Egypt: The Largest Mass Protest in Human History?

If it’s true that “Millions of Egyptians flooded into the streets on the first anniversary of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi’s inauguration on Sunday” as Reuters reported, than the #June30 protests are likely the biggest mass demonstration in human history.

It is always difficult to do a headcount of protesters. Organizers are keen to embellish the numbers, and security forces tend to provide an undercount. Here’s what we know: The population of Egypt is about 80 million and these protests were larger than the ones that took down Hosni Mubarak. The opposition says 22 million people signed a petition calling for Morsi to step down.

If just a fraction of those 22 million people took to the streets this weekend, then the #June30 demonstrations could have been the single largest mass protest in human history. The key question therefore is whether or not President Morsi can survice a literally unprecedented outpouring of public admonition.