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Aiding Revolution? Wikileaks,communication and the ‘Arab Spring’ inEgyptSimon MabonPublished online: 16 Dec 2013.

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Aiding Revolution? Wikileaks,communication and the ‘Arab Spring’ inEgypt

SIMON MABON

ABSTRACT This article explores the role of external actors in facilitating theuprisings in Egypt that have become known as the Arab Spring. It analyses sev-eral of the diplomatic cables released by the Wikileaks organisation that possessan Egypt focus. The article suggests that while the cables did not make surpris-ing revelations to Egyptians, the release of this information offered a source ofexternal legitimacy for the protesters by detailing a history of oppression andhuman rights abuses; conversely, the cables delegitimised the Mubarak regime.The data were then spread via different channels of communication to aid theprotest movements both internally and externally. The article concludes by sug-gesting that while this information was incredibly important, as were the chan-nels of communication used to facilitate events and spread the information, onemust be careful not to diminish the importance of agency.

On 17 July 2009 the American Ambassador in Tunisia, Robert F Godec, dinedat the beachfront house of Mohamed Sakher El Materi, a member of the Tunisianroyal family. While there Godec witnessed extravagance, including a caged tigerwho consumed four chickens a day. Outside large numbers of Tunisians werestarving. In a diplomatic cable sent to Washington, later released by Wikileaks,Godec noted that ‘corruption is the elephant in the room; it is the problem every-one knows about, but no one can publicly acknowledge’.1 The diplomatic cablewas classified secret.

An Amnesty International report in 2011 suggested that ‘2010 may well beremembered as a watershed year when activists and journalists used new technol-ogy to speak truth to power and, in so doing, pushed for greater respect forhuman rights [...] It is also the year when repressive governments faced the realpossibility that their days were numbered’.2 One of the key ways through whichtruth and power were articulated was Wikileaks, the importance of which should

Simon Mabon is in the Department of Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Lancaster University, Bailrigg, LancasterLA1 4YL, UK. Email: s.mabon@lancaster.ac.uk.

Third World Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 10, 2013, pp 1843–1857

ISSN 0143-6597 print/ISSN 1360-2241 online

� 2013 Southseries Inc., www.thirdworldquarterly.com

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not be understated; in contrast, those referred to in the cables sought todemonstrate the latters’ propensity for mischief. According to former Libyanruler Muammar Gaddafi, Wikileaks ‘publishes information written by lyingambassadors in order to create chaos’.3

This paper examines the role of Wikileaks and various channels of communi-cation in facilitating the events across the Middle East in 2011 that have becomeknown as the ‘Arab Spring’. While numerous reasons have been suggested forthe uprisings across the region, grounded in economic and pro-democracy con-cerns, very little work has been undertaken exploring how the uprisings spreadand the role played by external actors in these events.The argument suggests that, while the release of diplomatic cables detailing

the corruption of Arab leaders did not provide new information to citizens ofeach respective state, detailing US awareness of corruption and restrictions uponpolitical space altered perceptions of legitimacy externally and aided dissentinternally. This dissent was then spread through the internet, with the aid ofexternal non-state actors, aiding the uprisings across the region. The corruptiondetailed within the cables delegitimised regimes, further legitimising theprotesters.

The paper begins by considering the events in the Middle East that havebecome known as the Arab Spring, with a particular focus upon Egypt.Empirical material within Wikileaks cables is then discussed and analysed beforeconsidering the role of the internet and Al Jazeera. The argument then turns tothe response of the government of Egypt (GOE) and the impact of external actorsin aiding the protests. The paper concludes by suggesting that, while Wikileaks,the internet and Al Jazeera had an important role to play within the protests, onemust not diminish the role of the agency of social forces and social movements.

The Arab Springs4

The events of 2011 across the Middle East and North Africa dramaticallychanged the political landscape of the region and continue to do so. Many previ-ously embedded autocratic regimes were deposed, with uprisings bringingtogether different groups, united in opposition to regimes across the region.

The catalyst for the Arab Spring occurred in December 2010, when MohamedBouazizi, a 26-year-old Tunisian street vendor, frustrated at a lack of economicopportunities and continued harassment at the hands of government officials,self-immolated. This event triggered a series of protests across Tunisia, culminat-ing in the removal of President Ben Ali in January 2011. The empowerment ofpreviously disenfranchised, depoliticised individuals within Tunisia encouragedother individuals in neighbouring states to call for change, challenging thelegitimacy of ruling elites.

The Arab Spring in Egypt

Within Egypt the Arab Spring began on 25 January 2011 and took 18 days toremove Hosni Mubarak from power, although the transition to democraticparticipation is still in progress. The events of 2011 were driven by desires for

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bread, freedom and social justice,5 reflecting the economic and social problemsfacing Egypt.6 As part of a ‘Day of Anger’, on 25 January 2011, crowdsgathered across the country, notably in Tahrir Square, Cairo, in Suez and inAlexandria,7 where they were initially met by police, who used tear gas in anattempt to dispel the protesters. Over the coming days the number of protestersincreased, with regular outbreaks of violence and a number of deaths. On Friday28 January Egypt underwent a ‘Friday of Anger’,8 or ‘Day of Rage’.9 On thisday the GOE replaced the police with the military and began to restrict access tocommunications, limiting internet access and mobile phone signals.

