Although few of Egypt’s activist bloggers are on the streets, where the protesters marching on Friday are mainly Islamist supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, several Egyptian and international journalists have been uploading witness accounts, video and photographs of the violence in Cairo to social networks.
Mosa’ab Elshamy, an Egyptian photographer, and Sarah Carr, a British-Egyptian journalist and blogger following a march headed toward Ramses Square in central Cairo, reported on Twitter that clashes began after a minority of young men attacked a police station.
Soon after that, there were numerous reports of gunfire, and footage on state television showed masked men armed with rifles among the marchers on an elevated roadway across the upscale neighborhood of Zamalek.
Ms. Carr reported that some protesters, trapped on an elevated roadway when shooting broke out, made the desperate choice to jump to the street below in search of safety.
Another Egyptian journalist, Sharif Kouddous, uploaded video to YouTube of protesters scrambling for cover under the elevated roadway across Zamalek as shots rang out.
The BBC correspondent Jeremy Bowen reported seeing badly wounded protesters at a mosque near the clashes.
As the violence escalated, and clashes were reported between residents and the protesters, journalists, including Rawya Rageh and Sherine Tadros of Al Jazeera English, reported seeing armed men in civilian clothes on the streets.
