Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt for 30 years and once a symbol of stability in the Middle East, died on Tuesday at the age of 91. He had ruled the country as a ruthless dictator until 2011, when he was ousted during the Arab Spring riots that toppled numerous other leaders in the region. To thousands of Egyptian protesters, Mubarak was a relic of a sordid past, even a modern pharaoh.
Mubarak was replaced by the democratically-elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2012. After a year in power, he was overthrown and succeeded by general Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, the current president.
From The New York Times:
Mr. Mubarak had once appeared invincible. He had survived multiple assassination attempts, held power longer than anyone since Muhammad Ali Pasha, the founder of the modern Egyptian state, suppressed a wave of terrorism by Islamic fundamentalists and appeared even to defy the gravity of age.
But after the successful revolt in Tunisia, Egyptians rose up against Mubarak. They rallied in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and city centers around the country for 18 days, expressing anger over the brutality his rule and demanding a new democracy. According to Politico, the military finally gave in and pushed Mubarak out on February 11th, 2011.
Two months later, he was arrested and charged with corruption and failing to stop the killing of over 800 protesters during the Tahrir Square riots. He was sentenced to life behind bars, becoming the first leader ousted in the Arab Spring to be imprisoned. But he was acquitted in 2014 and finally released in 2017, after serving six years. The former dictator continued to live in Egypt with his family until his death.