The protests continued, resulting in an increasing number of deaths andgrowing societal tension across the state. Building upon the Day of Anger andDay of Rage, protesters called for additional symbolic events, notably the ‘Marchof the Millions’, the ‘Friday of Departure’, and the ‘Sunday of Martyrs’. On 11February 2011, after 18 days of uprising, Hosni Mubarak resigned, fleeing withhis family to the resort of Sharm-el Sheikh. Power was initially transferred to hisVice-President, Omar Suleiman, then to the Supreme Council of Armed Forces(SCAF) who relinquished power after Muhammad Morsi became the firstdemocratically elected president of Egypt. A year after Morsi’s election, amid anew series of protests and growing economic and social unrest, the militaryregained power after Morsi was overthrown in July 2013.10

The Construction of #Jan25

While not a coherent group, actors involved in the anti-Mubarak protests fellunder the banner of ‘#Jan25’, reflecting the prominence of twitter within theuprisings. Within the #Jan25 collective were several groups, namely, but notexclusively, the 6 April Youth Movement, We Are All Khaled Said Movement,the National Association for Change, 25 January Movement and Kefaya. Thus,the Arab Spring in Egypt brought together different groups—many of whom hadpreviously opposed the GOE—who coalesced around several issues,predominantly on an anti-regime platform. Key demands included an end to theMubarak regime and ‘a stand against torture, poverty, corruption and unemploy-ment’.11 One protester, Wesam Abdulaziz, stated her demands thus: ‘I came tochange the government [...] I came to change the entire regime.’12

Other demands were clearly articulated on webpages and Facebook sites forthe various groups. Indeed, consider the following excerpt, taken from the WeAre All Khaled Said Movement Facebook page:

Khaled has become the symbol for many Egyptians who dream to see their countryfree of brutality, torture and ill treatment. Many young Egyptians are now fed upwith the inhuman treatment they face on a daily basis in streets, police stations andeverywhere. Egyptians want to see an end to all violence committed by anyEgyptian Policeman. Egyptians are aspiring to the day when Egypt has its freedomand dignity back, the day when the current 30 years long emergency martial lawends and when Egyptians can freely elect their true representatives.13

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This demonstrates how opposition to the Mubarak regime was also coupled withfrustration at human rights violations, stemming from the Emergency Law thathad been in operation within Egypt since 1967.14 The Emergency Law wentsome way to restricting the political space of Egyptians, the extent of which canbe seen in the Wikileaks cables.

Political space and the roots of violence

Political space is important in allowing the flourishing of individuals and openpolitical systems; when political space is restricted, the possibility of violenceincreases. Mohammad M Hafez defines a political system as accessible when‘the state grants it the possibility to influence policymaking through governmen-tal institutions; it is closed when the movement is prohibited from influencingpublic policy through institutional channels’.15 Closed political systems typicallyare found alongside restrictions placed on civil society, taken to be space withinwhich groups can operate and oppositional grievances can be legitimately chan-nelled. Civil society is defined by Augustus Richard Norton as a ‘mélange ofassociations, clubs, guilds, syndicates, federations, unions, parties and groups[which] come together to provide a buffer between state and citizen’.16

When political space is restricted, actors are limited as to their options: theymust either accept their position, leave a state, or protest. These protestsgenerally reflect the anger at a repressive government that is out of touch with itspopulation. The protests of the Arab Spring within Egypt clearly demonstratedthis anger, coupled with grievances over the treatment of Egyptian citizens.

The diplomatic cables

The release of US diplomatic cables by Wikileaks constitutes the largest everrelease of classified material. In total some 251 287 cables were obtained byWikileaks and distributed by five newspapers across the world, namely theGuardian, the New York Times, El Pais, Le Monde and Der Speigel. The actionbegan on 28 November 2010 with the release of 220 cables.

The individual responsible for the release of these cables was BradleyManning, a private in the US army. Manning confessed to this in conversationswith a former hacker, Adriam Lamo, an extract from which is below:

(02:16:38 AM) Manning: State Department Cable = a Memorandum(02:16:48 AM) Lamo: embassy cables?(02:16:54 AM) Manning: yes(02:17:00 AM) Manning: 260 000 in all(02:17:10 AM) Manning: i mentioned this previously(02:17:14 AM) Lamo: yes(02:17:31 AM) Lamo: stored locally, or retrieveable?(02:17:35 AM) Manning: brb latrine =P(02:17:43 AM) Manning: i dont have a copy anymore(02:17:59 AM) Lamo: *nod*(02:18:09 AM) Manning: they were stored on a centralized server…(02:18:34 AM) Lamo: what’s your endgame plan, then?

