Disappearances up the ante in Tahrir Square

[azurnoir]

Reporting from Cairo —
He was almost too shaken by sobs to speak, this thin-shouldered man with missing teeth. Finally he was able to choke out the words: "I am afraid my son is dead."


At 16, the boy, Rabiyeh, was his father's life and pride. Now he is missing, one of hundreds of people unaccounted for since the start of the 11-day-old rebellion against President Hosni Mubarak. Their loved ones fear they have been ensnared by Egypt's vast security apparatus, a shadowy world from which many never emerge.


Egypt's disappeared haunt the collective consciousness; they are an emblem of life in a modern police state. The uprising convulsing the country is in part a reaction to sweeping police powers of three decades running, a key enforcement mechanism of Mubarak's authoritarian rule.


Even in normal times, secret detentions are commonplace, but the maelstrom of protests has heightened that peril. Few expect this government to account for those picked up for challenging it. That is why people like Mohammed Said Ali — the weeping father who came to Tahrir Square on Friday, seeking some word of his son — are paralyzed by terror over the fate of those who have vanished.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-egypt-disappeared-20110205,0,190997.story

[snot]

1. The US appears to be throwing the protesters under the bus.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x351578

[guruoo]

2. Obama Administration Urges Mubarak to Step Down

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2011/02/04/obama-administration-urges-mubarak-to-step-down