’s wife returned for the last time to visit relatives, she was summoned to question her activities. The message was clear.
No one knows exactly how many Egyptians like Aboelgheit have fled political persecution.
World Bank data shows an increase in emigrants from Egypt since 2011. A total of 3,444,832 left in 2017 – almost 60,000 more than in 2013, years for which data are available. But it is impossible to distinguish economic migrants from political exiles.
They moved to Berlin, Paris and London. Egyptians have also established themselves in Turkey, Qatar, Sudan and even in Asian countries like Malaysia and South Korea.
Human Rights Watch estimated in 2019 that there were 60,000 political prisoners in Egypt. The Committee to Protect Journalists ranks Egypt in third place, behind China and Turkey, in detention of journalists.
El-Sissi claims that Egypt has no political prisoners. The arrest of a journalist or a defender of rights is news almost every month. Many people have been arrested on charges of terrorism, for breaking the ban on protests or for spreading false news. Others remain in preventive detention indefinitely.
El-Sissi claims that Egypt is controlling Islamic extremism so that it does not fall into chaos like its neighbors.
“Sissi doesn’t just want to revoke the rights of the opposition and prevent any critical voice from being spoken, Sissi doesn’t really believe, not just in the opposition, but he doesn’t believe in politics,” said Khaled Fahmy, an Egyptian Professor of modern Middle Eastern history at Cambridge University
Fahmy believes that this is the worst period in modern Egyptian history for personal rights.
“It is much more serious, it is much deeper and darker, what Sissi has in mind,” he said.
Those abroad who could challenge el-Sissi chose not to return.
Taqadum al-Khatib, an academic who also worked on the nascent political scene after 2011, was researching Egypt’s former Jewish community in Germany when he learned that returning to his homeland was no longer an option.
The Egyptian cultural attaché in Berlin called al-Khatib to a meeting and an official questioned him about his articles, publications on social media and research. He was asked to hand over his passport, but he refused. Shortly thereafter, he was fired from his job at an Egyptian university. He feels lucky to be able to do his doctorate in Germany, but he misses the excitement of Cairo.
“It is a very difficult situation. I couldn’t go home, ”said al-Khatib.
Fahmy said he saw Frankish expatriates having their Egyptian citizenship revoked.
A government press officer did not respond to a request for comment on how to target and intimidate Egyptians – whether abroad or at home – based on their work as journalists, activists or academics, or to express political opinions.
Asma Khatib, 29, a journalist, remembers the busy days of 2011, when young people thought they could bring about change.
A reporter for a pro-Muslim Brotherhood news agency, Khatib covered Morsi’s short presidency amid criticism that the group was using violence against opponents and trying to monopolize power to make Egypt an Islamic state. After Morsi’s expulsion, his supporters protested for his reintegration into a square in Cairo. A month later, the new military leaders forcibly expelled them and more than 600 people were killed.
Khatib documented the violence. Soon, colleagues began to be arrested and she fled Egypt – first to Malaysia, then to Indonesia and Turkey.
She was tried in absentia on espionage charges in 2015, sentenced and sentenced to death. Now she and her husband Ahmed Saad, also a journalist, and their two children are seeking asylum in South Korea.
They hope to never return, but they also realize that they are lucky to be free. On the day the decision was announced, the journalist recalls saying to herself, “You don’t have a country anymore.”
“I know that there are many others like me. I am no different from those in prison, ”she said.
Exiles had plenty of time to think about where the uprising in Egypt failed. The broad alliance of protesters – from Islamists to secular activists – has fragmented without a common enemy like Mubarak, and the most extreme voices have become the loudest. The role of religion in society has remained unanswered, and secular liberal initiatives have never gained strength. No one explained how many people would embrace figures from the old regime, especially in a crisis.
Most Egyptians abroad have not been politically active, fearing for family and friends at home. But some continued on the path started on January 25, 2011.
Tamim Heikal, working in the corporate world when protests erupted, doubted that the government could reform. But he soon became a communications manager for an emerging political party. He later saw others being locked up and learned that his turn had come when he received an invitation from intelligence officers in 2017 to “come over for coffee”.
He booked a ticket to Paris and did not return.
Now, at 42, he wants to educate himself and others for when a popular movement reappears in Egypt. He manages to survive by editing, translating and doing consultancy work for human rights groups and tries to relate to the diaspora.
“It’s like I was infected with a virus after the revolution,” he said. “I don’t know how to get back. I won’t be able to relax until the change happens ”.
Others try to survive in strange lands. Asma Khatib and her husband are not sure what to say to their young children when they ask where they are from.
Abouelgheit, the doctor who became a journalist, fears that his son will not speak Arabic after so long in the UK.
He hopes to return home one day, but in the meantime, he thinks about returning to the medical profession.