Tahrir Square Sees Biggest Protest Yet

Hundreds of thousands flood in
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 8, 2011 12:14 PM CST
Tahrir Square Sees Biggest Protest Yet
Anti-government protesters demonstrate in Tahrir Square, in Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2011.   (AP Photo/Tara Todras-Whitehill)

Even as life returned to normal in some parts of Cairo, Tahrir Square saw its largest day of protests yet as hundreds of thousands of Egyptians gathered to call for the removal of Hosni Mubarak's government, the BBC reports. Protesters are not satisfied despite government concessions and Mubarak’s promise to leave office. Freed Google exec Wael Ghonim summed up the feelings of the throng when he entered the square: "We will not abandon our demand and that is the departure of the regime.”

Mubarak has formed committees to propose and carry out constitutional changes, and Vice President Omar Suleiman said the president is on board with a “peaceful and organized” transfer of power, but the demonstrators—who are entering their third week of protests—are skeptical about a government transition. "We don't trust them any more," says one. "How can Suleiman guarantee there'll be no more violence around the election after all the attacks we've seen on young people?" Al Jazeera notes that there were also protests in the streets of Alexandria and outside the capital’s parliament building.
(More Egypt stories.)

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