Egypt to mark revolt with holiday

EGYPT will celebrate with pomp and parade the revolt that unseated president Hosni Mubarak, making January 25 an official public holiday, said a member of the ruling military council last night.

“The armed forces will organise a big celebration on January 25 in line with the momentous event,” General Ismail Etman said.

January 25 — when protesters took to the streets across the country to call for the downfall of Mubarak’s regime — will now be considered a “national day”, he said.

Etman described last year’s 18-day revolution, part of the Arab Spring that swept the region, as “the biggest and greatest event” in Egypt’s contemporary history, and equal to the July 1952 revolution led by military officers that ended the monarchy.

Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, Mubarak’s long-time defence minister who now heads the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, has vowed to hand power to civilian rule as quickly as possible.

But activists accuse the military of trying to maintain its grip on power.