Egypt death toll rises to 33

The bloodshed in and around Cairo’s Tahrir Square, epicentre of the anti-Mubarak revolt, threatens to disrupt Egypt’s first free parliamentary election in decades, due to start next week.
Clashes have raged on and off since police used batons and tear gas to try to disperse a sit-in in Tahrir on Saturday.
Protesters have brandished bullet casings in the square, but police deny using live fire. Medical sources at Cairo’s main morgue said 33 corpses had been received there since Saturday, most of them with bullet wounds. At least 1 250 people have been wounded, a Health Ministry source said.

“I’ve seen the police beat women my mother’s age. I want military rule to end,” said 21-year-old Mohamed Gamal. “I will just go home in the evening to change my clothes and return.”
Islamists dominated demonstrations against army rule on Friday, but the unrest in Tahrir since then has drawn in many of the young activists who helped topple Mubarak on February 11.
Army generals were feted for their part in easing him out, but hostility to their rule has hardened since, especially over attempts to set new constitutional principles that would keep the military permanently beyond civilian control.

Police attacked a makeshift hospital in the square after dawn yesterday but were driven back by protesters hurling chunks of concrete from smashed pavements, witnesses said.
“Don’t go out there, you’ll end up martyrs like the others,” protesters told people emerging from a metro station at Tahrir Square, where about 4 000 had gathered by midday.
The violence casts a pall over the first round of voting in Egypt’s staggered and complex election process, which starts on 28 November in Cairo and elsewhere. The army says the polls will go ahead, but the unrest could deter voters in the capital.

Some Egyptians, including Islamists who expect to do well in the vote, say the ruling army council may be stirring insecurity to prolong its rule, a charge the military denies.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle called for an end to the violence. “This is quite evidently an attempt to thwart a democratic transition process and we are opposed to that attempt,” he said.
Political uncertainty has gripped Egypt since Mubarak’s fall, while sectarian clashes, labour unrest, gas pipeline sabotage and a gaping absence of tourists have paralysed the economy and prompted a widespread yearning for stability.

The state news agency MENA said 63 flights to and from Cairo had been cancelled because of the latest unrest.
The military plans to keep its presidential powers until a new constitution is drawn up and a president is elected in late 2012 or early 2013. Protesters want a much swifter transition.

The army said yesterday it had intervened in central Cairo to protect the Interior Ministry, not to clear demonstrators from nearby Tahrir Square, whom it also offered to protect.
“The protesters have a right to protest, but we must stand between them and the Interior Ministry,” said General Saeed Abbas. “The armed forces will continue in their plans for parliamentary elections and securing the vote.”

The Interior Ministry, in charge of a police force widely hated for its heavy-handed tactics in the anti-Mubarak revolt, has been a target for protesters demanding police reform.
“Unfortunately the Interior Ministry still deals with protests with the same security mentality as during Mubarak’s administration,” said military analyst Safwat Zayaat.

The latest street clashes show the depth of frustration, at least in Cairo and some other cities, at the pace of change.
“Military rule is defunct, defunct,” crowds chanted. “Freedom, freedom.”
Internet clips, which could not be verified, showed police beating protesters with sticks, pulling them by the hair and, in one case, dumping what looked like a body on a rubbish heap. — Reuters.