Interviews with Mahmoud Afifi

At the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008, there were some calls from a group of workers in Mahallah. [Mahallah is an industrial city in Northern Egypt, which became a focal point for anti-government demonstrations.]

A call for a general strike in the factories in Mahallah. They were protesting against high prices, low wages, and lack of social justice.

But the call to some extent failed at the end of 2007, and at the beginning of 2008, the call was renewed. Ahmed Maher [co-founder of the April 6th Youth Movement] was very much interested in Mahallah workers and was always in touch with them. Mahallah is considered a very large industrial city that has its history in struggling against the regime.

Ahmed Maher was communicating with them and the idea of a general strike in Mahallah started to emerge, a strike in the factories against high prices, low wages and lack of social justice.

Ahmed and Esraa Abdel Fattah [Egyptian Internet activist and blogger also known as “Facebook Girl”] embraced the idea of a call for a general strike in Egypt in solidarity with the Mahallah workers as well as protesting against high prices and the political and economic situation in Egypt.

Thus, they created a group on Facebook calling for a general strike in Egypt on April 6th, 2008. A huge number of activists from all places in Egypt joined the group on Facebook. Three days after the creation of this group, 77,000 people joined the group; they were saying that they will join in the general strike.

The strike was very successful in Egypt on the 6th of April. In the same day of the strike, Esraa Abdel Fattah was arrested and a week later Ahmed Maher was arrested.

After Ahmed Maher was set free, he, along with some colleagues who joined the strike, decided to found a political movement under the same name [April 6th]. They wanted the movement to be formed of youth only, seeking to overthrow the regime and to change the political situation in Egypt.

At that time, Esraa was a member in Al Ghad Party [a liberal-orientated, Egyptian political party], and she refused to join the movement. However, Ahmed and a group of the founders decided to found a youth movement under this name. It was launched exactly on June 23, 2008; they announced its founding in the first general conference. Since then, they are working in groups on the streets aiming to overthrow the regime and to change the political and economic situation in the country.

Mahmoud Afifi is an Egyptian democracy activist with the April 6th Youth Movement, a group formed in 2008 to support striking workers; afterwards, it transformed into a nationwide opposition network against Hosni Mubarak’s regime. Today, Afifi serves as the Director of the April 6th Youth Movement’s Information Office. He is a lawyer by profession and graduated from Banha University in 2006.

Afifi joined the April 6th Youth Movement in 2009 and founded the group’s chapter in Egypt’s Qalyubia governorate. There he rallied youth to take part in various awareness campaigns and street protests against the government. As part of this strategy, he engaged the poorest segments of the population and strengthened their voice in the political arena. Following his success in Qalyubia, Afifi worked to organize April 6th Youth Movement campaigns at the national level. As the government cracked down on these demonstrations, Afifi was arrested several times and even abandoned in the desert.

Prior to the Egyptian Revolution that unseated President Hosni Mubarak, Afifi coordinated with other organizations encouraging citizens to participate in a January 25, 2011 demonstration in Cairo. On that day, Afifi marched to Tahrir Square with thousands of others demanding Mubarak’s resignation and a free Egypt. The protests intensified and expanded nationwide. Almost three weeks later, on February 11, 2011, Hosni Mubarak stepped down from power ending his 30 year reign.