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Striking
museum workers outside the Supreme Council of
Antiquities in Cairo. |
Cairo.–
As reports filtered in of strikes and unrest spreading to
other parts of the city and the country, the government
seemed to dig in deeper. Mr. Mubarak’s handpicked
successor, Vice President Omar Suleiman, warned Tuesday that
the only alternative to constitutional talks was a
“coup” and added: “We don’t want to deal with
Egyptian society with police tools.”
But
the pressure on Mr. Mubarak’s government was intensifying,
a day after the largest crowd of protesters in two weeks
flooded Cairo’s streets and the United States delivered
its most specific demands yet, urging swift steps toward
democracy. Some of the protesters drew new inspiration from
the emotional interview on Egypt’s most popular talk show
with Wael Ghonim, the online political organizer who was
detained for two weeks.
At
dawn on Wednesday, the 16th day of the uprising, hundreds of
pro–democracy demonstrators remained camped out at
Parliament, where they had marched for the first time on
Tuesday. There were reports of thousands demonstrating in
several other cities around the country while protesters
began to gather again in Tahrir Square, a few blocks from
Parliament.
By
midday, hundreds of workers from the Health Ministry,
adjacent to Parliament and a few hundred yards from Tahrir
Square, also took to the streets in a protest whose exact
focus was not immediately clear, Interior Ministry officials
said.
Violent
clashes between opponents and supporters of Mr. Mubarak led
to more than 70 injuries in recent days, according to a
report by Al Ahram — the flagship government newspaper and
a cornerstone of the Egyptian establishment — while
government officials said the protests had spread to the
previously quiet southern region of Upper Egypt.
In
Port Said, a city of 600,000 at the mouth of the Suez Canal,
protesters set fire to a government building and occupied
the city’s central square. There were unconfirmed reports
that police fired live rounds on protesters on Tuesday in El
Kharga, 375 miles south of Cairo, resulting in several
deaths. Protesters responded by burning police stations and
other government buildings on Wednesday, according to wire
reports.
On
Tuesday, the officials said, thousands protested in the
province of Wadi El Jedid. One person died and 61 were
injured, including seven from gunfire by the authorities,
the officials said. Television images also showed crowds
gathering in Alexandria, Egypt’s second–largest city.
Before
the reports of those clashes, Human Rights Watch reported
that more than 300 people have been killed since Jan. 25.
Increasingly,
the political clamor for Mr. Mubarak’s ouster seemed to be
complemented by strikes in Cairo and elsewhere.
In
the most potentially significant action, about 6,000 workers
at five service companies owned by the Suez Canal Authority
— a major component of the Egyptian economy — began a
sit–in on Tuesday night. There was no immediate suggestion
of disruptions to shipping in the canal, a vital
international waterway leading from the Mediterranean to the
Red Sea. But Egyptian officials said that total traffic
declined by 1.6 percent in January, though it was up
significantly from last year.
More
than 2,000 textile workers and others in Suez demonstrated
as well, Al Ahram reported, while in Luxor thousands hurt by
the collapse of the tourist industry marched to demand
government benefits. There was no immediate independent
corroboration of the reports.
At
one factory in the textile town of Mahalla, more than
striking 1,500 workers blocked roads, continuing a long–running
dispute with the owner. And more than 2,000 workers from the
Sigma pharmaceutical company in the city of Quesna went on
strike while some 5,000 unemployed youth stormed a
government building in Aswan, demanding the dismissal of the
governor.
For
many foreign visitors to Egypt, Aswan is known as a starting
point or destination for luxury cruises to and from Luxor on
the Nile River. The government’s Ministry of Civil
Aviation reported on Wednesday that flights to Egypt had
dropped by 70 percent since the protests began.
In
Cairo, sanitation workers demonstrated around their
headquarters in Dokki.
* Reporting
was contributed by Kareem Fahim, Anthony Shadid, Mona El–Naggar,
Thanassis Cambanis and Liam Stack.
Labor
Actions in Egypt Boost Protests
Cairo.–
The protests at the newspaper, Al Ahram, by freelance
reporters demanding better wages and more independence from
the government, snarled one of the state’s most powerful
propaganda tools and seemed to change its tone: On Wednesday,
the front page, which had sought for days to play down the
protests, called recent attacks by pro–Mubarak protesters
on Tahrir Square an “offense to the whole nation.”
In
the face of the unrest, the country’s foreign minister
delivered stern warnings that seemed to reflect the
government’s growing impatience with the protests.
Foreign
Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit dismissed calls by Egyptian
protesters and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to scrap
the country’s emergency laws, which allow the authorities
to detain people without charge.
“We
have 17,000 prisoners loose in the streets out of jails that
have been destroyed,” Mr. Aboul Gheit said during an
interview with the NewsHour on PBS. “How can you ask me to
sort of disband that emergency law while I’m in difficulty?”
The
remarks about Mr. Biden reflected the complicated
relationship between Mr. Mubarak’s government and the
Obama administration, which had urged swift steps toward a
political transition, then endorsed Mr. Mubarak’s
remaining until the end of his term later this year. Since
then, Mr. Biden has suggested that the United States still
expects some immediate changes to be made.
