Within days, the tenth anniversary of the January 25, 2011 revolution in Egypt comes, and that memory comes amid a paradox between the fate of the revolutionaries and the fate of those on whom the revolution was based, while most of its symbols are between exile, prisons and retirement, the pillars of the late President Mubarak's regime left prisons and some returned to lead the scene and death was absent Others.
Al-Jazeera Net monitors in this report the most prominent of those faces present and absent after a decade, making unexpected surprises with the departure of people and the rise of others.
According to the sayings of a political activist and another supporter of the Mubarak regime, there are still hopes for the defeated and the victors, between those who want the revolution to return again, and another who sees stability in its absence and the trial of those who call for it.
Symbols of the Mubarak regime
Hosni Mubarak: He
ruled Egypt for nearly 30 years and entered prison after pressures and demonstrations against the military council. He criticized the welfare activists that he dealt with during the trials and inside the military hospital in which he spent the trial period, and others criticized his trial in minor corruption cases known in the media as the "presidential palaces" case. While he was not tried for the main charge for which the revolution was launched, which is corrupting political life.
After the July 2013 coup - which overthrew the elected president, Mohamed Morsi - the judiciary acquitted him, before he died on February 25, 2020 after a struggle with illness, and a military funeral was held for him with the participation of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and senior military and political leaders.
Gamal Mubarak:
He reached the top of the ruling party in the country, and was described as the heir to power in Egypt. He was one of the most important causes of the revolution against his father’s regime, and he faced many charges, most notably related to suspected corruption in the case of "presidential palaces" and manipulation in the stock exchange, to be released afterwards from prison He avoids politics, but appears in public events, the most recent of which was the funeral of the former Shura Council Speaker, Safwat Al-Sharif, last Thursday.
Safwat Al-Sharif:
He was known for his close proximity to Mubarak and presided over many high positions, including the Shura Council, the Ministry of Information, and the Secretary General of the ruling National Party until the January Revolution, before he was tried in several cases and was acquitted and financial reconciliation in some of them, and he returned to the fore for the last time After announcing his death last Thursday, after his health deteriorated.
Zakaria Azmy:
Head of the Presidential Office during the Mubarak era, was sentenced in 2012 to 7 years in prison for graft, before he obtained a final judgment of acquittal.
He appeared recently during an election conference for his brother’s son in the recent elections of representatives. He was the first to be present to bid farewell to Safwat al-Sharif, his companion in the Mubarak regime.
Ahmed Ezz:
Secretary of the Organization and a member of the Policies Committee in Mubarak's party, and he was close to his son Gamal and who had a brutal hand inside the party, which supporters of Mubarak say before the opponents that it is one of the most important reasons for the collapse of the system after it was engineered to rig the parliamentary elections in 2010 with an unprecedented fraud scandal.
Therefore, he was one of the first to resign from the party days after the outbreak of the revolution and before Mubarak stepped down, and he faced issues of exploiting influence and winning, most of which ended with innocence and financial reconciliation, to return to managing his empire in the iron companies, and recently appeared at the funeral of Safwat Al-Sharif.
Habib Al-Adly:
Mubarak's interior minister, who held the position for 14 years, faced many criticisms after the outbreak of the January revolution. Rather, the revolution was mainly demonstrations against the Ministry of Interior and later turned into a revolution against the whole regime.
But Al-Adli - like other symbols of Mubarak - was released from prison after acquitting himself from the charge of killing protesters, and he continued to be tried only in cases of corruption and appropriation of public money.
Muhammad Abu Al-Ainain:
One of the most prominent businessmen during the Mubarak era, a member of the policy committee of the dissolved National Party, owner of a satellite station and a website affiliated with it, and holding the position of vice president of the "Future of the Nation" party affiliated with the Sisi regime, and he was appointed a few days ago as an agent of the House of Representatives.
Symbols of the January Revolution
Mohamed Morsi:
He was the representative of the Muslim Brotherhood in the meetings of the political forces against Mubarak, and he was elected after the revolution as the first democratically elected civilian president, before his defense minister, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, turned on him on July 3, 2013 under the pretext of responding to popular protests.
The country's first elected president was kept in solitary confinement and deprived of a visit for 6 years, until fate chose to have his death in the courtroom during one of his court sessions in June 2019 following a heart attack at the age of 68.
