or yet another week, Islamic movements and secular forces are divided on whether to participate in Friday protests in Tahrir Square.
Sufis and the Muslim Brotherhood said they would not join the protest, while Salafis and Jama’a al-Islamiya announced they would participate.
The Union of Revolutionary Youth, a non-Islamist coalition, has dubbed the protest "Friday of Determination;" Islamic forces are calling it "Friday of Stability."
Jama’a al-Islamiya said in a statement that the group would join Salafis in protests in governorates including Cairo, Alexandria, Suez, Minya, and Sohag. The group also said it will march from Tahrir Square to the cabinet headquarters to renounce the constitutional principles document, which the ruling military council has pledged to create as a framework for drafting the actual constitution. The group also called for holding parliamentary elections in September.
Salafi spokesperson Khaled Saeed said the group will hold protests in 23 governorates.
Although the Muslim Brotherhood is not planning to participate this Friday, the group is planning for a protest on 29 July against what it calls attempts to circumvent people’s will and force constitutional principles on the next parliament.
Haitham al-Khatib, a leader of the Union of Revolutionary Youth, announced that protests Friday will begin at 5pm to emphasize the revolution’s demands, including purging corrupt officials from government agencies, forcing Prime Minister Essam Sharaf to resign, restructuring the Interior Ministry and cancelling a law banning protests.
Ahmed Drag, a member of the National Association for Change, said an association opinion poll of martyrs’ families in Tahrir found that the majority agreed to break up the sit-in if a revolutionary board was appointed to try former President Hosni Mubarak and the policemen accused of killing protesters. Meanwhile, April 6 Youth Movement protesters refused to end the sit-in until all the revolution’s demands are met.
Around 200 protesters marched to the High Court demanding the dismissal of the public prosecutor and corrupt judicial officials. About 500 others marched to the Ministry of Interior to demand prosecuting police accused of killing protesters.
Protests and sit-ins in Suez and Alexandria also continued on Thursday.
A cabinet official said an ongoing cabinet reshuffle would be finalized Thursday, and state-run news agency MENA said the head of Egypt's ruling military council would swear in the new ministers on the same day.
Translated from the Arabic Edition
