April 6 Youth Movement
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| Founder(s) | Asmaa Mahfouz, Ahmed Maher,Mohammed Adel, Waleed Rashed |
|---|---|
| Type | Pressure group Political group |
| Founded | 2008 |
| Key people | Mohammed Adel Amr Ali (leading member and blogger) |
| Area served |  Egypt |
| Focus | Democracy Social justice Free and fair election Civil resistance Secularism |
| Website | 6april.org |
The April 6 Youth Movement (Arabic: حركة شباب 6 أبريل) is an Egyptian Facebook group started in Spring 2008 to support the workers in El-Mahalla El-Kubra, an industrial town, who were planning to strike on April 6.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
Activists called on participants to wear black and stay home on the day of the strike. Bloggers and citizen journalists used Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, blogs and other new media tools to report on the strike, alert their networks about police activity, organize legal protection and draw attention to their efforts.[7]
The New York Times has identified the movement as the political Facebook group in Egypt with the most dynamic debates.[8] As of January 2009[update], it had 70,000 predominantly young and educated members, most of whom had not been politically active before; their core concerns include free speech, nepotism in government and the country's stagnant economy.[8] Their discussion forum on Facebook features intense and heated discussions, and is constantly updated with new postings.
The April 6 movement is using the same raised fist symbol as the Otpor! movement from Serbia, that helped bring down the regime of Slobodan Milošević and whose nonviolent tactics were later used in Ukraine and Georgia.
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[edit] Founders
- Mohammed Adelwas a participant in the anti-Mubarak demonstrations in Egypt since 2005, working at first with kefaya Movement and Youth For change and also one of Egyptian Blogger.
- Waleed Rashed, born November 15, 1983 in El Sharkia, Egypt) is one of the co-founders of the April 6 Youth Movement and a participant in the anti-Mubarak demonstrations in Egypt in 2011
Rashed is a banker. Rashed has traveled to Algeria, USA , Greece , United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Bahrain, Qatar and Lebanon and has been arrested several times by the Egyptian police for his political activism. Since 2005 he was a member of the Kafaya movement, also known as the Egyptian Movement for Change. From 2009-2010, he worked in Qatar, where he was the coordinator of the National Association of Change and organized the Egyptians in the area to support the change of regime
- Asmaa Mahfouz posted a video blog that went viral.[12] She urged the Egyptian people to join her in a protest on January 25, in Tahrir Square to bring down Mubarak’s regime[13] and urged people not to be afraid.[14]
[edit] Public activism and arrests
Aside from discussing the state of the nation online, members of the group have organized public rallies to free imprisoned journalists and engaged in protests concerning the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict.[8] In its official pronouncements, the group stresses that it is not a political party. Ahmed Maher, one of the founders of the group, was arrested by the Egyptian authorities in May 2008 in an attempt to shut it down.[15]
In July 2008, Maher was again arrested, along with 14 other members of the group, and charged with "incitement against the regime". He also claimed that Egyptian state security officers threatened to rape him in custody.[16]
On April 6, 2009 the group was subjected to attacks, suspected to have been orchestrated by the Egyptian government. Several websites supporting the group were hacked simultaneously, and protests in Cairo were confronted by plain clothed Egyptian policemen and numerous arrests.[17]
On January 29, 2011 a WikiLeaks document was revealed which showed that the United States considered the movement to be "outside (the) mainstream of opposition politicians and activists" and described the goals of the movement for democracy as "unrealistic" yet still supported it in various ways, including pressing "the MFA for the release of April 6 activists".[18] On January 31, 2011 the movement promoted participation of at least a million in a march on Tuesday, February 1, 2011.[19]
On Feb 03, 2011 the Hisham Mubarak Law Center which was providing meeting space for the April 6 Youth Movement as well as providing medical and legal aid to the protesters was raided by security forces who arrested Amal Sharaf and other members of April 6.[20]
In October 2011, the group launched a “black circle, white circle” political awareness campaign. Aiming to prevent former members of Mubarak's regime from winning seats in the post-revolution parliament, the group compiled a list of candidates with ties to the dissolved National Democratic Party or with histories of corruption, which comprised the “black circle.” Meanwhile, in the “white circle,” the group listed a set of qualifications and characteristics they hope to see in elected officials.[21]
[edit] See also
- Hazem Salah Abu Ismail
- Saad Eddin Ibrahim
- Waleed Rashed
- Ayman Nour – an Egyptian opposition leader, founder of the Tomorrow Party and head of the Ghad El-Thawra Party
- Civil resistance
- Nonviolent resistance
- Hosni Mubarak
- Kefaya
- National Association for Change
- Hisham Mubarak Law Center
- Egyptian Revolution of 2011
[edit] References
- ^ Wolman, David (October 20, 2008). "Cairo Activists Use Facebook to Rattle Regime". Wired (Condé Nast Publications). http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/magazine/16-11/ff_facebookegypt. Retrieved February 15, 2008.
