Political groups are planning new protests in Tahrir Square this Friday to protest the ruling military council's continuing hold on power, under the slogan ‘Thank you, now you can return to your barracks' Several Egyptian political groups and revolutionary youth organizations are gearing up for yet another Friday protesting against the military council. Last Friday, 50,000 people protested in Tahrir square and elsewhere in the country under the slogan "Friday for the Reclamation of the Revolution," to pressure the ruling military council (SCAF) to lift emergency laws and hand over power to a civil authority.. This time, organizers have dubbed their planned protest the “Thank you, now you can return to your barracks” Friday. Among those who are calling for the protest are the National Association for Change (NAC) and the High Authority for the Youth of the Revolution, a youth bloc which includes 19 political parties, movements and coalitions. The groups are calling for a million man march on Friday, 7 October, in Tahrir Square and across Egypt, to voice their anger at the way the council is administering the transitional period after the January 25th revolution.. The NAC has announced that it has already distributed 5,000 flyers in Sharqiya governorate, north of Cairo, urging people to join the protests next Friday. The High Authority has also distributed 100,000 flyers with the slogan, “Thank you, now you can return to your barracks,” a reference to the military council's insistence on staying in control of Egypt and refusing to hand over power to a civil authority. The Authority has also released a statement accusing the military council of treating the people as though they are thugs rather than revolutionaries. They also say that the way the council is dealing with the people is eerily similar to Mubarak's style, in which he attempted to raise suspicions about the country's opposition and refer to them as "infiltrators". This, the statement said, means that the military council does not reflect the values of the revolution and therefore cannot protect it. The statement also said that the long-standing demands of the revolutionaries need to be met, including the abolishment of the emergency law. They also urged the country's political forces to unite to amend the electoral law so that it would be based only on a proportional list system, instead of the mixed voting system presented by the council and condemned by the country's opposition. In addition, they demanded that the Upper House (Shura Council) be cancelled so that the country's legislative authority retains only one chamber, the Lower House (People's Assembly). The statement was signed by many political forces, including the Free Front for Peaceful Change, the Coalition of Revolutionary Forces, the Coalition of Free Arab Revolutionaries, the youth of the Nasserist Party,the Revolutionary Youth Union, the youth of the Ghad Party and others.
