Egypt stock market to reopen on Tuesday -cabinet

Egypt’s stock exchange, closed for a month because of the protests that ousted President Hosni Mubarak, will reopen on Tuesday, the cabinet said in a statement. Continuing unrest has delayed the market’s reopening several times in the last few weeks and analysts have been bracing for a possible sell-off of shares as investors flee risk when trade resumes. The market’s benchmark index fell 6.1 percent on January 26 and another 10.5 percent on January 27, the only two days of trade since the protests erupted. After meeting the stock exchange chairman and the financial regulator, Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq presented proposals to prepare for the resumption of trade, a cabinet statement said on Sunday. “This is in light of the bourse’s decision to resume trading on Tuesday, March 1, 2011,” the statement said. The bourse will suspend trade for a half hour if the benchmark index declines by 3 percent and for the remainder of the session if it falls by 6 percent, the state news agency MENA quoted the bourse head as saying. It will also suspend trade for a half hour if the broader 100-share index declines by 5 percent and the whole session if it falls by 10 percent, MENA said. MSCI said on Friday Egypt would risk being excluded from its emerging markets index if the market did not reopen before MSCI reviewed its status in four weeks. The cabinet statement said Shafiq also asked the head of the Egyptian Financial Suprvisory Authority (EFSA), Ziad Bahaa el-Din, to draw up rules to prevent financial conflicts of interest by government officials. He appointed Bahaa el-Din’s deputy, Ashraf Al Sharkawy, to take over as EFSA’s chairman in his place. The Finance Ministry will provide loans to help brokerage firms hurt by the turmoil and the bourse closure, Mohamed Abdel Salam, chairman of the stock exchange’s Clearing Settlement and Central Depositary, told state television on Sunday.

UN Cairo delegation: Egyptian democracy faces ‘many challenges’

Egypt faces many challenges that will make the transition to democracy difficult, as “transition requires an understanding of the economic and political situations,” UN Under Secretary-General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe said in Cairo on Sunday.

Pascoe told journalists at a press conference that the UN was ready to support Egypt’s steps towards overcoming these challenges. She said that only the Egyptian people could bring about a democratic Egypt.

“We spoke with a wide range of civil society, including 20 young men and women and ministers, including those of foreign affairs and international cooperation, to discuss a wide range of Egypt’s future topics,” said Pascoe, who added that members of her delegation were “confident” that Egyptians could build a better future.

In addition to Egyptian affairs, delegation members said they had also discussed the regional situation, noting that they were “monitoring” the ongoing popular uprising in next-door Libya.

“The transformations that are taking place in the Middle East are significant. Everyone will be better off as the countries achieve democracy,” said Pascoe. She added that delegation members would meet with Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa on Sunday.

Delegation members also stressed that Egypt’s role in the Middle East remained “crucial and influential,” even after the 25 January uprising that led to the ouster of Egypt’s longstanding president Hosni Mubarak on 11 February. They added that Egypt had always played a “major role” in regional security.

In response to whether the UN would be willing to monitor upcoming Egyptian presidential and parliamentary elections to ensure their transparency, Pascoe said that the UN was not mandated with monitoring elections. She said that the most effective means of monitoring elections was to employ internal observers.

Pascoe went on, however, to offer Egypt UN “technical assistance.”

Egypt ex-interior minister ‘to go on trial March 5′

Egypt’s once widely feared interior minister Habib al-Adly is to appear before a criminal court on March 5 accused of money laundering, judicial sources told AFP on Sunday.

Adly would be the first of toppled president Hosni Mubarak’s regime to face trial.

He was arrested on February 17, along with tourism minister Zoheir Garranah and steel tycoon Ahmed Ezz, a senior member of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party.

Nationwide protests that erupted on January 25 led to the overthrow of Mubarak, who had ruled Egypt for 30 years under emergency law.

The protests that lasted 18 days and saw bloody clashes between protesters and Adly’s security forces, left at least 384 people dead and over 6,000 injured while scores were detained.

