EGYPTIANS demanding an end to the 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak and protesting economic hardship clashed with police yesterday at many locations around the country.
Inspired by demonstrations in Tunisia that brought down the regime of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, tens of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets of Cairo, Ismailia, Tanta, Port Said, Aswan and other cities in a countrywide “day of rage”.
The rallies, staged on a public holiday honouring the country’s police force, amounted to the largest mass demonstration mounted in Egypt for many years.
In Tahrir Square in central Cairo, protesters carrying banners denouncing Mr Mubarak sang the national anthem. Mothers carried babies in their arms and young men waved placards bearing the word “Out”. Demonstrators marched down the riverside corniche chanting, “Freedom, freedom, freedom” and asked, “Where are the Egyptian people?” They responded by pouring out of the poor quarters of Shubra and Boulaq.
The Tahrir Square demonstration were non-violent until police, who initially kept a low profile, fired water cannon and tear gas. Demonstrators responded with rocks. Scuffles were reported in front of parliament and the supreme court.
In the northern port city of Alexandria, thousands of protesters called for an end to unemployment, high prices, poverty and martial law.
While Egypt’s largest opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, did not officially take part, its bearded members assembled alongside clean-shaven youths and flag-waving activists from the secular Wafd party.
Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, supported the protests.
Organisers belonging to an alliance of lawyers defending the right to protest said the rallies constituted “a day of revolution against torture, poverty, corruption and unemployment. [This] is the end of silence, acquiescence and submission to what is happening in our country”.
Some 90,000 pledged to answer the call for demonstrations launched on Facebook by a group named for Khaled Said, an Alexandrian activist beaten to death by police. The call was spread by Twitter and word of mouth.
The Facebook group demands a two-term presidential limit, an end to emergency laws in force since 1981, raising the minimum wage and dismissal of interior minister Habib Adly. He tried to intimidate protesters by declaring that no licence had been granted for the rallies.
Egyptians are worse off by far than Tunisians who ousted their president on January 14th. Half of Egypt’s 80 million people live below or on the poverty line of $2 a day. Unemployment is soaring. Corruption is rife and the security forces are known for brutality.
The spirit of defiance has been building since November when the ruling National Democratic Party won 90 per cent of the seats in the popular assembly – an election widely regarded as rigged. Egyptians are due to go to the polls again in September to vote for president. No candidates have so far been named although Mr Mubarak may stand for a fifth term or nominate his son Gamal in his stead.
