Occupy protesters barred from camping in DC squares

By Ian Simpson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The National Park Service will bar Occupy DC protesters from camping in the two parks where have been living since October, in a blow to one of the highest-profile chapters of the movement denouncing economic inequality.

The Occupy DC protesters must stop camping in McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza, both a few blocks from the White House, starting at about noon on Monday, the Park Service said on Friday.

The Park Service will start to enforce regulations that "prohibit camping and the use of temporary structures for camping in McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza," the agency said in a flyer distributed at the sites.

"Although 24/7 demonstration vigils and the use of symbolic temporary structures, including empty tents used as symbols of the demonstration, may be permitted in the park areas, camping and the use of temporary structures for camping is not."

The protesters have been in the two sites since around the start of October. They have spearheaded numerous protests in Washington, including a demonstration that drew hundreds of people to the Capitol this month.

The McPherson Square site has drawn increasing criticism from Congress and the District of Columbia administration.

The park bordering K Street, a symbol of Washington lobbyists, has been criticized because of squalor and rats, and the protesters' numbers have been swelled by homeless people.

Sara Shaw, a McPherson Square protester handling contacts with the media, said the group would discuss its response at an evening meeting. She said 50 to 100 people were living in the square.

Bob Vogel, superintendent of the National Mall and Memorial Parks, said in a statement: "The National Park Service takes very seriously its tradition of providing opportunities for First Amendment activities.

"We have a long history spanning several decades of 24-hour First Amendment vigils."

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Paul Thomasch)

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Troops, protesters clash in Cairo for third day

1 of 5. Protesters throw stones at army soldiers at a building next to cabinet offices near Tahrir Square in Cairo December 17, 2011.
Credit: Reuters/Asmaa Waguih
By Yasmine Saleh and Alexander Dziadosz
CAIRO (Reuters) - Military police battled demonstrators in Cairo's Tahrir Square Sunday, the third day of clashes that have killed 10 people and injured hundreds, casting a shadow over the first free election most Egyptians can remember.
Soldiers advanced from barriers around the square shortly before dawn, scuffling with protesters, activists said. A Reuters witness heard gunfire and saw protesters, brandishing big sticks, running from the scene of the latest flare-up.
"It's cat-and-mouse. The army raid and retreat," a protester in the square, Mostafa Fahmy, said by telephone.
Hundreds of protesters were in Tahrir in the early morning, some huddled round fires to keep warm in the chill air after troops burned down tents that had been erected by activists camped there since a protest against army rule on November 18.
The latest flare-up in violence has exposed divisions among Egyptians about the role of the army, which took over after the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak in February.
Activists have stayed out on the streets for weeks, angered by the army's seeming reluctance to give up power. But other Egyptians back the military as a force for badly needed stability during a difficult transition to democracy.
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Army vehicles and soldiers were deployed on several roads leading into the square. Protesters and troops have clashed repeatedly, throwing rocks at each other, and some protesters have lobbed petrol bombs at army lines.
In earlier clashes, troops in riot gear chased protesters into side streets, grabbed them, beat them to the ground and battered them, a Reuters journalist said. Shots were fired in the air.
Soldiers pulled down protester tents and set them on fire, local TV footage showed. Reuters footage showed one soldier in a line of charging troops firing a shot at fleeing protesters, though whether he was using blanks or live rounds was not known.
State media gave conflicting accounts of what sparked the violence. They quoted some people as saying a man went into the parliament compound to retrieve a mis-kicked football, but was harassed and beaten by police and guards. Others said the man had prompted scuffles by trying to set up camp in the compound.
The latest bloodshed follows unrest in which 42 people were killed in the week before November 28, the start of a phased parliamentary poll in which Islamist parties repressed during the 30-year Mubarak era have emerged as strong front-runners.
Voting in the second round of the election process, part of a promised transition from army to civilian rule by July, passed peacefully Wednesday and Thursday. The last run-off vote for the lower house takes place on January 11.
SKIRMISHES, DEATH, INJURIES
Health Minister Fouad el-Nawawy told local television 10 people had been killed, most of them Friday or early on Saturday, and 441 injured. State media said at least 200 people were taken to hospital.
Among the dead was Emad Effat, a senior official of Egypt's Dar al-Ifta, a religious authority that issues Islamic fatwas (edicts). His wife told Reuters Effat died from a gunshot wound. At his funeral Saturday, hundreds of mourners chanted "Down with military rule."
Army-appointed Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri, 78, said 30 security guards outside parliament had been hurt, and blamed the violence on youths among the protesters. "What is happening in the streets today is not a revolution, rather it is an attack on the revolution," he said.
The army assault Saturday followed skirmishes between protesters and troops during which a fire destroyed archives, some more than 200 years old, in a building next to Tahrir.
An army official said troops had tackled thugs, not protesters, after shots were fired at soldiers and petrol bombs set the building ablaze, the state news agency MENA reported.
Tahrir protesters and some other Egyptians are infuriated by the perceived reluctance to quit power of the army, whose ruling council is headed by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, Mubarak's defense minister for two decades.
Other Egyptians, desperate for order, voiced frustration about the unrest that has battered the economy.
"We can't work, we can't live, and because of what? Because of some thugs who have taken control of the square and destroyed our lives. Those are no revolutionaries," said Mohamed Abdel Halim, a 21-year-old who runs a store near Tahrir.
A new civilian advisory council to the generals said it would suspend its meetings until the violence stopped. It called for prosecution of those responsible and the release of all those detained in the unrest.
Islamist and liberal politicians decried the army's tactics.
The Muslim Brotherhood, whose party list is leading the election, said in a statement the military must make "a clear and quick apology for the crime that has been committed."
The army council is in charge until a presidential election in June, but parliament will have a popular mandate that the military will find hard to ignore as it oversees the transition.
(Additional reporting by Ashraf Fahim, Marwa Awad and Dina Zayed; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Tim Pearce)