- ^ Ghafour, Hamida (August 25, 2008). "Parliament is burning, and the watching crowd is laughing". The National (Martin Newland). http://www.thenational.ae/article/20080825/OPINION/235828560/1080&template=opinion. Retrieved February 15, 2008.
- ^ Hussein, Abdel-Rahman (July 27, 2008). "Protestors say Agrium plant is like Nazi gas chambers". Daily News Egypt (Egyptian Media Services). http://dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=15325. Retrieved February 15, 2008.
- ^ Carr, Sarah (July 30, 2008). "April 6 youth detainees still in custody despite release order". Daily News Egypt (Egyptian Media Services). http://dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=15407. Retrieved February 15, 2008.
- ^ Hussein, Abdel-Rahman (September 18, 2008). "Emaar accused of culpability in Duweiqa rockslide". Daily News Egypt (Egyptian Media Services). http://dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=16577. Retrieved February 15, 2008.
- ^ Al-Anani, Khalil (September 2, 2008). "In Focus: The Dilemma of Egypt’s Liberals". Daily News Egypt (Egyptian Media Services). http://dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=16173. Retrieved February 15, 2008.
- ^ Radsch, Courtney (Fall 2008). "Core to Commonplace: The evolution of Egypt's blogosphere". Arab Media & Society (American University of Cairo). http://www.arabmediasociety.com/?article=692. Retrieved February 15, 2008.
- ^ a b c Shapiro, Samantha M (January 22, 2009). "Revolution, Facebook-Style". The New York Times (The New York Times Company). http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25bloggers-t.html. Retrieved February 15, 2008.
- ^ Asharq Al-Awsat
- ^ Esam Al-Amin, From Counter-Attack to Departure Day, Counterpunch, 4 February 2011
- ^ David Wolman, Did Egypt Detain a Top Facebook Activist? , Wired, 2 February 2011
- ^ Egypt: The viral vlog of Asmaa Mahfouz
- ^ The New York Times
- ^ The Canadian Charger
- ^ Ellen Knickmeyer (2008-05-18). "Fledgling Rebellion on Facebook Is Struck Down by Force in Egypt". Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/05/17/ST2008051702711.html. Retrieved 2009-02-16.
- ^ Liam Stack (2008-07-30). "Egypt detains Facebook activists – again". Christian Science Monitor. http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0730/p04s04-wome.html. Retrieved 2009-02-16.
- ^ Egyptian Chronicles. Egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com. Retrieved on 2011-03-12.
- ^ Egypt protests: secret US document discloses support for protesters. Telegraph (2011-01-28). Retrieved on 2011-03-12.
- ^ anon., "Egypt protesters increase pressure: Opposition movement calls for "march of millions" on Tuesday in a bid to topple president Hosni Mubarak." (Jan. 31, 2011)
- ^ "Egypt: Investigate Arrests of Activists, Journalists" UN HCR, 9 Feb 2011
- ^ http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/egypt-cairo-protest-military-government-violence-coptic
[edit] Further reading
- Kirkpatrick, David D.; David E. Sanger (February 13, 2011). "A Tunisian-Egyptian link that shook Arab history". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/world/middleeast/14egypt-tunisia-protests.html. Retrieved 2011-02-27.
- Wolman, David (February 13, 2011). "The techie dissidents who showed Egyptians how to organize online". The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/02/the-techie-dissidents-who-showed-egyptians-how-to-organize-online/70734/. Retrieved 2011-02-27.
[edit] External links
- 6 April Youth Movement official site (Arabic)
- April 6 Movement Facebook group page
- April 6 Movement Blog حركة 6 ابريل
- Documentary on April 6 Movement's involvement with the Egyptian Revolution
- Collected news coverage at Al-Masry Al-Youm
- hashtag: #6April
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