Egypt said yesterday it would ban demonstrations and detain protesters, seeking to draw a line under unprecedented protests against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s rule.
Activists called on Egyptians to take to the streets again yesterday to end Mubarak’s 30-year rule after a “Day of Wrath” of anti-government protests across Egypt in which three protesters and one policeman were killed.
Police fired teargas and water cannon in the early hours yesterday to disperse protesters who occupied the capital’s central Tahrir Square into the night.
PHOTO: AFP
By daybreak, calm had returned to Cairo and other cities and police were deployed in large numbers around the square.
As cleaners swept the last stones and debris from Cairo’s streets, the state newspaper Al-Masry al-Youm arrived at newsstands bearing a stark red front-page headline: “Warning.”
“No provocative movements or protest gatherings or organization of marches or demonstrations will be allowed, and immediate legal procedures will be taken and participants will be handed over to investigating authorities,” the state news agency MENA cited the Interior Ministry as saying.
About 20,000 demonstrators, complaining of poverty, unemployment, corruption and repression and inspired by this month’s downfall of the president of Tunisia, had turned out in cities across Egypt on Tuesday to demand that Mubarak step down.
“To any free and honest citizen with a conscience who fears for his country, to anyone who saw yesterday’s violence against protesters, we ask you to pronounce a general strike across Egypt today and tomorrow,” one activist wrote on a Facebook site that has been used as a tool to marshal protests.
One opposition group, the Sixth of April Youth, called on its Facebook page for protests to continue yesterday “and after tomorrow, until Mubarak goes.”
DEMANDS
A set of political demands were posted on Facebook and passed around Tahrir Square on slips of paper before police moved in.
They included the resignation of Mubarak and Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, the dissolution of parliament and the formation of a national unity government. A labor union activist repeated the demands to the crowd in the square by megaphone.
Egypt’s population of 80 million is growing by 2 percent a year. About 60 percent of the population — and 90 percent of the unemployed — are under 30 years old.
About 40 percent live on less than US$2 a day, and a third are illiterate.
Washington, a close ally of Egypt and a major donor, called for restraint. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Mubarak’s government was stable and seeking ways to meet Egyptians’ needs.
French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said: “I think one must be able to demonstrate without there being violence and, much less, deaths,” adding that protesters had “an aspiration for more freedom.”
Tuesday’s protesters had chanted “Down, Down, Hosni Mubarak” and torn up pictures of the president and his son, Gamal, who many Egyptians believe is being groomed for future office, though both father and son have denied any such plan.
“Change must happen. It must,” said a butcher in central Cairo who asked to be identified simply as “an Egyptian.”
Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to Britain and the US, told Reuters Insider Television the future of Mubarak’s government depended on its ability to understand the reasons for the protests.
“Whether they can catch up as leaders to what the population is aiming [for] is still to be seen,” he said.
Twitter, the Internet messaging service that has been one of the main methods used by demonstrators to organize, said it had been blocked in Egypt.
“The difference is great between freedom of expression and chaos,” Safwat el-Sherif, secretary-general of the ruling National Democratic Party, told the state newspaper al-Akhbar.
A government source said ministers had been told to ensure staff returned to work yesterday and did not join protests.
However, the activists on the Web appeared determined to keep up their momentum.
“Tomorrow, don’t go to work. Don’t go to college. We will all go down to the streets and stand hand in hand for you our Egypt. We will be millions,” wrote one on Facebook.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion