But like hundreds of thousands of Egyptians El-Beheiry found himself swept up in the momentum of history and he took to the streets to join the protests that began January 25, 2011 and 18 days later resulted in the downfall of Mubarak. El-Beheiry continued to challenge authority — newly empowered, his family says, by the idea of a better future. On Feb. 25, he was arrested along with dozens of other protesters in front of the building where Egyptian cabinet meets.

El-Beheiry has the unfortunate distinction of being among the very first civilians arrested under the rule of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the governing body made up of generals that was given executive authority in Egypt during the transition to a newly elected government.

As a result, he was among the first of some 12,000 civilians to be brought before a military tribunal under the country’s so-called “Emergency Laws.” This process routinely suspends a civilian’s right to a fair trial and human rights activists fear it is an old ploy of the Mubarak regime which is once again being used to crush dissent. 

El-Beheiry has been badly beaten in prison, held incommunicado and sentenced to five years on what his family and lawyers say are trumped-up charges of breaking curfew and assaulting a soldier.

He was sentenced at a court hearing that was never announced to the family and which not even his lawyers were permitted to attend.

Mubarak used the “Emergency Laws” for decades to circumvent the civilian justice system and was criticized by international human rights groups for years for doing so. But in three decades of Mubarak’s autocratic rule, there were only 2,000 cases of civilians being tried by military courts. In just ten months of SCAF taking control of the country, there have been six times that many.

Human Rights Watch released a report this week to mark the anniversary of the “January 25 Revolution” in Egypt that highlighted SCAF’s use of these “Emergency Laws” and to call for the newly elected parliament to make it a legislative priority do away with this web of laws that curb free expression, limit the right to assembly and restrict just about any form of opposition to the ruling government. Egypt’s newly elected lower house of parliament, known as the People’s Assembly, will sit for the first time Monday.

In the 46-page report titled “The Road Ahead: A Human Rights Agenda for Egypt’s New Parliament,” Human Rights Watch sets out nine areas of Egyptian law that most need reform if the law is “to become an instrument that protects Egyptians’ rights rather than represses them.”

Amid the call for a change in Egypt’s laws to end the practice of military trials, El Beheiry’s case has become a cause célèbre, launching a popular, national movement known as “No Military Trials.” Bumper stickers and street graffiti supporting the movement can be seen everywhere.

The movement has begun to affect change: three days before the first anniversary of the revolution, and with rising fears of anti-military protests across the country, SCAF announced that Marshall Mohamed Hussien Tantawi signed a pardon decree for 1959 prisoners who have been sentenced by military tribunals. El-Beheiry is not among them.

The news comes less than two weeks after Marshall Tantawi denied the use of military trials in a meeting with former US president Jimmy Carter, who held extended meetings with top Egyptian officials, heads of political parties and NGOs after the Carter Center participated in what they described as “witnessing the Egyptian parliamentary elections.”

The sudden change in the military’s stance did not surprise the activist community nor did it slow their preparations for wide-scale protests.

*****

This is how El-Beheiry’s ordeal began.

As the soldiers moved in to arrest him, he was severely beaten. Leila Soueif, one of Egypt’s prominent human rights activists, saw this unfold and intervened. She had never met El-Beheiry but Soueif is the grandmother and matriarch of a family with a long history of opposition to the Mubarak regime. She insisted that she would not leave the scene of the protest without this young man whom she saw unfairly arrested and savagely beaten with her own eyes.

He was temporarily released, only to be apprehended again and then taken into a netherworld of military prisons and a military court system which human rights activists here say is systematically denying civilians their basic right to a fair trial.

Soon after his arrest, the movement “No Military Trials” was started by the daughter of the long-time human rights activist who first tried to help El-Beheiry in Tahrir Square when he was originally detained. Mona Seif said that her mother’s actions on behalf of El-Beheiry and the quick succession of others cases like it forced her to realize that “the detention of protesters by military personnel was systematically happening in the back stage of the revolution.”

