Wielding bamboo batons and small leaded clubs, Egyptian security agents attacked and beat protesters on Saturday as they tried to rally in the central Tahrir Square here, chanting slogans calling for the end of Hosni Mubarak's 24-year-reign as president.
A contingent of several thousand black-uniformed riot police officers, with shields and batons, together with squads of plainclothes agents, each armed with a blackjack, cornered small groups of protesters and then beat them, often tearing their clothing, as commanding officers with stars on their shoulders shouted for the beatings to continue.
The crackdown on the protesters came just two days after Mubarak pledged his support for democracy and increased freedoms in a speech announcing his plans to seek a fifth term as president. Elections are scheduled for September.
PHOTO: AP
Two leaders of the pro-democracy movement known as Kefaya, or "Enough," were among those arrested, but were later released. Police officers at the scene would not say how many people had been taken into custody. By late Saturday evening, about 300 protesters had gathered in front of the building that houses Egypt's journalists union and said they would demonstrate until those arrested were released.
"We say enough to Mubarak," said Adel Sayed, a chemistry professor at Cairo University who said he was alarmed when he saw a colleague from the university dragged off by the police. "He promised us democracy, no democracy. He promised us freedom of speech; you see we have no freedom. He promised us work. There are 9 million unemployed. So we say, enough."
It was unclear how many people had tried to take part in the protests. Security officers had occupied the square a good hour before the protest was to start and blocked many people from entering the area for the demonstration, which was scheduled to begin at 6pm.
Wael Khalil, an organizer of the protest, and about 20 others who were turned away from Tahrir began chanting, "Down, Down, Hosni Mubarak," as they ran through the center of a busy downtown street. A group of the riot police chased after them, surrounding the group and hitting demonstrators with bamboo poles.
The protesters broke out of the cordon, but the police tried to grab Khalil. They beat him until other protesters pulled him free. Moments later plainclothes agents surrounded Khalil and he was taken away.
A local journalist, Shaaban Abdel Remin el-Dabaa, collapsed on a car after being beaten. "People of Egypt, here is the terrorism," Safaa el-Moleihi, a colleague from the same newspaper, shouted as he waved his colleague's press card in the air.
As the journalist, with a small amount of blood on his shirt, lay across the car, a woman walked up to a line of security agents, men with clear plastic shields, black helmets and batons, and screamed, "You killed someone!"
TIT-FOR-TAT: The arrest of Filipinos that Manila said were in China as part of a scholarship program follows the Philippines’ detention of at least a dozen Chinese The Philippines yesterday expressed alarm over the arrest of three Filipinos in China on suspicion of espionage, saying they were ordinary citizens and the arrests could be retaliation for Manila’s crackdown against alleged Chinese spies. Chinese authorities arrested the Filipinos and accused them of working for the Philippine National Security Council to gather classified information on its military, the state-run China Daily reported earlier this week, citing state security officials. It said the three had confessed to the crime. The National Security Council disputed Beijing’s accusations, saying the three were former recipients of a government scholarship program created under an agreement between the
Sitting around a wrestling ring, churchgoers roared as local hero Billy O’Keeffe body-slammed a fighter named Disciple. Beneath stained-glass windows, they whooped and cheered as burly, tattooed wresters tumbled into the aisle during a six-man tag-team battle. This is Wrestling Church, which brings blood, sweat and tears — mostly sweat — to St Peter’s Anglican church in the northern England town of Shipley. It is the creation of Gareth Thompson, a charismatic 37-year-old who said he was saved by pro wrestling and Jesus — and wants others to have the same experience. The outsized characters and scripted morality battles of pro wrestling fit
ACCESS DISPUTE: The blast struck a house, and set cars and tractors alight, with the fires wrecking several other structures and cutting electricity An explosion killed at least five people, including a pregnant woman and a one-year-old, during a standoff between rival groups of gold miners early on Thursday in northwestern Bolivia, police said, a rare instance of a territorial dispute between the nation’s mining cooperatives turning fatal. The blast thundered through the Yani mining camp as two rival mining groups disputed access to the gold mine near the mountain town of Sorata, about 150km northwest of the country’s administrative capital of La Paz, said Colonel Gunther Agudo, a local police officer. Several gold deposits straddle the remote area. Agudo had initially reported six people killed,
SUSPICION: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing returned to protests after attending a summit at which he promised to hold ‘free and fair’ elections, which critics derided as a sham The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to more than 3,300, state media said yesterday, as the UN aid chief made a renewed call for the world to help the disaster-struck nation. The quake on Friday last week flattened buildings and destroyed infrastructure across the country, resulting in 3,354 deaths and 4,508 people injured, with 220 others missing, new figures published by state media showed. More than one week after the disaster, many people in the country are still without shelter, either forced to sleep outdoors because their homes were destroyed or wary of further collapses. A UN estimate
RSS