On
Wednesday, the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs,
responded to the Egyptian government’s claims that such
changes were premature, saying, “What you see happening on
the streets of Cairo is not all that surprising when you see
the lack of steps that their government has taken to meet
their concerns.”
That
attempt to put some distance between the United States and
Mr. Mubarak, though, was unlikely to impress the protesters,
who say that the Obama administration, by continuing to back
the president, also ignores their concerns.
By
nightfall on Wednesday, more than 1,000 protesters prepared
to sleep outside the Parliament building for a second night,
a symbolic move that showed the opposition’s growing
confidence as the protesters expanded the scope of their
activism beyond Tahrir Square.
Reports
from around the country of vigorous and sometimes violent
protests also suggested a movement regaining steam.
Security
officials said that 5 people died and more than 100 were
injured during protests on Tuesday in El Kharga, 375 miles
south of Cairo. Protesters responded Wednesday by burning
police stations and other government buildings. In Asyut,
protesters blocked a railway line. Television images showed
crowds gathering again in Alexandria, Egypt’s second–largest
city.
Even
protests that were not directly against Mr. Mubarak centered
on the types of government neglect that have driven the call
for him to leave power.
Protesters
in Port Said, a city of 600,000 at the mouth of the Suez
Canal, set fire to a government building, saying local
officials had ignored their requests for better housing. And
in one of the most potentially significant labor actions,
thousands of workers for the Suez Canal Authority continued
a sit–in on Wednesday, though there were no immediate
suggestions of disruptions of shipping in the canal, a vital
international waterway.
The
deaths of protesters in El Kharga were a reminder of Egypt’s
unsettled security picture.
On
Wednesday, Human Rights Watch reported that since Jan. 28,
when troops took up positions in Egyptian cities, army
officers and the military police had arbitrarily detained at
least 119 people. In at least five cases, the group said,
detainees said they had been tortured.
There
were signs that the police, under the jurisdiction of the
hated Ministry of Interior, were trying to remake their
image. The authorities have announced in recent days that
prosecutors are weighing charges against Habib el–Adly,
recently removed as interior minister. The charges,
including murder, are related to the killing of protesters
by security officers during the unrest.
On
Wednesday, some cellphone customers in Egypt received the
equivalent of marketing messages from the new minister,
Mahmoud Wagdy. One read, “From the Ministry of Interior:
The police will do nothing but serve and protect the people.”
Another said, “Starting today, we will only deal through
truthfulness, honesty and rule of law.”
As
Mr. Mubarak held on to power, influential groups and people
seemed determined to distance themselves from his government’s
legacy. Members of a prominent journalists’ association
moved toward a no–confidence vote against their leader,
Makram Mohamed Ahmed, a former Mubarak speechwriter, the
daily Al Masry Al Youm reported on its English–language
Web site.
And
the recently appointed culture minister, Gaber Asfour, a
literary critic, resigned Wednesday after pressure from his
colleagues, according to Al Ahram.
Outside
groups, meanwhile, continued to try to take advantage of the
Egyptian uprising. In an online forum, a group in Iraq
affiliated with Al Qaeda called on Egyptians to “wage
violent jihad to topple the regime in Egypt," according
to Khaled Hamza, the editor of the Web site of the Muslim
Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition movement.
He
bristled at the comments, saying the revolt in Egypt was
nonviolent and included “all sects, trends and religions.”
“Egyptians
are capable of solving their problem without intrusion,
meddling and prying from foreign groups such as Al Qaeda and
similar groups advocating the use of violence,” he said.
Increasingly,
the political clamor for Mr. Mubarak’s ouster seemed to be
complemented by strikes nationwide. While many strikes
seemed to focus on specific grievances related to working
conditions, labor leaders suggested they were energized by
protests against Mr. Mubarak.
Rahma
Refaat, a lawyer at the Center for Trade Union and Worker
Services, said, “Most of those on strike say that we have
discovered that the resources of our country have been
stolen by the regime.”
The
protest against the Suez Canal Authority began Tuesday night
and was staged by about 6,000 workers. In Helwan, 6,000
workers at the Misr Helwan Spinning and Weaving Company went
on strike, Ms. Refaat said.
More
than 2,000 workers from the Sigma pharmaceutical company in
Quesna began a strike while about 5,000 unemployed youths
stormed a government building in Aswan, demanding the
dismissal of the governor.
Postal
workers protested in shifts, Ms. Refaat said. In Cairo,
sanitation workers demonstrated outside their headquarters.
In
Al Ahram’s lobby, journalists called their protest a
microcosm of the Egyptian uprising, with young journalists
leading demands for better working conditions and less
biased coverage.
“Egypt
before the 25th is different from Egypt after the 25th,”
said Essam Saad, who does work for the newspaper, referring
to Jan. 25, the first day of antigovernment protests.
“What is happening now is going to clean up Al Ahram. This
newspaper is supposed to be the newspaper of the people, not
the newspaper of the regime and the government.”
* Liam Stack,
Mona El–Naggar and Thanassis Cambanis contributed
reporting fromairo, and Helene Cooper from Washington.