Friday, December 23, 2011

Egypt: Thousands rally against army after woman beaten

Thousands of Egyptians rallied in Cairo and other cities today to demand the military give up power and vent their anger after 17 people were killed in protests where troops beat and clubbed women and men even as they lay on the ground.
 
One image in particular from the five days of clashes that ended this week has stoked their fury: that of soldiers dragging a woman lying on the street so that her bra and torso were exposed, while clubbing and stamping on her.

"Anyone who saw her and saw her pain would come to Tahrir,"

Omar Adel, 27, said in Cairo's Tahrir Square. "Those who did this should be tried. We can't bear this humiliation and abuse."

Some protesters have been demanding the army bring forward a presidential vote to as early as Jan. 25, the first anniversary of the start of the uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak, or at least much earlier than the mid-2012 handover now scheduled.

But other Egyptians fret that 10 months after Mubarak's downfall Egypt remains in disarray. They want protests to stop so order can be restored and the economy revitalised, voicing such views in a smaller protest in another part of Cairo.

Demonstrators in Tahrir chanted, "Down with military rule." Nearby, new concrete walls bar access from Tahrir to the cabinet, parliament and Interior Ministry, areas where clashes flared in November and December. The November death toll was 42.

By early afternoon, the Tahrir protest was still relatively modest compared to some of the huge rallies since Mubarak's ouster.