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