Several Egyptian human rights groups have investigated Saturday morning's events and based on a comparison of eyewhitnesses' accounts came to the conclusion that in opposition to its offical denial afterwards the army had used live amunition to shoot at protesters. The Daily New's article also shows the various stages in which the battle between army and protesters unfolded.
Since that night demonstrators have pretty much withut any interruption occupied Midan Tahrir. While I sympathise with Egyptians claiming Midan Tahrir back and enforcing their right to peaceful protest and freedom of expression, the protestors' behaviour does not strike me as particularly clever: blocking off any traffic crossing Midan Tahrir and throwing stones at passing cars, as reported by the Daily News does not win them new friends. Rather it turns ordinary people against the revolutionaries, and thus eventually maybe even against the revolution itself.
Today, the military intervened to halt Sectarian clashes which were taking place in a village West of Cairo. Apparently several sectarian clashes had also been reported yesterday.
In another unsettling development the Egyptian blogger Maikel Nabil was sentenced to three years of prison by a military court. Mikael Nabil was arrested and tried for an article hat he had posted in response to the army torturingand abusing those arrested on the 9th of March.
The Egyptian blogger Zeinobia points out how even though Mikael was highly contested due to his stance towards the Egyptian army and Israel, him being arrested and sentenced for insulting the army and saying the un-truth in his article points to a dark future for Egypt's bloggers.
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