British-made tear gas was used on Egypt’s protesters

CS gas canisters with serial and lot numbers have been found by victims fired on in Tahrir Square

A British firm manufactured some of the tear gas used by Egyptian security forces battling pro-democracy protesters in Egypt’s Tahrir Square the IoS can reveal.

CS gas canisters fired at civilians during recent clashes were produced by British defence contractor Chemring Defence, formerly known as PW Defence, the company confirmed this weekend. A spokesman said the gas is thought to have been sold to the Egyptian army more than a decade ago or, alternatively, reached Egyptian military via a third country.

The company, which said it has not directly supplied CS gas to Egypt since 1998, has not broken UK laws forbidding such sales. But critics say Egyptian use of British-made products to quash political dissent reveals “serious flaws” in the UK’s controls on arms exports to the Middle East. Demonstrators in Egypt who found themselves caught in the stench of CS gas in the recent clashes on Mohamed Mahmoud Street on the south east side of Tahrir Square, said they experienced symptoms of burning, skin irritation, difficulty breathing, chest pain, and loss of feeling in their limbs. Many collected the discarded rounds after they had been fired during more than 120 hours of protests. Amongst those collected were the red-striped 38mm long range rounds produced by Chemring Defence, which the IoS has seen.

Serial numbers and lot numbers were seen on a number of canisters, which are being used to track their journey from the UK to Egypt. One had a manufacturing date on it of 1995. Ahmed, a 19-year-old law student, who did not want to give his surname, found his canister on Monday 21 November after he was gassed. He said: “They shot many canisters like this one at the same time… It causes so much tearing; it makes your chest hurt so badly. It burns when you’re sweating and it causes you to shake.”

A spokesman for Chemring Group PLC – the company which owns Chemring Defence – said it did not dispute that it produced the canisters were produced by the UK company. But he said his firm has not supplied CS gas to Egypt since 1998, when products were sent directly to the Egyptian army under licenses from the Ministry of Defence, with a shelf-life of between three and five years. Chemring Group’s board of directors include former Tory minister, Lord Freeman, chairman of arms firm Thales UK plc. The firm accompanied David Cameron on his arms tour of Egypt earlier this year.

Chemring’s spokesman was unable to confirm the exact year the rounds in question were exported or whether they were sold via another country. He said: “All exports of military and security equipment are subject to detailed licences from the UK government which include undertakings by the customer that equipment will only be used in conjunction with relevant international laws and treaties.”

There is no arms embargo against Egypt, but no UK companies have been given permission to export gas to Egypt since 1999, according to the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), who keep a record of approved export licenses. Any company applying for a license now has to obtain an “End User Undertaking” from their overseas customer and declare the final destination for their goods. The coalition government has, controversially, licensed the sale to Bahrain of crowd control weapons, including CS hand grenades and smoke canisters. It also sanctioned sales of crowd control ammunition to Libya; combat helicopters to Algeria and armoured personnel carriers to Saudi Arabia, last year.

Baroness Wilcox, under-secretary for BIS, said last week: “We make the questioning of anybody who is looking for an export license from us very robust, particularly if it is for export to difficult countries.” She said it was “most frustrating that we cannot do more” in relation to countries re-exporting goods to other countries.

Ghada Shahbender, a member of the board of directors of the Egyptian Organisation of Human Rights, who found one of the British CS canisters after disturbances last June, said the weapons are “harming democratic reform” because they “end up in the hands of those who abuse them.”Amnesty International UK’s Arms Programme Director Oliver Sprague called for tear gas to be included in a new international arms trade treaty to be agreed at the UN next year: “The use of UK tear gas against civilians in Egypt in the latest brutal crackdown, provides yet more damning evidence of serious flaws that successive governments have allowed to go unchecked.”

‘It’s Worse than Mubarak’s Time’ – Egypt Elections

Egypt has seen the initial round of its first supposed ‘free and open’ elections. Following a week of violence that saw a 120-hour battle between the Egyptian state forces and the protesters on Tahrir, up until the last minute, voters, judges, candidates and journalists weren’t sure the elections would go ahead.

“I haven’t even put up a quarter of my campaign posters”, said Gamila Ismail, an independent parliamentary candidate for the area surrounding Tahrir, the night before elections took place. “People are lost, they don’t know if voting an independent is a vote worth making.”