Seif is a 25-year-old researcher at a breast cancer research center run by Cairo University. Just like El-Beheiry, the January 25 uprising turned her into a hard core female activist who refused to surrender her cause despite security intimidation, detention, brutality and the risk of losing her job.

The Egyptian military, which was originally celebrated as heroic defenders of the revolution, has shown very different colors in recent months, according to Seif and growing chorus of criticism across Egyptian society.

“They (the military) pretended to defend the revolution, and they continued with the same suppressive practices we revolted against,” says Mona Seif.

Amr El-Beheiry’s family also stepped up to highlight his case. They filed around 300 complaints and requests for a retrial over the past year. And then his family was told that he would finally be permitted to stand retrial. But they say they were never told of the trial date. To date, El-Beheiry remains in El-Wadi El-Gedid prison compound, a maximum security facility located in Egypt’s western desert, around 500 kilometers from the capital Cairo.

El-Beheiry’s brother, Mohammed, told GlobalPost that the family is kept completely in the dark as to any of his legal proceedings. He said they are worried about Amr’s well-being after getting a glimpse at what his brother suffered in military detention.

“When I first visited him he was injured and left untreated, his head injury was infected because of the lack of medical attention in jail,” said Mohammed.

But this was not the only case of brutality at the hands of the military. Hundreds of other physical abuse cases were documented over 11 months of military rule, human rights activists say.

The case of El-Beheiry and around 9000 others since February 2011 has brought the ruling generals of Egypt under fiery criticism and raised questions about their intentions toward the ongoing revolution.

“No Military Trials,” the initiative inspired by El-Beheiry’s detention, has organized dozens of protests against the ongoing violation of human and civil rights, but their efforts seem to have little influence on the policies of the SCAF’s ruling generals.

Ragia Omran, an Egyptian female activist and lawyer specializing in military trials of civilians said that torture has been “consistently used toward those detained by military police.” She says that physical abuse was documented in almost all protests and strikes dispersed by the military “on March 9, April 9, Israeli Embassy protests, May 15, June 28, September 9, the last week of November and mid-December when they dispersed the sit-in beside the cabinet building.”

Most of those detained by the military police were stripped of their legal rights and according to Omran, “The case is usually built on a reports filed by arresting officers, reports that normally don’t include any details or substantial evidence.”

The European Parliament issued a statement on November 17 after the detention of Egyptian blogger Alaa Abd El-Fattah.

“The European Parliament calls for the immediate release from prison of Egyptian blogger Alaa Abd El-Fattah and reiterates its call to stop prosecution of civilians by military courts in Egypt,” said the official statement.

The blogger who was detained on charges of stealing military weapons, attacking government facilities and killing a soldier decided not to answer to military prosecutors. His boycott continued for three consecutive questioning sessions before he reached an unprecedented success and was referred to a civilian criminal court along with over 60 other detainees.

There has been a significant decrease in use of military trials against civilians in recent months, but more than 9000 prisoners continue to serve time.

“Military trials of civilians have not stopped yet; however, there has been a significant decrease in the cases reviewed by the Military Prosecution since the events of Israeli Embassy on September 9,” said the lawyer and human rights activist Ragia Omran.

Omran thinks the decrease in military trials for civilians “was achieved by the combined efforts of local protesters, the media, and international organizations that harshly criticized the practice.”

While the cases are being highlighted, what actually goes on inside the prison walls is largely unknown.

But Abul Maati Ahmed provided a glimpse.

He is one of the few who recently stood retrial and were released, and he was interviewed by GlobalPost.

He was first detained on February 2, 2011 trying to bring food and supplies to a tent in Tahrir Square where his family was gathered in support of the protest movement. This was before the fall of Mubarak and 5 days after Egypt’s army took to the streets, for the first time in decades, to, as the generals put it, “defend the revolution.”

“I was deported to the Military Prison, I was tortured along with other detainees for four continuous days, we were offered no food during that time, some detainees collapsed and were carried away, I believe some of them died,” said Abul Maati.