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Anti-Wall Street protesters dig in against police

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1 of 3. People walk around an Occupy Oakland encampment in front of City Hall in Oakland, California, November 11, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Kim White

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES |

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Tensions were rising at anti-Wall Street protests in three western U.S. cities on Friday as demonstrators in Portland, Salt Lake City and Oakland defied orders by police to dismantle their camps.

In Portland, police said they had received reports that protesters were digging a reinforced hole and fashioning make-shift weapons out of wood and nails after Mayor Sam Adams gave them until midnight on Saturday to clear out of two downtown parks.

Police said they believed Occupy Portland organizers had also put out a call for reinforcements from Oakland, Seattle and San Francisco as they prepared for a confrontation.

"There may even be as many as 150 anarchists who will arrive soon," Portland police said in a written statement.

"There is information that people may be in the trees during a police action and that there are people who are attempting to obtain a large number of gas masks," the statement said.

Occupy Portland organizers, who say their encampment numbers between 500 and 800 people, denied that they were making weapons or recruiting anarchists for a pitched battle and insisted that they were a nonviolent movement.

Still, while a few protesters trickled out of the two main camps in downtown Portland as the deadline approached, hundreds remained hunkered down in their tents on a chilly Friday night in the Pacific northwest.

In Salt Lake City, meanwhile, protest organizers vowed to resist an order by police chief Chris Burbank clear out of Pioneer Park in downtown by 30 minutes after sundown Saturday.

Burbank said he had had enough after an unidentified and possibly homeless man was found dead in his tent there, possibly of carbon monoxide poisoning from a propane heater and a drug overdose.

'I'M GOING TO FIGHT'

"We can no longer tolerate individuals camping on our streets. We can no longer care for individuals camping here," Burbank told protesters. "I commit to work with you to find avenues that you can express your free speech. It just can't be done through camping in our streets and in our parks."

But protest organizer Jesse Fruwirth told Reuters that a number of protest members were willing to remain in the park and face arrest on Saturday night if the city could not be persuaded to let them stay.

"We were caught off guard this afternoon. We believed we had a cooperative relationship with the city," he said following an impromptu press conference and candlelight vigil.

Homeless protester Nathan Clark, meanwhile, told Reuters he had found a safe haven in the park after years in foster homes and on the streets and "us being shut down isn't cool."

"I'm staying here," Clark, 18, said. "I'm going to fight this cause. I'm going to stay my ground."

And in Oakland, where police and protesters have clashed several times over the past few weeks, organizers said they intended to stay in Frank Ogawa Plaza near city hall despite increasing pressure by authorities.

On Friday night, police handed out fliers at the Occupy Oakland encampment putting demonstrators on notice that they were violating the law by camping and having open fires.

The warnings came one day after a man was shot to death not far from the plaza, prompting the Oakland police officers union to release an open letter asking protesters to pack up and leave.

But protesters, who say the shooting was unrelated to them, took shelter in their tents on Friday night as a steady rain fell over the Bay Area, showing no signs of leaving.

Police forcibly removed tents and drove protesters out of Frank Ogawa Plaza on October 25, only for demonstrators to return later to reclaim the public square outside City Hall.

Police and protesters clashed again the following week after a day of largely peaceful citywide rallies and marches that forced a brief shutdown of the Port of Oakland.

(Additional reporting by Teresa Carson, James Nelson, Noel Randewich, Jim Christie, Dan Levine, James Nelson, Alex Dobuzinskis and Mary Slosson)

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