Upon his resignation, Mubarak handed power to a military council that pledged to pave the way for a free democratic system in the Arab world’s most populous nation and vowed to prosecute all those found guilty of abuses during the protests.

Pro-democracy campaigners have repeatedly called for Adly to be held accountable for violence used against protesters, and for the use of force and torture by his security apparatus during his time as minister.

Egypt’s controversial emergency law which gives police extended powers of arrest, suspends constitutional rights and curbs non-governmental political activity, has been extended regularly years since 1981.

In Cairo, schools reopen as uncertainty remains

Fatema Salah said her students had never sung the Egyptian national anthem quite the way they did Sunday, the first day back to school for most Cairo pupils. Before, they shuffled through the morning ritual, heads down and sleepy. This time, standing in the school’s shady courtyard for the first time since the revolution, they belted it out.

“Today, everybody sang loud,” said Salah, principal of the Dar El Tarbiah School, a secondary school in central Cairo. “It was real. Many of them were in [Tahrir] Square themselves. They are very proud.”

But with the pride, nervousness remained. Nearly half of Salah’s students were absent, and across the city thousands of families ignored the reopening of school, which had been anticipated as a step toward post-revolution normality. New clashes over the weekend between protesters and the military renewed the sense of uncertainty in the Egyptian capital.

“Parents are still scared,” Salah said. Many students were stranded, she said, because the government asked schools not to run buses through the city. “There are not enough police on the streets.”

At Salah’s school, the students who made it to class found the day a mix of back-to-the-books hustle and revolutionary fervor. Teachers raced to make up for a month of lost instruction, but the toppling of Hosni Mubarak came up in every class.

“We’ve been talking about the revolution all day,” said Ahmed Younes, 16. “We never used to talk about politics at all.”

Dar El Tarbiah is one of the many private schools in Cairo that blend the government curriculum (including mandated social sciences, Arabic and religion classes) with more advanced subjects. Salah said she got no guidance from the Ministry of Education on what to teach about recent events, if anything.

So she encouraged her teachers to embrace the news of the day, even though they are still teaching with textbooks that have long chapters glorifying the achievements of Mubarak and his party.

“Those will change, but it will take time,” Salah said.

Reformers hope the next revolution will be in Egypt’s antiquated system of schools, dozens of which are named for the former president or members of his family. A new education minister was named last week, and advocates are pushing for a complete curriculum overhaul.

Egypt launched an attempt to modernize the curriculum in 2006, but observers say schools largely remain incompetent and fawning.

Ahmed Nagib, leader of the opposition Ghad Party, recalls one art class final that required students to create election banners for the ruling party. “Whenever they mention government at all, it’s just about how Mubarak has kept the country strong,” Nagib said.

After writing its own textbooks for years, the government let private publishers bid after 2006. But officials have tended to purchase only the cheapest volumes and quality hasn’t improved, according to Achmed Bedier, general manager of Dar El Shorouk Publishing.

“It’s not like buying light bulbs,” said Bedier. “We want to bring these books up to the quality you see in Europe and the United States.”

The Ministry of Education did not respond to a request for an interview.

‘You can feel human’

At Dar El Tarbiah, Arabic teacher Magda Whba reworked her lesson plan to fit the new reality. In a classroom of high plaster walls and worn pine floors, she wrote the name of a poem on a whiteboard, “How Much Do You Complain?,” an appreciation of life by Ilya Abu Madi.

“I picked it special,” said Whba, her high heels echoing on the floor, her bracelets jangling with every gesture. She wore a scarf over her hair. “I want to tell [the students] that you must now be happy. Now you can feel human.”

Not all schools were as quick to embrace the new order. Not one of four regular government schools visited Sunday would let visitors in to talk to teachers or students.

A man who identified himself as the principal of the El Baheya El Borhaneya school near the presidential palace said through the front gate that he was instructed not to discuss school policy with outsiders. “Things may have changed, but we haven’t been told to do anything different,” he said.

Outside Zamalek Girls College, a green Volkswagen van full of middle and high school students waited to pull into traffic. The revolution came up a few times during the students’ first day back, they said, but not often and not favorably.

