CAIRO: Deadly clashes flared up in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Sunday, November 20, between security forces and protestors demanding the ouster of the ruling junta.
"The army sent soldiers to Tahrir to help state security disperse the protesters. They are beating us hard," Ragab Shemiekhy, who has been in Tahrir throughout the latest protest, told Reuters.
Thousands of protestors clashed with police and army troops, who tried to end their protest.
Police fired tear gas canisters at the protestors, who responded with stones, setting tyres on fires.
At least ten people were killed and nearly 200 injured in the clashes.
A Reuters witness saw the dead body of a 28-year-old man on Sunday evening in a makeshift clinic on the edge of Tahrir Square.
Army police detained dozens of people, a witness said.
After initially fleeing, protesters poured back into the square.
"The people want to topple the field marshal," chanted the protestors, referring to Hussein Tantawi, the head of the ruling military council, who served as Mubarak's defense ministers for two decades.
Activists tweeted a video they said showed police dragging a corpse on the ground, in what appears to be Tahrir Square, and leaving it by a rubbish dump.
In the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, a funeral procession for one of the victims degenerated into clashes with the police who fired volleys of tear gas at mourners, the official MENA news agency reported.
In the canal city of Suez, troops fired live bullets into the air to stop protesters from storming a police station in the city center.
Protests also broke out in the central cities of Qena and Assiut, a security official said, adding that 55 people had been arrested nationwide.
Similar clashes erupted Saturday in Tahrir Square as well as in Alexandria and Suez.
The clashes began when police tried to break up a sit-in organized by relatives of the revolution victims.
Organizers of the sit-in had called for speedy trials of policemen and officials accused of involvement in the deadly crackdown that accompanied president Hosni Mubarak's bid to retain his grasp on power.
Heavy-handed
Many protestors are angry with the ruling junta over what they see attempts to abort the new-born democracy in Egypt.
"The military council are shutting their ears, they're ignoring us, they don't give a damn about us, and we're going to stay occupying the streets and demanding our rights," said Amal El Mohandes, 31.
"Eventually justice will prevail."
Many Egyptians are angry that nine months after ousting Mubarak, the army remains in charge and police are still using the same heavy-handed tactics against demonstrators.
During streets battles on Saturday night and Sunday morning, police fired round after round of teargas at protesters near the Interior Ministry.
A security official said police had not used live rounds and had used lawful methods to deal with "troublemakers."
"We are on the brink of danger. Those asking for the government to fall are asking for the state to fall," Egyptian army General Mohsen Fangary had told a television channel early on Sunday.
He said the election would go ahead on time and the army and Interior Ministry would maintain security.
He also said the army, in line with a timetable previously announced, aimed to return to barracks by the end of 2012. Presidential elections could be held by then.
The army-backed cabinet had outraged many Egyptians by presenting proposals for the new constitution that would have shielded the army's budget from civilian oversight and given it a broad national security remit.
It had amended the proposals to give civilian powers more say but this was not enough to prevent Friday's protest.
After a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Ali al-Silmi said: "We will not back down from the last proposed amendments to the constitutional document. (IH/OnIslam & News Agencie)
Tense standoff in Cairo's Tahrir Square
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