Tahrir Square

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
At Tahrir Square in the early morning; in the background Egypt's central administration building, the Mogamma .

The Tahrir Square ( in Arabic ميدان التحرير, DMG Maidān at-Taḥrīr  'Liberation Square'; [ meˈdæːn ettæħˈɾiːɾ ]) is an important inner city square in the Egyptian capital Cairo near the right bank of the Nile . It has developed since the 19th century. The square consists primarily of a three to five-lane roundabout with a green central island. In its immediate vicinity there are important government administration buildings as well as some of the city's famous sights and hotels. The square under which metro lines 1 and 2 cross at the “Sadat” subway station is heavily frequented by buses and private transport. In 2011 it was the rally site of the forces who stood up against or for President Hosni Mubarak and therefore became a symbol of the Egyptian revolution .

location

The square is traversed in an east-west direction by At-Tahrir Street and forms the northern end of the historic Qasr al-ʿAini Street. It is around 500 meters north of the seat of government, the Ministry of the Interior, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry and the US embassy.

On the north side of Tahrir Square is the building of the Egyptian National Museum , which was founded in 1858 by the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette and relocated to the neoclassical building in 1902. The presidential palace and parliament building are located southeast of Tahrir Square.

The neighboring district in the south is Qasr ed-Dubara ( Qasr el-Dubara  /قصر الدوبارة / Qaṣr ad-Dūbāra ) with the Umar-Makram-Mosque and the palace of the princess Nimet Kamāl ed-Dīn (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and the el-Mugammaʿ (مجمع التحرير / Muǧammaʿ at-Taḥrīr  / 'Administration at Taḥrīr Square'; Year of construction 1951). Further south is the Garden City  (جاردن سيتي), connected by Qasr al-ʿAini Street.

Southwest of the museum follow along the Corniche , the The Nile Ritz-Carlton Cairo ( Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company ) and the high rise of the Arab League .

In a westerly direction you can reach via the Qasr-an-Nil-Strait and the Qasr-an-Nil-Bridge (كوبري قصر النيل, DMG Kūbrī Qaṣr an-Nīl ) the Nile island Gezira u. a. with the modern opera (1988) and many embassy buildings.

To the west of the Egyptian Museum, the headquarters of the National Democratic Party of Egypt, the party of then President Mubarak, once joined. The building has been badly damaged since a fire related to the riots in January 2011 and has been demolished since May 31, 2015.

To the east of the square lies downtown Cairo, the main road connection of which is Talaat Harb Street, which begins at Tahrir Square. This street was named after Talaat Harb , the founder of the Egyptian National Bank, and is one of the main shopping areas of Cairo.

Tahrir Square is also adjacent to the historic downtown campus of the American University of Cairo . The main campus of the university is now in New Cairo .

history

On February 8, 2011, Tahrir Square is the center of the dissident movement against President Mubarak

The area east of the Nile was laid out in the 19th century under the reign of the Ottoman viceroy Ismail Pasha with the desire to use generous boulevards and promenades to adapt the infrastructure of the Middle Eastern metropolis to the appearance of major Central European cities. In 1863, a barracks for the Egyptian army was built in the area of ​​today's Tahrir Square . The barracks were taken over by the British in 1882; they were the scene of protests against the British occupation in 1919 and again after the Second World War. After the withdrawal of the British troops, the barracks were demolished in 1947. The square, which was named “Midan al-Ismailiyya” after Ismail Pasha, was renamed “Midan at-Tahrir” - Liberation Square - after the overthrow of the monarchy in a military coup and the proclamation of Egypt as a republic in 1954.

As a result, there were some suggestions for redesigning the open space created by the demolition of the barracks. Three large buildings were built by 1958: the Mogamma building of the city administration, the Hotel Nile Hilton and the headquarters of the Arab League . From 1950 the actual Tahrir Square mainly served as a traffic junction. In contrast, the open space in front of the Egyptian Museum, previously the sports field of the barracks, was landscaped into a park. However, this park was gradually converted into a parking lot in the following years.