Once again, Abul Maati confirmed how theatrical those trials were. “I saw a prosecutor for less than 15 minutes, he asked me a few questions after which I was dismissed,” he said.

The confused detainees who all experienced similar brief questioning sessions were deported once more to a different prison. “When we arrived in prison I asked what will happen next, a prison worker told me I was transferred to serve a five years jail term.”

Behind the maximum security walls of El-Wadi El-Gedid prison, Abul Maati and his fellow protesters turned inmates decided to go on hunger strike. On the tenth day they were informed by the prison administration that they were pardoned by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

“We broke the hunger strike and waited to hear the news of our release. We found out that they lied to us. They threatened us not to think of a hunger strike anymore, or else we will be tortured,” said Abul Maati.

Back in his hometown of Shalakan, a small agricultural town north of Cairo, Abul Maati’s father, Ahmed Abu Arab, started his hunger strike to protest the detention of his son, while the brother and other family members continued to file complaints and requests for a retrial. On the tenth day of his hunger strike, the unhealthy old man was rushed to hospital after he collapsed.

Abul Maati was finally granted a retrial in mid October. He stood a second military trial in November that sentenced him to six months in jail for breaking curfew. And he was released based on the nine months he had already served.

He emerged from the prison to find out that he had lost his job at the Egypt Gas Company. Requests to the company to allow him to retain his job were in vain.

The healthy athlete and martial arts champion came out of prison a heavy smoker; he vowed to return to Tahrir Square, where he was first detained.

“I will be protesting in Tahrir Square on the anniversary, prison will never make me surrender what I came out for last year,” said Abul Maati.

He described his experience behind bars as “the reality of the Egyptian military,” which pretended to defend the revolution but “targeted the youth who fueled it.”

“It is the biggest betrayal I have ever experienced.”

The heavy strain that the military imprisonment and tribunals caused Abul Maati and his family, particularly his father who fell ill, is a familiar story among the thousands of detainees still in prison.

*****

This stress has certainly taken a toll on Amr El-Beheiry’s father.

Abdalla El-Beheiry suffered a stroke, his family says, after hearing that his son, Amr, was permanently fired from his job while serving his sentence.

And while thousands of protesters demanded reform and chanted against the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the now bed-ridden father found himself begging officers at the Military Judiciary Department to pardon his jailed son or allow him to stand retrial.

On January 10, El-Beheiry’s appeal for a retrial was accepted. The old man still clings to a hope that his son might be released and return to his job. He waits to see if the retrial will really take place. But the father has been rendered mute by the effect of the stroke and is unable to say how he feels about the slight hope that his son may be released.

“My father just couldn’t tolerate the news,” said Amr’s brother, Mohamed.

Khalil is a Cairo-based journalist who reports on the Middle East for a variety of Western publications. While it’s impressive that he has published “Liberation Square” before the one-year anniversary of the uprising, it’s not unusual. Reporters routinely crank out quickie books on major news events, and these tend to be rushed and lumpy creations, nearly as ephemeral as the newspaper stories on which they’re based. What’s remarkable about “Liberation Square” is how good it is, how well written, how perfectly calibrated in its amounts of background, commentary and prognostication — and above all how thrilling it is to read.

“Liberation Square” is also far from impartial, though I doubt there are many readers who will fault it for that. As a longtime Cairene, Khalil is able to quickly and vividly sketch the mindset of his countrymen as, a mere year ago, they faced the demoralizing prospect of Mubarak’s son, Gamal, continuing his father’s nepotistic, kleptocratic style of governance into the foreseeable future. He knows the jokes they told and the shame they felt — as a nation of famously “clever, resourceful and resilient” people, inheritors of an ancient and storied civilization — at being dominated by a pack of bullies, liars and incompetents.

