CAIRO, Nov. 23, 2011 (SPS) - Egyptian police clashed with anti-government protesters for a fifth day in central Cairo today as a rights group raised the overall death toll from the ongoing unrest to 38.
The clashes came one day after tens of thousands of protesters in Tahrir Square rejected a promise by Egypt's military ruler to speed up a presidential election to the first half of next year. The military previously had floated late next year or early 2013 as the likely date for the vote.
In a televised address late on Tuesday, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi did not set a date for handing authority to a civilian government, but instead offered a referendum on the immediate return of the armed forces to their barracks.
The Tahrir crowds, along with protesters in a string of other cities across the nation, want Tantawi to step down immediately in favor of an interim civilian council to run the nation's affairs until elections for a new parliament and president are held.
The five days of clashes are the longest spate of uninterrupted violence since the 18-day uprising that toppled the former regime of Hosni Mubarak
Today's street battles centered around the heavily fortified Interior Ministry, with police and army troops using tear gas and rubber bullets to keep the protesters from storming the ministry.
The five days of clashes are the longest spate of uninterrupted violence since the 18-day uprising that toppled the former regime of Hosni Mubarak in February, deepening the country's economic and security woes.
The unrest also threatens to cloud the country's first post-Mubarak parliamentary elections since Mubarak's February ouster, which are scheduled to begin on November 28.
In his address, Tantawi rejected all criticism of the military's handling of the transitional period and sought to cast himself and the generals on the military council he heads as the nation's foremost patriots. Significantly, he made no mention of the protesters gathered in Tahrir Square or elsewhere in the country.
Source: SABC
062/000