Egypt Braces for New Protests
The New York Times reports:
A day after tens of thousands of people marched in opposition to the nearly 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian authorities on Wednesday outlawed any new gatherings, saying protesters faced “immediate” arrest.
The government made the announcement as protesters using social networking sites urged a second day of street demonstrations. The protest ban showed the extent to which the government had been rattled by the scale of the unusually large demonstrations.
“No provocative movements or protest gatherings or organizing marches or demonstrations will be allowed,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
The protests, running into the early hours of Wednesday and seemingly energized by the toppling of the authoritarian government in Tunisia, began small but grew all day on Tuesday, with protesters occupying one of Cairo’s central squares. Security forces, normally quick to crack down on public dissent, initially struggled to suppress the demonstrations, allowing them to swell.
But early Wednesday morning, firing rubber bullets and tear gas grenades, the police succeeded in driving groups of demonstrators from the square, as a sit-in was transformed into a spreading battle involving thousands of people and little restraint.
Plainclothes officers beat several demonstrators, and protesters flipped over a police car and set it on fire.
Despite the protesters’ call for a second day of demonstrations, the central Tahrir Square was clogged with normal traffic at midday, watched by dozens of security officers in armored personnel carriers.
Elsewhere in the city, the authorities seemed prepared for fresh protests and troop carriers were stationed in front of government buildings and in working-class neighborhoods.
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