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(02:18:36 AM) Manning: it was vulnerable as fuck(02:20:57 AM) Manning: well, it was forwarded to WL(02:21:18 AM) Manning: and god knows what happens now.17

On 26 May Manning was arrested.While there has been a burgeoning focus upon the impact of Wikileaks upon

the Tunisian uprisings, with several authors suggesting that it played a prominentrole,18 particularly in detailing the corruption and profligacy of the Ben Aliregime, little work has been undertaken examining the impact of Wikileaks uponEgypt. Indeed, much of the work looking at the Arab Spring in Egypt hasfocused upon the role played by social media, predominantly Twitter andFacebook.

The Media, Reputation and Intangibles Centre at the University of Navarra isone centre that has sought to critically engage with the material within the cablesand has offered fascinating insight into the comparison between the Tunisian andEgyptian cables.19 Figure 1, compiled by the Centre, reveals the prominence ofcorruption and dictatorship within the Tunisian cables, whereas, in contrast, theEgyptian cables show that human rights violations feature most prominently,then dictatorship.

As such, when considering the Egyptian cables, it is pertinent to focus uponthe most prominent aspect of these cables, namely that of human rights abuses,which feeds into grievances held by the Egyptian population. To this end, thefollowing section examines the content of several diplomatic cables that makeexplicit reference to human rights violations and abuses. These violations andabuses fall under the realm of both a restriction and an abuse of political space.

The Egyptian cables

The cables discussed here are presented in Table 1. Cable 09CAIRO1447documents the restrictions placed upon bloggers, journalists and novelists. Twoprominent sections are worth quoting in full:

FIGURE 1. Key themes in Wikileaks cables: Tunisia and Egypt.

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(C) A recent series of selective GOE actions against journalists, bloggers and evenan amateur poet illustrates the variety of methods available to the GOE to suppresscritical opinion, including an array of investigative authorities and public and pri-vate legal actions.

This first quote highlights the lack of freedom of speech within Egypt, articulat-ing the extent to which restrictions were placed on it. Indeed, this transcendedofficial opposition groups to include amateur bloggers and poets.

6. (C) The GOE is using the Emergency Law to reject court orders for the release ofblogger XXXXXXXXXXXXXX whom SSIS [Interior Ministry State Security] haskept in jail since XXXXXXXXXXXXXX for allegedly insulting both Islam andChristianity (ref C). […] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX commented that this is thefifth time the MOI [Ministry of the Interior] has refused to follow court decisionsordering XXXXXXXXXXXXX’s release.

The cable continues and details the jailing of a journalist on charges of defama-tion, along with that of an amateur poet. The defamation occurred followingalleged insults to President Mubarak. In addition to this, a profanity case wasfiled against a novelist and three Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated bloggers werearrested. Further, a prominent blogger, ‘XXXXXXXXXXXXXX’, was held atan airport for 13 hours. Although he was released, police did not return his lap-top, while searching for ‘intellectual property violations’. These charges werefacilitated by the Emergency Law and again demonstrate restrictions on politicalspace and freedom of speech.

10CAIRO147 documents a history of abuse within the police force of theMubarak regime.

(C) Interior Ministry State Security (SSIS) Director Hassan Abdel Rahman assertedthat SSIS has not abused prisoners ‘in the past ten years’. He claimed that the MOI

TABLE 1. The Egyptian Cables: Human Rights Violations and Grievances

Reference ID Created Released Classification Origin

09CAIRO1447 2009-07-28 14:48 2011-08-30 01:44 Confidential Embassy Cairo09CAIRO1447 2009-07-28 14:48 2011-08-30 01:44 Confidential Embassy Cairo09CAIRO79 2009-01-15 15:24 2009-01-15 Confidential Embassy Cairo10CAIRO213 2010-02-17 13:38 2011-08-30 01:44 Confidential Embassy Cairo08CAIRO2543 2008-12-21 15:26 2011-08-30 01:44 Secret/noforn Embassy Cairo08CAIRO2572 2008-12-30 09:09 2008-12-30 Secret Embassy Cairo

Sources: Viewing cable 09CAIRO1447, ‘Recent GOE actions to suppress critical opinion’, at http://wikileaks.org/cable/2009/07/09CAIRO1447.html; Viewing cable 10CAIRO147, ‘A/S Posner presses GOE on police brutal-ity, NGO’, at http://wikileaks.org/cable/2010/01/10CAIRO147.html; Viewing cable 09CAIRO79, ‘GOE strugglingto address policy brutality’, at http://wikileaks.org/cable/2009/01/09CAIRO79.html; Viewing cable10CAIRO213, ‘Activist urges US diplomatic approach to the GOE on torture’, at http://wikileaks.org/cable/2010/02/10CAIRO213.html; Viewing cable 08CAIRO2543, ‘Scenesetter for General Petraeus’ visit to Egypt’, athttp://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/12/08CAIRO2543.html; and Viewing cable 08CAIRO2572, ‘April 6 activist onhis US visit and regime’, at http://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/12/08CAIRO2572.html.

