Protesters and police clashed again overnight outside Cairo's security headquarters in the wake of deadly football violence and amid calls by activists for civil disobedience in Egypt.
Police fired birdshot at demonstrators leading to the interior ministry, the scene of days of
clashes sparked by the deaths of 74 people on Wednesday in football-related violence in the northern city of Port Said. By Monday morning, calm had returned to the area just blocks away from the capital's iconic Tahrir Square and government buildings, but the mood remained tense, witnesses told AFP.
Activists blame the interior ministry and the ruling military council, which took power when President Hosni Mubarak was ousted last year, for failing to prevent the football violence.
Students from several universities and pro-democracy activists have called in statement posted on the Internet for "a general strike and civil disobedience" on February 11, the anniversary of Mubarak's ouster. Police have erected several concrete block walls on roads leading to the ministry, which has become the nerve centre of the violence that has left 12 people dead since Thursday. The minister accused protesters of trying to storm the building, which the demonstrators deny.