Egypt’s Tahrir metro station reopens after brief ‘security’ closure

Tahrir Square’s Sadat metro station reopened its doors to the public Saturday after a brief closure for “security reasons” following the assassination of Egypt’s top prosecutor.

The station was closed Tuesday, less than 24 hours after the assassination of Prosecutor-General Hisham Barakat.

Barakat died from his wounds while undergoing surgery after his convoy was bombed in Cairo’s Heliopolis district.

The station’s reopening comes one day after the second anniversary of the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi on 3 July.

Cairo’s main central metro station was re-opened at the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan on 17 June after a two-year-closure following the forced dispersal of pro-Morsi sits-in at Rabaa and Nahda squares in the summer of 2013.

The station leads directly to Tahrir Square, the cradle of the 25 January 2011 uprising. In the past two years, protests at the square have been limited, especially after the tightening of regulations governing protests.

A law was passed in November 2013 mandating a minimum of three days notification prior to protests and leaving to the Ministry of Interior discretion as to whether protests would be authorised or not.

Violators of the protest law face heavy fines and up to three years in prison.

source:Ahram online