EGYPT: MAY 25 DEMONSTRATIONS ANTI-CLIMACTIC,

C O N F I D E N T I A L CAIRO 003161 SIPDIS SIPDIS NSC STAFF FOR SINGH E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/25/2015 TAGS: PHUM KDEM EG SUBJECT: EGYPT: MAY 25 DEMONSTRATIONS ANTI-CLIMACTIC, PEACEFUL REF: CAIRO 3106 Classified by ECPO Counselor John Desrocher for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) As of 1800 local time, May 25 demonstrations in central Cairo (reftel) had yielded a significantly smaller turn out than expected, contacts in Kefaya and other groups lamented. Approximately 150 activists turned out to participate in a midday anti-regime demonstration at the Bar Syndicate, and a similar number turned out later in the day at the Press Syndicate to commemorate the May 25, 2005 attacks on demonstrators at that site. About 400 judges participated in the early afternoon silent demonstration in support of judicial independence at the Judges Club. ¶2. (C) Activist contacts attributed the low turnout to fear prompted by the events of May 18 and May 11, in which plainclothes policemen beat and arrested dozens of demonstrators. A contact from the Kefaya movement also claimed to poloff that buses carrying (mainly Islamist) demonstrators from the Nile Delta provinces of Sharqiya and Gharbiya had been blocked near their points of origin by police. Several contacts who attended the demonstrations agreed that although the security forces were again deployed in large numbers, with many "thuggish" plainclothes personnel standing by, the police showed considerable restraint. Multiple sources confirmed that L.A. Times stringer (and part-time activist) Hossam El-Hamalawy was sprayed with mace after he tried to force his way through a police cordon separating the Press Syndicate demonstrators from the judges at the adjacent Judges Club, but was not seriously hurt. RICCIARDONE