CAIRO: A few hundred Egyptians protested on Monday evening, marching from Cairo's Tahrir square to the Cabinet, chanting anti-military and anti-emergency law slogans throughout the walk. The remained in front of the cabinet for approximately an hour, before a small troop build-up began and they retreated back to downtown. The march, albeit small by recent protest standards, was vocal in their calls to end military trials and the newly “reactivated” emergency laws. “Repeal the emergency laws because the SCAF is working under the same ways as [former President Hosni] Mubarak,” said Zyad Amin, one of the protesters. He told Bikyamasr.com that “the martyrs of the revolution are now rioters and the only change is that now 12,000 protesters are jailed. Mubarak's ministers are still in power and they pay families of the deceased to drop lawsuits.” Bringing an end to the emergency law is one of the major demands of the January 25 revolutionary groups such as the Revolutionary Youth Union and the umbrella group, the Revolutionary Forces Alliance, which encompasses around 60 different political groups as well as movements and parties. According to General Mamdouh Shahin, member of the SCAF, the law will remain in place until June 2012, because “the incidents which occur now can be described as terrorism.” He believes that there are sufficient legitimate reasons and guarantees for the application of the emergency law in full. Some bystanders on Monday believe that implementing the emergency laws will give police more ability to end the state of “chaos” that has erupted in Egypt following the attack on the Israeli embassy in the country earlier this month that left at least three people dead and thousands injured. “As much as I hate the police, it has been chaos,” a man told Bikyamasr.com, adding that he “didn't think” the protest would “make a difference. I hope the emergency laws stay so that order can be restored.” He added that Egypt needs “the law to stop the excessive violence, rape and murder.” BM
