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.