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Egypt Protests Grow over Trial Verdicts, Elections

HeadlineJun 06, 2012

Protests continue to grow across Egypt over the exoneration of top regime officials for killings during the uprising as well as the involvement of a top regime official in the ongoing presidential elections. On Tuesday, tens of thousands flooded Cairo’s Tahrir Square and other cities in the largest show of outrage to date following the sentencing of ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and other former regime officials on Saturday. Mubarak and his former interior minister, Habib el-Adly, were given life in prison for failing to stop the killing of unarmed demonstrators during the protests that ended Mubarak’s nearly 30-year rule. However, the court dismissed corruption charges against Mubarak and his sons, Alaa and Gamal, on technical grounds. The court also acquitted six former police chiefs for their roles during the uprising when 840 protesters were killed and more than 6,000 injured. No one was found guilty of actually ordering the killing of protesters. Protesters are also calling for the reinstatement of a measure that banned the involvement of Mubarak’s last prime minister, Ahmed Shafik, in Egypt’s presidential elections. Shafik won nearly a quarter of the vote in last month’s elections and is headed for a runoff with Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi. In other news from Egypt, the ruling military council has given lawmakers a 48-hour deadline to form an assembly to write a new constitution or face having a charter imposed.

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