The judges running the polling stations were reportedly given the final list of candidates and the amount of ballot paper a few hours before the stations were due to open. On Sunday night people exchanged frantic Twitter messages asking for maps, as the election website went down.

Tension was high as fights broke out in the constituencies. At least two parliamentary candidates were attacked. One, Refaat El-Basyouni, was hospitalised, another candidate’s son was stabbed to death whilst he was putting up his father’s campaign material.

However Monday and Tuesday went ahead as planned. There was a heavy military and police presence. Long queues of voters were seen at many polling stations. Turnout is expected to have been over 70%.

In comparison to last year’s elections, which saw at least eight deaths, the first two days of the voting process, which will take over a month, have been comparatively quiet.

Nevertheless as the sit-in continued on Tahrir, candidates pulled out, polling stations opened late or were closed and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) turned out in full force, it was clear that Egypt’s first foray into ‘democracy’ had not been plain sailing.

“I’ve boycotted the elections since last Friday”, said Shady Essam, 26, a parliamentary candidate in Mansoura, whose brother Ramy (known as the singer of the Egyptian revolution) was detained and tortured by the army back in March.

Aside from the excessive use of violence against protesters by the police force and the army, which saw over 40 people killed and thousands injured, Shady was increasingly concerned by the laws regulating the elections and the power the new parliament will have. “The legislation gives the Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood) and the felool (ex-regime remnants) power to take a large part of the parliament”, he explained.

The constitutional declaration, a document penned by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) in place of a full constitution, is also a worry, Shady explained. “Article 58 of the declaration essentially states that the SCAF have legislative, executive and judicial authority over parliament and the people. Even emperors don’t have this power.”

In the SCAF’s 28th communiqué to the people, Shady explains, they promised to hand over power within six months to a civilian government, which they haven’t. Emergency law was supposedly reduced to six months, again a promise they failed to deliver. “They make a referendum but do not fullfill it and after that they kill us. We need a new government with full authority and full power, then I will run in elections.”

Those boycotting the elections face a dilemma. Monday and Tuesday saw a strong Islamist presence at the polling stations. I witnessed Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) members (the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood) with laptops outside at least one station, taking down people’s ID numbers and ‘showing’ them how to vote.

Campaign flyering in the queues (an illegal activity) was also prolific. In Alexandria, journalists reported Muslim Brotherhood representatives handing out toys to children as the parents voted. There were also instances of the Muslim Brotherhood giving food to voters.

“With the events on Tahrir, yes, the credibility of the FJP has been questioned”, said Hossam, 39, head of Egypt’s wing of Allianz insurance company who I met in a Down Town polling station. Despite the events in the last week and going to a French Catholic school, he was voting FJP, “They have a good plan for the country”, he explained.

This sentiment was repeated by a lot of the voters I spoke to, many of whom didn’t know anything about the alternatives in their area, such as the independent candidates. Campaign time has been short and interrupted by major clashes between protesters and the SCAF.

Certainly, this was a sentiment shared by some of the protesters I spoke to. “After the massacre I wasn’t going to vote, it took me four days to decide what to do”, adds Rahim Hamada a 30-year-old photographer who has been sleeping on Tahrir for most of the week. “Boycotting is the right thing to do but if this parliament is responsible for writing the constitution I don’t want it to be written in an Islamic way.”

The Muslim Brotherhood is determined to win, he added, “if they left their brothers dying in the streets [of Mohamed Mahmoud] to win the elections they’ll do anything.”

There was not enough support for the boycott, explained Gamila Ismail who postponed her campaign for a few days following the violence but decided to run in the end. ‘My constituency is Tahrir, I consider myself a revolutionary candidate,’ she said, “We need to find a way to take the revolutionary ideas and make sure they spread widely.”

Despite being the scene of some of the worst state-led violence since the 18 days, there were diminished numbers on Tahrir during Monday and Tuesday voting periods.

Nevertheless the five-day battle on Tahrir has done damage to the Muslim Brotherhood’s reputation.

From the beginning of the sit-in the MB made an official statement saying they would not be joining those on the square. They have been accused of working very closely with the SCAF. MB members who participated, like Magdy, a protester who was arrested and tortured by the army and police a few days ago, were told that their membership would be reconsidered if they continued to stay.

During his detention, the Central Security Forces called numbers in his phone, including Muslim Brotherhood members, to tell friends and family that he had died. MB representatives phoned his wife to say that, if he was in fact dead, she wasn’t allowed to say he was a member, they had disowned him.

