by Michael J. Totten
The coup d’etat had the support of the people, of course. It might not have happened had mass demonstrations not broken out, and it certainly wouldn’t have otherwise happened on the day that it did. Still, no one from Mubarak’s political opposition is in charge. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces rules the country as a military junta.
Hala Mustafa is distraught by all this. She’s one of Egypt’s most prominent liberal intellectuals and the founder and editor-in-chief of Democracy magazine. The authorities have been hounding her for years by smearing her name in the press, wiretapping her phones, and sending her anonymous death threats. Her name appeared in newspapers all over the world not long ago when the government launched an official investigation into her private life after she met the Israeli ambassador in her office at the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
My colleague Armin Rosen and I met with her in that same office this summer.
“I hope this doesn’t come across as a paranoid question,” Armin said to her, “but do you think your office is bugged?”
“Of course!” she said. “Yes. It’s very bugged.”
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