Jan 31: As the unprecedented unrest in the Arab world’s most populous nation entered the seventh day, thousands of protesters poured into Cairo’s Tahrir Square chanting “Get out ... We want you out”, singing Egypt’s national anthem, and defying the night time curfew ahead of an indefinite strike and Tuesday’s “march of a million” in the capital.
Designed to defuse the most serious challenge to his rule in three decades, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak appointed a new interior minister on Monday as part of a revamped Cabinet.
The line-up now includes three former senior officers, and saw the departure of widely hated interior minister Habib al-Adly and a clique of businessmen linked to the regime.
Mubarak also made promises of reform. But he failed to placate opposition groups and protesters massed in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the epicentre of demands for an end to the corruption, deprivation and police oppression indelibly associated with Mubarak's 30-year rule.
Protestors insisted they would only be satisfied when Mubarak quits, and vowed to step up their efforts to topple his creaking regime. “We will stay in the square, until the coward leaves,” the crowd chanted.
The army has positioned tanks around the area and was checking identity papers but letting protesters in. Civilian popular committee members were also checking papers to make sure no plain-clothes police get in.
“We are looking for police trouble makers. They want to come in and break our unity,” said a popular committee member who asked not to be named.
An open-ended general strike has also been called after a strike call by workers at a factory in the canal city of Suez late on Sunday. Faced with the prospect of untold numbers trying to converge on the capital, authorities stopped all train traffic with immediate effect on Monday afternoon. State-owned national carrier EgyptAir said it was cancelling all domestic and international flights from 3 pm (1300 GMT) to 8 am (0600 GMT) until further notice, coinciding with a curfew in Cairo, Alexandria and Suez.