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Some also say that police are back to forcefully collecting bribes. For example, a Cairo-based food shop owner, who prefers to remain anonymous, describes their situation. “Before the revolution the police working at the station and undercover agents used to take bribes in the form of free breakfasts. When I refused they used to detain my employees on their way home, claiming it was for investigation purposes, as allowed under the emergency law. The detention can go on for up to several days. Right after the revolution they stopped asking for such bribes - but now such demands are back.”

One of the main demands of the revolution was to lift the state of emergency, but such a demand, four months after the start of the revolution, has yet to be granted by the current interim government.

they do not seem to be taking serious steps to change the policy orientation. For example; no one is working on cases of torture and police violations before 25 January, the violations which took place during the 18-day uprising are the only ones discussed, while the previous 30 years are ignored. Violations are also still ongoing

Abbas, from a working class family loyal to the Muslim Brotherhood, now has friends who are Marxists, Christians, Nasserists, Salafists, liberals and Socialists. Some are rich kids from the posh enclave of Zamalek, a small island just across the Nile. Others are from the sprawling districts like Shoubra and Imbaba that envelop the capital. Back in January and February, these relationships were part of what Heba Morayef of Human Rights Watch called the "Tahrir moment:" a collective revelry over the gentle belief that a diverse movement had toppled a dictator and was ushering in a new Egypt

Despite the unified cries for justice, the protest movement has largely splintered along lines of political parties and factions. All are competing for a spot in elections scheduled for November -- and to shape events in Egypt after Mubarak. The country of 82 million is still far short of the goals of its first free and fair elections, the writing of a new constitution and the reform of the police force.

Maher bristles at the notion that what happened in Egypt was the first "Facebook revolution."

Violent language has become the norm even for the youngest citizens. Residents fear that this could be devastating for the future of the country.Mustafa Mohamed, a father of five who remained in Tripoli throughout the conflict, is concerned that this normalisation of violence and weaponry among young children will have devastating effects on future society.“If the new generation is already thinking in terms of guns and militias by the age of seven or eight years old, then how will they be able to focus on the positive aspects of society?” he said.Residents say that children in Libya have been deprived of healthy and normal childhoods by the ongoing war.

On 10 August, the United Nations children agency UNICEF warned that more than half a million children in Libya need help.  More than 80,000 children have been internally displaced and migrant children in Libya are particularly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Public health facilities have been dramatically impacted by the civil war in Libya. Forty-three out of 98 hospitals assessed are either partially functional or not functional at all due to a shortage of medicines, medical supplies and human resources.In 2013, the WHO found that there were only 12 psychiatrists in the country, with most services concentrated in the two psychiatric hospitals, situated in Tripoli and Benghazi, Libya’s two largest cities.  Resources in this field remain extremely scarce in the country, with only one percent or less of total health expenditure targeted on this sector. 

“So many parents bring their children in, suffering from PTSD, depression, anxiety, or sometimes undiagnosed mental health problems,” she told me.“The problem is we don’t have the provisions to deal with these issues. Most children end up seeing children’s doctors with no specialist training in psychiatry, which is a big problem,”