Need political uprising updates/Egypt

I have made reservations for Cairo and Sharm the last week of May and was close to making flight reservations, but then Egypt had to follow suit and riot to overthrow the president of Egypt yesterday. We had decided the shark issue would not keep us from diving the Red Sea, but political instability will. I still have a little time before I pull the plug on Egypt and go somewhere else. I would really appreciate any of you who live and work there to give updates on what is happening on the ground in Sharm as well as Cairo and the repercussions for tourism.

too early to say anything
end of may is still too far IMO, you have to wait for a couple of days before things get clear.

Yeah - it is the main topic of conversation amongst the Egyptian staff but no obvious signs of anything here in Sharm, although the police did rather randomly ban drift diving this morning. Again.

At the moment, the protests are confined to what is a small area of Cairo - rather like a protest being made in Trafalgar Square. I'm not really familiar with Cairo but it's a big city and if you'd passed through yesterday you would probably not even have known it was happening.

It's early days - will see what happens.

Cheers

C.

I doubt it'll effect the tourist trade at all.

This won't be another Tunisia for a few reasons. Firstly Mbarack has the military, media and police firmly on his side. Also the US backs him and Clinton has already come out in support for him.

He might be a military dictator of a fairly oppressive regime with a sketchy human rights issue but he co-operates with the US and the west so will be supported at all costs.

Ben Ali in Tunisia had none of that. He wasn't useful so wasn't backed.

Cairo you would notice something going on - its Tahrir square, the middle of the city. All roads lead there, the Egyptian museum is on that, lots of the main hotels, lots of the diplomatic missions and so on.

Remember it wasn't only Cairo, people were killed in Suez, Alexandria and riots elsewhere. Due to the state media control though its generally not reported at all in Egypt.

Currently in theory Twitter and Facebook are blocked but the government isn't in the same league as China, Saudi and so on in terms of technology. They don't/can't do backbone blocking and rely on telling ISPs to block it.
Skype has been "illegal" and "blocked" for a year but still mostly works even on mobiles. They have the will to control the internet but not the technological ability.

Egyptian culture is quite different as well - i doubt they've got the balls for extended protests to bring about change.

Most likely it'll all calm down now as they're getting bored already. Expect a massive government and police crackdown before the sham presidential elections later in the year though. By then they'll probably have more ability to block internet traffic, mobile phones and so on.

Ultimately its in the wests interest that Mbarack wins anyway so they'll back him no-matter what.
They really don't want democracy as that would guarantee a less favourable leader there.

I really can't see it affecting a tourist at all, especially in May. Sinai i doubt you'd notice anything going on at all.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and observations. I think I'll keep a close eye on it for a couple of weeks and then make my decision.

Satellite news stations being switched off now as well. 500+ arrested.

As a tourist in a dive resort though i suspect you wouldn't be aware of anything going on at all (neither will the locals in those areas as the media isnt covering it). If you're not in a major population centre you wont see a thing.

The only source of information is statements from those in the middle of action via twitter and facebook... no media coverage at all for today's events

Facebook and twitter are in theory blocked (but as usual doesn't work very well if at all in some areas). State media as far as its concerned nothing is happening. As a LOT of Egyptians outside the cities have no computers, no internet and just a TV they wont even be aware of anything going on. Which is probably the whole idea.

"Egyptian culture is quite different as well - i doubt they've got the balls for extended protests to bring about change.

Most likely it'll all calm down now as they're getting bored already. Expect a massive government and police crackdown before the sham presidential elections later in the year though. By then they'll probably have more ability to block internet traffic, mobile phones and so on."

This is in response to Sting. I don't want to start a political argument here, but at the same time I can't just sit and read this and say nothing. I think yesterday has proven that there is a lot the Egyptians can accomplish that many people like yourself did not think they can. Also there had been a fair bit of protests today and there will be another big protests on Friday. This will not stop until Mubarak leaves. So watch you language next time. I do agree though that it won't impact tourism. This is an internal issue not external.

anassrat:

"Egyptian culture is quite different as well - i doubt they've got the balls for extended protests to bring about change.

Most likely it'll all calm down now as they're getting bored already. Expect a massive government and police crackdown before the sham presidential elections later in the year though. By then they'll probably have more ability to block internet traffic, mobile phones and so on."

This is in response to Sting. I don't want to start a political argument here, but at the same time I can't just sit and read this and say nothing. I think yesterday has proven that there is a lot the Egyptians can accomplish that many people like yourself did not think they can. Also there had been a fair bit of protests today and there will be another big protests on Friday. This will not stop until Mubarak leaves. So watch you language next time. I do agree though that it won't impact tourism. This is an internal issue not external.

Click to expand...

Have you ever been to egypt?

I agree with String - it will fizzle out very quickly.