“Mostly we talked about the negative points,” said Nourhan Salim, 17. The main one was the insecurity residents feel in the streets, she said, as well as continuing union protests.

A middle school student in the back row, who declined to give her name, said most of her teachers also talked about the downside of Mubarak’s fall. She said she didn’t agree.

“I think things will get better now,” she said. “God willing.”

Egypt Aims to Alter Voting Rules

Egypt’s military rulers, hoping to set the stage for transparent democratic elections in six months, have unveiled a raft of proposed constitutional changes that include adopting a U.S.-style term limits of two four-year presidential terms.

The changes, announced late Saturday, come amid growing tensions between the military and protesters who ousted former President Hosni Mubarak from power earlier this month. Hours before the proposed amendments were announced, protesters and army personnel clashed near Tahrir Square, the site of this month’s successful revolt.

On Sunday, some protest leaders welcomed the proposed constitutional amendments but said they fell short in some key areas.

The proposed changes would overturn a Mubarak-era law that effectively allowed his ruling National Democratic Party to oversee elections, restoring full supervision of the vote to the country’s independent judiciary.

The changes also seek to loosen restrictions on the eligibility of presidential candidates, creating a more open field, and to forbid trials of civilians in military courts.

The amendments will be put to a referendum in about two months, according to members of an eight-man legal panel appointed by the military to draft the new rules.

Some opposition and protest leaders said the committee’s suggestions don’t go far enough toward removing the instruments of autocracy that allowed Mr. Mubarak to cling to power for nearly 30 years.

“With all due respect, it’s not enough,” said Gamal Eid, the general director for the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, a Cairo-based advocacy organization. “We’re not happy with the changes they made, and we’re not happy with the way they chose the committee members to start with.”

Mr. Eid said the NDP would retain too much influence in organizing elections, opening the door to vote rigging. He said the opposition movement also wanted a constitutional guarantee of independent and foreign monitoring of the vote.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces convened the eight-member committee two weeks ago to amend 10 of the most undemocratic articles in Egypt’s constitution, which was suspended by the military following Mr. Mubarak’s ouster Feb. 11.

The group was led by a prominent Islamist and historian and included a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a once-outlawed Islamist group, as well as a Coptic Christian—appointments that were intended to signal tolerance and consensus, members said.

“There were no real disagreements, and everyone got along well,” said Sobhi Saleh, a lawyer and former parliament member from the Muslim Brotherhood legislative bloc.

Members of the committee studied other constitutions, including the U.S. constitution, in drafting the changes. Indeed, the group could draw parallels to the U.S. Founding Fathers in one way: There were no women on the panel.”We felt these were the first steps to hold clean elections and allow Egypt to move forward,” said Hatem Bagato, the deputy head of Egypt’s Constitutional Supreme Court, one of three court members on the panel. Mr. Bagato was emblematic of the committee’s diversity: He is a Muslim who is known for his tolerant views and sends his daughters to private Catholic school.

Committee members defended the reform process, saying their proposals are meant as a temporary measure before parliamentary elections, tentatively scheduled to be held in about four months. The popularly elected parliament is then expected to select a constitutional congress of about 100 people to draft an entirely new document.

“Making a new constitution is not the role of eight people,” said Atif Al Banna, a committee member. “This has to be with the participation of the political parties, political powers and civil-society organizations.”

The committee’s proposals come amid unsteady relations between Egypt’s military and leaders of the revolt, some of whom are still organizing protests to meet their residual demands, such as prosecuting corrupt former regime officials, freeing hundreds of political prisoners and removing Mubarak-appointed ministers from Egypt’s cabinet.

Some protesters who returned to Tahrir Square last Friday clashed with police and army personnel Saturday morning. Several demonstrators were briefly detained, including revolutionary youth leader Shadi El Ghazali.

In a nod toward reconciliation, the military apologized to the protesters on its Facebook page on Saturday morning for “unintentional clashes” between the military police and the “sons of the revolution.”

Analysts and opposition leaders said the apology itself was a sea change in Egyptian politics.

