Editorial: The New Yorker

The Mosque on the Square 

by Peter Hessler 

Photography by Kim Badawi  

On the third day of the protests, they caught a thief in the act at the Omar Makram Mosque. It happened during midday prayers, when most of the men were lined up facing the front. The mosque sits on the southwestern corner of Tahrir Square, in downtown Cairo, and the windows and door were open to the roar of the crowd outside. The sound had the rhythm of the ocean, constant but ever changing, and periodically it swelled to a crescendo, like a big wave hitting a beach. A day earlier, violence had started when police tried to clear demonstrators from the square, and since then it had escalated, with protesters demanding the end of military rule in Egypt. By nightfall, there would be reports of the first fatalities, along with word of more than a thousand wounded. Volunteer doctors had set up emergency clinics in and around the mosque, and every few minutes a siren sounded as an ambulance delivered another injured protester. With all the excitement, the thief must have assumed that nobody would pay attention to a cell phone plugged into a charger inside the mosque. He crept over and pocketed the phone while its owner was praying. 

Full here.