Egypt is the most important Araba country. If the nationalists win there than the political game of the West is finished.
Egyptian Police Confront Protesters
Mohammed Abu Zaid/Associated Press
The scene in downtown Cairo on Tuesday.
By KAREEM FAHIM
Published: January 25, 2011
CAIRO — Thousands of protesters clashed with the police in the Egyptian capital on Tuesday as antigovernment activists energized by events in Tunisia sought to transform Police Day, a national holiday, into a “day of revolution.”
The demonstrators quickly swelled in number as they snaked through winding streets and converged on the central Tahrir Square, where they met security forces in full riot gear and a water cannon truck. Clashes began after protesters jumped on the truck and tried to take control of it.
Thousands occupied the square, hurling rocks and beating back several attempts by security forces to disperse them with tear gas. Some in the security force stooped to pick up the rocks and hurl them back at the protesters. A few protesters were seen dismantling a fire truck.
The marchers included young people documenting the clashes with cellphone cameras and middle-aged men carrying flags of the Wafd party, one of Egypt’s opposition groups. Women, some in headscarves and some bareheaded, also marched.
The protesters echoed the deep-seated frustrations of an enduring, repressive government that drove Tunisians to revolt: rampant corruption, injustice, high unemployment and the simple lack of dignity accorded them by the state. At least six young Egyptians have set themselves on fire in recent weeks, in an imitation of the self-immolation that set off the Tunisian unrest.
More than 90,000 people signed up on a Facebook page for the protests, framed by the organizers as a stand against torture, poverty, corruption and unemployment. But the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s most powerful opposition movement, said it would not officially participate, although some of its members were expected to be on the streets.
At the start, a small group of protesters gathered shortly after noon in front of Cairo’s Supreme Court building. It quickly grew to include hundreds, shadowed by many more police officers in black riot gear.
The officers formed a moving cordon around the demonstration and there were scuffles as the officers tried to halt the march by linking arms and forming lines.
One woman was injured when the officers pushed protesters against a wall near an on-ramp leading to a bridge over the River Nile. But the demonstrators quickly escaped the cordon and marched down the riverside Corniche, snarling traffic.
“Freedom, freedom, freedom,” they chanted. “Where are the Egyptian people?”
In the past, Egypt’s security forces have dealt violently with such protests, and in the days leading up to Tuesday’s action, the Interior Ministry issued a stern warning against demonstrations without permits. Before the protests, the streets were drained of Cairo’s usual rush-hour traffic, and more than a dozen troop carriers were seen in Tahrir Square.
As in Tunisia, Egypt has seen a rise in young activists turning to Facebook and Twitter to voice their concerns about the closed political system and especially police brutality, which is rarely punished in Egypt and has increasingly served as rallying point for human rights activists.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/world/middleeast/26egypt.html?_r=1&hp
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