CAIRO: A holiday would not keep Egyptian activists from attacking the ruling military council. Some 100 activists on Monday took part in a march against military trials in Downtown. The demonstrators set off from Talaat Harb Square and marched via Qasr al-Nil Street to the Court of Cassation building on 26th of July Street, chanting slogans against the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and calling for the transfer of power to civilians. Ahmad Salah, the coordinator of the Coalition of Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, told Bikyamasr.com that his group had joined in calling for the demonstration “in order to show support for our friends and colleagues who are in jail now.” They wanted, he said, to protest against the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and against military trials and to call for social justice – “all the demands of the revolution. None have been established until now except the overthrow of Mubarak, and even that we're not totally sure of any more.” Mahitab al-Jilani, an activist with the Coalition of Committees for the Defence of the Revolution, said that the demonstration was small because people were travelling and enjoying Eid. But, she said, they had felt it important to express their support for those who were behind bars. Bystanders expressed mixed feelings about the demonstration – one shopkeeper expressed guarded sympathy for their cause, but a group of staff standing outside another shop were more sceptical. “Look at them, they're a small number,” one told Bikyamasr.com. “There are eighty-five million people in Egypt, and ninety percent of them don't support this. We want stability, we want to eat, we want to work.” Salah accepted that public opinion was divided, but laid the blame on the state media, saying it was “trying to feed people wrong information that we are all agents of foreign powers and that we are paid criminals and thugs, and that we are trying to sabotage our country.” It was, he said, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that was “collapsing this economy … through corruption, through the abuse of the budget.” Such considerations seemed to weigh less on the minds of high-spirited teenage boys enjoying their Eid holiday, who swelled the numbers of the demonstration as it made its way back through downtown to conclude at the statue of Talaat Harb. BM
