Cairo, Feb 6 (IANS) Protesters braved rainy weather as they spent the night in downtown Cairo’s Tahrir Square and kept up their unrelenting pressure on President Hosni Mubarak to quit now.
Though the protesters were upbeat after learning that the top executive committee of Egypt’s ruling National Democratic Party, including Mubarak’s son Gamal Mubarak, have resigned, the demonstrators were not ready to back-off till Mubarak steps down.
The nearly two-weeks of anti-Mubarak protests in Egypt entered its 13th day Sunday.
Tahrir Square continued to be the hub of the protests against Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt continously ever since he was sworn in in 1981 following the assassination of then president Anwar Sadat at a military parade in Cairo.
The public square has virtually turned into a tent city, with protesters refusing to leave it and spending the nights there.
Ahmed Abdel Moneim, a 22-year-old student who has been sleeping in the square for days, said: ‘We have to be steady to topple the government.’
‘The French Revolution took a very long time so the people could eventually get their rights. … If we have to spend our life to get rid of Mubarak, we will.’
An Al Jazeera correspondent described it as a ‘quiet day, though there have been sporadic moments of excitement amongst the protesters. At one moment the army was placed in between two groups who were chanting rival slogans at each other’.
‘But it’s relatively peaceful now, and they’re hunkered in and around what has become an enormous tent city.’
As the protesters were unwavering in their demand to seek Mubarak’s ouster, the key opposition group – the Muslim Brotherhood – agreed to a dialogue with Vice President Omar Suleiman in a bid to end the country’s political turmoil.
Suleiman will meet members of Muslim Brotherhood Sunday. The topics will be centered on power transition and the future of the country, reported Xinhua.
Protest organisers have now called for a ‘Day of the Martyred’ to be observed in honour of those who have died in the protests so far.
