The perils of wearing low-slung jeans: Rock-slinging protester caught with his pants down as Egypt is rocked by fresh violence
By Becky Evans
They may be fashionable the world over but one demonstrator found to his cost that low-slung jeans are not the best choice of clothing when confronting armed police.
The masked protester in Egypt was caught with his trousers down yesterday as he hurled rocks at riot police.
He exposed his blue boxer shorts when his loose trousers slipped to his knees during clashes near Cairo's Tahrir Square.
It came on the fourth day of violence that has swept the country and left more than 50 dead.
Thousands of people have protested against the rule of President Mohammed Morsi and a court verdict to execute 21 people that were involved in a riot last year that left 74 football fans dead.
In a bid to restore calm, Mr Morsi has declared a month-long state of emergency in the three cities of Ismailiya , Suez and Port Said - which has seen the worst of the violence.
But defying the 9am to 6pm curfew, thousands of protesters demonstrated in the affected cities last night.
The army has been deployed in two of the cities and cabinet approved a measure to let soldiers arrest civilians.
A cabinet source told Reuters any trials would be before civilian courts, but the step is likely to anger protesters who accuse Mursi of using high-handed security tactics of the kind they fought against to oust President Hosni Mubarak.
Heba Morayef of Human Rights Watch in Cairo said the police would once again have the right to arrest people 'purely because they look suspicious', in a throw back to the regime of former president Hosni Mubarak.
'It is a classic knee-jerk reaction to think the emergency law will help bring security,' she said.
'It gives so much discretion to the Ministry of Interior that it ends up causing more abuse, which in turn causes more anger.'
Demonstrations are continuing for a fifth consecutive day today as police fire volleys of teargas at dozens of youths throwing stones in Cairo.
A 46-year-old bystander was killed by a gun shot, a security source has said, although it is not clear who opened fire.
Anti-Morsi protesters were on the streets of Cairo and elsewhere in the country today - the second anniversary of one of the bloodiest days in the revolution that ended Mubarak's rule in 2011.
Funerals have also been held today for some of those killed in the recent clashes.
Hundreds of mourners carried the coffins of six people killed in clashes in Port Said on Sunday.
Opponents of Mr Morsi have spent weeks camped in the square in protest at the president, who they say has betrayed the revolution that overthrew Mubarak two years ago.
Ibrahim Eissa, a 26-year-old cook, said: 'We want to bring down the regime and end the state that is run by the Muslim Brotherhood.'
Mr Morsi declared the state of emergency in a televised address yesterday and warned that he would not hesitate to take more action to stem Egypt's latest eruption of violence.
But he denied his latest moves would plunge the country back into authoritarianism.
He said: 'There is no going back on freedom, democracy and the supremacy of the law.'
Mr Morsi has invited the nation's political forces to a talks today to try and resolve the latest crisis.
The main opposition National Salvation Front coalition has refused to meet because it says the proposal was not genuine.
Members said the group will only attend future talks if a list of conditions are met.
Mohamed ElBaradei, a leading member of the National Salvation Front, told a news conference the Islamist leader's call was 'cosmetic and not substantive'.
The coalition's conditions included a demand that Mr Mursi accept responsibility for the recent bloodshed.
Some members had already said dialogue would be a 'waste of time' before the coalition met to discuss whether to join in.
Hamdeen Sabahy, a leftist politician and presidential candidate, said he would not attend Monday's meeting 'unless the bloodshed stops and the people's demands are met.'
The Front has distanced itself from the latest flare-ups but said Morsi should have acted far sooner to impose extra security measures that would have ended the violence and blamed him for the escalation.
'Of course we feel the president is missing the real problem on the ground, which is his own polices,' spokesman Khaled Dawoud said.
'His call to implement emergency law was an expected move given what is going on, namely thuggery and criminal actions.'
Mr Morsi has not said what he plans to do to stem the violence in other parts of the country.
But he offered condolences to families of those that have died and said: 'The protection of the nation is the responsibility of everyone. We will confront any threat to its security with force and firmness within the remit of the law.'
As well as Cairo, violence has also been reported in several cities in the Nile Delta region, including the industrial city of Mahallah.
The spark of the violence was the conviction on Saturday of 21 people involved in a riot in Port Said's main stadium on February 1 last year - the worst football violence in Egypt's history.
Most of those sentenced to death were local fans.
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