CAIRO - Police in Cairo fired salvos of tear gas and birdshot Friday at rock-throwing protesters as popular anger over a deadly soccer riot spilled over into a second day of street violence that left three people dead and more than 1,000 injured, doctors and health officials said. The protesters blame the police for failing to prevent the melee after a soccer match in the Mediterranean city of Port Said on Wednesday killed 74 people. The violence, the soccer world's worst in 15 years, has fueled anger at Egypt's ruling military generals and the already widely distrusted police force. In the capital, protesters in helmets and gas masks hurled stones at riot police firing tear gas outside the Interior Ministry, which controls the police. The demonstrators say they don't want to storm the ministry, but to hold a sit-in in front of it to protest the soccer deaths. "I came down because what happened in Port Said was a political plan from the military to say it's either them or chaos," said 19-year-old Islam Muharram. Many protesters have suggested the authorities either instigated the Port Said violence or intentionally allowed it to happen to retaliate for the key role soccer fans known as Ultras had in clashes with security forces during the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak. Ambulances and volunteers on motorcycles ferried the injured, most of them suffering respiratory problems from the tear gas, to field hospitals set up nearby on Tahrir Square. Friday afternoon, thousands of people rallied on the square itself, demanding early presidential elections and calling on the country's military rulers to speed up the transfer of power to a civilian authority. About 3,000 people demonstrated in front of the Suez police headquarters, prompting police to fire tear gas and live ammunition, witnesses said. A third protester in Suez was in critical condition with a wound to the neck. The chief of security in Suez denied the deaths there were from police gunfire. The Interior Ministry urged the protesters in a statement "to listen to the sound of wisdom ... at these critical moments" and prevent the spread of chaos.
