Friday’s demonstration in Tahrir Square, which we discussed here, seems to have energized the protest movement for real democracy in Egypt. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) decided to respond with violence today, injuring at least 81. Jack Shenker gives a primer:
Trouble began after riot police moved to disperse tents that had been set up in Tahrir Square following a large rally on Friday calling on Egypt‘s ruling generals to return the country to civilian rule. Following hours of scuffles, protesters succeeded in driving the central security forces (CSF) from the square and captured one of their trucks in the process. Crowds jumped up and down on the vehicle chanting “the interior ministry are thugs” and calling for the downfall of Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the country’s de facto leader since the toppling of former president Hosni Mubarak in February.
By mid-afternoon, armed police had returned to Tahrir square in far greater numbers, launching volleys of teargas, rubber bullets and ‘birdshot’ pellet cartridges into the crowd, often from armoured vehicles. Eyewitnesses claimed they were targeted at head height, and ambulances ferried away several protesters suffering from serious head wounds. As darkness fell both the police and the protesters saw their ranks swell in number, with the unrest spilling down side streets and along several of downtown Cairo’s most important thoroughfares.
AJE and Enduring America are live-blogging developments and collecting images from the protests. Amira al-Hussaini rounds up reax from the Egyptian twittersphere, which you can follow using the #Egypt and #Tahrir hashtags. Daniel Serwer flags a seemingly prescient argument from Marina Ottaway that the SCAF is simply the Mubarak regime without Mubarak. Juan Cole and Issandr El Amrani think through the relationship between the SCAF and the two main opposition movements, the liberal and Islamist blocs. This picture, via Sharif Kouddous, gives a sense of the scale of the protest:
Here’s video from Tahrir today showing continued demonstrations:
There’s also some evidence that the violence has spread from Cairo to Alexandria and Suez. This video documents a field hospital set up by protestors in Tahrir to help address the wounded (though more doctors are apparently needed):
And this man taunts the SCAF by dancing through a cloud of tear gas:
Freedom is never earned once. It is earned every day. The Dish stands with the people of Egypt, and their struggle, and their future.
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