In response to Egyptian activists calls for declaring January 25 a day of protest and civil disobedience, a pro-government group is calling on people to label the day the “day of loyalty to president Mubarak.” The group plans to go out in support of the president and his policies on the same day, distributing posters and chanting pro-government calls.
The group praises President Hosni Mubarak and wishes to help him run again in the upcoming presidential elections this year.
Mubarak has been Egypt’s president for the past three decades, after assuming the presidency in October 1981.
“We will not stand by if others start to do any distributive action towards any of the state’s institutions and we will not let Egypt be like any other country with chaos,” Marwa Hodhod, the campaign organizer, told Masrawy news website on Monday.
Many activist groups, including 6 of April movement, has called on Egyptians to demonstrate and protest the current political situation in Egypt and declared the day a chance for civil disobedience.
The activist group is planning to protest in front of the Egyptians ministry of interior, protesting the lingering of emergency laws.
Egypt’s emergency law was imposed following President Anwar El Sadat’s assassination. Since 1981, the laws have been continuously extended every three years.
The recent Tunisian public success in forcing the president to leave his post has inspired the political movement in Egypt and calls on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter in encouraging people to go out and express their anger at the current political situation.
According to a 2004 Human Development Report (HDR), 3.1 percent of Egyptians live on less than $1 per day (2.2 million people), and 43.9 percent, or 30.9 million people, live on less than $2.
Due to the decline of real income, the number of people living on less than $1 per day has risen dramatically.
The richest 20 percent of the population receive 43.6 percent of all national income, while the poorest 20 percent get only 8.6 percent.