CAIRO: Hundreds marched Monday from Tahrir Square to the nearby Cabinet headquarters in protest at the recent activation of emergency law clauses. Protesters gathered in Tahrir at 4 pm and started the march at 5 pm. As the numbers approached 1,000, the crowd had effectively blocked traffic by the time the march reached Cabinet on Qasr Al-Eini Street. “I came here for the same reason that brought me eight months ago and killed many people, which is the emergency [law],” said Mohamed Abdel-Hamid, 24. Ending the state of emergency has been one of the key demands of mass protests that ousted then-president Hosni Mubarak last February. The military council that took power promised to end it before parliamentary elections, initially scheduled for September. Elections are to be held in November. Last week, the military council announced the reactivation of all clauses of the emergency law, which in May 2010 were limited to drug and terrorism related charges. “Every time they give us hope that there will be a transition, they take us back to where we started,” said Hossam Mohamed, 21. Several protesters echoed the same sentiment. They chanted against the emergency law, administrative detentions, the law criminalizing strikes, and military trials for civilians. They said the practices of the military police are worse than the Ministry of Interior. “Our revolution is a red line,” they chanted. The march ended at Talaat Harb Square in Downtown Cairo. Hundreds had protested last Friday in Tahrir Square against the emergency law.
