CAIRO: About 100 protesters, vastly outnumbered by riot police, chanted anti-government slogans in central Cairo on Wednesday, two days after the authorities stopped activists holding a similar gathering. Organizers had intended to hold the latest demonstration outside the public prosecutor s office but police ushered the protesters to the nearby journalists syndicate. The demonstration was held to protest detentions by police of activists held last week for supporting judges who have criticized official abuses in elections last year. Protest organizers say they were planning to submit legal petitions on Wednesday against the detention of 48 people taken into custody during last week s protests. Police officers told the first protesters who arrived at the building that they could not allow a gathering at the site. Behind the officers stood about 50 black-clad riot police and plain-clothed men carrying truncheons. Aida Seif El Dowla, a leading member of one of the groups taking part in the protest, said police told her the law did not allow more than three people to gather on the street. The Emergency Law, in force since 1981, gives the government wide powers to limit gatherings and make arrests. The legal provision, which attracted U.S. criticism when it was extended for two years on Monday, is one of the main sources of complaint by pro-reform groups in Egypt. The government says it only uses the emergency law to combat drugs and terrorism. The demonstrators gathered on the steps of Cairo s Journalists Syndicate, where about 500 riot police and 200 men in plain clothes kept them behind metal barriers. Reuters
