Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Cairo Protesters Clash Again With Police

Protesters demanding an end to army rule clashed with police firing tear gas near Egypt’s parliament building on Saturday in a flare-up that cast another shadow over a parliamentary election billed as the nation’s first free vote in decades.

Protesters said one man, Ahmed Sayed, 21, died after being hit by a state security vehicle. His death was the first since a truce between police and demonstrators on Thursday calmed violence that had killed 41 people in Cairo and elsewhere.

Egypt’s Interior Ministry said the vehicle had hit him by accident.

Hundreds of demonstrators camped overnight in Cairo’s Tahrir Square ahead of the election, due to start on Monday in Cairo, Alexandria and some other areas.

The clash occurred after one group marched to parliament to protest against the army’s appointment of 78-year-old Kamal Ganzouri, a premier under Hosni Mubarak, as new prime minister.

“Down, down with the marshal,” a group chanted in the square, near tents set up on grassy patches. They were referring to Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who heads the ruling army council and was Mubarak’s defense minister for 20 years.

The military council said on Friday each stage of voting would be held over two days instead of one to give everyone the chance to vote. Voting starts on Monday but will not end until early January because of the election’s various stages.

Tahrir protesters have dismissed Ganzouri, premier from 1996 to 1999, as another face from the past whose appointment reflects the generals’ resistance to change.

“Why are they picking Ganzouri now? This shows that the army is unwilling to let go of any power by recycling a former ally. This government won’t have any powers, why else pick someone that is loyal to them?” asked protester Mohamed El Meligy, 20.

Tens of thousands gathered on Friday to demand that the army council leave power now to accelerate a transition to democracy.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.