Egypt in a time of revolution: contentious politics and the Arab Spring

On 25 January 2011, Egyptian police shot and killed Mustafa Ragab Mahmoud, a nineteen-year-old high school dropout, in the Arbayeen district of the Suez. Mahmoud, one of several thousand anti-Mubarak protesters who had taken to the streets that day, was the first martyr of the 25th January Revolution. By the evening of 25 January and following violent clashes with the police, three more protestors had died in the Suez, and over a hundred were wounded. In response to the killings, local residents and the relatives of the martyrs laid siege to the Arbayeen district police station. Armed with Molotov cocktails and other improvised weapons, the protestors skirmished with police units, before setting fire to the police station and a number of police vehicles. Several police checkpoints, as well as the headquarters of Mubarak's National Democratic Party, were also attacked. By the afternoon of 28 January, police commanders, stunned by the outbreak of violence, had ordered their forces to fall back to the outskirts of the city, leaving upwards of 50,000 anti-regime protestors to march on the governorate building. Meanwhile, amid rumours of looting, Suez's residents formed impromptu neighbourhood popular committees (ligan sha?biyya) and descended onto the streets to protect their property