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| Egyptians hold a demo against military junta |
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The military took over after President Hosni Mubarak resigned in February following a popular revolution. In Cairo's Tahrir Square, the focus of the anti-Mubarak rallies, one target was the head of the military council, Hussein Tantawi. He served as Mubarak's defense minister. One banner read, "Egyptians, come out of your homes, Tantawi is Mubarak." Protester Khaled Abdel-Hamid said Tantawi's plan to transfer power to civilian rule is unclear. He and thousands more are also protesting against the trials of civilians in military courts. It was the first major rally in the square in a month. Smaller crowds demonstrated in other Egyptian cities. The protesters marched towards the cabinet offices in Cairo on Friday to press the military rulers to keep their promises of reform after Mubarak’s ouster. Protesters, gathered under a scorching sun, filled a section of the square to listen to the weekly Muslim prayer sermon. “It would be shame on the Egyptian people if they forget their revolution,” the preacher said. He attacked some of the prosecution witnesses in the ongoing murder trial of Mubarak and his security chiefs for testifying in court this week that they had not been ordered to use deadly force against protesters during the revolt. “They must be charged with false testimony. How can a prosecution witness turn into a defense witness?” the cleric asked. The preacher also denounced military trials for civilians. The military, which took charge after Mubarak's ouster, has sentenced thousands of people to prison terms since February. Protesters chanted slogans against the military ruler and current de facto head of the state Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi after the sermon ended. Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros, reporting live from Tahrir Square, said that thousands of people had already flocked there to “protest against the rules that the military has put into place to limit the freedom of people”. “Most people are here because they are not happy at the way the military rulers are running the country ... There are hundreds of fans of a local football club that have just joined as well, carrying the red flags of their team,” our correspondent said. “They are upset at the police for bad treatment at a football stadium on Tuesday night.” The military, in a statement posted on its Facebook page, said it respected the activists' right to protest peacefully at Tahrir Square, but warned it would respond to violence by the protesters with “the utmost severity and decisiveness”. The interior ministry said it had withdrawn riot police stationed in Tahrir Square to allow the activists to protest unhindered, the official MENA news agency reported. Hundreds of people started filing into Tahrir Square on Friday morning, some holding anti-corruption banners, one of which read, “The people want to purify the state”. Police and military personnel were nowhere to be seen in Tahrir Square on in the streets around it.
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