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played no role in the case of Cairo resident XXXXXXXXXXXX who, accordingto multiple NGOs, was abused repeatedly by police in January 2009. Rahmanclaimed there are no problems with prison conditions.

It was, however, acknowledged that torture may have been endemic during the1970s and 1980s. Yet, despite this suggestion, the cable continues and castsdoubt on the veracity of these claims.

2. (C) Comment: Per ref B, credible human rights lawyers believe police brutalitycontinues to be a pervasive, daily occurrence in GOE detention centers, and that SSIS

has adapted to increased media and blogger focus on police brutality by hiding theabuse and pressuring victims not to bring cases. NGOs assess prison conditions to bepoor, due to overcrowding and lack of medical care, food, clean water, and properventilation. Per ref E, following a landmark 2007 sentencing of police officers forassaulting and sodomizing a bus driver, courts have continued to sentence officersto prison terms for brutality. End comment.

It was noted in 4. (C) that the Interior Ministry was participating in human rightstraining as part of the UN Development Program; however, it would take a ‘gen-eration of training’ before human rights within the police would become norma-lised. Nevertheless, it must be conceded that there had allegedly been a changein policy evidenced by the prosecution of those officers responsible for torture.

09CAIRO79 challenges the claims made within 10CAIRO147 regarding theexistence of torture within Egypt.

1. (C) Summary and comment: Police brutality in Egypt against common criminalsis routine and pervasive. Contacts describe the police using force to extract confes-sions from criminals as a daily event, resulting from poor training and understaff-ing. Brutality against Islamist detainees has reportedly decreased overall, butsecurity forces still resort to torturing Muslim Brotherhood activists who aredeemed to pose a political threat. Over the past five years, the government hasstopped denying that torture exists, and since late 2007 courts have sentencedapproximately 15 police officers to prison terms for torture and killings.

Independent NGOs have criticized GOE-led efforts to provide human rights trainingfor the police as ineffective and lacking political will. The GOE has not yet made aserious effort to transform the police from an instrument of regime power into apublic service institution.

Following from this, the cable describes how torture is ‘endemic and wide-spread’. It states that the police ‘use brutal methods mostly against commoncriminals to extract confessions, but also against demonstrators, certain politicalprisoners and unfortunate bystanders’.

7. (C) Contacts agree that in the past five years, the government has stopped deny-ing that torture exists and has taken some steps to address the problem. However,contacts believe that the Interior Ministry lacks the political will to take substantiveaction to change the culture of police brutality.

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Cable 10CAIRO64 details further instances of how the Emergency Law has beenused to arrest bloggers such as Hany Nazir, following ‘posts deemed offensive toChristianity and Islam’. The cable also describes the arrests of members of theMuslim Brotherhood in the run-up to elections in 2005, 2008 and 2010, alongwith arrests of labourers who fought with police.

10CAIRO213 also casts doubt on the veracity of claims in 10CAIRO147 thattorture and human rights abuses have ended. Indeed, the cable notes how:

(C) Human rights activist XXXXXXXXXXXX told us February 10 he believes thetop USG [US government] human rights priority in Egypt should be diplomaticapproaches to urge the GEO to combat torture. He recommended quiet diplomacyover public statements.

(C) He described police torture as pervasive, and attributed it to senior-level Inte-rior Ministry pressure on officers to extract confessions, especially in murder cases,by any means necessary.

This desire to solve murder cases as quickly as possible meant that the worstforms of torture were taking place during these investigations. As a result of‘unrelenting pressure’ from superiors, during the investigative process the ‘policewill round up 40 to 50 suspects from a neighbourhood and hang them by theirarms from the ceiling for weeks until someone confesses’.

While these cables document the abuses occurring under the Mubarak regime,it is remiss to avoid discussing the pressure placed upon Mubarak and the GOE

for reform, emphasised by one cable in particular. 08CAIRO2543 is perhaps themost important cable when considering the USA’s relationship with Mubarakand the GOE. It details the manifestation of tension between the USA and Egyptparticularly over the speed of reform. Indeed, according to the cable, ‘US andEgyptian differences over the pace and direction of political reform have drainedthe warmth from the relationship on both sides’.

Furthermore, the cable documents additional tensions inherent in US policy,namely between President Bush’s Freedom Agenda and the Realpolitik goals ofMiddle Eastern security and a key regional ally, and counter-terrorism. Indeed,this tension between pursuing an agenda driven by human rights and democracypromotion and Realpolitik is inherent within most of the diplomatic cables.

12. (C) Our fundamental political reform goal in Egypt remains democratic trans-formation, including the expansion of political freedom and pluralism, respect forhuman rights, and a stable and legitimate transition to the post-Mubarak era. Egyp-tian democracy and human rights efforts, however, are being suffocated, and Muba-rak remains skeptical of our role in democracy promotion, lecturing us that anyefforts to open up will result in empowering the Muslim Brotherhood (which cur-rently holds 86 seats in Egypt’s parliament). […] An ongoing challenge remainsbalancing our security interests with our democracy promotion efforts.

