Despite the threat of power to involve the army in case of "chaos", the protesters remained very much involved, Tahrir Square in Cairo Thursday for the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, who has failed to quell a revolt unprecedented.
The 17th day of the uprising against Mr.Mubarak, in power for nearly 30 years, protesters chanted early morning "The people want to topple the regime," motto of the protest.
"Alaa (eldest son of the president), told Dad that a quarter of a century, enough!" They shouted Tahrir Square, occupied day and night and became the symbol of the movement.
Many carried pictures of "martyrs" killed during the violence that killed about 300 people according to a report from the UN and Human Rights Watch since the beginning of the movement.
Defying the power has toughened their tone on Wednesday against the demonstrators set up new tents on the square, according to an AFP photographer.
The Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Wednesday held up the military threat, saying the military institution, considered as neutral, would take place "in case of chaos to take things in hand".
The British daily The Guardian has however reported testimony accusing the military of having been held incommunicado hundreds of demonstrators and to have tortured some.
Protesters spent the night on both sides of the road leading to Parliament, and Thursday morning, the two entries of this road were blocked.
"No to (Omar) Suleiman!", The Vice-President (ex-intelligence chief), "No to American agents", "No to Israeli spies", "Down with Mubarak," they chanted.
Hundreds of protesters surrounded Parliament on Wednesday and the government headquarters, located opposite the center of Cairo.
"If we do not die here, we will die in prison. I'd rather die here," Attiya told AFP Abu El-Ela, a graduate of 24 years of work.
Now the pressure, the White House said that the pursuit of popular mobilization showed that political reforms were still not sufficient, while the State Department urged the Egyptian army to continue to exercise restraint.
Mr.Aboul Gheit, whose country is one of the main U.S. allies in the region, accused the U.S. of seeking to "impose" their will to Egypt in demanding immediate reforms, in an interview on U.S. television PBS.
The calm seemed to be back on Thursday at El Kharga, a town 400 km south of Cairo, where five people injured yesterday in clashes between demonstrators and police who used live bullets, died, according to medical sources. There was also a hundred injured.
Tuesday, Vice-President Suleiman had estimated that an immediate end to the regime "would mean chaos," remarks immediately denounced by the Muslim Brotherhood who ensured that the demonstrations "will continue whatever the threats."
The army, the backbone of the regime, has been named January 28 as reinforcements of police, in particular to enforce the curfew still in force in Cairo, Alexandria (north) and Suez (east).
The situation returned to normal as in Assiut, south of Cairo, where a railway track and a highway linking the northern and southern Iraq, demonstrators blocked Wednesday by anti-Mubarak, have been reopened.
Protesters had also ransacked a government building in Port Said (northeast), the Mediterranean entrance of the Suez Canal.
The protesters still demand the immediate departure of Mr. Mubarak, 82, who has promised to fade at the end of his term in September without appease the protesters.
A political protest were joined by social movements on wages or working conditions in the arsenals of Port Said, in private companies working on the Suez Canal (east) or at the Cairo airport.
Since February 3, events occur most frequently in the tranquility.Clashes between police and protesters during the first days, then between pro and anti Mubarak February 2, however, have claimed nearly 300 lives, according to the UN and HRW, and thousands injured.
The cybermilitant Wael Ghonim, became an icon of the Egyptian revolt after spending twelve days in prison, promised Thursday that he would not make policy and that it "would amount to a normal life once the (...) Egyptians have realized their dream. "
