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Police disperse Mahalla protesters

Egyptian police dispersed two thousand demonstrators who gathered in the Nile delta city of al-Mahalla al-Kubra, eyewitness said.

“At around 11 pm, central security forces beat protesters with batons and dispersed them by force from al-Shawan square in downtown,” an eyewitness told Al-Masry Al-Youm, adding that four ambulances were seen near the protest carrying an unidentified number of injured demonstrators.

Mahalla, Egypt’s labor movement stronghold, was one the major six cities which witnessed the widespread protests nationwide.

April 6 Youth Movement

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The April 6 Youth Movement is an Egyptian Facebook group started by Ahmad Maher in Spring 2008 to support the workers in El-Mahalla El-Kubra, an industrial town, who were planning to strike on April 6.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

Activists called on participants to wear black and stay home the day of the strike. Bloggers and citizen journalists used Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, blogs and other new media tool to report on the strike, alert their networks about police activity, organize legal protection and draw attention to their efforts.[7]

The New York Times has identified the movement as the political Facebook group in Egypt with the most dynamic debates.[8] As of January 2009, it had 70,000 predominantly young and educated members, most of whom had not been politically active before; their core concerns include free speech, nepotism in government and the country's stagnant economy.[8] Their discussion forum on Facebook features intense and heated discussions, and is constantly updated with new postings.

Public activism and arrests

Aside from discussing the state of the nation online, members of the group have organized public rallies to free imprisoned journalists and engaged in protests concerning the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict.[8] In its official pronouncements, the group stresses that it is not a political party. Ahmed Maher the founders of the group, were arrested by the Egyptian authorities in May 2008 in an attempt to shut it down.[9]

In July 2008, Maher was again arrested, along with 14 other members of the group, and charged with "incitement against the regime". He also claimed that Egyptian state security officers threatened to rape him in custody.[10]

On April 6, 2009 the group was subjected to attacks, suspected to have been orchestrated by the Egyptian government. Several websites supporting the group were hacked simultaneously, and protests in Cairo were confronted by plain clothed Egyptian policemen and numerous arrests.[11]