98% Of Egyptian Voters Approve New Constitution

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25796110

Do you think this could be a new beginning for Egypt?

This is what I had to say in July last year, when the Egyptians were rallying against the Muslim Brotherhood...

A new beginning of tyranny, perhaps. Campaigning for the "no" or for boycott was expressly forbidden and military and police force was executed against those who defied that prohibition. The fix was in.

Arrest of 'No' campaign activists on eve of referendum in Egypt Demonstrators arrested apparently for hanging posters calling for a "no" vote in the forthcoming constitutional referendum

The posters said: “No to the referendum, No to thuggery by the interior ministry". So naturally, when the police arrested the man found with them, they started beating him up.

“So, you think we are thugs?” they asked him. “Well, this is what thugs we are." “Then they started punching me in the chest,” said Mahmoud Emam, the man in question.

Mr Emam, an Egyptian political activist, is one of a diminishing number of people openly campaigning against a new constitution the military-backed government is putting to a referendum on Tuesday and Wednesday.

We may all pay a price for the crushing of democracy in Egypt

The earliest political decision made by Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian doctor who has presided over such a dramatic resurgence of al-Qaeda since Osama Bin Laden’s death, was to join the Muslim Brotherhood.

Even then, back in the mid-Sixties, the Brotherhood was proscribed. This meant that it was impossible for a young man like Zawahiri to get involved in mainstream politics. Instead, Egypt’s brutally repressive system of government forced him down the path that led to al-Qaeda and the Twin Towers.

Is history about to repeat itself? I ask this urgent question because I have just returned from a very troubling trip to Cairo, a city that I last visited in the summer of 2011. Everything seemed possible back then, when the crowds gathered in Tahrir Square during the hopeful, happy, good-natured months that followed the fall of President Mubarak.

Today, protest is punishable by jail. Abductions are commonplace, torture routine. Demonstrators get shot dead. Following the coup that removed President Morsi on July 3 last year, a military junta is in control. Acting president Adly Mansour is a puppet. The defence minister, General Sisi, runs the country.

Here it is, translated to English.