“This was the first time the people in power in Egypt apologized for anything, but they did not take responsibility for what they did,” said Ziad Al Alimi, one of the youth protest leaders.

Mr. Al Alimi said protesters are continuing to negotiate with the military while marshalling their numbers for further protests on Friday.

Egypt to resume talks with Palestinians

The Supreme Council of the Egyptian army, the country’s interim government, plans to hold its first talks with the Palestinian Authority.

A Palestinian official said a delegation, headed by Gen. Mohammed Ibrahim, a senior intelligence officer, is scheduled to visit Ramallah this week, The Jerusalem Post reported. The talks are expected to focus on efforts to end the breach between Fatah, which is in charge in the West Bank, and Hamas, which runs Gaza, and on peace talks with Israel.

Egypt, which recognized Israel more than 30 years ago, was heavily involved in negotiations while Hosni Mubarak was still president. Nabil Amr, a former Palestinian Authority minister, said the West Bank leadership is worried about what his ouster will mean for the future.

“The Mubarak regime was a close ally of the Palestinian leadership and President Mahmoud Abbas,” Amr said. “But now the Palestinian Authority is cautious because the Egyptians are preoccupied with internal problems and don’t have time for Palestinian reconciliation.”

Constitutional amendments announced

Proposed amendments to the Egyptian Constitution were revealed on Sunday after meeting the approval of Egypt’s Supreme Military Council, which has been charged with ruling the country since Egypt’s former president, Hosni Mubarak, stepped down after thirty years of rule on February 11.

The committee was given 10 days to draft changes to six articles of the constitution. The committee suggested amending eight articles, believing the additional two also necessary to move Egypt toward democracy. The amendments are intended to ease restrictions on presidential candidacy, limit the number and length of presidential terms, and allow full judicial oversight of elections, among other articles.

The committee assigned with forming the amendments is headed by Constitutional scholar Tarek el-Beshry and consists of a panel of seven other jurists. No women were selected to be part of the committee.

Article 75 was modified to guarantee that Egypt’s president is born to two Egyptians parents and cannot be married to a non-Egyptian. The old article did not include any conditions related to the president’s wife. The article also set 40 as the minimum age for the president of Egypt.

Article 76 was modified to ease restrictions on presidential nominations. The revised article outlines three ways a candidate can be eligible to run for president: the candidate should be endorsed by 30 members from the People`s Assembly or the Shura Council (the lower and upper houses of parliament); receive 30,000 signatures from Egyptians from 15 Governorates; or be a member of a party that holds at least one seat in Parliament.

The old article was more restricting and was seen as an obstruction by the former regime to guarantee its grip on power, as the candidate had to collect at least 250 signatures from the parliament and local councils or to be a member of a five-year-old party with at least 3 percent representation in parliament.

Mubarak`s regime controlled all local councils and parliament, making it nearly impossible for any candidate to contest Mubarak or any candidate put forward by the formerly ruling National Democratic Party.

Article 77 now limits the president to two terms in office, each lasting for four years. The original article did not set term limits and set the length of each term at six years. Under the old legislation, Mubarak was able to hold five 6-year terms as President of Egypt.

Article 88 was amended to allow full judicial oversight of elections during the entire electoral process, from voter lists until the announcement of results. A 2007 amendment to Article 88 abolished judicial supervision.

Article 89, pertaining to mechanisms to amend the constitution, was modified to ensure that the next elected parliament would form a 100-member elected commission to draft a new constitution within the first six months after its election.

Article 93 formerly gave the People’s Assembly the exclusive right to determine the validity of the parliamentary membership. It was amended so the Supreme Constitutional Court is the only arbitrator on contested memberships.

Article 139 was changed to obligate Egypt’s president to appoint a Vice President within the first two months of coming to power, and in case he is unable to perform his duties for any reason, a substitute must be appointed.

Despite the former constitution calling for a Vice President, Mubarak waited thirty years to appoint one, swearing in former intelligence chief Omar Suleiman as Vice President only two weeks before Mubarak’s resignation on February 11.

