i met alaa abd el—fattah in april 2014. he had already been charged, and he talked about how much worse things were than before the revolution. when you were confronting mubarak, hope was a material thing — like, you could almost touch it, you know? and so, it was very easy to feel that it was worth it and people were taking these risks without feeling any kind of despair. right now, it is very looking bleak. alaa abd el—fattah was a leading light of the tahrir protests. articulate, secular, a software developer, used to paying a price for speaking out. he was jailed or threatened with arrest under all of the recent regimes here. and when his son was born, he was in prison. abd el—fattah was accused of organising this protest. the demonstrators appeared peaceful. the authorities were not. protests are effectively banned. i was in court to see him being convicted. 0thers came forward to say they planned the protest. he still got five years. another member of generation jail. his fractured family go through the motions