Police fought with thousands of Egyptians who defied a government ban on Wednesday to protest against President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year-old rule, firing tear gas at the crowds and dragging away demonstrators. Reforms are needed across the Arab world to address angry citizens' demands for a better standard of living after protests in Tunisia and Egypt, Arab officials attending the Davos World Economic Forum said on Wednesday.
-- US urges government to allow peaceful protest
-- Arab officials say reform only answer to unrest
Protesters burned tyres and hurled stones at police as groups gathered at different parts of the capital Cairo. The scenes were unprecedented in the country, one of the United States' closest Middle East allies, and follow the overthrow two weeks ago of another long-serving Arab strongman, Tunisian leader Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, in a popular revolt.
Activists had called on people to rally again after a "Day of Wrath" on Tuesday of anti-government demonstrations across Egypt in which three protesters and one policeman were killed. Security forces have arrested about 500 demonstrators over the two days, an Interior Ministry source said. Witnesses said officers, some in civilian clothes, hauled away people and bundled them into unmarked vans on Wednesday.
Police fired shots into the air near the central Cairo court complex, witnesses said. In another area, they drove riot trucks into a crowd of about 3,000 people to force them to disperse. A protester in the centre of Cairo told Reuters: "The main tactic now is we turn up suddenly and quickly without a warning or an announcement. That way we gain ground.""
Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook have been a key means of communications for the protesters. Egyptians complained Facebook and Twitter were subsequently blocked but the government denied it. A Facebook spokesman in London said it had not seen any major changes in traffic from Egypt. Twitter confirmed its site was blocked on Tuesday, although users could still access it via proxy sites. The co-ordinated protests were unlike anything witnessed in Egypt since Mubarak came to power in 1981 after President Anwar Sadat was assassinated by Islamists.
The demonstrators complain of poverty, unemployment, corruption and repression and, inspired by the Tunisian revolt, demand that Mubarak step down. The United States said Egypt was still a "close and important ally". But US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also urged the government to allow peaceful protests and not to block the social networking sites.
"We believe strongly that the Egyptian government has an important opportunity at this moment in time to implement political, economic and social reforms to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people," she said. Analysts said the United States probably wants to avoid adding to political uncertainty by abandoning Mubarak. Egypt's peaceful relationship with Israel is, for it a bulwark of stability in the unsettled region.
Elections are due to be held in September but few had doubted that 82-year-old Mubarak would remain in control or bring in a successor in the shape of his son Gamal. Hundreds of demonstrators had gathered early on Wednesday outside the morgue in Suez demanding the release of the body of one of the three people killed there.
"The government has killed my son," the Suez protesters chanted outside the morgue. "Oh Habib, tell your master, your hands are soiled with our blood," they said, referring to Interior Minister Habib al-Adli. Hundreds of protesters also gathered outside Cairo's journalists' union. Police beat some with batons when they tried to break a cordon and protesters on buildings threw stones at police below.
Demands posted on Facebook included the resignation of Mubarak and Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, the dissolution of parliament and formation of a national unity government. The complaints echo those of fellow Arabs in Tunisia - soaring food prices, a lack of jobs and authoritarian rule that usually crushes protests swiftly. The prime minister said on Wednesday the government was committed to allowing freedom of expression by legitimate means and said police in Tuesday's demonstrations had acted with restraint.