Thursday, July 21, 2011

‘One Mubarak Goes, 18 Come In’



By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani

"CAIRO, Jul 21, 2011 (IPS) - Almost six months after the popular uprising that led to the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak, the honeymoon between protesters and Egypt's ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) - initially portrayed as a "defender of the revolution" - appears to be over.

"The people's confidence in the SCAF, which appears unable or unwilling to address our grievances, has reached an all-time low," Abdel Rahman Abu Zeid, a spokesman for protesters currently camped out in Cairo's Tahrir Square, told IPS.

Since Jul. 8, demonstrators have returned en masse to the iconic square - in the hundreds of thousands on certain days - to protest the ruling council's failure to implement key revolutionary demands.

"If you can't meet the demands of the revolution… then you should step down," the Revolutionary Youth Coalition, which consists of several protest groups that played a major roles in the recent uprising, told the council last week. "The Egyptian people represent the sole source of authority; they impart authority, and they can take it away."...."

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