The Muslim Brotherhood is expected to ask its members to take part in the protests currently engulfing areas of Egypt. The largest opposition bloc has told supporters to take to the streets after they conduct their Muslim prayers on Friday, the Egypt Daily News reports.
Friday’s protests will likely see a surge in citizens demonstrating on the streets, opposite police, as Thursday’s protest was viewed as less frenzied than the protests during the previous two days. But even though Cairo’s protest was relatively small, unrest has spilled into Suez and the industrial city of Ismailiya, BBC News reports.
In Suez, demonstrators set afire a fire station. In Ismailiya, hundreds of protesters clashed with police, who then used batons and tear gas to disperse them.
The death of a Bedouin protester today brought the death toll related to Egyptian protests to seven. It is unclear how many people have been injured in clashes with police.
BBC also noted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak “has not been seen in public since the protests began on Tuesday.”
Close to 3,000 protesters marched in Cairo on Wednesday, and police and security forces swooped in to make mass arrests. Some reports peg the arrest number at 700.
On Thursday, Nobel peace laureate and Egyptian opposition politician Mohamed ElBaradei arrived in Cairo to support protesters. He told journalists: “I continue to call on the regime to understand that they better listen and listen quickly, not use violence and understand that change has to come. There’s no other option.”
A security source said, according to the Globe & Mail, “If the number of people on the streets in Cairo reaches 70,000, the Interior Ministry will be unable to cope. At that point, it will have to call in the army.”
The protests in Egypt come on the heels of the Tunisian demonstrations that effectively overthrew the government. Egyptian protesters are calling for President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation and for the country to revitalize the economy.
Yemen is also staging protests today, organized by anti-government coalitions, the Guardian reports. Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world and is enduring increased unemployment and dwindling oil and water reserves.
