A protester wearing a mask in the colours of the Egyptian flag is seen after Friday prayers at Tahrir square in Cairo.MOHAMED ABD EL GHANY
Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak will stand trial next Wednesday, even if he has to be carried to Cairo on a stretcher.
Egypt's official news agency confirmed plans to try the former leader despite recent statements by his lawyer that the 83-year-old had lapsed into a coma in the hospital near his palatial home in the Sinai resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.
The man who led Egypt for almost three decades was forced to step down in February after unprecedented street protests prompted the country's pre-eminent armed forces to intervene.
Mr. Mubarak and his former interior minister, Habib al-Adli, along with Mr. Mubarak's two sons, Alaa and Gamal, are charged with corruption and with ordering the killing of peaceful protesters this spring.
Organizers of the protests have made a speedy trial of the former leadership one of their major demands. Another demand was for elections. Originally promised for September, they have now been postponed until near the end of the year while an electoral council meets to decide on how the vote should be conducted.
Meanwhile, a major schism in the revolutionary forces has become apparent as Islamist groups face off against secular democrats.
The Islamists have begun to voice their rejection of the idea of a secular state and their opposition to a set of "supra-constitutional principles," a kind of bill of rights, that is now being prepared by the ruling military council as a framework for drafting a new constitution.
The Islamists, who are calling more loudly than ever for a republic governed by Islamic law, argue that a bill of rights could preclude such a religious state.
Khaled Saeed, spokesman for the Salafi Front, said only "the Koran is above the constitution."
The Islamists want elections, in which they are expected to do well, before any constitutional principles are written.
Groups ranging from the extensive Muslim Brotherhood to fundamentalist salafists to the former terrorist organization Gamaa Islamiya are joining together in a major march Friday as a show of force.
The groups seem determined to make it the largest political demonstration since the nationwide uprising six months ago.
This march will make everyone aware of the Islamists' real weight, Mr. Saeed vowed.
Fearing a possible clash with secular protesters in central Tahrir Square, both Islamist and secularist leaders have apparently entered into a concord, each side promising to avoid confrontation with the other.
Essam el-Erian, deputy chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, said it's important that both camps work together for a new Egypt. "We need to prove to the whole world that we are able to be one thing," he said.
While the concord may last through the day, it's unlikely to hold for long. The notion of a state ruled by shariah runs counter to the goals of the secular democrats. And a secular state is the last thing the Islamists want.
Abdallah Darwish, imam of a Gamaa Islamiya mosque in downtown Cairo, said last week that proponents of a secular state should leave the country if they don't want an Islamic government.
"Grow that secular seed outside Egypt," he said. "Since we were young, we have learned that this is an Islamic state."
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Tunisian court sentences former president
A Tunisian court sentenced ousted president Zein al-Abidine Ben Ali and his son-in-law to 16 years each in jail on charges of corruption that helped fuel a revolution that spread across the Arab world. The court also ordered Mr. Ben Ali and once-prominent businessman Sakher al-Materi, who were tried in absentia, to pay the equivalent of $70.65-million each in fines. It sentenced Mr. Ben Ali's daughter Nisrine, married to Mr. Materi, to eight years in jail in absentia and ordered her to pay $36.5-million. Mr. Ben Ali's overthrow in January after weeks of protests inspired the wave of uprisings that spread across the Middle East and North Africa this year. He fled with members of his close family to Saudi Arabia, where he is now in exile, after 23 years in power. Thursday's trial was the third against Mr. Ben Ali, who has refused to attend.
Reuters