EGYPT: Police conduct a discreet return to the streets of Cairo

Two days after leaving the army the task of maintaining order in the streets of Cairo, police made his comeback this Monday in the Egyptian capital. It was a test day to the regime of Hosni Mubarak and the demonstrators, who were violently opposed to the service of order on Friday. Started in the morning, this return took place in complete secrecy. These are the first traffic officers who have appeared in the center of the city, followed in the day by uniformed police.

The news has not pleased some of the protesters actually making a difference between the police and the army."The soldiers sympathized with us, nothing to do with police brutality, which are themselves corrupt and sadistic with the people," says Hany, a young protester posted near Tahrir Square in the heart of the capital. Other Cairenes as Imad prefer to laugh. "I admit that I have not really missed and I would have preferred that they remain stashed or on vacation," he said.

Absent subscribers

Deployed sparingly, often very close to the protective shadow of army tanks, police intervene in civil case by case basis. They refrain from provoking the people. Some of them are content to call to order bystanders taking pictures with their phones.In their sights, too, Western journalists, some of which have been confiscated equipment and cameras. Experienced a mishap the previous day by a team of France 2, on the initiative of the intelligence service of the army.

In the districts held by the Muslim Brotherhood, very active in the streets since the start of the protest on January 25, the police remained conspicuously absent. In El-Manial on the island of Rhoda, it is the district vigilance committees that manage the traffic. Sometimes armed with sticks and knives, young people will monitor suspicious movements. Day and night.

Release of twenty Cuban dissidents, including cyberjournalist Guillermo Farinas

AFP - Police on Thursday released the Cuban opponent Guillermo Farinas, 2010 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament and a score of dissidents in custody after seven hours in Santa Clara in the center of the island , said Mr. Farinas told AFP.

"We are free. They had us arrested for coming to the aid of a family they wanted to remove.The opposition should devote themselves to peaceful protests of citizens such as we have done, "said the opponent by telephone from Santa Clara, 280 km east of Havana.

This cyberjournalist psychologist and 48 years, who had observed a hunger strike for 135 days last year, was renewed by the police at his home around midnight and ensure they were not mistreated.

"The police wanted us to sign a recognition of pre-criminal social dangerousness + +, but we did not.After three such, they can introduce you to court, "Farinas said.

The police justified the arrest by the "scandal" that opponents led by haranguing the authorities, while trying to evict a family who illegally occupied housing, he said.

Farinas had stopped eating to demand the release of political prisoners after the death of prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo, 23 February 2010, after 85 days of hunger strike to protest against his conditions of detention.

He had ended his fast after 135 days when the government of Raul Castro, had begun an unexpected dialogue with the Church and allowed the release of 52 of the 75 dissidents arrested in 2003.

Forty-one of them have since been released. Forty agreed to leave the country and went to Madrid and one remained in Cuba.The eleven remaining refuse to emigrate to Spain and are held in prison.

The Cuban government accuses Farinas behavior "antisocial" and considers it, like other dissidents as "mercenaries" of the United States.

Farinas was represented by an empty chair at the Sakharov prize last December 15 in Strasbourg (north-eastern France), permission to travel having been refused.

Military training, a native of Santa Clara and son of two ardent revolutionary, he had distanced himself from the regime in 1989, opposing the execution of General Arnaldo Ochoa, accused of drug trafficking.

Became an opposition activist has been imprisoned three times before police custody on Wednesday and said he observed 23 hunger strikes since 1990.