The regime trembles every time the anniversary of its great defeat in January 2011 approaches, when the Egyptian masses overthrew Mubarak and gave the thugs of the Interior Ministry a lesson they will never forget. No matter how often they try to deceive us and deceive the masses with their lying claims that January 2011 was a conspiracy, we see the revolution reflected in their fear as they mobilise hundreds of thousands of the Interior Ministry’s thugs to prevent any mass movement on the anniversary, even if it was just a peaceful march with flowers.

The Interior Ministry attacked just such a march by comrades from the Popular Socialist Alliance with bullets and birdshot, murdering the young poet, our comrade Shaimaa El Sabbagh, a courageous daughter of Alexandria, who had long defended the rights of the workers. Like all the revolutionaries she dreamed of bread, freedom and social justice. She dreamed of a future in a homeland of human dignity for her six-year-old son, Bilal. Sisi’s regime denied Shaimaa and her comrades even this dream.

As we mourn comrade Shaimaa, who has suffered the fate of thousands of other martyrs of the revolution, we offer our condolences not only to the Popular Socialist Alliance but to all revolutionaries. We affirm that January is a revolution, in spite of all efforts to crush it by brute force and defame it with media lies, which have reached an unprecedented scale of blood-drenched brutality under the leadership of the mad general, and we call on all those who believe in the revolution to unite their ranks in the face of this repressive authoritarian regime, which is leading this country into the abyss.

The Revolutionary Socialists
24 January 2015