Further Protests In Egypt

Further Protests In Egypt

About seven hundred people have been arrested throughout Egypt in a crackdown against anti-government protests.

The interior ministry had on Wednesday outlawed public gatherings, demonstrations and warned that anyone who took disobeyed would be prosecuted.

However, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is urging the Egyptian government to allow peaceful protests and avoid blocking social media sites. 

Thousands of Egyptians are defying a ban on protests on the streets of Cairo and other major cities, which has led to clashes with the security forces.

 The country's stock exchange halted trading on Thursday morning after the benchmark index slid more than six percent for a second day.

The Egyptian pound also fell to its lowest level in six-years against the U.S. dollar.

The protesters are still only a minority of Egyptians, they show no sign of fading away and there is a chance that many more people will join once the working week finishes on Thursday.

The government appears to have no answer to the anger and disappointment being expressed on the streets, but its only response so far has been to crack down on demonstrators and increase security.

Analysis

People are disgruntled about everything - about politics, economics, their lives, the state of the country. One could talk about the unemployment, and the poverty, and the corruption. People feel they are being treated with contempt by the government.

“But the discontent is also wider than that. Egyptians will tell you that this country needs a dream, a vision. They had a dream under President Nasser, they had a dream under President Sadat, they had a dream under the pharaohs.”

In the 30 -year rule of President Mubarak, there has been no dream - it's been mundane, it's been about numbers and even on those numbers, many will say they haven't delivered on simple things like education, sanitation, and so forth. So people are really seeing a government and a country in decline.

The opposition figure, Mohamed ElBaradei - the Nobel Peace Prize-winning former head of the UN's nuclear watchdog - says he is returning to Egypt later on Thursday to take part in the protests.

"I am going back to Cairo and back onto the streets, because, really, there is no choice. You go out there with this massive number of people and you hope things will not turn ugly, but so far, the regime does not seem to have got that message," he said in remarks on US website The Daily Beast.

Many Egyptians would no longer tolerate Mr Mubarak's government even for a transitional period, he said, adding that the suggestion that authoritarian Arab leaders like him were the only bulwark against Islamic extremism was "obviously bogus".

BBC/FSN/Margaret/Yinka