08CAIRO2543 is the culmination of a series of cables that detailed tensionbetween the USA and Egypt. Tensions between the GOE and the USA thawed

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with a change in president (to Obama), who believed that the way to fosterchange across Egypt would be under the stewardship of Hosni Mubarak.

08CAIRO2572 revealed how opposition groups within Egypt were planningfor change during 2011. The cable records the source, Ahmed Salah, contendingthat:

the GOE will never undertake significant reform, and therefore, Egyptians need toreplace the current regime with a parliamentary democracy. He alleged that severalopposition parties and movements have accepted an unwritten plan for democratictransition by 2011; we [the USA] are doubtful of this claim.

The cable concluded that this goal of moving towards a parliamentary democ-racy before the 2011 presidential elections was ‘highly unrealistic’.

Aiding revolution?

While the information within these cables is neither new nor surprising, theimportance of official external acknowledgement of abuses contained within thecables cannot be downplayed. These cables show how political space withinEgypt has been restricted, namely under the guise of preventing freedom ofspeech and expression. Emergency laws have been regularly used and abused inorder to maintain the stability of the Mubarak regime.The information within the aforementioned cables details restrictions on

political space falling under the jurisdiction of the Emergency Law, combinedwith a lack of due process and human rights abuses. In an interview with theHindu Times Julian Assange argued the following: ‘We did feed in very specificcables into the situation and poured as much oil on to this fire as we could byreleasing hundreds of cables about the Egyptian regime and specifically aboutMubarak’s abuses and [Omar] Suleiman’.20

While acknowledging that this information is neither new nor surprising, howthen did Wikileaks aid the protests? As Assange suggests, what the Wikileakscables did was to pour oil on the fire of protests, by demonstrating externalknowledge of - and tacit consent for - internal Egyptian grievances. While Ass-ange 30 overstates the influence of Wikileaks, at times taking credit (on itsbehalf) for the Arab Spring, Assange’s understanding of the situation is perhapsinfelicitous.

What the Wikileaks cables did was to offer a further source of legitimacy forthe protesters by revealing the history of restrictions on political space andhuman rights abuses. Indeed, what is important is the source of the cables,namely an independent and—despite Mubarak being an ally of theUSA—impartial actor. Much like within Tunisia, the cables documentedcorruption and abuses that were widely accepted internally, but had the impact ofbeing observed by an external actor. Furthermore, they had an additional impact:that of increasing external attention for the protesters’ cause.

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The proliferation of information

The information contained within Wikileaks, combined with first-handinformation as to the brutality of the Mubarak regime, legitimised the protestmovements internally, while conversely delegitimising Mubarak. Protesterssought to capitalise on internet opportunities and spread this knowledge by usingmedia such as Facebook and Twitter. Indeed, it was through the process ofgetting information out of—and across—Egypt that the internet was mostvaluable. Furthermore, the information contained within Wikileaks was also usedas a source of information for countering pro-regime propaganda.

The role of the internet

Much has been written as to the role of Twitter and Facebook in the Egyptianuprisings, sparking much critical debate as to the actual role of the internet in theuprisings, with many Egyptian bloggers rejecting the notion of an internetrevolution.21 However, much of the focus of this discussion has been upon thelogistical support for protesters provided by these social media outlets. Indeed,the ease at which protesters could organise logistical matters was aided by thespeed of Twitter and the fluidity fostered by the #hashtag function. It is,however, important to note the capacity for social media to spread awareness ofgrievances contained within Wikileaks cables and from eye witnesses, thus‘getting the story out’ across Egypt and externally.

Yet it is also important not to overstate the significance of the role played bythe internet. Mosa’a El Shamy, an Egyptian photographer and activist, spent 18days in Tahrir Square during the uprising, during which time he tweeted updates.When asked by The Next Web as to the role of the internet in the uprisings hesaid the following:

I think the Internet played a fine role during those 18 days, but did the revolutioncome to a halt or lose mobilization when the service was cut off the wholecountry? Definitely not. It was useful that we let the world know, and graduallyincrease pressure on the regime from outside, and it acted as an anti-propagandatool when the media was spreading all kind of lies, and I think we made the best ofit. But it simply shouldn’t be overstated.22

El Shamy provides a sagacious analysis of the importance of the internet inincreasing external pressure on the regime and countering the propaganda of thepro-Mubarak media.

Al Jazeera

A second important factor in countering the propaganda of the pro-Mubarakmedia was Al Jazeera. In contrast to discussions of Twitter and Facebook, therole of Al Jazeera within the Arab Spring has been under reported. Whilethe number of those in Egypt with Facebook access stood at some three million,the role of Al Jazeera appeared to be far more limited, given the restrictions on

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broadcasting in place, coupled with the number of local news outlets alreadyoperating. Moreover, one must be aware that Al Jazeera operates as a branch ofQatari foreign policy and thus its editorial agenda matched that of Doha. Indeed,the Al Thani regime was a strong backer of the Muslim Brotherhood andgenerally identified with and supported the ‘Sunni tsunami’ that came with theArab Springs. Al Jazeera reproduced this message.

