Tens of Thousands Protest in Egypt Against the Military Rule
Women Protesting in Tahrir Square
Scuffles broke out on Saturday morning in Tahrir Square as riot police was evicting the protesters who spent the night there after the huge protest on Friday, when tens of thousands of Islamists and young activists came to the iconic square to protest against the military regime in power in the north African country. The military permitted the daytime protest in the square where the protests in January and February led to the topple of former president, but argued that they were paralyzing the center of the city, therefore they sent the riot police to disperse them.
The protest occurs ten days ahead of the first parliamentary elections in Egypt and had as a reason the attempt of the military to gain some special powers over the government that is to be elected on that occasion.
The members of the conservative and liberal parties were trying to score some more support for the elections on this occasion, though they were all directing their protest against the military.
The stakes of the upcoming elections are huge, since the party that will win will form the constituent assembly that will draft the new constitution, thus defining the character of the post-revolutionary Egypt.
The protest on Friday was dominated by Islamists, members of the Freedom and Justice party of the Muslim Brotherhood, the best organized political group in Egypt, which is expected to win the majority of the seats in the new parliament, and Salafis, radical Islamists who demanded the introduction of the Sharia law in Egypt.
The Muslim Brotherhood avoided confrontation with the army so far but threatened to escalate the protest if the plan to give the military powers is not abandoned. The leaders of the movement charged that the role of the military is to protect the nation and that the leading of it is up to a political government democratically elected.
Other people carried banners that read that Egypt was not a military camp, while the conservative Islamists said that Quran, the Muslim holy book, was the country’s constitution.
The military issued a document calling itself the guardian of “constitution legitimacy,” and suggesting that they could have a final word in many policies, even after a president was elected.
The document, that was intended to offer guidelines for the future constitution, insisted upon the idea of protecting the military and its budget from the civilian control.
The military promised to give power back to the people six months after the revolution, but then they proposed a new timeline, which would have the military rule the country until 2013.
The leader of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forced, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, alluded he may want to become a president as he walked in civilian clothes through Tahrir Square a few months ago. There is an organization in Egypt which is collecting signatures from the population as subscriptions to the candidacy of the field marshal.
Apart from the military problem, the Egyptian society has to settle a much more difficult conflict, the sectarian one. Egypt has 10 percent of the population Christian Copts, who have been protesting on various occasions this year, before and after the topple of Mubarak’s regime, demanding the freedom of expression.
Their situation even inspired the “Unhate” campaign that got the attention of the entire world of the clothing company Benetton, whose most contested doctored picture of “smooching couples” is that representing Pope Benedict XVI and Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb from Cairo. The campaigners alluded to the address of the pope at the beginning of the year, when he demanded that Christian Copts be allowed to practice their religion.
As the first round out of six of the vote on November 28 is likely to show Islamists as winners, the sectarian conflict is expected to escalate even further.
