Warns activists against "Day of Wrath" protests
Hundreds of anti-government protesters are marching in the Egyptian capital chanting against President Hosni Mubarak and calling for an end to poverty.
The demonstrators are singing the national anthem, carrying banners denouncing Mubarak and saying Egyptian elections are fraudulent.
The protesters are heavily outnumbered by back-clad riot police, as security forces deployed in a massive operation across Cairo ahead of the first Tunisia-inspired rally in Egypt. No violence was immediately reported.
At the steps of the Lawyers’ Syndicate, dozens are waving the national flag and calling for the end of Mubarak’s rule.
Online activists have become some of the most vigorous critics of Mubarak’s three decades in office. They led the calls for protests against poverty and repression to take place on a holiday to honour the police.
"Down, down, Hosni Mubarak," the protesters chanted outside a court complex in the centre of the capital, surrounded by a cordon of police.
"Gamal, tell your father Egyptians hate you," they shouted referring to Mubarak’s son who many Egyptians believe is being groomed for office after his 82-year-old father leaves office.
Day of Wrath
Thousands of Egyptian security forces, meanwhile, were deployed across Cairo ahead of the country’s first Tunisian-inspired protests.
Black-clad riot police, backed by armored vehicles and fire engines, fanned out across the Egyptian capital, with the biggest concentration at likely flashpoints, including the main Cairo University campus, the central Tahrir Square and the city’s largest courthouse in the downtown.
The government warned activists hoping to emulate Tunisian pro-democracy protesters that they face arrest if they go ahead with mass demonstrations some have billed as the "Day of Wrath".
Adli has issued orders to "arrest any persons expressing their views illegally."
"I tell the public that this Facebook call comes from the youth," Adli said in his interview published by al-Ahram.
"Youth street action has no impact and security is capable of deterring any acts outside the law," he said, adding that he welcomed "stationary protests held for limited periods of time" and that police would protect the protesters.
Frustrated Egyptians
The rallies have been promoted online by groups saying they speak for young Egyptians frustrated by the kind of poverty and oppression which triggered the overthrow of Tunisia’s president. Similar calls have been made in other authoritarian Arab states.
"The security apparatus will deal firmly and decisively with any attempt to break the law," the government’s director for security in the capital Cairo said in a statement.
Since Egypt bans demonstrations without prior permission, and as opposition groups say they have been denied such permits, that means that any protesters may be detained.
"Our protest on the 25th is the beginning of the end," wrote organizers of a Facebook group with 87,000 followers, according to Reuters. "It is the end of silence, acquiescence and submission to what is happening in our country. It will be the start of a new page in Egypt’s history — one of activism and demanding our rights."
Rights watchdog Amnesty International has urged Egypt’s authorities "to allow peaceful protests."
But protests in Egypt, the biggest Arab state and a keystone Western ally in the Middle East, tend to be poorly attended and are often quashed swiftly by the police, who prevent marching.
The banned Muslim Brotherhood, seen as having Egypt’s biggest grassroots opposition network, has not called on members to take part but said some would join in a personal capacity.
Cairo security director Ismail Shaaer said the government had sent warnings to protest organizers that they would need an interior ministry permit: "In the absence of such permits, these demonstrations and sit-ins will be dealt with in a legal manner and those beyond the law will be arrested," he said.
"Intellectual immaturity"
Commenting on the wave of public unrest in Tunisia, Adli said talk that the "Tunisian model" could work in other Arab countries was "propaganda" and had been dismissed by politicians as "intellectual immaturity".
Activists and the opposition say the interior ministry refuses to issue protest permits, citing security reasons.
Sympathizers across the world have said they plan to protest in solidarity. In Kuwait, security forces detained three Egyptians on Monday for distributing flyers for the protests.
"On Jan. 25th, Egyptian protesters will carry their cameras as their weapons," one Facebook user wrote, 10 days after Tunisians faced down their veteran leader’s police state in a revolt flashed around the world in website images.
"They will use cameras to capture every policeman who will attack peaceful protesters and every scene of our protests to show it to the world."
In a sign of anxiety over public discontent, authorities have recently tried to reassure the public that subsidies on basic commodities will remain in place.
Around 40 percent of Egypt’s 80-million population live on around $2 per day, and a large part of the population relies on subsidized goods.
However, analysts have expressed doubt that Tunisia’s uprising will have a short-term impact on Egypt, saying that unlike Tunisia, the Egyptian regime had managed to give the opposition a margin of freedom.
The Egyptian army, from whose ranks all presidents have emerged, is also deemed loyal to the regime, they say.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian security authorities have arrested 19 would-be suicide bombers who were ready to launch suicide attacks on places of worship nationwide.