It’s 1:40 am in Cairo. Their Thursday was relatively quiet compared to Tuesday and Wednesday — five Egyptians dead, 2,000 detained according to human-rights groups. Everybody said the big protest would come on Friday, after prayer services on the Muslim holy day, as the weekend was beginning.
Mubarak’s regime had shut down Facebook and Twitter throughout the country earlier today, but the youth found creative ways to bypass the blocks. Over 80,000 Egyptians had pledged on Facebook to take the streets tomorrow. Then, the Associated Press released a video of a protester, part of a crowd that was fleeing, being shot at a distance by Egyptian police.
And now: radio silence. Reports have been coming in for a half hour, and not discomfirmed, that the internet has been completely shut down in Egypt. You can follow my updates here.