My January 25 revolution memoirs

I never expected the call for January 25, 2011 protests to eventually turn into a revolution that demanded the overthrow of the Egyptian regime and succeeded in ousting the former president Hosni Mubarak.

What I expected was only a small protest consisting of tens or perhaps hundreds of protesters, like all the protests I covered since the first protest held by the Kifaya (Enough) movement in front of the Higher Judiciary House on December 12, 2004.

Thus I watched in utter disbelief the thousands of protesters passing by the Aljazeera headquarters in downtown Cairo where I used to work, chanting “the people want the fall of the regime”.

I hurried to Tahrir Square. The number of protesters, chants and their spirit sounded different than any protests ever witnessed in Egypt.

After midnight, police forces started to disperse the sit-in with tear gas and birdshots. Our photojournalist in Aljazeera International channel got injured with 13 rubber bullets in his face and hands. He got back to the office covered in blood.

The driver took him to the hospital and we were not able to return home that day.

On January 28, dubbed the “Friday of Rage”, I decided to join the march led by Dr Mohamed Elbaradei that was scheduled to start from the Istikama mosque in the governorate of Giza.

Elbaradei and his younger brother arrived, accompanied by journalist Ibrahim Issa.

We performed Friday prayers outside the mosque. Immediately after the prayers ended and before we got up, police used water cannons and started to fire tear gas at us.

Elbaradei, his brother, Issa and I were among those who entered the mosque to escape the gas. However, the tear gas was also fired inside the mosque.

We brought a chair for Elbaradei to sit. He seemed to be in shock and was shivering from the cold. Our clothes were wet as a result of the water cannons used by the police outside.

After Elbaradei felt better, I left him with his brother and Issa and I walked to the office with my colleague at the time, correspondent Ayman Mohie Al Din, police had been firing tear gas against protesters in the vicinity of the Nile Hilton Hotel, where our office was located.

We walked from Giza to downtown Cairo where our office was located because there were no taxis and no telephone signal; clashes near the Hilton were very close to our office.

We witnessed the deployment of army vehicles after the withdrawal of the police in the afternoon. We also saw and filmed from our office window the burning headquarters of the National Democratic Party.

We had to move to the Hilton because we could not drive to our homes.

On the morning of January 29, we went for an interview with ElBaradei in his villa. In the evening, we filmed the clashes on Mohamed Mahmoud Street from the rooftop of the Hardees building in Tahrir, and witnessed many killings by police snipers.

On the morning of the next day, January 30, Aljazeera International broadcast a report from inside the morgue, documenting the deaths from the previous day.

Hours afterwards a delegation of the government’s official press centre arrived at our office, along with policemen in plain clothes, to withdraw our license and evacuate the office. This brings to mind the closure of Aljazeera hours after the July 3 military coup of 2013.

We then moved to Ramses Hilton Hotel which was packed with security officials who resided in most of its rooms.

I will give a detailed account on the above and the “Camel Battle” in my next article.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.