Authorities continued their hassles against Muhammad Al-Ashqar, Kefaya activist and the head of the Popular Committee for the Protection of the Consumer from Corruption in Giza. He was detained yesterday, and his whereabouts are unknown.
Ashqar was to lead the “garbage march” today in Giza, to protest the unfair garbage collection fees decreed by the Governor.
Engineer Muhammad Al-Ashqar parked his old Lada in Champilyon Street in Downtown in the evening, and ran to catch a meeting for Kefaya’s coordinating committee.
Later, he received news his car was pulled by the Traffic Police. When he went to Maarouf Police Station to get it. He found out his car was “detained” by State Security as it was fully covered with Kefaya stickers! The Central Security Forces and plainclothes police informers circled it, and the officers refused to give him the car back.
You can find more details posted on Kefaya’s website.
UPDATE: Ashqar went to try get his car back again on Thursday noon, when he discovered he was to be referred to the prosecutor on charges of “putting sticker on a car, that encourages hatred against the ruling regime,” according to Kefaya’s website.
Few dozens assembled with difficulty in Tahrir Square, under immense security presence, to demonstrate against Mubarak’s National Democratic Party’s congress that’s starting tomorrow.
The sit in, organized by Kefaya, should have lasted till the following day, as the ambitious organizers of the event were hoping. However the heavy police presence that prevented groups of demonstrators to assemble, in addition to the weak turn out to start with, meant this was not possible at all.
On my way to Tahrir, I spotted seven Central Security Forces trucks full of conscripts parked in front of the Arab League, and five other trucks and three police vans in Qasr el-Nil Street. (I’m sure there were loads of other trucks parked all over downtown as usual, but I couldn’t spot them where I was.) The center of the square was already occupied by regular police conscripts in white uniforms. Plainclothes security agents could also be seen virtually everywhere.
Only a crowd of at best 70 activists, mainly from the Revolutionary Socialists, Ghad, Karama, and independents, managed to assemble. They were cornered by a CSF ring in the square at the beginning of Qasr el-Nil street. The demonstrators called for the release of political detainees, chanted against the Mubarak family, NDP, corruption, and chanted against the US as the sponsor of Mubarak’s regime, and against Israel, the regime’s ally as protesters put it. Some left wing demonstrators chanted calling for the “execution of the president on charges of high treason,” others called for his assassination a la Sadat.
The sit in was folded at 9:30pm, and demonstrators announced they will be meeting at the Lawyer’s Syndicate on Thursday 7pm for the Kefaya conference on constitutional amendments.