CAIRO: Following two days of violent clashes between anti-Mubarak demonstrators and pro-Mubarak thugs, Tahrir Square returned to its previous peacefully festive atmosphere on Friday. With communications back up, activists and demonstrators kept each other updated on the safest ways to get into the Square. Come by the Qasr el-Nil bridge, the said, because the road leading past the Egyptian Museum is full of pro-Mubarak thugs. Thousands of Muslim Egyptians prayed the Friday prayers together, and images and stories of their Christian countrymen keeping watch over them during the prayers soon surfaced. By the time the noon prayer began, Twitter user ‘BloggerSeif' estimated over 100,000 people were gathered in Tahrir. “People please understand that mass prayers are a form of protest, not necessarily a display of religiously, but unity,” tweeted Egyptian journalist Pakinam Amer. Throughout the day terms such as ‘Cairo,' ‘#tahrir,' ‘Mubarak,' and ‘Egipto' trended worldwide on popular social networking site Twitter, a testament to the international media attention Egypt is receiving. New of events in Egypt has flooded social media as well as traditional media across the world. By 10:30 in the morning, Al-Jazeera English's live feed of Tahrir Square was back up for most of the day. However, the news organization was not out of the government's sights: Al-Jazeera's offices in Cairo were ransacked, and reports came through of more of their journalists being arrested or intimidated. Earlier in the week, Al-Jazeera's local Arabic channel was denied broadcasting permission and its journalists' credentials were revoked. There were reports of gunshots in the Shobra area of downtown and of small scuffles between demonstrators and thugs along side streets leading to Tahrir Square, but overall the day was exceedingly peaceful. Military checkpoints leading into Tahrir were extremely thorough. ID cards were checked, and each person received a pat-down to ensure no weapons were brought into the square. Some people waited over two hours in checkpoint lines to gain admittance to the square. Ben Weedman of CNN said on Twitter, “Very upbeat atmosphere in Tahrir. Peaceful, friendly, welcoming, dedicated, determined. This is the real Egypt.” As night fell, once again demonstrators readied themselves for a night in the square. In the early hours of Saturday morning, some demonstrators surrounded army tanks to keep them from moving, worried that military personnel might try to remove the barricades placed in the streets by civilians to stop pro-government thugs from getting in. Overall, it was an exceedingly peaceful day and a return to the atmosphere of Tahrir Square before pro-government thugs resorted to violence on Wednesday and Thursday. BM