Nevertheless, despite remaining largely absent from Egyptian screens, thenetwork maintained a focus upon Egypt, leading to strong criticisms of AlJazeera’s agenda. This can best be seen in the broadcasting of a documen-tary detailing torture across Egypt. Aref Hijjawi, programme director at AlJazeera’s Arabic channel, stated that ‘Al-Jazeera broadcast tens of hours ofdocumentation on Egypt, more than was produced about all other Arabcountries combined. I do not recall a single hour that was not in some waycritical of the regime.’23 Hijjawi does not claim credit for the uprisings, sug-gesting, rather, that the role of Al-Jazeera in events was minimal. Yet it wasduring the protests that the broadcaster was able to spread the message ofthe protesters by documenting events from the heart of the protests, aimingto be at the heart of the ‘Arab Street’.

At the end of Hijjawi’s article, he states: ‘A television station does not createa revolution, nor does it participate in it, despite what some researchers maythink. At most, it is a panel on the highway telling the revolutionaries: You areon the right path.”24 This message is important in that the provision of supportfor protesters was an encouragement of their actions from an independent actor.This echoes the message emanating from the Wikileaks cables in providing alegitimation of action.

The response of the regime

Facing the increased threat posed by the proliferation of information—eithernews of current events or of the material within Wikileaks—via technology, oneresponse of the regime in Cairo was to attempt to restrict internet access. Four ofthe largest internet service providers, Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, TelecomEgypt and Etisalat Misr, were blocked.25 This restriction saw 88% of theEgyptian internet taken offline.26 The number of networks dropped from 2903Egyptian networks, originating from 52 ISPs to 327 networks overnight.27

According to Renesys, an internet monitoring site:

At 22:34 UTC (00:34am local time), Renesys observed the virtually simultaneouswithdrawal of all routes to Egyptian networks in the Internet’s global routing table.Approximately 3500 individual BGP routes were withdrawn, leaving no valid pathsby which the rest of the world could continue to exchange Internet traffic withEgypt’s service providers. Virtually all of Egypt’s Internet addresses are nowunreachable, worldwide.28

This restriction on internet access was coupled with restricted access to mobilephone networks, in an effort to prevent uprisings spreading.29 Limits on mobile

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networks included the Blackberry Messenger platform. Vodafone, who operate inEgypt alongside Telecom Egypt, released the following statement:

All mobile operators in Egypt have been instructed to suspend services in selectedareas. Under Egyptian legislation the authorities have the right to issue such anorder and we are obliged to comply with it. The Egyptian authorities will beclarifying the situation in due course.30

In addition to restrictions on communication access, Al Jazeera’s broadcasts weredisrupted.31

The impact upon external actors

What has been missing from the discussion of Wikileaks is a consideration ofthe impact of the release of these cables upon external actors, both state andnon-state. While the US government was all too aware of the nature ofMubarak’s regime, as demonstrated by diplomatic cables detailing the events inEgypt, the release of these cables made continued support for Mubarak and thecurrent GOE almost untenable given growing international concerns.Despite this, on 25 January 2011 Secretary of State Clinton stated: ‘Our

assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable and is looking for ways torespond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people’.32 While theUSA was placed in a somewhat difficult position, given the importance of Egyptas an ally in the region and, moreover, as a state with a formal peace treaty withIsrael, Obama concluded that continued support for the Mubarak regime was notpossible. To this end, on 10 February 2011, shortly before Mubarak resigned,Obama made the following statement on the situation in Egypt:

The Egyptian people have been told that there was a transition of authority, but itis not yet clear that this transition is immediate, meaningful or sufficient [...] TheEgyptian people have made it clear that there is no going back to the way thingswere: Egypt has changed, and its future is in the hands of the people.33

While Clinton’s statement on 25 January suggests that the triumph of Realpolitikover human rights and democracy was desired, Obama’s statement of 10February seems to suggest that this position had changed. Yet, in contrast toevents in Bahrain, where the US maintained support for the Al-Khalifa rulingfamily, perhaps events in Egypt were the exception rather than the norm. Assuch, it is important to consider the importance of external factors in aidingprocesses of revolution. However, given the initial support for Mubarak and thescepticism regarding the potential success of the revolution, relations betweenEgypt and the USA, and the protesters and the USA, remain frayed.

In addition to the role played by state actors, the importance of non-stateactors also needs to be considered. The release of the cables detailing restrictionson the freedom of speech and of the press helped motivate groups such as Anon-ymous and Telecomix to offer support to the protesters. This support, predomi-

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nantly in the guise of providing internet access to help facilitate the protests,should not be downplayed.

