Egyptian police fired tear gas early Wednesday on thousands of protesters in Cairo, as three people died during unprecedented nationwide rallies seekingto end President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule. (AFP/Mohammed Abed)
This is still unreal to me. The American University in Cairo used to be about 100 yards from here. I crossed this maze of (usually) cars and buses every day. The Egyptian Musuem of Antiquities is right here... The Hilton, where we would escape the heat and slide across the marble floors like wet ice... The iconic Coco-Cola sign up atop one of the largest buildings... The main government building, the Mugamma, where a gov worker took his own life during our stay by jumping to his death onto the Square... All memories I have that didn't take place at the pyramids were centered here. Even the injured sorrel cart horse with the broken ankle, and the young boy pleading with him to get him home, which he never did... The woman and children lining this street selling government-issued Kleenex packets all day every day for pennies--Mubarak's idea of welfare. A traffic cop holding a dying boy, hit by a car, in his arms as my taxi passed, unable to get through the traffic to save him...
No, I will never forget Cairo. Her smoke is in my blood. Their blood is on the streets.
...يا مصر يا قالبي
Egyptians denounce Mubarak, clash with riot police
[Taken from AP piece-updated]
As night fell, thousands of demonstrators stood their ground for what they vowed would be an all-night sit-in in Tahrir Square just steps away from parliament and other government buildings — blocking the streets and setting the stage for even more dramatic confrontations.
A large security force moved in around 1 a.m. Wednesday, arresting people, chasing others into side streets and filling the square with clouds of tear gas. Protesters collapsed on the ground with breathing problems amid the heavy volleys of tear gas.
The sound of what appeared to be automatic weapons fire could be heard as riot police and plainclothes officers chased several hundred protesters who scrambled onto the main road along the Nile in downtown Cairo. Some 20 officers were seen brutally beating one protester with truncheons.
"It got broken up ugly with everything, shooting, water cannon and (police) running with the sticks," said Gigi Ibrahim, who was among the last protesters to leave the square. "It was a field of tear gas. The square emptied out so fast."
Ibrahim said she was hit in her back with something that felt like a rock. "Some people were hit in their faces."
Some protesters turned violent amid the crackdown. They knocked down an empty white police booth and dragged it for several yards before setting it on fire, chanting that they want to oust the regime. A police pickup truck was overturned and set ablaze behind the famed Egyptian Museum. Protesters also set fire to a metal barricade and blocked traffic on a major bridge over the Nile.
Police at the bridge fired tear gas and protesters mounted a charge, forcing officers to retreat, though they quickly regrouped. Two protesters with bleeding head wounds were carried off in ambulances.
Well after midnight, the smell of tear gas drifted throughout central Cairo and riot police remained deployed in large numbers. Tahrir Square looked like a battlefield covered with rocks and debris. The gates of the ruling party headquarters near the square were smashed.
Scattered groups of protesters were holding out in several areas. Many were chased by police vehicles into the Shubra neighborhood, where the streets were strewn with rocks in a sign of a heavy confrontation.
Discontent with life in Egypt's authoritarian police state has simmered under the surface for years. However, it is Tunisia's popular uprising, which forced that nation's autocratic ruler from power, that appears to have pushed young Egyptians into the streets, many for the first time.
"This is the first time I am protesting, but we have been a cowardly nation. We have to finally say no," said Ismail Syed, a hotel worker who struggles to live on a salary of $50 a month.
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