“As far as the Islamic revolutionaries are concerned, people who used to love the FJP do not so much now”, Magdy added. He was going to vote FJP but has since changed his mind.

What is being referred to as ‘the second wave of revolution’ in Tahrir is facing other problems aside from the elections. As witnessed during the previous sit-in of July/August, it is clear that non-revolutionary groups have infiltrated the square again.

There are reports of women being sexually assaulted. Last night the ‘midan security’ forcibly removed the street vendors from the square by attacking them with large sticks. Protesters told me that both the vendors and the security forces had been permeated by secret police and thugs.

Groups of ‘baltagiya’, who were initially thought to be the vendors retaliating, then turned up under 6th of October Bridge at around 11pm. There was a several hour battle with rocks, Molotov cocktails and reportedly gunfire. ‘I think the square has been infiltrated since Thursday,’ says Nazly, 28 a protester on Tahrir who, together with another girl, was beaten up on Mohamed Mahmoud street a week ago. ‘I’m convinced those who attacked me were thugs posing as the Popular Committee. A lot of the harassment has been very systematic. It’s deliberate tactic to break up the sit-in.’

As the thug-led violence on the square escalates, people tend to go home, leaving the square vulnerable to attack from the SCAF. This happened on the 1st of August when the diminished numbers on the square were forcibly cleared by army and police working together.

“We’ve been under the SCAF’s rule for 9 months. The police hasn’t changed, nothing’s changed, people say their opinion and get arrested” said Khaled Said’s mother, whose son’s death inspired the Egyptian revolution in January. “Last year’s elections are being repeated all over again. It’s worse than Mubarak’s time. We need to stay together, we need to stay strong.”

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood ‘trying to rig poll with gifts’

The Muslim Brotherhood was today accused of attempting to rig Egypt’s election by handing out gifts and food at polling stations in a desperate attempt to win power.

Witnesses told the Evening Standard that the Islamist party, which is expected to secure a large share of the votes, had a strong presence both inside and outside polling stations.
Onlookers claimed some Brotherhood groups were allowed to set up tables with laptop computers in order to show “people how to vote”.

Voting laws passed after the fall of Hosni Mubarak’s regime in February outlaw bribes or campaigning inside or near polling stations.

Today voting continued with turnout again reported to be high. Student Mariam, who would not give her full name for fear of reprisals said: “I wanted to boycott the elections, as the parliament will have no power and because of what happened in Tahrir, but if we don’t vote the Muslim Brotherhood will win the majority.”

But there is growing support for the Muslim Brotherhood with many claiming the party is the best option to bring order to Egypt.

“The Freedom and Justice Party (Muslim Brotherhood) are the most organised party right now,” said Hossam, 39, an insurance broker who went to a Catholic school in Cairo.

“They have a religious view but they are the only ones who have a good plan for the country.” The outcome of the election will indicate whether Egypt will remain secular or move down an Islamic path as have other countries swept up in the Arab Spring.

Zeinab Saad, 50, said: “I am voting for this country’s sake. We want a new beginning. Its a great thing to feel like your vote matters.”
The complicated voting process is staggered over the next six weeks across 27 provinces, divided into thirds with run-offs held a week after the first round in each location.

Voters have to pick two individuals and one alliance or party slate – a system that has left many of the 50 million eligible voters puzzled and apparently undecided.

Since the uprising that toppled Mubarak, Egyptians had looked forward to the election but instead there has been disappointment with the military rulers who replaced the old regime, and the legitimacy of the elections has been questioned.

At least 41 demonstrators have been killed and more than 2,000 wounded in protests in the past 10 days. But the markets reacted positively to Egypt’s election and its benchmark index was up by five per cent within minutes of the start of trading today.

Revolution returns to Tahrir Square

Tahrir Square has once again become a makeshift community of tents, field hospitals and wounded protesters. “We are exhausted but morale is high,” says Omar Marsafy, 24, who has gunshot wounds to his legs, arms and head. Many have been sleeping there since Saturday 19 November, when the state security forces attacked the south-eastern side of the square with tear gas and rubber bullets.

The square hosts a mix of ages, genders, background and religious persuasions. “On the front line it’s mostly young men from the poorer and more disaffected areas,” explains Omar – although, he adds, not exclusively. This becomes abundantly clear when you visit the morgue and speak to bereaved families. The official body count is 23, and many news agencies are reporting 33.