Article 148, pertaining to the State of Emergency, was also changed. Formerly, the State of Emergency could be renewed by approval of the People’s Assembly. Under the amendment, if the president wants to apply the Emergency Law for more than six months, it must be approved by a public referendum.

Egypt has currently been under Emergency Law for thirty years.

The committee proposed the abolition of Article 179, which pertains to terrorism law.

Additionally, voters are now allowed to cast their votes with their National identity cards instead of needing a voting card.

Egyptians abused by police now struggle for justice

A tear rolled down Eweis Abdullah’s cheek, but his voice didn’t crack or waver. He had told his story of injustice often over the years; a cadence settled over it.

He was born a farmer’s son, running through his father’s wheat fields and growing into a man who raised cattle and chickens at the edge of Cairo. The land became more valuable as the city grew, and local police officers, armed with pistols and threats, decided they wanted it.

“I was a well-known merchant. I was respected,” he said as he stood in a downtown courthouse hallway unrolling papers that recorded years of outrage. “But I’ve lost it all trying to protect my land from the police. They looted us. They attacked us. They tortured one of my sons. They arrested another on false charges. They hoped we would leave. I will never give up my land.”

Whispered or told in tears, tales of abuse, brutality, corruption and sins committed over three decades of Hosni Mubarak’s police state seeped through the courthouse’s stone corridors. They gave voice to the scarred and the vanished. A wife pleaded with a judge to jail the police officers who beat her husband to death; a sandaled perfume seller wanted street cops to stop demanding bribes.

The police were like winter sandstorms blowing out of the desert, inescapable, permeating every crack of life. Low paid, they turned to the citizens they were charged to protect, collecting kickbacks, making false arrests, perfecting torture and instilling fear into anyone who challenged their whims.

Mubarak is gone. The army has taken over the country. And Egyptians, from shopkeepers to schoolteachers, are newly empowered, seeking justice and recompense. They file past crowded courtrooms, broken filing cabinets, prayer rugs and lawyers with scuffed shoes and satchels, where before they never dared wander.

“The police were just a tool in the hand of the ruler,” said Abdullah, waiting outside a clerk’s office. “But hopefully things are different today. That’s why I’m here. I’m confident the military will get me my rights back.”

A man can dream. The country, after all, has endured a revolution and heard promises of better days.

Abbas Mohammed Abbas would like just one uncorrupted day. A heavyset, breathless man, he too carried papers that crinkled like ancient maps. He pointed to handwritten words, scrawled numbers. Police destroyed his sidewalk perfume stand during last month’s protests. He sought 4,500 Egyptian pounds, or about $765, in compensation.

“I’ve been to the district attorney. He sent me to the Finance Ministry, who sent me to the tax assessment authority, who sent me to the minister of social development, who sent me back here to the district attorney,” he said. “Things are supposed to have changed. I fear I’m being played for a fool.”

He knew all the police officers in his neighborhood; their faces were as familiar as their palms, which he saw every day as he slid a bit of money into them. He didn’t attack and burn police stations as many did during the protests. But he understood the rage one feels for thick black uniforms and tilted berets.

“I lost everything. It’s all gone,” he said. “I worked in Libya for two years as a laborer to save money to buy perfume. I can’t marry. I can’t afford it. I’ve lost even the chance to be a man.”

The police who harassed him in the past are the same ones today claiming that they were also victims in an oppressive state. Police officers are trying to rehabilitate their images, setting up Facebook pages, showing solidarity with protesters. It is a curious shift in fortunes, leaving a nation unsure where blame ends and forgiveness begins.

Aishah Hassan was not ready to offer redemption. She walked another hallway in the courthouse, carrying papers in a plastic bag. A slight woman in a white head scarf, she was looking for the right judge to free her son. She spoke to three men in wooden chairs, all with their own complaints of abuse and corruption, and another man in a slant of sunlight near a cracked window.

“The police framed my son on a drug charge,” she said. “He was tortured. He has marks on his body. I went to the police station and they kept me for 24 hours. They hit me. Four police officers beat my other boy who was with me. They did it right in front of my eyes. They told my son unless he confessed to the charge, they would hurt us.”