The censorship of the internet and restriction of mobile networks forced activ-ists to resort to alternative means of spreading the message contained within theWikileaks documents, namely fax machines. This permitted groups such asAnonymous to fax copies of Wikileaks cables showing human rights abuseswithin Egypt under President Mubarak to Egyptian phone/fax numbers.Anonymous were supported by a group called Telecomix,34 who employed simi-lar strategies in faxing Wikileaks cables across Egypt. Further, despite thespreading of the information within cables, Anonymous appeared to have a moreimportant agenda: ‘We’ve started spreading cables. This is a good idea, but thereis something more important than this—getting our Egyptian friends their inter-net access back. Get the following info out to Egypt in any way you can. Fax,phone calls, ham radio, fucking carrier pigeons. Go go go! [sic]’.35 To this end,both Telecomix and Anonymous sought to offer Egyptians internet access viaforeign landlines.36 While the importance of these actors should in no way beoverstated, the provision of internet access helped the continued spread ofinformation.

Conclusions

Although Wikileaks had an undeniable impact upon Tunisia and has beendescribed as playing an integral role within the Tunisian revolution, its impactupon Egypt is less easily ascertained. The information contained within the dip-lomatic cables pertaining to Egypt was neither new nor surprising; however, therelease of this classified information offered increased legitimacy for the protestmovement, both internally and externally.

Wikileaks documented and made public information about the Mubarakregime that was already generally, but often dimly, known outside Egypt; assuch, the importance of these cables is beyond doubt. First, protesters withinEgypt were inspired by events in Tunisia, which were occasioned by informationwithin Wikileaks cables. Second, it is clear that these cables have provided his-torical evidence of the restrictions on political space within Egypt put in placeby the Mubarak regime, as well as of the brutality employed to maintain power.Third, the evidence contained within the cables offered increased legitimacy toprotest movements, both internally and externally. Fourth, internationally thecables provided an increased impartial awareness of the nature of Mubarak’srule, meaning that governments that tacitly accepted the behaviour of the regimewere eventually unable to continue to do so because of the political costs. Fifth,the impact of Wikileaks upon non-state actors should also be emphasised.Groups such as Anonymous and Telecomix aided the protesters through the pro-vision of internet access when this was restricted.

However, to suggest that Wikileaks, Facebook, Twitter or Al Jazeera were ofparamount importance to the Egyptian revolution would be to diminish thepower of and the role of the agency of social forces and social movements. Assuch, while it is undeniable that these factors were important at various stages ofthe revolution, they were responsible for aiding the revolution, not inspiring it.

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Notes

I wish to thank Gilberto Algar-Faria and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on a previousversion of this article.1 ‘Corruption in Tunisia: what’s yours is mine’, Tunisialeaks, 8 December 2010, at https://tunileaks.

appspot.com/?p=33002.2 Amnesty International, Annual Report 2011, at http://www.amnesty.org/en/annual-report/2011/introduction.3 S Coll, ‘Democratic movements’, The New Yorker, 31 January 2011, at http://www.newyorker.com/talk/

comment/2011/01/31/110131taco_talk_coll#ixzz1pZO02iji.4 While typically referred to as the Arab Spring, this term has an implicit homogenising agenda, suggesting

that events across the region were the same. This belies much of the complexity of the region and of thegrievances that citizens experienced.

5 See M Tadros, ‘Where’s the “bread, freedom and social justice” a year after Egypt’s revolution?’, Guardian,25 January 2012, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2012/jan/25/egypt-bread-freedom-social-justice.

6 It is important to note that protesters were not united as to how such demands would be implemented withina policy realm.

7 ‘Egypt protests: three killed in “day of revolt”’, BBC, 26 January 2011, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12272836.

8 ‘Awaiting the “Friday of Anger”’, The Atlantic, 28 January 2011, at http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2011/01/awaiting-the-friday-of-anger/176664/.

9 A Ischaaroff, ‘Egypt anti-government protesters declare Friday “day of rage”’, Haaretz, 28 January 2011, athttp://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/egypt-anti-government-protesters-declare-friday-day-of-rage-1.339629.

10 Morsi was overthrown by the army under the control of General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.11 K Farhim, ‘Violent clashes mark protests against Mubarak’s rule’, New York Times, 26 January 2011, at

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/world/middleeast/26egypt.html?pagewanted=2&_r=100.12 Ibid.13 See ‘We Are All Khaled Said’, at https://www.facebook.com/elshaheeed.co.uk.14 The Emergency Law was enacted in 1958 as Law No. 162 and remained in effect from 1967 to 2012. It

allowed for the censorship of media outlets, prohibition of protests, monitoring of communications anddetention of individuals indefinitely without charge.

15 MM Hafez, Why Muslims Rebel: Repression and Resistance in the Islamic World, Boulder, CO: LynneRienner, 2003, p 28.

16 AR Norton (ed), Civil Society in the Middle East, Vol 1, Leiden: EJ Brill, p 7.17 K Poulsen & K Zetter, ‘“I can’t believe what I’m confessing to you”: the Wikileaks chats’, Wired, 6

October 2010, at http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/wikileaks-chat/. Conversations between Man-ning and Lamo began on 21 May 2010 and, as acknowledged by Wired.com, the logs contained timestamps but no dates.

