Friday protest in Egypt voiced its key demands

Egyptian protesters

After last Friday’s protests against Muslim Brotherhood and Mohamed Morsy’s policy Egyptian revolutionary activists called for another protest on Friday, 31 August, to put their demands before Egypt’s President.

There were the calls for a million-man march in Cairo and in other cities of Egypt attended by wide spectrum of political forces, but the numbers of protesters today were not very big. The reason for that was also that the political forces and protesters were agreed to wait until Morsy’s 100 days political program will be over and to organize a massive protest later, if the program and the promised changes will not be implemented in the country.

During this protests a few main demands of the protesters were articulated, they are following:

• Putting on trial all the members of SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) involved in killing and injuring peaceful protesters during January 25 Revolution;
• Release all Egyptians detained and facing military trials for any actions related to the 2011 uprising and the following events and all the convicted for “political reasons”;
• Raising the national minimum monthly wage for state’s employees of L.E. 1,500 (and fixed maximum wage of L.E. 15,000);
• Rejection all financial aids and loan proposals from IMF (International Monetary Fund) and World Bank.

Among those demands there was also a call to minimize the power of Muslim Brotherhood and to prevent their political domination in the country.

Dozens of demonstrators gathered today in Cairo’s Tahrir Square holding the banners and Egyptian flags and chanting for release the military detainees and for freedom as a main right and popular demand of Egyptian citizens.

There were also the protests organized in coastal city of Alexandria, with the same main demand to release all the persons detained by military and facing military trials.

The group No to Military Trial calls for making a human chain on Qasr Al-Nil bridge on Friday and on blocking the traffic on it, in attempt to express their protest with the current policies of Egyptian authorities and demand to release all civilians tried under military court.

It’s worth mentioning that one of the main promises of Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsy was the release of all Egyptians detained for political reasons and facing military trials. Egypt’s President made this statement in his speech made in Tahrir on 29 June, a day before his official inauguration.

Mohamed Morsy also issued a decree to form a special panel to investigate all the cases of those detainees. This special committee stressed at the end of August that the investigations of military detainees are already finalized and now the panel is studying the cases of those convicted by civilian courts at the same period of time (from 25 January 2012 till 30 June 2012).

But the protesters claim Morsy’s actions are not enough and insufficient at this stage. They demand him to issue and amnesty to all those detained by SCAF and military police after January 25 Revolution.