Over 1000 Egyptians rally, demand "the fall of regime"

PanARMENIAN.Net - More than a thousand Egyptian demonstrators rallied in central Cairo on Friday, April 15 demanding "the fall of the regime," in the largest protest challenging the government in two years, AFP reports.

By evening, after most protesters had left, police fired tear gas to disperse the remaining few, while plainclothes officers chased them down side streets to make arrests.

Police had earlier dispersed another rally elsewhere in Cairo and arrested at least 12 people.

The main protest, organized by leftist and secular activists, was ostensibly against a deal by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to hand over two islands to Saudi Arabia, during a visit by King Salman last week.

But pent-up frustrations over what activists call the president's heavy handedness and his style of governance dominated their chants, AFP says.

"The people demand the fall of the regime," they chanted outside the journalists' syndicate in downtown Cairo.

That slogan was the signature chant of the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011, which led to the ouster of veteran Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.