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Thousands of Egypt protesters keep up the pressure
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Thousands of Egypt protesters keep up the pressure
AFP - Saturday, February 19
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CAIRO (AFP) - – Egypt's military warned it would not tolerate protests that disrupt the economy after several hundred thousand Egyptians thronged Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday to celebrate Hosni Mubarak's fall.
The state news agency estimated the crowd's number at two million, but it was impossible to calculate the true size of the festival-like mass of people that spilled out of the plaza and across central Cairo.
The military has so far been passive towards protesters and workers who have staged strikes for better pay and conditions, but warned it would no longer tolerate protests that disrupt the already strained economy.
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces said in a statement that some groups "organise protests that obstruct production and create critical economic conditions that can lead to a worsening of the country's economy."
In the statement, reported by official media, it said it would not "allow the continuation of these illegal acts which pose a danger to the nation, and they will confront them and take legal measures to protect the nation's security."
As night fell, sight-seers and families descended on the area and the nearby square of Talaat Harb, swaying to Arabic music, cheering and sending hundreds of hand-launched fireworks skywards.
Earlier, as the square became a vast open-air mosque for Friday prayers, the demonstration had a serious air.
Influential Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi addressed the multitude, calling on Arab leaders facing protests across the region to listen to their people, to cheers from a crowd with a large contingent of Islamist activists.
"The world has changed, the world has progressed, and the Arab world has changed within," said Qaradawi, an Egyptian-born cleric based in Qatar.
"Don't obstruct the people. Don't try to lead them on with empty talk. Conduct a real dialogue with them."
Protesters performed their prayers in massed ranks. Despite tanks surrounding the square, security was light, with civilian volunteers checking IDs and performing perfunctory pat downs.
Before the prayers, a military band played patriotic tunes to cheers from the crowd and soldiers handed out Egyptian flags to children.
While the mood was cheerful, the sheer size of the crowd sent a powerful message to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which took power when Mubarak stepped down on February 11.
The military has promised to reform the constitution and help stage free elections to ensure the return of civilian rule -- but Egyptians are wary.
"The Egyptian people will stay here in Tahrir Square every Friday if the government does not respond to Egypt's demands," declared 29-year-old Mohammed Hamdi as night fell.
A coalition of youth and opposition groups has vowed to keep up the pressure to ensure the rest of its political demands are met, including the "immediate release of all detainees", it said in statement posted on Facebook.
Hundreds of people went missing during the protests, rights groups say, blaming the army which they have also accused of torture.
Gamal Eid, a lawyer who heads the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, said: "There are hundreds of detained, but information on their numbers is still not complete... The army was holding detainees."
The coalition of activists is also calling for "a speedy replacement of the current caretaker cabinet by a government of technocrats."
Pro-democracy activists also want the lifting of the decades-old emergency law and support for the strikes that have surged around the country.
"We are going today to commemorate the martyrs and in doing so we are awaiting justice," Mohammed Waked, a protest organiser, told AFP.
"If those detained during the protests are not released, let alone the older political prisoners, it would be a bad sign. It would show the army is not sincere about political reforms."
Activists, who are also calling for a complete dismantling of Mubarak's regime, welcomed the arrest of reviled former interior minister Habib al-Adly, whose security forces had wide powers of arrest under the emergency law.
Adly was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of money laundering and ordered held for 15 days, along with the former tourism and housing ministers and a businessman who also played a senior role in the former ruling party.
Meanwhile, Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri has released his first comments on the revolt in his home country, US monitoring websites said on Friday.
His video speech titled "A Message of Hope and Glad Tidings to the People of Egypt" is said to be the first part of a series, SITE monitoring service said.
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