Fresh violence in Egypt
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Xinhua, November 23, 2011
Fresh violence erupted early Wednesday between protestors and police near Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square, despite an offer by the ruling military council to speed up the power transfer.
Police fired tear gas canisters to the rock-throwing crowds of protestors in the Mohamed Mahmoud Street near the square where the Interior Ministry building is located.
Some youth groups, including the April 6 movement and the Revolution Youth Coalition, insisted on continuing the protests.
Ahmed Mohammady, 26, a member of the Revolution Youth Coalition, said Wednesday in Tahrir Square that "We won't leave until we end the military ruler who suppressed us and killed innocent protestors, and we refuse the principle of referendum."
"We pulled the legitimacy from (military council head) Tantawi. We won't leave until he announces a presidential election date no later than next April and an immediate probe into the clashes," said Ramy Swissy, spokesman of the April 6 movement, one of the major youth groups that launched the mass anti-government protests in late January to force the departure of former President Hosni Mubarak.
The head of Egypt's ruling military council, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, said Tuesday that the council had accepted the resignation of the caretaker government led by Prime Minister Essam Sharaf.
In a televised address to the nation, Tantawi announced that the presidential elections will take place by July 2012 and the military council will hand over power back to a civilian government before July 1 that year.0
"The military does not expect to keep power," Tantawi said, adding that the military "is ready to hand over power immediately if people wish so" through a referendum.
Tantawi denied that the military is responsible for the deaths resulting from the latest round of violence hitting Cairo and other cities in recent days. The Egyptian army "never killed a single Egyptian man or woman," he said.
"We can't believe him. Before he had told us that the transitional period will take only 6 months, and almost 11 months passed now, and nothing new happened," said a political professor in Cairo University, who asked to be identified only as Mona.
Mona was one of the protestors who remained in the square shouting slogans such as "We won't leave until Tantawi leaves."
According to the Egyptian health ministry, the death toll from the clashes across the country since Saturday has risen to 32, 28 reported in Cairo, 2 in Alexandria, 1 in Matruh and Ismailia each.
Despite the ongoing protests, the military said the Nov. 28 parliamentary elections would go ahead as planned. Major political forces like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Al-Wafd Party also demand the polls be held on time.
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