In 1977 Tahrir Square was the scene of the spontaneous and violent "bread riots" against the government of Anwar Sadat and in 1991 the center of protests against the Iraq war . During the 2011 revolution in Egypt , the country's largest rallies took place in the square, making it an important and contested symbol between the parties. On January 25, around 15,000 demonstrators occupied the square for the first time as part of a proclaimed “Day of Anger”. On February 2, there were hours of violent street fighting between opponents of the regime and supporters of the then still incumbent President Husni Mubarak, especially north of the square next to the Egyptian Museum.

At the end of 2011, the Governor of Cairo announced that a design competition would take place for Tahrir Square.

Symbolic meaning

Tahrir Square can be seen as the geographical and administrative center of Greater Cairo and has repeatedly been the site of rallies and protests. Since 2011 it has acquired an additional symbolic meaning, which manifests itself in protest and Occupy movements around the world: From a discourse theoretical point of view, the "Tahrir model" combines the two forms of protest demonstration and riot on the one hand and long-term occupation with night camps on the other. "'Yes we camp' was reinvented in Cairo after it was overrun by tanks in Beijing in 1989 and from there tended to proliferate worldwide." The "week-long cultural revolutionary day and night camp" can be seen as a "basic utopia of an egalitarian as-society" be seen as “the model of a new As-Sociation that can establish new social rules.” The author points out that “Tahrir places” appeared in the northern crisis movements, “for example at the Puerta del Sol in Madrid and finally even in Israel".

Sexual violence after the fall of Mubarak

Since the fall of Hosni Mubarak and his system, which is supported by the security forces and the state administration in the form of a deep state, the police officers have sabotaged their mandate as law enforcement officers. As a result, the Egyptians experienced a decline in public order and a crime rate of hitherto unknown proportions. While the police, hated for their corruption and brutality, under Husni Mubarak, whose authoritarian regime had continuously imposed emergency laws since 1981 , had been omnipresent and had prevented sexual harassment in public places, the security forces withdrew in the next two years since 2011 Mubarak's resignation to a surge in sexual assault against women in the open air, particularly in Tahrir Square.

During the military rule under Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi after the Supreme Military Council came to power in February 2011 , attempts to organize events by women in Tahrir Square failed or resulted in physical harassment by a large number of men, such as in March 2011 and es There was mistreatment of demonstrators in Tahrir Square by soldiers, in which demonstrators were kicked or beaten by soldiers and in some cases partially undressed, as in the case of the demonstrator known among activists as the “blue bra girl”, whose pictures of her mistreatment in December 2011 saw further Triggered demonstrations in Tahrir Square. The direct involvement of the military in sexual violence became public in a particularly drastic way in February and March 2011, when demonstrators in the Egyptian Museum on Tahrir Square under the supervision of the then military intelligence chief and general, Abd al-Fattah as-Sisi , pseudomedical and had to undergo "virginity tests", which were severely criticized by international human rights groups. The case of Samira Ibrahim, who held a press conference with Salwa Husseini, became internationally known, at which both announced that they had been arrested by an army member in a doctor's coat on March 9, 2011, when the military police evacuated Tahrir Square with great brutality for the first time left, put her finger in her vagina in military custody in order to carry out the "virginity test", which the military leadership initially denied, whereupon Ibrahim became the first Egyptian woman to take legal action against the military.

In addition to the "virginity tests" with uncertain motivation, during the Tantawi military government in 2011 and 2012 there were also brutal crackdowns on activists and the use of sexual harassment of women as a means of counter-insurgency on Tahrir Square. "Sexual violence and harassment is not about sex, but about power, be it that of the man, the patriarch or the political ruler." ( Nora Amin ) They can be seen as attacks to intimidate the opposition, to sexual harassment had been used in Egypt for decades. According to Julia Gerlach, these attacks, which pursued the aim of driving women out of political activity, included an attack on women by thugs on March 8, 2011 and massive attacks on a women’s demonstration in June 2012. These attacks particularly often concerned women’s demonstrations, which addressed the position of women and sexual harassment. According to former US President Jimmy Carter , Tantawi justified the attacks on women - including the one on the “blue bra girl” - by portraying them as helping the soldiers “to dress again and get out of the provocative way To come out '.

