Podcast
30. Egypt: The price of defeat, the power of conviction
It is now more than a decade since Egypt’s January 25th Revolution, otherwise known simply as “Tahrir Square.” All over the world in 2011, people watched the footage from Cairo in amazement at the scale of the mobilization, the creation of community and services in the square, and the eventual ejection of the Mubarak regime which opened a path to elections. But it was all over in less than three years when General Al-Sisi’s counter-coup restored military dictatorship. What has life been like for activists and rights defenders in the years since, and what is left of the passionate activism that powered the revolution? In 2011 Mohammed Lotfy was working abroad for Amnesty International but he came home to help build a new society. Now, as the executive director of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, he sees at first hand, the daily reality of those who made the revolution and, in his own family, the cost of defending rights in Egypt today.
And in the Coda, A Nigerian environmental campaigner discovers Audre Lorde and changes his entire approach to fighting his government and the oil companies.