Protests against ‘regime change’ President intensify in Egypt
[TamilNet, Monday, 11 February 2013, 23:47 GMT]
Demanding Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi to step down, thousands of Egyptians demonstrated on streets across the country against the President and the Muslim Brotherhood. The demonstrators accused Mursi's and the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood “of hijacking Egypt's democratic revolution and seeking to monopolise power”, Reuters reported on Monday. Mursi coming to power through democratic elections after toppling Hosni Mubarak, the erstwhile dictator of 30 years, and the much spoken about Tahrir square protests were considered by certain sections of political analysts to be a successful case of ‘regime change’ politics of the West. The recent spate of unrest has been going on in Cairo since 24 January, the second anniversary of the Egyptian uprising.
The violent protests yesterday coincided with the second anniversary of the deposition of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Protestors threw stones at the Presidential palace in Cairo and clashed with the riot police. The police responded by firing tear gas and water cannons at the protestors. "The people want to bring down the regime!" BBC reported as chants from the crowd. Despite a successful regime change, most of the fundamental demands that fuelled the anti-Mubarak protests during Tahrir square were not met by the Mursi regime. Instead, the regime strengthened the hands of Islamists and democratic rights of Egyptians were curbed, while an illusion was given through superficial changes.
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