In Egypt, a rare outburst against ‘military rule’ caught on camera

The dismissal of murder charges against former President Hosni Mubarak on Sunday was met with a mixture of emotions in Egypt, with displays of despair, indifference, emotional numbness as well as dark humour.

Aside from scattered protests in Cairo, the response to Mubarak walking free was muted, with few signs of a public outcry.

But a video of a woman in Tahrir Square on Sunday breaking into a fit of anger at Mubarak’s acquittal and the return of "military rule" has caused a storm.

In the clip, broadcast on Egyptian channel Masralarabia and later shared on social media, a middle-aged woman in sunglasses and a blue headscarf begins to shout loudly at bystanders and passing traffic.

“Hosni Mubarak cleared and dismissed!" she shouts. "Down with military rule! Down with Sisi’s rule!” she says referring to Egyptian president, Abdel-Fatah Al-Sisi, .

As a crowd gathers around her the woman seems to make reference to a son of hers killed during the revolution shouting: “Has my son’s blood been spilled in vain? Where is justice for the blood of the youth? Tell me where?”

Most of the onlookers remain silent. When one asks her for her name she responds: “I don’t have a name. I am an Egyptian citizen.”

Civil disobedience has become increasingly dangerous in Egypt since the military ousted President Mohamed Morsi last year and installed a government that banned his Muslim Brotherhood organisation and launched a widespread crackdown on political dissidents.

Last month French writer Alan Greish and two Egyptian journalists were arrested after a woman overhead them discussing politics in a café in downtown Cairo and reported them to the police.

Activists are hoping the woman's outburst in Tahrir will galvanize others to protest against Sisi's government.  

"Mubarak's acquittal signals that the 2011 revolution failed to produce the desired change, however it does not signal the end of the frustration that lead to it, represented by this lady," said Islam Abdel-Rahman, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party in Egypt. 

"How and when this frustration bursts again is the question that both the regime and its opponents are figuring out."