In describing the increasingly intolerable conditions in Egypt, Khalil picks out a few cultural and political milestones and symbols that capture this malaise and festering disgust. The buddy comedy movie, “Cultural Film,” about a group of friends desperately trying to find a place to watch a softcore video, portrayed the bottled-up sexual frustration of a generation of educated young men who had no hope of ever finding decent jobs, moving out of their parents’ homes and getting married. A bestselling novel, “The Yacoubian Building” (later made into a film), uses “a grand old building in downtown Cairo” to illustrate how the rigid Egyptian class system arbitrarily yet mercilessly dictates the residents’ fates.

And then there’s the Internet, whose role in the uprising was, Khalil confirms, pivotal. Two important figures were Khaled Saieed, a 28-year-old Alexandrian computer buff, who was beaten to death in a foyer by police officers for reasons unknown. A relative used a cellphone to secretly snap a photo of Saieed’s battered corpse, and this, along with the victim’s fresh-faced, quintessentially middle-class passport photo, “exploded onto the Egyptian Internet,” inspiring a We Are All Khaled Saieed page on Facebook. “The huge thing with Khaled Saieed wasn’t his picture after he got killed,” a blogger told Khalil. “It was his picture before he got killed. A little innocent-looking guy who looks just like your son, your cousin, your nephew. That’s what galvanized people.”

Another galvanizer was Asmaa Mahfouz, a 26-year-old veiled woman who took to YouTube to harangue the populace into attending the Jan. 25, 2011, protest in Tahrir Square, provoked by the flagrantly rigged elections of the previous year and the electrifying example of the Tunisian revolution. “Mahfouz directs more of her anger at her fellow Egyptian civilians than at the government and the police,” Khalil writes, “taunting viewers to prove their manhood” by showing up at the square. Aimed as it was at the Egyptians’ “prized self-perceptions of what it meant to be a man” and providing more traditional women with an activist role model, this and other Mahfouz videos constituted “a remarkable moment of viral political marketing,” Khalil writes. Her impact, he asserts, was enormous.

The last half of “Liberation Square” forms a suspenseful, day-by-day narrative of the weeks between that first protest, on Jan. 25, and Mubarak’s resignation on Feb. 11. Khalil was on the streets much of the time and has interviewed dozens of participants about the unfolding drama as the demonstrators sought to take bridges and public spaces from the police, figured out how to communicate when the government cut Internet and cellphone service, fended off attacks from hired Mubarak supporters on camel- and horseback, welcomed the military and then wondered why it didn’t do more to defend them, listened to and rejected the self-justifying statements of Mubarak and other officials, and gradually realized that there was no going back and that the country was theirs at last.

Khalil is responsible enough to outline the ways that “figuring out what comes next will be much more difficult” than jettisoning Mubarak. The new Egypt must cope with a press so accustomed to toadying to the government or private owners that it doesn’t know how to think for itself, and with old-school elites doing everything they can to make sure they’re not held accountable for their misdeeds. Will the army, which is currently running the government, surrender that power willingly? How can decades of corruption and cronyism be replaced by a more “meritocratic” society, a reform that Khalil regards as “the single most important change going forward”? Although “Liberation Square” does offer a satisfying resolution in the form of Mubarak’s ouster, it’s a resolution for the book,  certainly not for Egypt itself. There, the protests continue.

Thanks to Scott Olsen, the Iraq vet and victim of brutal police overreaction at Occupy Oakland, for showing the many forms that fighting for one’s country can take. We’re especially thankful that he’s recovering from the coma induced by a tear gas canister fired directly at his head, and is well enough to give public statements.

Thanks to retired Police Capt. Ray Lewis, who participated in Occupy Wall Street in full uniform, and was arrested for his participation. As stories of police brutality spread, Lewis reminds us that most cops are fellow members of the 99 percent, working hard to stay afloat in an increasingly class-segregated nation. Most of them aren’t happy being seen as serving the interests of the oligarchy, and where there’s abuse, it’s generally the result of poor training and misguided priorities from the top, not the rank-and-file.

