Michelle May

Tags: Arab Spring, Libya, Misrata, revolution.

Where approximately 2-300 women and children sleep (some dads too):

& how the rebel fighters get on sleeping on the rooftop of the boat:

After experiencing both, I’ll stick with the rebels. They’re actually quieter.

Tags: Benghazi, Libya, Love, Misrata, revolution, war.

May 23 Update: Yesterday was election day here in Spain. Along with elections is an enforced ‘day of reflection’ the day before, when all protests/demos are banned. Of course, protesters defied the ban. No one was surprised by that. The government announced in advance that they would not forcibly remove anyone; there was no violence. Still, many in the Puerta del Sol were in fact ‘reflecting’.. on high unemployment, and their dissatisfaction with the two major political parties & bank bail-outs.

As the days have gone on more & more tarps, furniture, signage & dreadlocks have appeared in the mix. Community committees in charge of clean up, child care, first aid, food, construction, reading materials, and even gardening are an integral part of the movement. These committees were inspired by the Arab Revolutions. Madrid is not Cairo — everybody knows that. Yet in cyberspace there is a definite brotherly/sisterly solidarity between the two movements. Will write much more later… in the meantime: more photos (See post below for complete photos of May 18-May 30, 2011):

May 19: I’m in Madrid right now. Here are pix from today’s protest in Puerta del Sol. As you can see, Sol is tipping its hat to Cairo’s Tahrir Square:

Tags: 15 May, DemocraciaRealYa, election, Madrid, Protest, Puerta del Sol, revolution, Spain, SpanishRevolution, YesWeCamp.

Here’s a video from the moment right before shit hit the fan in Tahrir Square, 2:30 Saturday morning (video is for listening, not viewing). It’s too blurry to tell, but what happened was the military & riot police faced-off with protesters who were breaking the 2AM curfew. During the stand-off both sides stood face to face, just inches away from each other, before the violence was unleashed. The pre-violence face-off went on for about 5 minutes, but felt like a lifetime. You can hear the protesters bang metal as the tension continued to build to the breaking point.

For the better part of four hours gunfire was literally nonstop. A large part of the action was right under my window since I’m close to the army compound at the museum. The sound of gun shots was so loud & intense that I hid in my bathroom a few times. Friends called, but most of the time we couldn’t hear one another because shots were so loud. Later on I was on the balcony when protesters were tear gassed — I was inadvertently tear gassed in the process. Those few hours were #%$@ing intense… I cannot begin to imagine what it was like to be on the ground during the crack down.

A few images shot at daybreak:

Although way too freaked out to shoot video while gunfire went off, I taped a snippet of a brigade of riot police returning to the compound. This video is another one that’s for listening, not watching.

When the curfew came to an end at 6AM, the riot police retreated and what was left of the protesters — meaning, the protesters that kept fighting despite the high degree of danger (mainly young men in their late teens/early 20s) took over the square. This was an entire different breed than the smiling welcoming protesters I had met in Tahrir the past Fridays.

These street fighter protesters celebrated victory by destroying nearby property and driving three army trucks into the square — one directly under my kitchen area — setting them on fire. I guess I watched one too many Dukes of Hazard episodes as a kid because I thought the truck would for sure burst into a ball of flames, setting my building afire, killing us all. Luckily it didn’t happen.. But for a few moments it felt like true, scary anarchy.

I didn’t see any signs of bloodshed in the square a few hours later, but it was reported that between one and two people had died. I only saw one injured person — that’s not to say no one was injured — i was reported that 70+ were in hospital. Someone showed me blank bullets they found on the street, while others reported it was live ammunition.

I’m no Egypt expert, but from what my Egyptian friends tell me, what happened that morning was huge — and it is/was a turning point in the ongoing revolution. Which way things will go from here, only time will tell…

Tags: Cairo, Egypt, Jan25, Protest, revolution, Tahrir.