Egypt's youth leaders vow continued protests - Features - Al Jazeera English

Egypt's youth leaders vow continued protests - Features - Al Jazeera English Ahead of what organisers hope will be a huge march in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday, one of the young leaders of Egypt's new protest movement has vowed to continue escalating demonstrations, ranging from sit-ins to mass civil disobedience, if the country's military rulers don't accede to protesters' evolving demands. "What we call the forces of evil are still there," said Ahmed Maher, the 30-year-old co-founder of the April 6th Youth Movement, which helped lead the upheaval that began on January 25. Members of the old regime are reconstituting themselves, high-ranking officers in the feared Interior Ministry remain free from prosecution, and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces – which has run the country since ex-President Hosni Mubarak stepped down in February – is becoming less and less responsive, Maher told an audience at the Brookings Doha Centre in Qatar on Monday. He and Mohamed Arafat, a member of the newly-formed Social Democratic Party and a supporter of presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei, both accused the military council of being opaque and unaccountable. They said only continued pressure in the form of street protests could force the ruling generals to negotiate. Cooling relations The hardened tone comes after weeks of lessening goodwill between the people and the army. Military police have recently been accused of baseless arrests, abuse and torture, incommunicado detentions and slapdash trials that may result in multi-year prison sentences for protesters. Meanwhile, the unelected civilian leadership led by former Transportation Minister Essam Sharaf has drafted a law, subject to the military's approval, that would give the state power to ban strikes and protests – a nod toward both the generals' and the ruling cliques' interest in protecting their business interests. The military's heavy-handed street actions have been mirrored by its icy behaviour toward the broad-based youth coalition that drove the revolution and remains the bearer of its legitimacy. Since Mubarak's departure on February 11, the military council had routinely dispatched two generals, Mohsen al-Fingari and Mohd Higazi, to meet with representatives of the Revolutionary Youth Committee, Maher said. But there have been no meetings for the past two weeks. "The present situation is ambiguous, nobody knows what they're thinking," he said. "We respect the army, there's no doubt about that, [but] nothing will be imposed on us… without being thoroughly discussed with us." http://samotalis.blogspot.com/