The front line, next to the American University in Cairo library, is a constant battle for ground. The protesters face lines of the Egyptian Central Security Forces (CSF) and a handful of plain-clothed officers. “They shoot directly at the people, some aiming at our faces,” says Ahmed Fathi, 23, a student. These fighters rarely leave the battlefield, Fathi explains – only if they are hurt.

There is a continuous stream of men on scooters and pick-up trucks bringing the injured back to the square. Women with bottles of vinegar and men with saline solution, anti-acid solution and eye drops to alleviate the effects of tear gas are scattered along Mahomed Mahmoud Street, helping protesters as they stagger from the attacks. Street children as young as six run through the centre of the fighting where, it is now confirmed, live ammunition has been used.

There are now more than seven makeshift medical centres on and around the square. Men and women link arms around these areas to give the doctors, who have been working 18-hour shifts, room to treat the wounded.

At approximately 5.30pm on Sunday 20 November, the army stormed Tahrir. I witnessed officers beating protesters. One activist told me: “They shouted, ‘You deserve it!’” as they hit them. I saw a heap of bodies and at least one death at the hands of the army – a soldier dragged the corpse of a young man and left him on a pile of rubbish.

United demand

The presence of the army was an important development. Since the beginning, the resounding chants on the square have been “Down, down with the military regime” even though, aside from Sunday’s attack, most of the battles have been with the Egyptian police, who are controlled by the national ministry of interior. When you talk to people on the square, there is one united demand: for a civilian-led government and the removal of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which has ruled since the fall of Hosni Mubarak in February.

Why now? “It’s accumulation and escalation of tension and violence between state and the people,” says Salma Shukrallah, a journalist for Ahram Online.

“Like Mubarak, the SCAF has been creating enemies with everyone – with the workers, the Salafis, the Muslim Brotherhood and the protesters making social demands.”

On 18 November, hundreds of thousands came to the square protesting against the military junta and their attempt to expand the army’s powers. With one eye on the forthcoming elections, Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood were in full force on Friday, while liberal and revolutionary groups focused on the military trials for civilians and the detention of the internationally renowned blogger Alaa Abd el-Fattah and thousands like him. By the next morning only a few hundred remained. The forced clearing of that tiny sit-in by the CSF is what sparked the clashes.

“The SCAF is incapable of governing,” says Ghada Shabender, of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights. “This is a national crisis.” The constitutional declaration, which in effect is the constitution until an assembly is appointed to write a new one, is vague and allows the SCAF final say over legislation. “We have a puppet government right now,” Ghada says.

In addition, the supra-constitutional declaration that the SCAF is trying to push through would give the military powers over the new president. Many important political groupings, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, have rejected it.

There are also grass-roots grievances. I asked one boy, 15-year-old Mohammed Abdalla, who had a rubber bullet injury to his forehead, why he was on the square. “The revolution has not been fulfilled,” he says. “The financial situation is worse than when Mubarak was in power.”

While the fate of what people are calling the Second Revolution remains in the balance, the driving force behind it is clear. As a young field doctor, Ahmed Saber, tellsme: “I’m here for Egypt, for freedom, for our future, not just mine.”

Journalist Mona Eltahawy tells of sex assault in Cairo ministry

The prominent US-Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy has described a brutal sexual and physical assault that she says she suffered after being arrested by Egyptian riot police during a 12-hour ordeal inside Cairo’s interior ministry.

Eltahawy, who writes for publications including the Guardian and the Toronto Star, says she had bones broken in both wrists by security officials, who also grabbed her breasts and genitals.

The award-winning Eltahawy, 44, told her story in a series of tweets at the time of her arrest and after her release.

The incident came amid growing concern over arrests and assaults on journalists, both by the security forces and others.

A Spanish photographer was taken to hospital after being beaten up and having his equipment stolen, while an unidentified woman reporter was reported to have been set upon in Tahrir Square by protesters on Thursday and allegedly beaten and stripped in an incident reminiscent of the attack earlier this year on the US television correspondent Lara Logan.

Eltahawy was arrested on Wednesday night near Mohamed Mahmoud Street, the narrow street near Tahrir that has been the scene of some of the worst clashes between protesters and security forces.

Around 11pm GMT she wrote: “Pitch black, only flashing ambulance lights and air thick with gas.”

