Egypt exploded into riots after police moved in and cracked down on peaceful protestors seeking to defend judges who were trying to defend rule of law. The targets of repression were treated barbarically by police, as the photos in the links below show. Egyptian bloggers who are seeing all of this firsthand suggest that this is a real fight for democracy in this country.

Source: Sandmonkey

Unrest in Egypt was based on the government’s thuggish sweep and crackdown on all sorts of democracy activists, often under the pretext of hunting terrorists. Since there really are terrorists in Egypt, it’s a very difficult and potentially tragic situation.

Condoleezza Rice has been applying a lot of heat on the Mubarak regime to liberalize, and it’s what she should be doing. But this also is risky in a longtime dictatorship due to the breeding ground for terrorism that all dictatorships create. Nevertheless, there is no other way, the illiberalism of the Mubarak regime must take steps to foster democratic revolution or the Islamofascists will move in.

I used to know Egyptians in Jersey City, which is full of Egyptian businessmen living in exile, selling to the mother country from abroad, and hoping that the Mubarak regime – in power for over 20 years – will finally end. They are good people, many of them telling me that they grew up hating Israelis but since moving to Jersey City, with all its Jewish residents, they have learned that what they were taught in Egyptian schools was all a canard and the Jews are their own cousins.

Here is a short aggregation of some of the good Egyptian bloggers and I am hoping one of the other Publius contributors who knows about this stuff will take this issue on and write a more thorough discussion. This looks like the real thing in democratic revolution. People are fighting in the streets for it now.

Big Pharaoh has photos of the barbarism of the Egyptian cops in the streets and a short discussion on U.S. policy efforts to force the Egyptian regime to change. Read it here.

Rantings of a Sandmonkey has TONS of riot photos, as well as a riveting firsthand account of what it was like to be at a demonstration, in an email from a someone who was right there. You got to see this post here.

He’s also got the backstory, tremendously done, along with his own liveblogging in this post here. Both are must-reads.

Zeinobia of Egyptian Chronicles warns that this was a watershed day in Egypt, and the goonish treatment of women from the cops is particularly noteworthy. She has lots of photos and discussion here.

Kat at The Middle Ground has more background, especially in the case of the imprisoned Egyptian freedom blogger, Alaa, as well news of how it connects to the current turmoil and unrest going on now – don’t be fooled by its boring name, it’s a visually beautiful, content rich, awesome blog and I am so glad Kat came here and told us about it. Read it here and here.

Kat writes here:

I think it would be important for people to point out exactly why this small unity reform party is more dangerous to Mubarek and the NDP than the MB has ever been at any other time, even now.

The MB has been making inroads into the NDP districts. If Kifayah grows in popularity and strength, it is unlikely that those who are voting for the MB are going to start voting for Kifayah. Instead, Kifayah will be challenging the NDP for their seats and will win them, thus knocking the NDP out of power or at least forcing them to compromise or form a coalition in the parliament.

Most laws and other procedural technicalities need 2/3 majority vote in the Egyptian parliament. Candidates for parliament as well as presidency need approval and signatures on petitions to run. Organizations and political parties must also have approval. Without control of the parliament, the NDP cannot control who runs and whether they maintain power.

Emergency laws would be gone or used against them. I also imagine that there has been a lot of breaking of certain constitutional laws by the NDP and the ???????state secrets??????? which are a ???????duty??????? for egyptian citizens to keep that would likely see their members ouste and prosecuted.

This is why the Kifayah party is so dangerous to the NDP. It is not that they can totally destroy them or outnumber them. It is that it will only take a few to reshape the balance of Parliament.

UPDATE: Kirk Sowell at Arab World Analysis has an EXCELLENT piece up explaining what is happening and why it’s happening, with lots of backstory for those of us who are new to this. it’s a must-read here.

Hat tip: Pajamas Media