Call for mass demonstration to keep Egypt protests alive
Egyptian protesters rallied around a recently released Google executive today as they tried to maintain the momentum of their mass anti-government protest.
Around 90,000 have signed a Facebook page calling on marketing manager Wael Ghoneim to be their leader, and they expect him to appear in central Tahrir Square today, a day after he was released from detention.
Mr Ghoneim was the organiser of a Facebook page used to co-ordinate Egypt's unprecedented pro-democracy uprising.
Activists also called for a million people to fill the square today.
The protests already have brought the most sweeping changes since president Hosni Mubarak took power nearly 30 years ago, but activists are insisting he steps down immediately.
Meanwhile in its latest effort to defuse public anger Mr Mubarak's regime set up a committee to recommend constitutional changes that would relax presidential eligibility rules and impose term limits.
The decrees were announced on state television by vice president Omar Suleiman, who also said that Mr Mubarak had decreed the creation of a separate committee to monitor the implementation of all proposed reforms.
The government has promised several concessions since the uprising began two weeks ago but so far they have fallen short of protesters' demands that Mr Mubarak step down immediately instead of staying on until September elections.
Today's decision was the first concrete step taken by the long-time authoritarian ruler to implement promised reforms.
Mr Mubarak also ordered a probe into clashes last week between the protesters and supporters of the president.
The fundamentalist Islamic group the Muslim Brotherhood issued a statement before Mr Suleiman's announcement calling the reforms proposed so far as "partial" and insisting that Mr Mubarak must go to ease what it called the anger felt by Egyptians who face widespread poverty and government repression.
The Brotherhood also accused pro-Mubarak thugs of detaining protesters, including Brotherhood supporters, and handing them over to the army's military police who torture them.
