Day Of Departure

Day Of Departure

Day Of Departure, Feb. 4, 2011: Crowd To Call For Mubarak To Resign 

Opposition parties called for Feb. 4 to be a "Day of Departure" earlier this week, All Voices reports. The plan: to come together in massive numbers and in one voice demand President Hosni Mubarak to step down once and for all.

Protesters demanding President Mubarak's ouster packed Cairo's central square in huge numbers Friday, waving Egyptian flags, singing the national anthem and cheering, appearing undaunted and determined after their camp withstood two days of street battles with regime supporters trying to dislodge them.

Thousands more flowed over bridges across the Nile into Tahrir Square, a sign that they were not intimidated after fending off everything thrown at the protesters by pro-President Mubarak attackers -- stones, firebombs, fighters on horses and camels and automatic gunfire.

The protesters passed through a series of beefed-up checkpoints by the military and the protesters themselves guarding the square.

The crowd, well over 10,000, was the biggest since Tuesday, when a quarter-million turned out.
They chanted, prayed and unfurled a long banner in the national colors of red, black and white.

Egyptian Defense Minister Hussein Tantawi and senior army officials visited the square Friday morning and soldiers were checking IDs and performing body searches at its entrances, a sign that Egypt's most powerful institution was sanctioning the demonstration.

Coinciding with "Day of Departure" events in Egypt, a demonstration is planned for Feb. 4 in New York City's Times Square, beginning at 3:30 p.m. local time. Meanwhile, a "Day of Rage" is planned in Syria for Feb. 4, with major protests in the capital city of Damascus.