CAIRO — On Jan. 25, armored vehicles, machine guns, barbed wire, metal detectors and dozens of police and military personnel surrounded Tahrir Square. This was only the first cordon filtering whoever wanted to reach the square where an 18-day uprising that ousted iron-fisted dictator Hosni Mubarak broke out exactly three years before.

Inside the square, a state-of-the-art stage replaced the shaky wooden ones erected in 2011 — this time equipped with massive speakers and lighting systems that by nightfall were seen flickering around Cairo's sky from miles away. Throughout the day, the stage featured dozens of regime applauders, including a police officer in full uniform singing the national anthem, folkloric dance troops and prominent singers.

In short, an event management guru planned this and many financed it. It was anything but spontaneous.

Tens of thousands of people gathered in the square, carrying Egyptian flags and holding posters bearing photos of Egypt's Defense Minister Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, of Egypt's late president Gamal Abdel Nasser and even of Mubarak. The crowd that occupied the square until midnight was the second layer of civilian-security sifting: A photo of Sisi or a banner emblazoned with a poetic slogan urging him to run for presidency would grant whoever was carrying it full immunity. Those without such protection tools could see an angry mob turn against them in a matter of seconds and in a manner described by many as simply bloodthirsty.