By Khalid Amayreh
Seeking desperately to cling to power in the face of mounting street pressure, the Egyptian regime of Husni Mubarak reportedly deployed thousands of paid thugs in an effort to assault thousands of demonstrators fed up with the Mubarak regime’s tyranny and demanding his ouster.
The thugs, known in Arabic as Baltajiya, threw rocks at protesters, hoping to get them to flee. Others carried daggers, swords and other sharp objects with which they either stabbed or sought to intimidate resilient demonstrators at the Tahrir square in the heart of Cairo. Some of the thugs appeared mounting horses and even camels and attempting to trample on demonstrators. Fire bombs were heavily used by the Baltajiya stationed at neighboring rooftops against the protesters. Eventually, live bullets were fired into the huge crowd, with several people getting killed and hundreds injured.
The baltajiya (plural of Baltaji) are young, uneducated, unemployed and violence-prone young men recruited by the regime or the ruling National Party for the purpose of intimidating and terrorizing political opponents, falsifying elections and holding “show demonstrations” in support of the regime whenever the need arises.
The baltajiya played a pivotal role in rigging and falsifying recent elections in Egypt which were nearly completely “won” by Mubarak’s al-Hizbel Watani.
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