Mahmoud Afifi: Afifi Joins the April 6th Youth Movement

Source: The Freedom Collection www.freedomcollection.org /

Mahmoud Afifi is an Egyptian democracy activist with the April 6th Youth Movement, a group formed in 2008 to support striking workers; afterwards, it transformed into a nationwide opposition network against Hosni Mubarak’s regime. Today, Afifi serves as the Director of the April 6th Youth Movement’s Information Office. He is a lawyer by profession and graduated from Banha University in 2006.

Afifi joined the April 6th Youth Movement in 2009 and founded the group’s chapter in Egypt’s Qalyubia governorate. There he rallied youth to take part in various awareness campaigns and street protests against the government. As part of this strategy, he engaged the poorest segments of the population and strengthened their voice in the political arena. Following his success in Qalyubia, Afifi worked to organize April 6th Youth Movement campaigns at the national level. As the government cracked down on these demonstrations, Afifi was arrested several times and even abandoned in the desert.

Prior to the Egyptian Revolution that unseated President Hosni Mubarak, Afifi coordinated with other organizations encouraging citizens to participate in a January 25, 2011 demonstration in Cairo. On that day, Afifi marched to Tahrir Square with thousands of others demanding Mubarak’s resignation and a free Egypt. The protests intensified and expanded nationwide. Almost three weeks later, on February 11, 2011, Hosni Mubarak stepped down from power ending his 30 year regime.

Transcript
After deciding to work in the political field, I started to follow up with the April 6th Youth Movement [an Egyptian activist group that was founded in 2008 to support striking workers] since its very beginning, and before that, I used to follow up with the Kefaya Movement and the Youth Movement for Change. [“Kefaya,” an Arabic word meaning “enough,” is a nickname for the Egyptian Movement for Change, a political activist group that opposed the Mubarak regime in Egypt.]

I was really interested in the existence of a youth activity, a group of youth who have a target and a vision that it is trying to reach. I was following up with the April Youth Movement and supporting it through the Internet, Facebook, and Twitter.

However, I felt that I need to apply some work on the ground with them, so I started to communicate with them, and joined the movement in 2009 and I started to be part of them.

I worked with them for some time as a member and then founded a branch of the movement in Qalyubia governorate [area north of Cairo]; I was the general coordinator there.

Then, I started to work with them on the formation of youth groups in all parts of Egypt so that we form a strong group and a lobby to put pressure on the government and have a strong influence.

I managed to form a group and it was the most powerful group in the movement. We started conducting awareness campaigns in the street and political crowd campaigns in the streets and in every governorate.

After that, I started to communicate with other youth movements, and started to communicate with the political forces existing in Qalyubia so that we have a strong influence inside and outside the governorate. Thus, I was able to contribute with them in forming a strong group to put pressure on the regime.

With the return of Dr. [Mohamed] El Baradei [an Egyptian diplomat, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and former head of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency who was a leading supporter for a democratic change in Egypt] in 2009, I was interested in his return and his contribution to making a change, so I started to work at the National Assembly for Change [A broad coalition of groups that advocated for political change in Egypt]. I participated in gathering signatures on the Statement of Change, we started to form groups and go down the street collecting signatures on a statement. [A nationwide campaign to collect at least one million signatures for a seven-point program of reforms to ensure free and fair elections.]

We started forming groups that explain to the people that change is what our country needs in the meantime, and that this regime is corrupt and will fall one day. However, this won’t happen unless we all unite. So, I worked for the National Assembly for Change with Dr. El Baradei in addition to working in the April 6th Youth Movement.

The Vaclav Havel Center