Today’s newspapers are almost as devoid of real news as Tahrir Square was with revolutionary activity on Saturday. Unless, of course, one reads reports on Ramadan-season soap operas and the fierce competition this year over who will get the most viewers.
However, an attack on a police station in Arish, North Sinai, is finally reaching some sort of resolution, as the city is now calm and dealing with its after effects. Al-Ahram now says that the military is sending reinforcements to the area in light of the attacks. Of the 15 suspected assailants that Al-Ahram claims are under custody, 10 are Palestinian.
The new independent paper, Youm7, reports that police have arrested only 12 suspects, while seven remain under arrest in hospital beds. Around 100 people had originally attacked the station, according to Al-Ahram’s eyewitnesses.
Five individuals were killed in the attack, including one military and one police officer. Al-Wafd says that police found a large hoard of weapons and ammunition in suspected houses and hide-outs in Arish. They found an assortment of guns, rocket launchers and around 15,000 bullets; Youm7 says 10,000.
After Friday’s protests, many papers are focusing on the fact that Saturday’s Tahrir presence was minimal. To drive the point home, Al-Wafd’s main headline reads, “Tahrir, without revolutionaries!”
Liberal groups participating in the three-week-long sit-in complained that Islamist groups on Friday used religious slogans and exclusionary chants, contrary to previously agreed-upon themes of unity between the various political groups.
According to Al-Wafd and Al-Ahram, the square was completely deserted yesterday, allowing some kids to turn the empty space into a soccer field. The Islamist invasion on Friday was followed by an absence of its one-off participants. Al-Wafd notes, “the Salafis disappeared, suddenly.”
As part of the aftermath, many Salafist groups in Al-Akhbar are claiming that they never agreed to any unified demands, and so were not in violatio of them. The Muslim Brotherhood says that its members stuck to the plan of unified chants and demands during the demonstration.
Al-Tahrir, a new paper headed by Ibrahim Eissa as its editor-in-chief, quotes many Salafi leaders, such as Abdallah al-Shehat, washing their hands of any wrongdoing on Saturday. “The numbers at the square only reached a million with us involved,” Shehat said.
Apparently the head of the appeals court has made a final decision to try former President Hosni Mubarak at the Police Academy that once bore his name, and was the location of his last speech as president.
Most agree that the most likely scenario will be that Mubarak does not show up to the trial and the judge announces a postponement. Al-Akhbar suggests that the public prosecutor may force him to be present.
Youm7 claims to have released exclusive documents that are being used by his lawyers to justify Mubarak’s impending no-show.
Legal activists and media have gone to Tora prison, where many of the old regime figures are under incarceration. Apparently, former state radio and television chief Osama al-Sheikh is performing the same function in prison as he did out of it, speaking on behalf of the Mubarak regime.
According to Al-Tahrir, Sheikh was the only incarcerated figure to step out and meet visitors, while others, including Alaa and Gamal Mubarak, as well as Habib al-Adly and Safwat al-Sherif refused to greet their guests.
Both Al-Akhbar and Al-Ahram report that the Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi has decided to compensate the families of the martyrs of the 25 January revolution with LE30,000 instead of LE5000, and that the compensation will be paid out sometime in the next three days.
The government is planning to put the final touches on a plan to appoint new governors to Egypt's governorates. Al-Ahram says that Prime Minister Essam Sharaf will be receiving the final reports and recommendations regarding this issue soon, while Al-Wafd accuses him of “ignoring” the topic completely. Their only evidence of this however, seems to be that he was not present in his office the last two days.
Egypt's papers:
Al-Ahram: Daily, state-run, largest distribution in Egypt
Al-Akhbar: Daily, state-run, second to Al-Ahram in institutional size
Al-Gomhurriya: Daily, state-run
Rose al-Youssef: Daily, state-run
Al-Dostour: Daily, privately owned
Al-Shorouk: Daily, privately owned
Al-Wafd: Daily, published by the liberal Wafd Party
Al-Arabi: Weekly, published by the Arab Nasserist party
Youm7: Weekly, privately owned
