By Heba Fahmy
Wael Said
Wael Said, an Egyptian accountant working in Saudi Arabia was in Egypt visiting his family when the events happened on Jan. 25. Little did he know that he would later become a permanent resident in Tahrir Square.
“Any Egyptian living abroad knows that people abroad treat us like we have no dignity,” Saeid told Daily News Egypt. “And it’s all because of the regime.”
“We want our dignity back, and that can only happen if President Mubarak leaves.”
Said spends the night along side his brother and uncle, who traveled a long way from Sharqeya to sleep in Tahrir Square on a modest blanket in a plastic tent set up by the square’s residents.
“I’ve been [in Tahrir Square] for nearly 20 days and I don’t plan on going back to work in Saudi Arabia.”
Said said that that there’s a sense of solidarity and comradery among all the people in Tahrir Square.
“We even share the loaf of bread together,” he said.
Amira Hidaya
Neurosurgeon Amira Hidaya volunteers in a makeshift clinic in Tahrir Square and often spends the night to tend to her patients.
“I was with them during the protests starting Jan. 25,” Hidaya told Daily News Egypt.
“We want change and we want the humiliation inside and outside of our country to stop.”
Hidaya started volunteering after pro-Mubarak protesters attacked the protesters in Tahrir Square with Molotov cocktails, guns and rocks last week.
“I saw seven gun shot wounds that day and one of the injured was severely wounded in the head that his brain fell into my hands,” she said.
“I’m here everyday and I’m not leaving until things change,” she added.
Reda Al Malky
“I know about injustice all too well,” Reda Al Malky, a cassette vendor, told Daily News Egypt.
Al Malky spends every night in Tahrir Square hoping for change.
“I sleep on anything I can find, a blanket, plastic sheets, or even newspapers sometimes,” Al Malky said.
“I take shifts with the others at night to protect the square from the pro-Mubarak thugs,” he added.
Al Malky hasn’t been working ever since Jan 25.
“I’m already in a lot of debt because of the police officers who used to blackmail me into paying them bribes so I can stay in business,” Al Malky said, “All the money I made was taken by corrupt police officers.
“I want this whole regime to leave starting from Mubarak to everyone else under him,” he said.