His family and human rights organizations are calling for an independent investigation into the cause of death, accusing the Egyptian authorities of deliberately neglecting his health care.
Mohamed ElBaradei:
One of the most prominent advocates of the January revolution, but he participated in the July 2013 coup statement, and was appointed Vice President of the Republic for External Relations, before he resigned in protest against the dispersal of the Rabaa Al-Adawiya and Ennahda sit-ins by force and left the country, appearing from time to time through his account On Twitter, he opposes the Sisi regime, and is subjected to a continuous media smear campaign.
Wael Ghoneim:
His role emerged during the January revolution as one of the advocates for demonstrations on the page "We are all Khaled Said" on Facebook, and the Egyptians did not know him until after he got out of detention, and appeared crying for the revolution's martyrs, and opposed the policy of President Mohamed Morsi, and called Demonstrations on 30 June were on the same revolutionary page, but he left Egypt after the military coup was announced and the sit-ins were forcibly dispersed, justifying that the country “does not welcome people like him,” as he has become the focus of a continuous attack by the regime’s media, to disappear from public life and even communication sites.
However, he reappeared in conjunction with the demonstrations of September 20, 2019 called by the actor and contractor Muhammad Ali, and continues to appear extensively on communication sites, speaking about the mistakes of the revolution and presenting himself as an intermediary voice between the regime and the opposition, but he lost his luster between the supporters of the two sides.
Hamdeen Sabahi:
He was one of the faces of the revolution, and he was fifth in the 2012 presidencies, and he participated in calling for the demonstrations of June 30, and in 2014 he ran for the presidency as the only competitor against Sisi to emerge as a humiliating loser, as he received fewer votes than the number of invalid votes. To melt from sight and political action.
Sabahi appears through tweets on communication sites criticizing some of the decisions of the Egyptian authorities, and he participated in the conference to establish a civil opposition front, and recently appeared during the announcement of the abdication of the leadership of the opposition Dignity Party in favor of former parliamentarian Ahmed Tantawi.
Alaa Abdel-Fattah:
A political activist, he was one of the young faces that emerged before and during the January revolution, and he is known as a prisoner of all times. He was arrested in November 2013 in connection with a protest case, and he was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment, before the sentence was reduced to 5 Full years spent.
In September 2019, the Egyptian authorities re-arrested him in connection with popular demonstrations, and he remains in prison in pretrial detention.
Competencies of political and statesmen
In this context, lawyer and coordinator of the "Egypt Above All Coalition" Mahmoud Attia says that the symbols of the Mubarak regime were statesmen who knew how to play politics, and had the experience that qualified them to return to the Egyptian scene again.
Speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, Attia added that the long experience of a number of symbols of the Mubarak regime prompted their help in the country now, unlike those currently in the Egyptian state administration.
The lawyer who supports the Sisi regime defects what he described as the razing of competencies in Egypt and the lack of assistance from specialists, which led to the deterioration of the situation.
Regarding the abuse that the January revolutionaries are exposed to in prisons, Attia believes that these are not symbols, but rather they were made in the media at the time of the revolution for other purposes, and they are now in prisons as a result of committing mistakes for which they are held accountable.
The revolutionaries split
On the other hand, political activist Moaz Abdel-Karim says that the comrades of the January revolution were struck by the division of several groups.
Abdul Karim - who participated in the revolution - added that the first sector of the revolutionaries are in prisons and detention centers, and they are systematically abused by torture in places of detention, and between rotations in new cases to prevent them from seeing the sunlight, and they are from different currents, such as Alaa Abdel-Fattah, Ahmed Douma, Ziad Al-Alimi, Muhammad Al-Beltagy, and the Islamic Movement Youth.
Speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, a former member of the Executive Office of the Revolutionary Youth Coalition explained that there are other January revolutionaries who forcibly immigrated to a number of Arab countries, Turkey and Europe for fear of arrest and imprisonment.
He pointed out that the last sector of the rebels is in Egypt, which is a clutch on the coals waiting for the moment in order to move for the revolution, or he waits when he is arrested as well.
Abd al-Karim stressed that January is a spirit and hope, and everyone who feels hopeful that he will choose whoever governs him and change reality is considered among the youth and sons of the January revolution who have contributed to hope, calling on the people to work to build Egypt and break the will of the regime that impoverishes Egyptians.