Police in central Cairo fired tear gas on Wednesday at hundreds of mainly young stone-throwing Egyptians demanding that trials of former senior officials from the discredited Mubarak era proceed faster. Clashes broke out late on Tuesday in an area of the capital where some families of the more than 840 people killed in the uprising that led to President Hosni Mubarak’s overthrow in February held an event to honour those dead.
Youths said police clashed with them during the event to honour “martyrs”, the term used to describe those killed in protests. The Interior Ministry said it intervened when a group that was not invited tried to barge into the gathering. At least 41 policemen and four civilians were injured in the violence that continued into Wednesday in Tahrir Square and near the Interior Ministry, the state news agency MENA said. Early in the morning young men, many stripped to the waist, were still hurling stones at police near the ministry as commuters went to work.
Some ordinary Egyptians said those involved were bent on battling police rather than protesting. By early afternoon on Wednesday, the crowds around the ministry had been dispersed. Eight ambulances were in Tahrir and the police had left the square. The clashes were the first such violence in weeks in Tahrir, the centre of the revolt that led to Mubarak being toppled.
“The people are angry that the court cases against top officials keep getting delayed,” said Ahmed Abdel Hamid, 26, a bakery employee who was at the scene overnight. He carried stones in his hands. More Egyptians gathered in Tahrir on Wednesday angered by the way the police handled the crowd overnight. “I am here today because I heard about the violent treatment of the police to the protesters last night,” said Magdy Ibrahim, 28, an accountant at Egypt’s Banque du Caire. Some young men lit car tyres in the street near the ministry, sending black plumes of smoke into the air.
‘NO JUSTIFICATION’: The ruling military council said in a statement on its Facebook page that the events “had no justification other than to shake Egypt’s safety and security in an organised plan that exploits the blood of the revolution’s martyrs and to sow division between the people and the security apparatus.”
