CAIRO — On the evening of Nov. 18, Helmy al-Sayed carried a placard that almost got him kicked out of a march in downtown Cairo. The words on it and the ensuing argument represented the type of problems march organizers wanted to avoid by holding it a day before the second anniversary of the Mohamed Mahmoud Street clashes and away from other events planned by opposing groups.
On that day, the chants were against the security forces, commemorating the five-day clashes in 2011 with the police in which over 45 were killed. Participants angrily ridiculed the announcements by pro-army groups and the police to mark the day. When they read Sayed’s sign, “Army, police and people, together mean the success of the revolution,” they kicked him out.