She then described the violence occurring around the gates of the American University in Cairo. “Can’t believe it. A cacophony of sirens, horns, flashing ambulance lights.”

In a penultimate tweet, she appeared to write “Beaten arrested in interior ministry.”

A series of dramatic tweets on Thursday morning began with the words: “I am free.” A few minutes later she reported: “12 hours with interior ministry bastards and military intelligence combined. Can barely type – must go xray arms after CSF pigs beat me.”

As she would discover later, they had broken her left hand and her right arm, leaving one hand so badly swollen she could not close it.

Eltahawy continued: “Five or six surrounded me, groped and prodded my breasts, grabbed my genital area and I lost count of how many hands tried to get into my trousers. Yes, sexual assault. I’m so used to saying harassment but [they] assaulted me.”

Speaking to CNN after the incident, she said: “My left hand and my right arm are broken. This is as a result of a brutal beating by the Egyptian riot police who surrounded me.

“I was taking pictures and covering events on the frontline of confrontations between protesters and the police and the military and a group of five or six riot police beat me, and surrounded me and rained their big sticks down on my arms. I was trying to protect myself.

“They also sexually assaulted me. They dragged me to the ministry of the interior. They dragged me by the hair and called me all sorts of insults. And this all happened in about seven to eight minutes.”

Summoned for interrogation by military intelligence, Eltahawy at first did not want to go but was warned she would be taken anyway.

Despite being blindfolded for two hours and interrogated because she did not have her passport with her, she reported being more properly treated by the army, who photographed her bruises and apologised for her treatment at the hands of the police.

“The past 12 hours were painful and surreal but I know I got off much easier than so many other Egyptians. God knows what would’ve happened if I wasn’t dual citizen.”

A few hours after her arrest, Spanish photographer Guillermo Cervera reported seeing what he believed was a US female journalist being attacked by a mob of about 100 men in Tahrir Square and hearing shouts of “American” and “spy”.

Later reports suggested that the reporter was French and had been stripped during the assault.

Two days earlier, another Spanish photographer, Guillem Valle, was taken to hospital after being assaulted during his arrest by security forces.

American-Egyptian film-maker Jehane Noujaim was released from prison a day after after being arrested while filming Wednesday night’s ceasefire between the Egyptian army, central security forces and protesters.

Jehane had been interviewing a press officer from the military near the interior ministry when the ceasefire was broken and central security forces fired teargas.

Following Noujaim’s release, journalist Salma Amer tweeted: “She’s with us now. She’s in great spirits as well “

After her arrest on Wednesday, a friend said that Noujaim was grabbed by a high-ranking military officer and accused her of being an Israeli spy and a traitor.

Ragia Omran, Jehane’s lawyer, said 23 more protesters had also been released from Abdeen police station.

Hague calls for end to Egypt violence after army attacks

William Hague has condemned violence in Egypt as he insisted the Arab Spring must remain on track.
After a weekend of bloodshed saw 13 people killed in clashes between demonstrators and security forces in Cairo, the Foreign Secretary said the situation was “of great concern”.

Mr Hague urged Egypt’s interim military rulers to complete the transition to democracy following the ousting of Hosni Mubarak in February. With elections due next week, he told BBC Radio: “If the revolution in Egypt was about anything it was presumably about that.”

In Egypt’s Tahrir Square – where police and army launched the bloody attack on Saturday – British woman Bel Trew said protesters were shot at and attacked with bats and tear gas. The protesters fear the ruling military is making a power grab and attempting to suspend elections.

Freelance journalist Miss Trew and her filmmaker sister Cressida – who filmed the events – witnessed the latest chaotic scenes as the demonstrators refused to leave the square where they toppled Mubarak’s regime in February.
“There was one group of at least 20 protesters left in the square who were cornered by the military in a kettle. They were beaten heavily and were trampled and when the military stepped back I saw about five or six bodies,” Miss Trew said.

“There was one body separated from the group and two men tried to resuscitate him. But then what looked like a plain clothes military police officer dragged him by his arms to a heap of bodies and rubbish.”

In the film, which the sisters have posted on YouTube, the man has a stick in one had and uses his other to drag the body.

Miss Trew said: “When he is finished an officer dressed in riot gear pats the man on the back. I wasn’t scared but when I saw the dead body I was extremely upset.