Thanks to Diane Ravitch, and other school reform critics like Dana Goldstein, for adding desperately needed perspective and balance to the school reform debate, a debate in which one side receives what could charitably be referred to as the lion’s share of favorable press coverage and philanthropic support. Their needling forces school reform advocates and foes alike to examine their assumptions and strengthen their arguments, and they sometimes end up causing even dilettante education policy gurus like Steven Brill to see that the seductive claims made by technocrat reformers tend to be overstated. Better, smarter policy debates are enough of a rarity that we should all be thankful for anyone who can manage to produce them.

Thanks to Wael Ghonim for putting aside his very good job with Google to put his life on the line for freedom and liberty for his people in Egypt. Lots of tech entrepreneurs and engineers talk of changing the world; few of them spend weeks in custody as political prisoners for their efforts. Wael Ghonim was instrumental in organizing the popular revolt that toppled a dictatorial regime,

Thanks to Nick Davies, who, along with Guardian investigative correspondent Amelia Hill and others at the Guardian, has been relentlessly exposing News Corps’s criminal news-gathering practices in the U.K. Reporting on the misdeeds of the powerful — and News Corp is hugely powerful, especially in Great Britain — is the best reporting there is, and the investigations and arrests that have resulted from Davies and Hill’s reporting will change the culture of the international media industry for the better. We’ll be especially thankful if News Corp shareholders force the giant conglomerate into more responsible corporate management.

Thanks to Elizabeth Warren for perfectly articulating the liberal ideal of the social contract. One good senator may be limited in how much she can achieve, but if she wins and inspires more like her to follow — and imitate her unapologetic rhetoric of fairness — we’ll have even more to be thankful for.

Thanks to Sree Sreenivasan, dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, for making a mockery of dishonest bully James O’Keefe. O’Keefe’s only power comes from other media outlets taking him seriously. In one hilarious video, Sreenivasan showed why O’Keefe’s a joke.

Late Monday night in Tahrir, exuberant crowds chanted,  “The people want the downfall of the Field Marshall” (Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi has been the nominal head of state for the last  nine months). A diverse collection of demonstrators, including children and families, gathered in the square while young men battled riot police on side streets.

As I watched these pitched battles rage,  young activists gathered around me,  eager to explain their reasons for taking to the streets. “We have had enough of the military,” 18-year-old Hady told me. Walid, 23, said this is the first time he’s felt optimistic since “we kicked out Mubarak.”

The last three days have seen a revival of the grass-roots street protest movement that swiftly toppled the 30-year dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak last spring.  The demonstrations come after months of haggling between the military government and the political parties about the details of the transition to democracy.

Although the military has feigned interest in sharing power with civilians, it refuses to budge on key issues, including the persistence of Emergency Laws and the proliferation of military trials for civilians. As a result, many in Tahrir have lost faith in the political class’s ability to negotiate effectively with the military.

“We have come here to complete the revolution,“  said Ahmad Salah a left-wing activist who has been in Tahrir since Saturday afternoon.

“Where are all the leaders? Where are the political celebrities? Where are the political parties?” he asked me. “We don’t need them. This is how a revolution should be, a people’s revolution.”

Of course, the political parties, seeking to compete in next week’s election, are following events closely and are doing their best to not alienate anyone.

Dr. Amr Derrag, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing in the metropolitan neighborhood of Giza, told me that protesters “may be considered justified in the face of  police brutality,” but stopped short  of endorsing the protests or calling for the military’s immediate removal.

In their official statements, the Brotherhood both condemned the violence and called for stability.  Brotherhood leaders are still insisting that elections proceed as scheduled.  Though individual Brotherhood members  are present in Tahrir Square, the organization has promised to not participate in any  demonstrations that “lead to confrontations.”

The resignation of the cabinet was viewed by many in the crowd as a cosmetic concession.  It is well known the cabinet has little real power and that, since the removal of Hosni Mubarak last spring, the SCAF has been calling the shots.

“It is not enough, ” Shahir Ishak, one of the co-founders of the Freedom Egypt Party and himself a candidate for parliament, told me in Tahrir Square.  “The protesters expect more than just the cabinet submitting their resignation. People cannot leave the square without a clear statement for a proper transition.”

