(Photo by Ahmed Al-Malky)
Democracy Meter announced Monday that the total number of protests in Egypt reached 1,044 in February.
An average of 37 protests took place daily with three protests every two hours, according to the report. The most contentious day was 8 February, when 85 protests took place. On 10 February citizens organised 58 protests, and on 22 February they held 52 protests.
February protests were not focused on Fridays as was the trend during the second half of 2013 following the military backed ousting of Mohamed Morsi on 3 July, according to the report. Democracy Meter implied that this implies that the protesting factions are now diversified from just Muslim Brotherhood affiliates and sympathisers, to include doctors, workers, public servants, security sector, educational sector and others.
Democracy Meter reported that protests for social and economic demands reached 58%. The most prominent demand cited was for the payment of late or unpaid wages, with pressuring management to resign another common rally point.
Political demands reached 41.76%, the most prominent of which were anti-interim-government, calling for the release of detainees, and anti-terrorism.
Security forcibly dealt with the protests, from rallies to human chains, regardless of the demands, except for those organised by the security sector, Democracy Meter reported. It said this was in spite of the fact that security sector protests blocked roads and shut down security directorates.
Mohamed Adel, the report’s editor, said the report was compiled using information from private and state-owned media outlets, and independent research from 18 volunteer field researchers in 18 governorates. The report had five editors who worked with the data to make quantitative and qualitative analysis.
Democracy Meter started in 2009 as an initiative of the Egyptian Association for Community Participation Enhancement to issue periodic reports on the status of democracy in Egypt. The programme became independent in 2010 then, in 2012, merged with the International Development Center for legal purposes. In an effort to maintain transparency, however, Democracy Meter collects donations independently.
