Cairo Post

I don’t know how much coverage this is getting in the States — on Monday, 34 constitutional amendments will go to vote by referendum, and this being Egypt, via vote-rigging and low turnout, they will pass. Among the controversial changes to the country’s constitution:

1.) Tight "anti-terror" laws that greatly expands surveillance and arrest ability. Like the Patriot Act in the States, only more thuggish.

2.) President Mubarak can dissolve parliament unilaterally, when he wants

3.) A new government-appointed election commission to "certify" results, finally cutting out that pain of an independent judiciary

4.) Banning political organization on religious lines, theoretically outlawing the Muslim Brotherhood once and for all

Listening to the frustrated opposition, the country seems on the verge of social disaster (the economy’s already accounted for). These will pass. There is another protest scheduled for Sunday, and the secular and religious opposition have somewhat joined together, as Mubarak’s amendments target all dissidents.

The US doesn’t care at all. Condoleeza Rice will probably skirt comment more than State Dept spokesman Sean McCormack did last week. The saddest point is that amid the cynicism, doubt and anger in the region when American set out to "free Iraq and its people" in 2003 were glimmers, if only for a moment, of some believing the hype. What else could you do?

Sec. Rice told a crowd at AUC two years ago “For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region, here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither.

Now we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people."

She will forget she said that in Aswan Sunday, when she meets with the Arab Quartet. She will say that Mubarak is a vital ally, that Israel wants peace and nothing else, and that "the arc of time" will reveal the genius of a America’s plan, planting seeds of "political reform" across the region.

Many updates in the coming days. Busy at the Daily Star, which has upped coverage in the past few days. Here’s a piece on the official American reaction here in Cairo that I did, and a piece today on the despair of two leading activists/bloggers written by a friend.

Protests in downtown Cairo orgainzed by the Kefaya reform movement and opposition political parties against proposed constitutional amendments ended in a forced sit-in of some 200 protesters outside a party headquarters, surrounded by ranks of state security. Over 30 were detained after protests began at 5pm and by 8pm activists gathered outside the Tagammu party building on a narrow side street as rows of uniformed and plainclothes security agents pushed down the one-way side street, blocking the exit, and minor clashses flared. Activists demanded the release of detainees, 12 of whom were released by Friday morning. The rest was just released early this evening.

Here are two reports of the protests that Adam Makary and I did, one for Al Jazeera and one for the Daily Star Egypt.