Cairo Clashes Continue, Death Toll Rises

Local Editor

Police beating a protester

Clashes between Egyptian protesters and ruling military are still going on for the third consecutive day. Ten people have been killed in the violence that erupted in the capital on Friday.

Witnesses said soldiers advanced from behind barriers around Tahrir Square, focal point of the protests, shortly before dawn on Sunday, scuffling with anti-military rule protesters demanding that the nation's ruling military immediately step down.

The health ministry said late on Saturday that the violence had killed 10 people and wounded 500 since Friday.

Soldiers with guns and batons charged into Tahrir Square on Saturday and beat protesters in a violent display of force.
The soldiers cleared the area as thick black smoke filled the skies following the eruption of a fire in the area around Egypt's upper house of parliament.

Military police openly beat women protesters in the street, slapped elders on the face, and pulled the shirt off of at least one veiled woman as she struggled on the pavement. Witnesses told the AP news agency that soldiers beat and gave electric shocks to men and women dragged into detention, many of them held in the nearby parliament buildings.

Prosecutors ordered that 17 people arrested on Saturday be remanded in custody for four days.

The violence began on Friday when one of several hundred peaceful protesters staging a sit-in outside the parliament building was reportedly detained and beaten by troops.

The clashes were the deadliest in weeks and overshadowed the count from the second phase of the first parliamentary elections since the overthrow of former president Hosni Mubarak in February.

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