Egyptians refuse to be erased
After the removal of graffiti on Mohamed Mahmoud Street, artists continue to protest through painting.
- The clip below details the importance of Mohamed Mahmoud Street to the Egyptian revolution. Work crews have attempted to remove the graffiti there before.
- The whitewash follows a Saturday inspection of Tahrir Square by Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil. The inspection later prompted additional clean-up measures around the square. Some Egyptians criticised the clean up of the square, citing double standards and poor governance by the Morsi administration.
And now police - #Morsi's police - erase graffitti & murals on #MohamedMahmoud St. U can't whitewash a rotten history, Mr. Morsy!- Twitter users took to the street to share photos of the graffiti removal.
- They're actually doing it. I am seeing it with my own eyes now. Graffiti is being removed from Mohamed Mahmoud twitpic.com/aw3psf
- Egyptian netizens lamented the loss of the graffiti, which depicted slogans, images and memorials to heroes of the revolution.
- Many began tweeting theirs favorite works from the Mohamed Mahmoud walls:
Painting over the Mohamed Mahmoud graffiti was a disastrous decision, Cairo. I can't believe this is gone: http://pic.twitter.com/VtztIuCF
100 meters of Mohammed Mahmoud st. (5mb) before it was whitewashed by police fascists: is.gd/gWzJ3P- The image below, tweeted by Sherief Gaber, links to a panorama image of the iconic street:
- Cairo-based architect Loai Omran created a Wikipedia page where users can upload their favorite images of lost graffiti from Mohamed Mahmoud street. Egyptian columnist Mona Eltahawy tweeted out the link:
- RT @loaiomran: page i initiated in wikipedia to document #mohamedmahmoud graffiti. Ur contribution pls! http://ar.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%D8%AC%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%AA_%D9%85%D8%AD%D9%85%D8%AF_%D9%85%D8%AD%D9%85%D9%88%D8%AF&stable=0&shownotice=1
- After the graffiti was removed, within hours, Egyptians headed to the street to paint on the blank walls.
