Twitter banned to curb protest

Jan 27, 2011 |

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San Francisco, Jan. 26: Twitter was inaccessible in Egypt on Tuesday in what was believed to be a move to thwart protesters using the social network in a campaign to oust the President, Mr Hosni Mubarak, according to a tracking website recommended by Twitter. A Twitter spokesman declined to comment on what was causing the service outage in Egypt.

The news came as tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets across Egypt, to demand the ouster of the President in protests inspired by Tunisia’s popular uprising.

The protests were the largest and most significant since riots over bread subsidies shook the Arab world’s most populous nation in 1977, analysts said. In Cairo, thousands chanted in unison: “The people want the ouster of the regime.”

Despite some 20,000 police being deployed in the capital, demonstrators broke barriers to march towards the square where police fired teargas in an attempt to disperse them. The protest coincided with a national holiday to mark Police Day.

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