18 See J Nederveen Pieterse, ‘Leaking superpower: WikiLeaks and the contradictions of democracy’, ThirdWorld Quarterly, 33(10), 2012, pp 1909–1924; E Dickinson, ‘The first Wikileaks revolution?’, ForeignPolicy, 13 January 2011, at http://wikileaks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/01/13/wikileaks_and_the_tunisia_protests?sms_ss=twitter&at_xt=4d2ffe4d9c2649d7,1; and S Ben Hassine, ‘Tunisia’s youth finallyhas revolution on its mind’, Guardian, 13 January 2011, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/13/tunisia-youth-revolution.

19 From the Media, Reputation and Intangibles Centre: ‘The empirical analysis we show is based in contentanalysis of some 3000 articles about Egypt (with explicit mention to Wikileaks), 2000 articles about Tunisiaand 900 articles about Egypt and Tunisia together. Values in the graph are relative, and reflect the quantita-tive weight each issue has in the story line of the crisis and the secrets revealed.’ Reputation Metrics, Egyptand Tunisia: Twin Wikileaks Stories? (I), Navarra: Media, Reputation and Intangibles Centre, 2 April 2011,athttp://wikileaksreputationcrisis.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/egypt-and-tunisia-twin-wikileaks-stories-i/.

20 N Ram, ‘WikiLeaks has provided the critical climate for political reform: Assange’, The Hindu, 12 April2011, at http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article1688846.ece.

21 It is not within the scope of this paper to offer a detailed analysis of this debate here.22 N Messieh, ‘Why Egypt wasn’t waiting for Wikileaks to start a revolution’, The Next Web, 10 July 2011,

at http://thenextweb.com/me/2011/07/10/why-egypt-wasnt-waiting-for-wikileaks-to-ignite-a-revolution/.23 A Hijjawi, ‘The role of Al-Jazeera (Arabic) in the Arab Revolts of 2011’, Report published by Heinrich

Böll Stiftung, 2011, pp 70–71, at http://www.lb.boell.org/downloads/ perspectives_02-10_aref_hijjawi.pdf24 Ibid, p 72.25 A Greenberg, ‘Amid digital blackout, Anonymous mass-faxes WikiLeaks cables to Egypt’, Forbes, 28

January 2011, at http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/01/28/amid-digital-blackout-anonymous-mass-faxes-wikileaks-cables-to-egypt/.

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26 P Olson, ‘Egypt goes dark: cuts off internet and mobile networks’, Forbes, 28 January 2011, athttp://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2011/01/28/egypt-goes-dark/.

27 Ibid.28 J Cowie, ‘Egypt leaves the internet’, Renesys, 27 January 2011, at http://www.renesys.com/blog/2011/01/

egypt-leaves-the-internet.shtml.29 Olson, ‘Egypt goes dark’.30 Vodaphone, ‘Statements—Vodaphone Egypt’, 3 February 2011, at http://www.vodafone.com/content/index/

media/press_statements/statement_on_egypt.html.31 T Bradshaw, ‘Condemnation over Egypt’s internet shutdown’, Financial Times, 28 January 2011, at

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/08dbe398-2abb-11e0-a2f3-00144feab49a.html#axzz1pene3CUa.32 ‘US urges restraint in Egypt, says government stable’, Reuters, 25 January 2011, at http://af.reuters.com/

article/topNews/idAFJOE70O0KF20110125.33 White House, ‘Statement of President Barak Obama on Egypt’, press release, 10 February 2011, at

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/02/10/statement-president-barack-obama-egypt.34 Telecomix is ‘a sociocyphernetic telecommunist feminist cluster of internet and data loving bots and people,

always striving to protect and improve the internet and defend the free flow of data. Telecomix, just like theInternet, knows no borders technological or territorial […] A lot of our work takes place in sub-clusters,autonomous groups spawned from the main Telecomix organism. Some of our sub-clusters have taken theform of direct interventions: encrypting, disseminating, connecting. Others have developed techniques andtechnologies, building things to make the internet safe for internauts everywhere.’ See http://telecomix.org/.

35 Piraten Pad, at http://piratenpad.de/opegypttgt.36 Greenberg, ‘Amid digital blackout, Anonymous mass-faxes WikiLeaks cables to Egypt’. The text reads:

‘Dear Egyptians, We are providing a Telefax bridge to the internet for you to use. Due to the harsh internetblackout in Egypt, we are trying to establish all possible means of communications for you. This is how itworks’, before providing instructions on how to achieve this. For the full text, see http://pastebin.com/biqB3uVA.

Notes on Contributors

Simon Mabon is Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Lancas-ter. His research interests include Gulf politics, Contested Sovereignty, and Polit-ical Violence. His recent publications include: Saudi Arabia and Iran: Softpower rivalry in the Middle East (London: I.B. Tauris, 2013); ‘The Battle forBahrain: Iranian-Saudi rivalry’, Middle East Policy, Vol. 19 No. 2, 2012; ‘King-dom in Crisis: Saudi Arabia, Instability and the Arab Spring’, ContemporarySecurity Policy, Vol. 33 No. 3, 2012.

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