The tone rises in Egypt for the fourth consecutive day of protest in Egypt.
Despite the large police presence in place, mobile groups of a hundred people are moving towards Tahrir Square and al-Azhar mosque, the Mecca of Sunni Islam, where the situation has rapidly deteriorated.
Around the Mosque of al-Azhar, the police fired rubber bullets at demonstrators who responded by throwing stones at the police line, shouting slogans against President Hosni Mubarak.
According to the Special Envoy of FRANCE 24, Ygal Saadoun, present in a procession in Cairo, a policeman fired a tear gas grenade point blank in the belly of a demonstrator.
"The police decided to make a blitz to stop the protests by all means.The army took no part in the operation, but it is mostly policemen, riot police equipped with water bombs and tear gas, "said Yigal Saadoun.
Egyptian police also prevented the former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei to move freely in Cairo, where he planned to join the procession of protesters, according to the news channel Al Jazeera.
Gatherings are also organized in Alexandria, Al-Mansoura, Suez and Aswan.
A large police
Dozens of police trucks patrolled the city center Friday morning, according to FRANCE 24 correspondents on the spot.Trucks occupied by militiamen in civilian clothes were also seen going around the streets of Cairo.
"The regular police are deployed everywhere. But there was also a parade of trucks barreling through the streets with their men in civilian board, with pieces of wood," says Gallagher Fenwick, FRANCE 24's special envoy in Cairo.
The "baltageyas" in Arabic, thugs recognizable by their clubs are paid per day by the government to "bring order".They are grouped near Tahrir Square, the main place of rassemblementdepuis events of 25 January.
"Sometimes they mingle with the crowd and club demonstrators," continues Ygal Saadoun.
On Facebook, Egyptian activists fear that employs the Egyptian police provocateurs whose actions serve as an excuse for repression.
"The activists expect that the government set fire to cars and accuse the demonstrators have burned everything, using it as a pretext to suppress demonstrations in the greater violence," reads the page Facebook Stephen McInerney, Director of the Project for Democracy in the Middle East, which was able to talk to protesters Thursday night.
A "fortress in the process of closing on itself"
All Internet and mobile phones are cut off since this morning. But opponents have made an appointment for several days at noon, local time, after the prayer.
"It feels like a fortress that is now closing in on itself," testifies Gallagher Fenwick.
Spearheading the protest, the movement of 6-April, a group of pro-democracy activists, calls for several days to continue the mobilization on Friday, despite the deployment of a large police.
"Date: Friday. Time: noon.Event: farewell to Hosni Mubarak, "it said in Arabic on the Facebook page of a young Egyptian.
But the police presence still leaves some doubt about the course of the day.
A major law enforcement system
At least 1,000 people were arrested since Tuesday, according to security services, 500 for a single day on Wednesday.Among these are about 90 people arrested in the area of Tahrir Square in central Cairo, and 121 members of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, officially banned but tolerated in practice, detained in Assiut, south of the Egyptian capital.
These events are unprecedented since the uprisings of 1977, caused by the rising price of bread.
Hosni Mubarak, 82, has been in power since 1981. A presidential election is scheduled for September, but the head of state has not yet made public its intention to seek re-election. His son Gamal, 47, was announced as a possible successor to the "rais".
