Death toll rises as Cairo sees 5th day of violence
Source: Agencies |
November 24, 2011, Thursday
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EGYPTIAN troops moved into streets around the Interior Ministry in Cairo yesterday, replacing riot police who had repeatedly clashed with protesters trying to reach the building, an army officer said. Riot police withdrew inside the ministry.
The overall death toll from the ongoing unrest has reached 38 by a Reuters count and more than 2,000 people have been wounded in Cairo and elsewhere in protests targeting the ruling military council, not the army itself.
The Interior Ministry, near Tahrir Square, has been the main flashpoint for clashes in which police have fired tear gas, pellets and rubber bullets at stone-throwing demonstrators.
The protesters have derided an agreement forged on Tuesday by Egypt's ruling military council and mostly Islamist parties for a swifter transfer to civilian rule.
In another attempt to defuse tension, Sami Enan, the deputy head of the army council, said he was ready to meet youth activists driving the protests in Tahrir, state television said yesterday.
As dusk fell, thousands of people, many of them onlookers, had crowded into Tahrir, which was also the arena of protests which toppled President Hosni Mubarak on February 11.
Vendors were selling everything from snacks to face masks for protection against wafting tear gas.
Fatihia Abdul Ezz, a 60-year-old woman, said she had come to the square for the first time after seeing images of violence.
"They (the army rulers) were with Mubarak from the start," she said. "I came when I saw our sons being killed."
Protesters unfurled a huge sign denouncing army commander Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, Enan and the council that has run Egypt since Mubarak's overthrow.
"Down, down with military rule. We the people are the red line. The people want to bring down the field marshal, Sami Enan and the military council," it read.
One man walked around the square holding aloft 10 spent tear gas shells, along with cartridge casings threaded on a string.
The overall death toll reached 38 after a man was killed in Alexandria and another died in what the state news agency MENA said was an attack on a police station in the northern town of Marsa Matrouh.
Tantawi promised on Tuesday that a civilian president would be elected in June, about six months sooner than the army had planned.
"Leave, leave!" responded crowds in Tahrir Square. "The people want to topple the marshal."
The military had originally pledged to return to barracks within six months of Mubarak's removal. Its apparent reluctance to relinquish its power has fuelled frustration among Egyptians who fear the revolution has changed nothing.
Tantawi, Mubarak's defence minister for two decades, adjusted the schedule after generals met politicians, including leaders of the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood, which is eager to turn decades of grassroots endeavour into electoral success.
A parliamentary election, billed as Egypt's first free vote in decades, will start on Monday as planned, Tantawi confirmed.
Voting for the upper and lower houses will be completed only in March under a complex, staggered process. Parliament will then pick an assembly to draw up a new constitution, an exercise which the Brotherhood and its rivals are keen to influence.
France added its voice to those denouncing the military's handling of the protests.
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said his country "strongly condemns the excessive use of force against demonstrators" and called for elections to go ahead on time.
UN human rights chief Navi Pillay called for an independent investigation, saying the killing of protesters was inflaming the crisis.
The overall death toll from the ongoing unrest has reached 38 by a Reuters count and more than 2,000 people have been wounded in Cairo and elsewhere in protests targeting the ruling military council, not the army itself.
The Interior Ministry, near Tahrir Square, has been the main flashpoint for clashes in which police have fired tear gas, pellets and rubber bullets at stone-throwing demonstrators.
The protesters have derided an agreement forged on Tuesday by Egypt's ruling military council and mostly Islamist parties for a swifter transfer to civilian rule.
In another attempt to defuse tension, Sami Enan, the deputy head of the army council, said he was ready to meet youth activists driving the protests in Tahrir, state television said yesterday.
As dusk fell, thousands of people, many of them onlookers, had crowded into Tahrir, which was also the arena of protests which toppled President Hosni Mubarak on February 11.
Vendors were selling everything from snacks to face masks for protection against wafting tear gas.
Fatihia Abdul Ezz, a 60-year-old woman, said she had come to the square for the first time after seeing images of violence.
"They (the army rulers) were with Mubarak from the start," she said. "I came when I saw our sons being killed."
Protesters unfurled a huge sign denouncing army commander Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, Enan and the council that has run Egypt since Mubarak's overthrow.
"Down, down with military rule. We the people are the red line. The people want to bring down the field marshal, Sami Enan and the military council," it read.
One man walked around the square holding aloft 10 spent tear gas shells, along with cartridge casings threaded on a string.
The overall death toll reached 38 after a man was killed in Alexandria and another died in what the state news agency MENA said was an attack on a police station in the northern town of Marsa Matrouh.
Tantawi promised on Tuesday that a civilian president would be elected in June, about six months sooner than the army had planned.
"Leave, leave!" responded crowds in Tahrir Square. "The people want to topple the marshal."
The military had originally pledged to return to barracks within six months of Mubarak's removal. Its apparent reluctance to relinquish its power has fuelled frustration among Egyptians who fear the revolution has changed nothing.
Tantawi, Mubarak's defence minister for two decades, adjusted the schedule after generals met politicians, including leaders of the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood, which is eager to turn decades of grassroots endeavour into electoral success.
A parliamentary election, billed as Egypt's first free vote in decades, will start on Monday as planned, Tantawi confirmed.
Voting for the upper and lower houses will be completed only in March under a complex, staggered process. Parliament will then pick an assembly to draw up a new constitution, an exercise which the Brotherhood and its rivals are keen to influence.
France added its voice to those denouncing the military's handling of the protests.
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said his country "strongly condemns the excessive use of force against demonstrators" and called for elections to go ahead on time.
UN human rights chief Navi Pillay called for an independent investigation, saying the killing of protesters was inflaming the crisis.
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