The sun has risen on Egypt's 11th day of trials, and it is the one promised to be the biggest test of wills between a bloodied people determined to put an end to tyranny, and the tyrant who would stay.
Before the adhān fades, the rocks will likely fly again - and the bullets - but we incredulous distant witnesses of what has past these last days will likely not see it. The regime has taken the eyes out of the world's media, harassing, harrying, beating, and jailing journalists, both prominent and humble, domestic and foreign.
Al Jazeera has, throughout Thursday and into the wee hours Friday been reduced to a handful of short clips, cycling behind newsreaders in tight loops. Some, images like those below are getting out via Youtube, with scant, or no contextual attribution.
It is a worrying situation, given what was witnessed of the siege of Tahrir Square these past two nights, as citizens of all stripes, and the brave young men defending them, held the centre of the square named "Liberation" from the hired thugs, press-ganged criminals, out of uniform police, and Omar Suleiman's secret police who are overseeing it all.
A seemingly eleventh hour announcement coming from Washington hints at a sudden departure of the recalcitrant octogenarian "President for Life." The rumour newly minted vice-president Suleiman, the man most responsible for the fear and misery inflicted on an entire society in his post as Torturer in Chief, is to be tapped as Mubarak's replacement can only be regarded as a sick joke; especially ludicrous given the events of the last ten days.
The April 6th Movement had dubbed today 'D-Day,' the day of Hosni Mubarak's inglorious departure. It's all too much gall for the former hero of the country to bear apparently.
Twitter is humming, the sheer load of tiny messages to the world emanating the capital at such a rate and volume the hottest social media website of the moment teetered and yawed, at times seeming on the brink of crashing.
The Canadian and other governments have en masse called Egypt's ambassadors in, concerned about the treatment of their respective journalists mistreated care of the heavy-hands of the police state. It's one thing to see bloggers and stringers getting beaten up by cops, quite another when it is the coiffed Anderson Cooper, elegant Katie Couric, and the rest of television journalism's glitterati getting a dirty fist in the moneymaker.
We'll hear about the abuses and get the body count in days to come, but the major media darkness at this dark hour is an ill omen for both the heroes of Tahrir Square today, and for the future of Egypt and the whole of the region.
[Note: Pacific Free Press as a rule uses only permitted material, but in this instance believe the need for transparency supercedes the niceties of editorial protocol. The video below was retrieved by the intrepid journos at Russia Today. The context was not provided. Al Jazeera English is also receiving citizen pictures via Youtube. - ed.]