Such stories ring with similarity across the country. The police often trumped up charges on a father, cousin or son to extort money from families. Hassan said that after her son was arrested, she had to pay police to allow her to visit him. She had to pay them to bring him meals.

“I paid thousands of Egyptian pounds to the police and our lawyer,” she said. “I don’t know why the police did this, but they terrorized everyone in our neighborhood. My son was scared for me and he confessed. He was sentenced to one year in jail.”

She had come to the wrong courthouse, though. No one had ever told her about jurisdiction or the other legal words she was learning. She just drove to the biggest courthouse she knew. Lawyers suggested that she return to her home in Beheira province, a three-hour drive north through the Nile Delta, and file her complaint there.

Too mad to cry, she walked down the stairs, past the tank parked outside.

Abdullah, the farmer, has been battling police since 1998, when his property was rezoned for commercial use as Cairo sprawled farther into the desert, where developers, like strange magicians, grew grass and built villas for the rich, many of them connected to Mubarak’s ruling party. The police saw an opportunity.

“They wanted the land so they could sell it,” he said. “They broke through our gates and attacked our houses. I had to send my daughter away. They planted weapons and charged my son with illegal possession. He’s still in jail. I’ve spent all these years protecting my land from the police. My cattle and chicken businesses are ruined. But they can’t have the land. It is like a son to me.”

He was once a man of substance, but now, dressed in a dirty tunic, his only hint of refinement is the white sliver of a mustache.

He wanted to be the man he was in that other time, but as he unrolled his papers, pointing to words that signified injustices, he seemed to know he had become someone else.

Egypt army apologises for beating protesters

Egypt’s ruling military council apologised on Saturday after military police beat protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, but activists called for fresh protests to denounce violence by the authorities.

A security official and witnesses said that military police surrounded protesters shortly after midnight, beating them with batons and using tasers to disperse a crowd of several hundred that had gathered to push for reforms.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces said that “what happened late Friday was the result of unintentional confrontations between the military police and the youth of the revolution.”

It stressed that it “did not and will not issue orders to attack the youth, and all measures will be taken to ensure this will not happen again.”

In a second statement, the armed forces said they would “immediately release all the youth of the January 25 revolution that were detained in Tahrir Square (on Friday)”, but did not say how many there were.

A security official said around 20 people were detained.

Activists launched a Facebook call for fresh protests on Saturday to denounce the army’s use of force.

“Peaceful protesters in Tahrir are being chased away by the military police with tasers, sticks and whips. Masked men with machine guns trying to shut down the strike by force. Many beaten, assaulted and arrested,” the statement said.

“We cannot stand for this; we must stand strong against violence towards peaceful protesters.”

On Friday, thousands of Egyptians rallied in the square — the focal point of anti-government protests that toppled president Hosni Mubarak — to celebrate the success of their revolution and call for a new government purged of old guard remnants.

They demanded the replacement of the government of Prime Minister Ahmad Shafiq. Even after a reshuffle on Wednesday, a number of key portfolios, including foreign affairs and defence, are still in the hands of Mubarak regime veterans.

“Shafiq’s government is subservient to the corrupt regime,” read one banner carried by demonstrators.

Protesters also called for the abolition of the much feared state security services.

Mubarak, who resigned on February 11, handed power to the army.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces ordered Shafiq’s government to run the country’s affairs for six months “or until the end of parliamentary and presidential elections.”

It has vowed to uphold the principles of the uprising and fight the corruption that tainted Mubarak’s regime.

Nationwide protests erupted on January 25 demanding Mubarak’s immediate resignation and calling for political and economic reforms and an end to corruption.

At least 384 people were killed in 18 days of protests, over 6,000 wounded and scores detained.

On Thursday the public prosecutor orderd that former trade minister Rashid Mohamed Rashid and former housing minister Ahmed al-Maghrabi to face criminal trial for corruption along with steel tycoon Ahmed Ezz — a member of the National Democratic Party.

Three other businessmen, including Lotfy Mansur — brother of a former minister — were also refered to the criminal court.

