CAIRO, March 30: Hundreds of Egyptians demanded the departure of President Hosni Mubarak in an unprecedented string of nationwide demonstrations against the government on Wednesday, despite efforts by security forces to prevent the protests. Protesters heeded the call of the Kefaya movement in Cairo and the northern cities of Alexandria and Mansura, in the largest popular action against the 76-year-old ruler to date.

Security forces were deployed in thousands to thwart what some commentators have suggested could one day lead to Egypt’s own ‘velvet revolution’ and organizers said 30 protesters were briefly detained across the country.

In Cairo, the capital’s chief of security himself ordered dozens of protesters heading towards the parliament building to retreat or face arrest, forcing the organizers to take the protest to the journalists’ union building. “Enough, enough,” the protestors sang, using a familiar opposition refrain against a new term for the veteran Egyptian leader, who has been in office since 1981.

“Leave!” the crowd chanted, in a public expression of defiance against President Mubarak unthinkable only a few months ago. Some 300 to 400 protestors attempted to hold a similar demonstration in Alexandria, the country’s second city, but were prevented from gathering by security forces.

One of the main organizers from the Kefaya movement, Georges Isaac, said 20 anti-Mubarak activists were rounded up in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria and 10 in the Nile Delta town of Mansura, further east.

“The heavy intervention of the police offers evidence of the government’s fear in the face of the awakening of the Egyptian people, who is demanding a real democracy,” he said.

Mr Isaac added that they were all released a few hours later. In Alexandria, hundreds of demonstrators from the ruling National Democratic Party swiftly took the place of the dispersed anti-Mubarak activists and chanted slogans begging their leader to remain in power and lambasting “foreign intervention”.

Some leading figures of Egypt’s burgeoning movement for democratic reform has been receiving the support of the United States, angering the authorities in Cairo.

The fresh security crackdown on protesters came after thousands of police successfully thwarted a pro-reform political rally called by Egypt’s banned but influential Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo on Sunday, arresting 50 people.

While the Muslim Brothers and the Kefaya movement both ask for constitutional reform, increased political freedom and the lifting of the 24-year-old state of emergency, the movement has taken a more conciliatory stance towards the president himself.

Mr Mubarak asked lawmakers last month to amend the constitution to allow for the first multi-candidate presidential elections in Egypt’s history. But many in the opposition charge that the amendments still greatly curb the possibility of parties fielding candidates as they must first be approved by parliament, which is dominated by the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP).—AFP