Alison sent me this from Cairo (I cite with her permission): "tonight is worth telling you about. i went down to abdel moneim riad with a bunch of egyptian friends after hearing the maspiro protest spreading and knowing full well the inflammatory things the SCAF said= that the Copts were attacing the military. we went down to find the old tahrir protesters throwing rocks back at the thugs on the other side by the ramses hilton. this went on for a while till it turned to molotovs and people getting carried away badly hurt. we werent completely sure what was happening, and suddenly they stopped attacking. but then when we thought it was over and they had been messing with us in a stupid scaf game, suddenly the military attacked. they spread out and chased us down side streets and were arresting people. we made it to a friends house which overlooks the bridge and saw not salafeyyeen but baltagi marching and chanting islameyya islameyya... and the army was among them !!
friends tried to give blood at the coptic hostpital on ramses and they couldnt get close because the thugs were blocking the door. amry was there but they dont do anything. reports of others getting beaten up but hopefully you can talk to people who are there now and were at maspiro. so there you go.
now the thugs are beating up people in front of the coptic hospital and setting a fire outside. lets see how far SCAF goes."
