CAIRO — Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets and beat protesters to clear thousands of people from a central square today after the biggest demonstrations in years against President Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian rule.
Two protesters and a police officer were killed Tuesday in nationwide demonstrations inspired by the recent uprising in Tunisia. The protests demanded a solution to Egypt’s grinding poverty and were likely to fuel growing dissent in a presidential election year.
Mobilized largely on the Internet, the waves of protesters filled Cairo’s central Tahrir — or Liberation — Square on Tuesday, some hurling rocks and climbing atop armored police trucks.
“Down with Hosni Mubarak, down with the tyrant,” chanted the crowds. “We don’t want you!” they screamed as thousands of riot police deployed.
As night fell, thousands of demonstrators stood their ground for what they vowed would be an all-night sit-in in Tahrir Square just steps away from parliament and other government buildings.
A large security force moved in about 1 a.m. today, arresting people, chasing others into side streets and filling the square with clouds of tear gas.
The sound of what appeared to be automatic-weapons fire could be heard as riot police and plainclothes officers chased several hundred protesters who scrambled onto the main road along the Nile in downtown Cairo. About 20 officers were seen beating one protester with truncheons.
“It got broken up ugly with everything, shooting, water cannon and (police) running with the sticks,” said Gigi Ibrahim, among the last protesters to leave the square. “It was a field of tear gas. The square emptied out so fast.”
Discontent with life in Egypt’s authoritarian police state has simmered under the surface for years. Adding to the uncertainty is that Mubarak, 82 and ailing, has yet to say whether he plans to run for another six-year term in office.
Like the Tunisian protests, the calls to rally in Egypt went out on Facebook and Twitter, with 90,000 people voicing their support.