Protests on Tahrir Square in November 2012 against President Morsi, who was democratically elected in June 2012

According to the self-help organizations “ Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment ” (OpAntiSH) and “Tahrir.” At a demonstration by opponents of Mohammed Morsi's government , which took place on Tahrir Square on the second anniversary of the “revolution” against the first democratically elected government of Egypt, “ Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment ” (OpAntiSH) and “Tahrir Bodyguard “at least 25 women surrounded by groups of perpetrators and raped . A 19-year-old woman was dragged from Tahrir Square into a side street, stripped naked and injured her genitals with a knife. Several victims had bite wounds all over their bodies. The UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay condemned on January 29, 2013, "that does not prevent the police these attacks" and the prosecution had refunded do not, although "several hundred men were involved in these heinous acts."

In the days before the military coup under military chief Sisi on July 3, 2013 , at least 91 women were raped on the sidelines of the rallies by Mursi opponents in Tahrir Square, according to Human Rights Watch and local self-help groups such as OpAntiSH. The sexual assaults on Tahrir Square reached their peak in the night of July 3rd to 4th, 2013 with over 80 women affected, after Sisi, as the coup leader, had announced the violent overthrow of President Morsi by the military and the streets around Tahrir Square became a place of celebration for a dancing and singing crowd of coup proponents all night long. Since the coup, Tahrir Square has been closed for a long time and has been closely guarded by the security forces. A report by the human rights group International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), which in 2015 complained about an increase in sexual violence perpetrated by the security forces under President Sisi since the fall of Morsi, listed group sexual assaults in Tahrir Square, which occurred in June 2014 during Sisi's inauguration , who in the meantime had appointed himself field marshal, took place as Egyptian president. The FIDH report cited the absolute ban on demonstrations that had existed since Sisi's tenure as the likely main reason for the relative decline in reports of group rape and sexual assault .

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Tahrir  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wikivoyage: Tahrir Square  - Travel Guide

Previous events:

