Five years ago today, the textile town of Mahalla al-Kubra rose in revolt against Mubarak, after a strike demanding a rise in the national minimum wage was aborted by the security forces. Tens of thousands took to the streets and faced bloody repression from the regime. Outside Mahalla, thousands of activists organised protests in solidarity with the textile workers’ demands.

Nasser Nouri’s photographs in the video above show clearly that this was no ordinary ‘bread riot’, but a ‘dress rehearsal’ for the 2011 revolution. For the first time Mubarak’s picture was torn down and trampled in the streets, while thousands called for his overthrow.