Police and demonstrators fought running battles on the streets of Cairo on Friday in a fourth day of unprecedented protests by tens of thousands of Egyptians demanding an end to President Hosni Mubarak's three-decade rule.
Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians are also continuing their angry protests against the rule of President Hosni Mubarak. The protesters, many of them young Egyptians embittered by unemployment, poverty, corruption and the lack of freedom under Mubarak, appear to be loosely organised with no figurehead. Al Jazeera news said the unrest could be the biggest pro-democracy demonstrations in Egyptian history. Riot police are out in force and fighting protestors with their batons and tear gas.
We heard that an young woman is reported to have been killed after being struck on the head by a tear-gas canister. In Suez, demonstrators took over the main police station and freed protestors jailed in the past 48 hours. The police have lost control of the city. Forty thousand people in Mansoura, north of Cairo, are reported to have raided and destroyed the ruling party’s headquarters. Similar scenes are happening all over the country. Egypt’s leaders have done their best to stop people communicating with each other. At midnight, Thursday, the government shut down Egypt’s Internet. Authorities are refusing to let enter Arabs and non-Arabs journalists at Egypt’s international airport and the police are trying to stop journalists filming the unrest. They smashed CNN cameras and shut down Al Jazeera’s television broadcasts in Egypt of the protests.
Opposition leader Mohamed El-Baradei is trapped in a mosque surrounded by riot police. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on Egypt’s leaders to listen to their people. Egyptians are calling for regime change and are carrying banners that say, “We hate you Mubarak” or "Leave, leave, Mubarak, Mubarak, the plane awaits you," people