It is unclear what an acceptable transition would look like, but Ishak still has faith in next week’s elections. “We have to have elections immediately,” he told me. Without elections, there will be no viable alternative to the SCAF.

By midnight in Cairo, a wary calm had settled in Tahrir Square. There are rumors that the SCAF is trying to negotiate with a coalition of political parties, and some are saying that Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei is trying to form a national “salvation government. ” For now, though, most are focusing on holding the square for another day.

This is not the first time CSI ‘s products have been used against Egyptian citizens.  During Egypt’s January revolution,  CSI tear gas was employed by the Mubarak regime against demonstrators in Tahrir Square.

Nearly nine months later, these same canisters have been raining down on demonstrators for the past  eight hours as Egyptian security forces clash with protesters throughout downtown Cairo. The  violence on Saturday came  a day after peaceful protesters occupied Tahrir Square on Friday demanding the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) accelerate the transition to civilian rule.

The use of U.S-made tear gas against the protesters  in Cairo is the result of  the U.S. military aid policy.  In exchange for nearly $1.3 billion in aid, the United States requires that Egypt buy its hardware from U.S. manufacturers.

CSI’s website announces that the firms sell an“ innovative line of less-lethal munitions, tactical munitions and crowd control products . . . to a wide range of international military and law enforcement customers.” CSI will not confirm or deny whether they sell arms to Egypt, but their distinct labels are evidence enough.

According to the State Department web site, the United States gave Egypt $1.2 million in 2009 for tear gas, riot control agents, and associated equipment.

Clashes in Tahrir Square

During Friday’s protests, a diverse group of political parties and activists joined together for a rowdy but peaceful denunciation of military rule.  A small group of demonstrators stayed the night, vowing to occupy the Square until the military steps aside.

Beginning in the early afternoon on Saturday, security forces moved to clear the square of the remaining demonstrators, but the protesters stood their ground.   By late Saturday night,  after nearly eight hours of violent street clashes,  protesters had secured the periphery of Tahrir Square and were checking ID’s at makeshift barricades.

Chaos still reigned outside the Square as security personal faced down groups of rock-throwing youths.

On the corner of Mohammad Mahoud Street,  across from Tahrir Square, young men with their faces covered in surgical masks rushed forward to grab a smoking canister and fling it back at a line of riot-police.

A block away,  on Tahrir Street,  a resident hurled  Molotov cocktails at the advancing riot police  and dropped water bottles to exhausted protestors.  At the end of the street, protesters lit piles of trash on fire to obstruct the oncoming policemen.

The wounded were treated at a makeshift hospital set up outside a Kentucky Fried Chicken at the edge of Tahrir Square.  A man, who identified himself as a doctor, tolds me that hundred of protesters have been wounded and several have died.

A spokesperson for the Healthy Ministry, Mohammed Sherbini, confirmed that more 600 protesters have been wounded in the clashes. The Ministry of Interior claims that 40 police officers have been wounded as well.

State TV Spreads Military Propaganda

Reports on military-controlled State TV blamed the violence on the protesters. But thousands ignored the propaganda and streamed into Tahrir Square to express their dissatisfaction with the military and to take part in the clashes.

Rami Sizar, a native of the working class neighborhood of Imbaba,  told me he came straight to the Square as soon as he heard the police were clashing with protesters.  “I didn’t believe the State TV,” he explained.  “Everyone has the right to protest in the Square,” his friend Amr added.

In the middle of Tahrir Square,  protesters held up teargas canisters and bullet shells and ask journalists to take pictures.  One man gestured at a canister and asks me why the United States was helping the SCAF “attack” the Egyptian people.

As of midnight in Cairo, there was no indication that the protesters would leave Tahrir Square.  A group of men have hoisted a banner which reads “the people want a civil ruling council.”    The violent crackdown seems to have only strengthened the resolve of protesters.  “The revolution continues,” tweeted activist Hossam el-Homalawy, as protesters braced themselves for further attacks.