Deadly clashes in Tahrir Square forced Egypt cabinet to resign

Cairo: Egypt’s Cabinet resigned on Monday as clashes between protesters and security forces in Cairo's Tahrir Square continued for the third day and the death toll rose to 33. Many victims were shot in the worst violence since the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak.

Cabinet spokesman Mohamed Hegazy announced that Prime Minister Essam Sharaf’s entire cabinet had tendered its resignation on Sunday.

Al Jazeera television later said the ruling military council had accepted the government’s resignation, but there was no official announcement of the council's decision.

Egypt’s military council is seeking agreement on a new prime minister before it accepts the resignation submitted by the cabinet, a military source told Reuters on Monday.

The source said no formal announcement would be made until the ruling military council had agreed on the candidate. He did not provide further details.

Overnight Sunday and on Monday, Cairo police fought protesters demanding an end to army rule.

As night fell on Monday, thousands of people packed Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the anti-Mubarak revolt in January and February. The clashes threaten to disrupt Egypt’s first free parliamentary election in decades, due to start next Monday.

“The people want the fall of the marshal,” they chanted, referring to Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, Mubarak’s defense minister for two decades and head of the army council.

Clashes flared in side-streets near Tahrir. Witnesses said looters, not necessarily connected to the protests, had attacked the American University in Cairo and other buildings.

Protesters have brandished bullet casings in the square, where police moved in with batons and tear gas on Saturday against a protest then dominated by Islamists but since driven by young people with secular aims. Police deny using live fire.

Medical sources at Cairo’s main morgue said 33 corpses had been received since Saturday, most with bullet wounds. One source at the morgue said the toll had risen to 46. At least 1,250 people have been wounded, a Health Ministry source said.

“I’ve seen the police beat women my mother’s age. I want military rule to end,” Reuters news agency quoted Mohamed Gamal (21), a protester as saying.

Army generals were feted for their part in easing Mubarak out, but hostility to their rule has hardened since, especially over attempts to set new constitutional principles that would keep the military permanently beyond civilian control.

Police attacked a makeshift hospital in Tahrir Square after dawn but were driven back by protesters hurling chunks of concrete from smashed pavements, witnesses said.

“Don’t go out there, you’ll end up martyrs like the others,” protesters told people emerging from a metro station at Tahrir Square.
 

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The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh and the Emeritus Senior Minister, Mr. Goh Chok Tong, unveiled the bust and the Marker of Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, at Asian Civilizations Museum, in Singapore on November 20, 2011.

(Photo: M. Asokan )