Dozens of Protesters Camp Out in Cairo's Tahrir
Dozens of protesters remained in Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square on Wednesday after camping out following a mass demonstration against verdicts handed down in ex-president Hosni Mubarak's murder trial.
Fresh protests were expected in both Cairo and the port city of Alexandria later in the day, to mark the second anniversary of the killing of Khaled Said, a young Egyptian beaten to death in police custody in 2010.
Said became the symbol of police repression and of the uprising that overthrew Mubarak in February last year.
Traffic had yet to return to the streets around Tahrir in the heart of the capital, an Agence France Presse photographer reported.
Dozens of protesters were still in the square, having spent the night in tents.
On Tuesday, thousands of marchers poured into the square, in condemnation of the verdicts handed down in Mubarak's trial.
Mubarak and his minister of interior Habib al-Adly were sentenced to life in prison on Saturday, but six security chiefs were acquitted of the killings of demonstrators during last year's uprising that left some 850 people dead.
Calls to protest on the anniversary of Said's death were made online. A silent march was expected to take place in Cairo, while a symbolic "funeral march" was planned to kick off from Said's home in Alexandria.
Said, 28, was detained in an Alexandria internet cafe and then beaten to death. His killing angered youth activists, some of who set up the "We are all Khaled Said" Facebook page in his memory.
The page now has two million members, and was one of the first to call for protests against Mubarak's regime on January 25 last year.
Source: Agence France Presse
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