Loads of Central Security Forces descended on Matareya Sq., in anticipation of the garbage protest. Organizers decided to cancel the demo for fear of arrests, as handful of individuals only showed up.
[CSF troops in Matareyya Sq. Photo by Alexandra Sandels.]
I’m receiving news that Police is cracking down on the Cinema Metro demo. Plainclothes security agents are dispersing protesters and people away.
Five people, I heard, have been arrested including activist Nadia Mabrouk, Waleed Salah, a student from the AUC named Dina, a foreign journalist and an unnamed protester.
The police also assaulted Reuters photographer Nasser Nouri, and smashed his camera battery.
A group of women protesters, including anti-torture activist Dr. Magda Adly, are cornered now inside the Excelsior Cafe, next to Cinema Metro.
UPDATE: Those who were under siege in the Excelsior Cafe have managed to leave, and they are on their way to the Press Syndicate. Talaat Harb is full of baltaggiya (plainclothes thugs used by the police).
UPDATE: The Press Syndicate is under siege by Central Security Forces, plainclothes thugs.
UPDATE: It seems all those kidnapped by the police were released, except for Kefaya activists Nadia Mabrouk and her fiance Waleed Salah who are spending the night in Qasr el-Nil Police Station, and will be transferred to the prosecutor in the morning on charges of possessing leaflets of anti-regime inflammatory content, disturbing public order, etc.
I was told by their lawyer that Nadia was beaten up during the arrest, and a State Security officer kept on hitting her several times against the metal stair steps of the Prison Truck. Later she was greeted with a slap on the face at Qasr el-Nil Police Station (where Kefaya activist Muhammad el-Sharqawi was brutally tortured and sexually abused last May), before she was thrown to al-takhsheeba.
Here are two press reports on the demo, from The Daily Star Egypt and the New York Times.
UPDATE: Reporters Without Borders denounced the police crackdown on journalists covering the protest.
The Street is Ours
We shall start a campaign defending our presence, our right to public space, our right to a life free of violence and sexual harassment. We call upon everybody, women and men, to gather in front of the Metro Theater (one of the locations where the harassments took place), Tuesday 14 November, at 3 p.m., to express our solidarity with the victims of harassment, to make a statement that the street is ours.
Nobody will terrify us away. Nobody will isolate us in our country.