Activists arrange a New Year’s Eve rally in Tahrir Square, with a celebratory agenda.
Calls have been circulating on Facebook and Twitter for a mass New Year’s Eve gathering in Tahrir Square Saturday evening.
In the last week of the year, calls have been spreading on social media sites in Egypt for staging a New Year's celebration rally in Tahrir Square. The idea developed into an agenda scheduled to start at 8pm Saturday in the square.
The agenda starts with a vigil for all martyrs of the revolution. According to the official Facebook page of the 6 April Youth Movement, a group of reciting sheikhs will be performing Islamic chants, and also the choir of Qasr Al-Dubara Church will be performing Christian hymns.
A music concert is also scheduled, which should include a number of underground singers and bands. There are unconfirmed accounts that famous singer Ali Al-Haggar will also be performing.
The Tahrir ceremony is coordinated by a group of volunteers led by journalist and former State TV presenter Gamila Ismail, who ran unsuccessfully for an independent seat in the first stage of ongoing parliamentary elections.
For their part, activists in the city of Alexandria are arranging a eulogy Saturday evening for the first memorial for the victims of the terrorist bombing of the Two Saints Church in Alexandria on New Year's Eve of 2010-11, which left at least nineteen Copts dead. The eulogy will be held at 7pm in a hall at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
[Developed in partnership with Ahram Online.]