“The most traumatic and offensive thing was the treatment of the body because this boy’s trousers had come halfway down his legs.”

Clashes went on through the night until about 3am today when a ceasefire was brokered by local mosques.

Miss Trew said: “On Saturday, they also beat up journalists, including a cameraman from an Egyptian newspaper who lost his eye from the rubber ‘bird shot’ pellets being fired.
“Yesterday, the military got involved and sandwiched protesters between soldiers and the police. They came with riot shields, very large sticks, tear gas. The soldiers were telling the protesters: ‘You deserve it.’

Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad is also continuing a crackdown against pro-democracy protesters, but Mr Hague denied that hopes for democracy in the Arab world were fading.
“We should remain on the optimistic side of what is happening in the Arab Spring, although there will be many conflicts and difficulties along the way,” he said. The Foreign Secretary attacked the behaviour of Assad’s regime in Syria as “appalling and unacceptable” and vowed the UK would “do what we can to support democracy in the future”.
He is meeting with Syrian opposition leaders in London today but warned against comparisons with Libya, where UK forces helped overthrow Colonel Gaddafi, instead saying the UK would “increase the pressure” on Assad. Mr Hague also called for Colonel Gaddafi’s son Saif, captured in Libya at the weekend, to be tried to “international standards” – whether by the International Criminal Court or in his own country.
And he revealed that fresh sanctions would soon be imposed on Iran amid fears the country is seeking to build nuclear weapons. He refusing to rule out military action but said: “That is not what we are pushing for.”

Nine months on, Cairo is at war again

Egyptian troops and military police staged a fierce assault on protesters in Tahrir Square yesterday, leaving at least 10 people dead and hardening fears that the military council could prove as hard to dislodge as Hosni Mubarak. It was the worst violence seen in the Egyptian capital since the height of the uprising in February.

The crowds that had gathered to express their anger at the military government’s reluctance to cede power stampeded when the army stormed the square. There were reports that soldiers had used tear gas on a makeshift hospital. But last night returning protesters vowed they would not be forced to leave.

In a confrontation that carried dark echoes of the last days of the Mubarak regime and provoked claims of state brutality, military police stormed into the iconic plaza, firing tear gas and rubber bullets, scattering demonstrators.

Some officers rounded on isolated civilians, beating some of them with batons. Others torched the tents that had been erected by people planning a prolonged sit-in to protest against the country’s military rulers.

The government denied live rounds were used against protesters. But Dr Ahmad Atif, working in a makeshift field hospital in a mosque just off Tahrir Square, said he had seen the bodies of four men killed by live fire, while nearby buildings appeared scarred by new bullet holes and shots were ricocheting off the walls.

The scene in the hospital was of absolute chaos, with hundreds of patients – some of them young boys – being rushed in on stretchers suffering from gunshot wounds. Many people have been blinded by rubber pellets. Dr Haytham Magdy said that one man had been killed after his head was run over by a military car.

“I thought I was going to die,” Sahar Kamal, an IT company employee, said. “I thought I was finished.”

In stark contrast to these scenes, the cabinet issued a statement thanking the police for showing “self-restraint in dealing with the events”.

The operation came after two days of the worst violence to have hit Egypt since the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak in February. With only a week to go until the first round of parliamentary elections, it casts a dark shadow over the supposed centrepiece of Egypt’s transition to democracy.

When the troops began to move into the square, cries of “Gesh, Gesh, Gesh” (Army, Army, Army) quickly spread through the crowd, triggering a stampede. Doormen in buildings on side streets forced their doors shut as panicked protesters desperately tried to escape the throng. When most of the square had been cleared, armoured vehicles drove in to fire tear gas at the defiant few who remained.

The Independent witnessed a group of unarmed male protesters cornered by troops and beaten with batons and riot shields; when the troops moved away, six men lay prone on the roadside.

After two other protesters attempted unsuccessfully to revive another man, a military policeman dragged him to the same heap. Troops quickly removed the unconscious men, making it impossible to confirm whether they were alive. But Ghada Shabender, of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights, who spent time in the square’s makeshift field hospital, said her group had confirmed at least five deaths.

She said doctors had reported an attack on the hospital. “They said it was stormed by the military police who threw in a tear gas canister,” she said. There were multiple other reports of abuses. Pasant, a 24-year-old estate agent, said she had been groped by a soldier as she lay on the ground.