In Cairo, a roar for reform

Cartoon in Al-Ahram by Fathi Abul Ezz.

Al Jazeera stands out as the news group with the most comprehensive coverage of the unfolding situation in Egypt. It has given readers a frontline taste of the atmosphere on the street in Cairo through the reportage of Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian-American freelance journalist based in the city, and who was born in the Gaza Strip, Palestine.

Moor’s ‘A day with Egypt’s protesters’ can be read here. This is a sample:

“I milled about for a half-hour trying to surreptitiously snap pictures of the scene when I heard the first dim shouts to my right. I shot across the street to get a look and saw a large group of riot guards forming a two-man thick cordon around a group of about 30 demonstrators.

“They were tightening their human noose when some of the protesters pushed back and broke through. Fifty of us joined in and within minutes 300 people were marching down the street away from the square.

“A chant went up: Hurriya! Hurriya! Hurriya! – Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!

“The riot police approached from the rear and formed a barrier several men deep. Ahead of us, a group of sour-looking Mukhabarat men tried to block the group of several hundred protesters in – but we pushed and overwhelmed them.

“Someone holding a cellphone to my left yelled in a heated voice that there were more protesters by the museum. The men at the head of the protest, the ones leading the chants, began to run breathlessly around the corner and we followed, also breathless. I panted as I ran, disbelieving what was happening. Rounding the corner, I came face to face with a crowd of more than 1,000 demonstrators and my heart swelled and my head spun.

“Within 20 minutes there were several thousand of us on the streets, and by the end of the hour several more thousand. The police decided to try to take control at that point and personnel carrier armed with a water cannon tore through the crowd. We split in two and demonstrators began to attack the vehicle. Hundreds of men chased after the truck but rejoined the main protest minutes later.”

Egypt’s veteran and somewhat stodgy Al-Ahram reported that since Wednesday (January 26) morning “police trucks and state security forces could be seen in several areas throughout Egypt, after Tuesday’s unprecedented demonstrations calling for radical political and economic reforms. Spots expecting demonstrations have been guarded by state security after the ministry of interior declared that no demonstrations of any kind will be tolerated”.

“Despite official warnings,” Al-Ahram said, “several demonstrations calls or rumours of some have been spreading on social media sites. Although the government has cracked down on activists’ Internet tools, blocking Twitter, Facebook and a number of Egyptian news websites, online activists have been able to post and discuss possible meeting points as the “Day of Anger” looked set to continue for several more days.”

Al Jazeera has also reported that prime minister Ahmed Nazif made what may have been the government’s first concession to protesters. In a statement to a state news agency, he pledged that the country’s leadership was committed to allowing freedom of expression “by legitimate means.” But his statement came as the interior ministry said that 500 protesters had been arrested on Tuesday and Wednesday in an effort to clamp down on the public unrest. The ministry had said earlier on Wednesday that new demonstrations would not be allowed. Thousands of armoured police had been deployed at key locations around the capital in anticipation of renewed demonstrations on Wednesday, which some have called the most significant in Egypt since massive riots over the price of bread in the 1970s.

The new protests over living conditions and an autocratic government have broken out in Cairo a day after large and deadly demonstrations, calling for the ouster of president Hosni Mubarak, swept across the country. More than 500 protesters were arrested by security forces as the government vowed to crackdown on them. On Wednesday evening, thousands of demonstrators were spread throughout downtown Cairo after being dispersed by security forces. Many had gathered on Gelaa Street, near central Tahrir Square – the site of a violent early morning confrontation between security forces and protesters who had been planning to sleep the night in defiance of the government.