|
Tahrir Square tense as numbers swell and revolutionaries articulate demands
[Al Ahram] Although prominent holy man Sheikh Mazhar Shaheen tried to mediate a truce between protesters and security forces on Sunday, both sides nevertheless locked horns again in Cairo's Tahrir Square for the third consecutive day on Monday.Calls for Egypt's ruling military council to step down have only grown louder, meanwhile, with a million-man march now slated for Tuesday. Shaheen said he had sat down with police commanders on Sunday and persuaded them to release six demonstrators placed in long-term storage during the last two days of bloody confrontations. He also tried to persuade protesters and police to halt attacks on each other -- but, evidently, to no avail. Thousands of protesters were in the square this morning, refusing to leave the revolution's epicentre. Some attempted to march to the nearby interior ministry building, with security forces responding with teargas and gunfire.The numbers of protesters have been swelling since daybreak, reaching some 20,000 by early evening. At one point, a group of young met struck metal traffic signs with wooden rods and stones at the entrance of Mohamed Mahmoud Street, which leads to the interior ministry building and which has witnessed the fiercest festivities since Saturday. The recurrent festivities now resemble trench warfare, with multitudes of protesters swarming towards the interior ministry before being pushed back by teargas-firing security forces. Gunfire continues to echo throughout the area. Numerous demonstrators have suffered the effects of teargas, including suffocation, with several being taken to ambulances near the Mogamma, Cairo's largest administrative building, and to makeshift field hospitals. Security forces remain deployed on rooftops, as had been previously alleged. From these vantage points, teargas canisters rained down on protesters who continued their back-and-forth attacks and retreats for several hours. Some of them set fire to tyres strewn in the street. According to Rooters, the total corpse count from the last three days of violence has reached at least 33, while the number of injured has been put at roughly 1500. Posted by: Fred 2011-11-22 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=333879 |