Egyptians vote in run-off, Cairo calm after clashes

Egyptians returned to the polls yesterday in a phased parliamentary election after five days of violence in Cairo that has cast a pall over the transition to democracy and drawn a US rebuke of Egypt’s security forces. Tahrir Square and surrounding streets were quiet through the night for the first time in a week. A night earlier, police and soldiers had used teargas and batons to chase protesters demanding an end to army rule out of the square. The latest confrontations, in which 13 people have been killed, made for a turbulent backdrop to Egypt’s first election since Hosni Mubarak was toppled in February. Even before the vote got under way in November, a flare-up in Tahrir killed 42. Nine provinces, mostly outside the capital, were holding run-off votes yesterday and today in the election that is being held in stages over six weeks and ends on January 11. The ruling army council, which took over from Mubarak, has said it will not let the transition be derailed and has pledged to hand power to an elected president by July. But protesters in the square want the army to return to barracks far sooner. Many people have been shocked by images of police and soldiers hitting protesters with batons even after they fell to the ground and, in one case, dragging a prone woman by her black robe, exposing her bra, and then kicking her. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week referred to that incident of the beaten woman as “particularly shocking” and cited other cases of women protesters sexually assaulted. “This systematic degradation of Egyptian women dishonours the revolution, disgraces the state and its uniform and is not worthy of a great people,” she said, in some of the strongest US criticism of Egypt’s new rulers. The Egyptian foreign minister responded yesterday that Egypt would not accept any meddling in its own affairs. “Egypt does not accept any interference in its internal affairs and conducts communications and clarifications concerning statements made by foreign officials,” the state news agency quoted Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr as saying. “Matters like that are not taken lightly,” he was quoted as saying, in his response to a question about Clinton’s remarks.