On Thursday, police detained former information minister Anas al-Fikki and former state broadcasting chief Osama al-Sheikh as part of a probe into alleged graft under Mubarak.

Fikki is the fourth member of Mubarak’s former government to be detained, after the former ministers of interior Habib al-Adly, tourism Zoheir Garranah and Maghrabi.

The judiciary has also banned former culture minister Faruk Hosni from leaving the country and a dozen businessmen regarded as close to the ousted regime have also been

Protesters In Egypt Say Military Using Force

Egyptian soldiers fired in the air and used batons in the early hours of Saturday to disperse activists demanding the cabinet appointed by Hosni Mubarak be purged by the country’s new military leaders, protesters said.

Thousands had gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to celebrate two weeks since Mubarak’s removal and remind the country’s new rulers, who have promised to guard against “counter revolution” of the people’s power.

In the gathering in the epicentre of the uprising against the president, activists urged the military, who had promised there would be “no return to the past” of the Mubarak era, to overhaul the cabinet and install a team of technocrats.

But after midnight, protesters said the military fired in the air, shut off the light from lampposts, and moved in on protesters to force them to leave the square, in an unusual use of military force against protesters since Mubarak’s fall.

“Military police used batons and tasers to hit the protesters,” Ahmed Bahgat, one of the protesters, told Reuters by telephone. “The military is once again using force. But the protesters have not responded.”

Protesters left the main centre but many had gathered in surrounding streets, another protester, Mohamed Emad, said. Witnesses said they saw several protesters fall to the ground but it was not clear if they were wounded or how seriously.

“I am one of thousands of people who stood their ground after the army started dispersing the protesters, shooting live bullets into the air to scare them,” said protester Ashraf Omar.

TASERS AND STICKS

“They were using tasers and sticks to beat us without any control. I thought things would change. I wanted to give the government a chance but there is no hope with this regime,” Omar said. “There is no use.”

“I am back on the street. I either live with dignity or I die here.”

Protesters say they want the resignation of the government of Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, the immediate release of political prisoners and the issuing of a general amnesty.

The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s best organised political group, and others are particularly concerned about the key portfolios of defence, interior, justice and foreign affairs, and want a clean break from Mubarak’s old guard.

The military, facing strikes over pay as well as turmoil in Libya, treads a fine line between granting people new freedoms and restoring normal life.

The army officers who moved in on protesters in Tahrir, donned black masks to cover their faces to avoid being identified by protesters, Omar said.

Military busses were parked in the square to take in protesters that were caught, Mohamed Aswany, one protester who had decided to stage a sit-in, told Reuters by telephone.

Protesters were heard yelling and shouting as they were chased down side streets to Tahrir.

“It is a cat and mouse chase between the army and the people,” Omar said in dismay. “There is no more unity between the people and the army.”

FORMER OFFICIALS DETAINED

In one attempt to appease protesters and show a break with the past, several former ministers and business executives linked to Mubarak’s ruling party have come under investigation.

Egypt’s public prosecutor referred two former ministers and several prominent businessmen to a criminal court on Thursday on accusations of squandering public funds. [ID:nLDE71N121]

In the latest case, investigators have ordered the detention of former Information Minister Anas el-Fekky for 15 days on charges of profiteering and wasting public funds, the state news agency MENA said on Saturday.

Investigators also ordered the head of the Egyptian Television and Broadcasting Union be detained.

Anti-government protesters had been angered by Fekky because state media, which fell under his charge, had ignored, played down or attacked demonstrations that ousted Mubarak.

Egypt’s prosecutor said in its charges against Fekky that he had allocated state television funding to back presidential and parliamentary campaigns for Mubarak and his National Democratic Party, in violation of election laws.

The prosecutor also said Fekky had used excess funding in revamping studios and for channels owned by state television.

The former minister denied the charges, MENA reported, saying that he saw no excess in allocating budgets and that he had made such decisions to maintain competitiveness with other, private channels.

Fekky also denied that state television unfairly helped the campaign for Mubarak or his party:

“Those campaigns spoke of accomplishments in Egypt in general and did not praise one person or one party.”

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