Hussein Tallal/Demotix. All rights reserved.
Egypt is currently undergoing one of the worst periods of repression in its modern history. Thousands languish in overcrowded prisons, hundreds have been sentenced to death, and the use of sexual violence is unprecedented.
There has been a qualitative change in the nature of state violence in Egypt. During the years of the Mubarak regime, the state used violence and torture, as it does now, but its use was kept at a level that was socially acceptable to the urban middle class. A class that was largely immune to such violence.
