You Can't Make Mistakes.

Things are getting crazy around here

It turns out that I was wrong about what happened the other day. Indeed the police squashed a strike, but not without a great deal of violence. I heard of this from the BBC yesterday afternoon: Voter turnout low in tense Egypt

It turns out that the BBC correspondent and camera crew were arrested and detained on Sunday and then set free on Monday having been relieved of their equipment and recordings. At least, this was the story that I heard from one of the regulars at the British club last night, so its veracity may be in question. However, this would explain why there wasn’t quicker coverage on BBC.

Again, as I mentioned the other day, I get most of my news about what is going on right here in Egypt from foreign sources because journalism here is not free, which leads to a very compartmentalized awareness of what is happening in the country.

The elections yesterday were interesting. Apparently NGO election monitors were arrested yesterday and relatively few voters even turned up. This is not a surprise though. On a brief poll of a couple of folks yesterday we found that no one voted, having various excuses: not interested, busy, working, traffic, etc. Some of my friends here, as well as their parents, believe the election system here to be so flawed that they view voting as completely pointless. So, they never vote.

The protests continue though. Loads of people are pissed off right now, but it is still business as usual everywhere. The daily grind continues in the city as everyone goes on with their daily lives. I do have to say, though, that the streets of Mohandessin have been quieter than usual all week: especially at night.