A demonstration demanding an end to the emergency law is thwarted by the kind of tight police measures the emergency law condones, reports Mohamed El-Sayed Since the small hours of Tuesday downtown Cairo has been awash with thousands of riot police packed in armoured trucks. Central security vans remained parked on side streets as Tahrir Square filled with uniformed riot police and plain- clothed security personnel. The reason? The 6 April Youth Movement had decided to celebrate its third anniversary by launching a peaceful demonstration in front of parliament to call for an end to emergency laws and demand changes to the constitution. The call for the demonstration, like the group's earlier calls for strikes, was issued a few weeks in advance on the Internet. The announcement urged the 6 April's 70,000 members to take to the streets for a peaceful march starting from Tahrir Square and ending in Magles Al-Shaab Street. Permission to hold the demonstration was sought from Cairo Security Department. Predictably, it was denied, with the usual catch-all excuse that "security conditions" do not allow for such a gathering. The group issued a statement before the rally urging the police not to harm demonstrators. "Nothing will stop us from loving our country and hoping to change it," the group said. By noon on Tuesday around 100 members of the group, mainly young people, managed to sneak into Qasr Al-Aini Street to assemble in front of the Shura Council. "We call for amending the constitution," chanted the demonstrators. No sooner had they started chanting "freedom" than the riot police cordoned off the entire area. Plainclothes police and anti-riot squads attacked demonstrators with batons and dragged them one by one from the crowd and threw them into waiting trucks and a nearby garage. Young women collapsed to the ground, weeping after they were attacked and their friends taken away. Security forces also targeted members of the media. Cameras and tapes were confiscated and journalists harassed. Small demonstrations broke out at the downtown headquarters of the Ghad Party as tens of members stood on the balcony and chanted slogans against the emergency law. When Ayman Nour, leader of the Ghad Party, tried to leave the office to join the demonstration riot police stopped him and arrested several of his supporters. "This damages the reputation of Egypt," Nour told reporters. "Hundreds of soldiers are denying the right of a few dozen citizens to express their desire to amend the constitution." Meanwhile, tens of people organised a demonstration in front of the Bar Association in Ramses Street, chanting the same demands and hurling insults on government officials. Another second demonstration by the group, this time in Alexandria, was foiled as three of its members were arrested, according to human rights organisations. "All the security measures taken on 6 April came to confront the so-called 6 April movement's insistence on staging marches and demonstrations," read a statement by the Interior Ministry. "These measures were taken after security departments refused to give permission to hold such demonstrations and marches for this movement has no legal status," the statement added. The Ministry of Interior maintained that its banning of the demonstration was not contrary to freedom of speech because the issue of reform is already being extensively discussed by opposition parties. Meanwhile, students at Cairo and Helwan universities chose the same day to stage a protest. "Freedom for the students of Egypt," chanted demonstrators at Cairo University. "We need a constitution that better serves the nation, not one that caters to individuals." In what appeared to be an attempt to head-off the possibility of mass demonstrations, Ain Shams University organised a concert featuring pop singer Mohamed Hamaki "in order to set an example of positive youth as opposed to negative youth taking part in demonstrations," according to a university official. At least 90 members of the 6 April group have been detained, say the organisers of the rally and the Arab Network for Human Rights Information, the group's legal representative. "Cairo's streets were turned into a detention camp on Tuesday as hundreds of protesters calling for change were beaten and detained," the group said in a statement. "Female police forces were used to beat female demonstrators in Tahrir Square." The detainees, mostly male, were transferred to the Central Security Camp in Al-Salam City on the outskirts of Cairo. By Wednesday morning Abdine Prosecution had released all those arrested. The forceful breaking up of the demonstrations and detaining of protesters were denounced by international human rights organisations. "The security authorities had refused permission for the demonstration, using their powers under the emergency law, which bans all demonstrations," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "Egypt keeps promising to end the emergency law, but year after year it's one broken promise after another," she added. In his first response to Tuesday's events, former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and potential presidential candidate Mohamed El-Baradei posted a comment on his Twitter account condemning the actions of the police. "Detentions and beatings during peaceful demonstration is an insult to the dignity of every Egyptian. Shame," he wrote. "Proposed extension of the emergency law that deprives Egyptians of basic human rights exposes a regime afraid of its own people," he added. The 6 April Youth Movement is one of the main supporters of El-Baradei's campaign aimed at amending the constitution and abolishing the emergency law.
