2012 — Mubarak Sentenced

On June 2, 2012, an Egyptian court sentenced former president Hosni Mubarak to life in prison, the first modern Arab autocrat tried by his own people after a popular uprising. Wheeled into court on a hospital stretcher, he was convicted over the deaths of more than eight hundred protesters in the eighteen-day revolt of 2011.

The verdict was later overturned, and Mubarak walked free in 2017. That ending does not erase what this day held. For a moment, Egyptians watched power answer for itself in a courtroom, and a ruler who had once seemed untouchable was judged by the people he had ruled.