Anti-Mubarak Protesters Beaten in Cairo

CAIRO —  A government-backed referendum Wednesday on whether to hold Egypt’s first competitive presidential election provoked an opposition boycott and violence as men shouting pro-regime slogans beat anti-government demonstrators in the capital.

Uniformed policemen looked on, and occasionally joined in, while pro-government supporters kicked and punched demonstrators and journalists covering the protests. The assailants hoisted pictures of longtime Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and shouted vows to sacrifice their blood for him. Lines of riot police and plainclothes security officers cornered demonstrators so they could not escape.

Women were surrounded, groped and had their clothes torn. Some demonstrators were thrown down flights of concrete stairs, dragged by their hair and kicked by swarms of young men.

Egypt’s security forces are known for intimidating opposition leaders and torturing prisoners. But although the last several months of pro-democracy street protests have been fraught with arrests and intimidation, they have generally remained peaceful.

The boycott and attacks on opposition protesters could impede Mubarak’s efforts to show the West that he is enacting democratic reforms. The violence could also undermine claims by the Bush administration that democracy is taking root in Egypt.

Wednesday was the first time the anti-Mubarak movement has been met with blatant violence in Cairo. Plainclothes and uniformed security officers helped and sometimes appeared to direct the attacks. Five opposition activists were arrested in the capital, and dozens more were detained in the smaller Suez Canal city of Ismailiya.

“This is a message for us,” said Rabaa Fahmi, a 38-year-old lawyer who was punched, kicked and had her clothes ripped from her body during clashes outside the headquarters of the journalists guild.

She huddled in a nearby law office and struggled to close her blouse with safety pins. “They know we’re Eastern women and any kind of abuse makes us ashamed and embarrassed,” she said. “This is a very clear message that if you take to the streets you’ll be attacked.”

The official results of the referendum won’t be announced until today, but there was little suspense. Mubarak’s push to amend the constitution to allow competitive elections was widely expected to win voters’ approval. The nation’s largest opposition parties joined the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood in calling for a boycott.

The Bush administration has praised the expected presidential election as a “historic initiative.” In a visit to Egypt this week, First Lady Laura Bush infuriated opposition leaders when she lauded the Mubarak regime for what she called a “very bold and wise” step. She also suggested that reform shouldn’t come too quickly.

“Mrs. Bush seems to know very little about Egypt and very little about democracy in Egypt,” said Gamila Ismail, wife and press advisor to presidential candidate Ayman Nour. “We thought she knew more.”

Aida Seif Dawla, a psychiatrist and prominent human rights activist, said the referendum was a hollow gesture being portrayed as democratic change. She gestured toward the street, where Mubarak’s supporters were taunting the demonstrators and spitting at them. “But this shows you what the referendum is. The regime is scared.”

Mubarak surprised the nation this year when he promised to hold a multi-candidate presidential election in September. It seemed like a startling about-face from an autocratic ruler who has dominated the most populous Arab state for 24 years, periodically renewing power by presenting himself to voters in referendums in which the choices were “yes” or “no.”

But the election rules have been a disappointment to democracy advocates. An amendment approved by the ruling-party-dominated parliament in effect banned all independent candidates. Only a handful of top officials in government-approved opposition parties will be allowed to run.

Before they were crushed by Mubarak’s supporters, Wednesday’s anti-government protests were small and scattered. The regime had warned that no demonstrations would be tolerated during the referendum.

The unrest erupted around midday, when a disturbance broke out near the tomb of Saad Zaghloul, a symbol of Egypt’s fight for independence. A small knot of demonstrators from the Kifaya, or Enough, opposition movement was taunted, beaten and chased down side streets by about 200 Mubarak supporters.

Asked why policemen were standing by while a crowd of Mubarak loyalists kicked and beat a lone Kifaya demonstrator on a busy roadside, an officer in a white uniform said, “Let his colleagues help him out.”

Magdi Allam, a member of the ruling party’s policies committee, waded through the crowd in a brown suit and necktie.

“We are assuring everybody that this [amendment] is for the improvement of the political party system,” Allam said, breathing heavily in the heat. “We’re trying to regain the multiparty system.”

In the street, men used signboards displaying a smiling Mubarak to batter protesters about the head. A few stores down, the president’s supporters had been kicking a gray-haired woman as she lay pinned against a wall. Asked about the beatings, Allam said that the ruling party was firmly against violence and would investigate any abuses.

“I’m sure some people are nervous in the hot weather,” he said.

After tense weeks of opposition cries for boycott and government pleas to vote, there was no reliable way to gauge voter turnout. A ruling party official said voting was spotty in Cairo, but fairly strong in the countryside.

In the shaded courtyard of a downtown school that served as a voting center, the path to the ballot box was plastered with photographs of Mubarak. A pair of men sat on a bench, finishing off a boxed lunch. Poll workers pointed to the pair. “Here are some voters,” they said.

Asked why he’d turned out to vote, 39-year-old Mohammed Abdel Wahab Ahmed said, “I came here to reelect the president.”

The man standing next to him gave him a hard nudge. “You’re here for the constitutional amendment,” he said.

“Yes, I’m here for the constitutional amendment,” Ahmed agreed.

At a polling station in Bab al Shariya, a working-class neighborhood of craftsmen and merchants, an elementary school serving as a polling station stood empty in the afternoon. Outside, metal workers banged rhythmically as they shaped tin pots, donkeys pulled loads of bananas and melons from the countryside, and men slipped into the shade of scraggly trees.

Leafing through the list of registered voters, poll workers said that hundreds had already come. They showed off the blank ballots, printed with green for “yes” and black for “no,” and pointed to a makeshift voting booth made from a blanket tacked between a chalkboard and a dust-smeared window.

The question of voter turnout had developed into a sort of contest between the ruling party, whose members urged citizens to show their loyalty by voting “yes” for the referendum, and opposition groups, which urged their followers to shun the polls as a sign of displeasure over the harsh restrictions placed on candidates.

Asked about the beatings in the street, Mohammed Kamal, a member of the ruling party’s policy secretariat, he said that emotions were running high among Mubarak’s supporters.

“As a party, I think we have a good story to tell,” he said. “But acts like that distort this positive image and divert attention from the good work.”

Despite the ruling party’s claims that the pro-government demonstrators were Mubarak enthusiasts, some of the men in the crowd seemed bewildered as to why they’d been brought downtown.

“They told us to come here and gave us Mubarak posters and pictures,” said 18-year-old Mahmoud Khaled, who said he worked at a gas station owned by one of the ruling party’s legislators. “I don’t know where they’ll take us to vote later. If I don’t vote, I’ll lose my job.... I don’t like what I’m seeing here, but there is not much I can do.”

The legislator, Mohammed Deeb, paced nearby, chanting pro-Mubarak slogans into a bullhorn. As reporters approached, Deeb shook his head, and his assistants shoved them aside.

A British employee of the Los Angeles Times was among the journalists who were assaulted. She was groped and harassed by a crowd of pro-Mubarak supporters, then forced to the ground and kicked in the stomach and back. She escaped with bruises.

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Jailan Zayan and Hossam Hamalawy of The Times’ Cairo Bureau contributed to this report.