TV documentaries:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Mohamed Elshaded: Tahrir Square: Origins and Futures . In: Topos . tape 76 , 2011, p. 12-17 .
  2. ↑ Thousands of Egyptians march against Mubarak , Spiegel Online, January 25, 2011 (accessed February 10, 2011)
  3. ↑ Jürgen Link: From denormalization to cultural revolutionary drives? In: kultuRRevolution. No. 61/62 (2011/2012), pp. 12-18, here p. 14; ISSN  0723-8088
  4. ^ Egypt - The Depths of the State ( Memento from October 9, 2013 on WebCite ), Neue Zürcher Zeitung, August 7, 2013, by Martin Woker.
  5. ^ Crisis in Egypt Army and Police: Pact with the Devil ( Memento from November 28, 2013 on WebCite ), Der Tagesspiegel, July 9, 2013, by Martin Gehlen.
  6. ^ Egypt ( Memento November 1, 2013 on WebCite ); in: Large Dossier: The Revolutions in the Arab World ( Memento from November 1, 2013 on WebCite ), Focus, October 16, 2012, by Susanne Klaiber.
  7. ↑ a b Timeline of Turmoil in Egypt After Mubarak and Morsi ( Memento from April 25, 2014 on WebCite ) (English). The New York Times, July 2, 2013 (nominally), by Shreeya Sinha and Erin Banco.
  8. ↑ a b Rise in Sexual Assaults in Egypt Sets Off Clash Over Blame ( Memento from April 25, 2014 on WebCite ) (English). The New York Times, March 25, 2013, by Mayy El Sheikh and David D. Kirkpatrick.
  9. ^ Military coup in Egypt - Welcome to the coupocracy ( page 1 ( memento from October 10, 2013 on WebCite ), page 2 ( memento from May 27, 2014 on WebCite )), Süddeutsche.de, July 13, 2013, by Tomas Avenarius.
  10. ↑ Egypt's protests against the ruling regimes - timeline ( memento of October 8, 2013 on WebCite ) (English). The Guardian, Aug. 14, 2013, by Jason Rodrigues.
  11. ↑ a b Mass March by Cairo Women in Protest Over Abuse by Soldiers ( Memento from January 14, 2016 on WebCite ) (English), nytimes.com, December 20, 2011, by David D. Kirkpatrick.
  12. ↑ a b c Stifling Egyptian civil society: Sexual violence by security forces surges under el-Sisi ( Memento from January 15, 2016 on WebCite ) (English), International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), May 19, 2015 ( report (PDF ) ( Memento from January 15, 2016 on WebCite )).
  13. ↑ a b Julia Gerlach: Spring of women on the Nile . In: Susanne Schröter (ed.): Gender equality through democratization? - Transformations and restorations of gender relations in the Islamic world , Transcript-Verlag, 2013, pp. 45–65, ISBN 3-8376-2173-1 .
  14. ↑ Nora Amin: "On the street I make myself invisible". Almost every Egyptian has been sexually molested - one of the reasons why Cairo is considered the world's most dangerous city of millions for women. In: Amnesty Journal , vol. 2018, issue April / May, pp. 22-23, here p. 23.
  15. ↑ a b Platz des Schreckens ( page 1 ( memento from January 11, 2016 on WebCite ), page 2 ( memento from January 11, 2016 on WebCite )), handelsblatt.com, January 29, 2013, by Martin Gehlen.
  16. ↑ Sexual abuse: Die Arabische Schande ( Memento from January 12, 2016 on WebCite ), zeit.de, February 3, 2013, by Martin Gehlen.
  17. ↑ Egypt: Pillay urges serious dialogue and end to use of excessive force ( Memento from January 12, 2016 on WebCite ) (English). ohchr.org, January 29, 2013.
  18. ↑ Egypt: Almost 100 Sexual Assaults in Tahrir Square - As millions of Egyptians protest against their president, violence against women becomes a problem. The perpetrators are organized in gangs ( Memento from January 12, 2016 on WebCite ), zeit.de, July 3, 2013, by Martin Gehlen.
  19. ↑ 80 sexual assaults in one day - the other story of Tahrir Square - Egypt's women increasingly at risk of rape and sexual assault as rights groups warn of a step up in attacks ( Memento from January 14, 2016 on WebCite ) (English), theguardian .com, July 5, 2013, by Patrick Kingsley.
  20. ↑ Egypt - Who Owns the Tahrir, Owns the Revolution ( Memento from November 22, 2013 on WebCite ) , Zeit Online, November 21, 2013, by Andrea Backhaus.
  21. ↑ Egypt - The Wish for Happy Easter - The Coexistence of Copts and Muslims in Cairo ( Memento from April 18, 2014 on WebCite ) , Deutschlandradio Kultur, April 17, 2014, by Anna Osius, archived from the original .
  22. ↑ Egypt security forces step up sexual violence since Mursi's ouster-human rights group ( Memento from January 14, 2016 on WebCite ) (English), reuters.com, May 19, 2015, by Michael Georgy.
  23. ↑ Report: Egypt's security forces use sexual violence to quell opposition - An FIDH report has said women in Egypt face "widespread sexual violence" by security forces, including rape, virginity tests and electroshocks to genitalia. Those affected hail from all walks of Egyptian society ( Memento from January 15, 2016 on WebCite ) (English), dw.com, May 20, 2015, by Lewis Sanders IV.

Coordinates: 30 ° 2 ′ 39.9 ″  N , 31 ° 14 ′ 8.5 ″  E