clashes in cairo between the police and protesters.

Civilian and military police used batons to disperse protesters in front of Egypt's parliament building Saturday as the death toll from rioting that began a day earlier rose to at least nine people, demonstrating that smoothly run elections haven't absorbed all public anger against continued military rule.

Protesters clash with police in downtown Cairo as violence continues days after the start of Egypt's first free elections in six decades. Video courtesy of Reuters.

Videos circulated on social-media networks appeared to show riot-gear clad police officers dragging protesters along the asphalt, stripping female demonstrators of their clothes, beating activists with truncheons and brandishing handguns to threaten stone-throwing activists.
In a statement Saturday, the military leadership said the dispersal of protesters in Tahrir Square had been peaceful and that the armed forces would "never target revolutionaries." Embattled interim Prime Minister Kamal al Ganzouri blamed the violence on "foreign hands," an echo of the blame-casting that has defined official responses to uprisings across the Arab world.
More than 300 people have been injured in the two days of violence.
Among the dead was Sheikh Emad Effat, a prominent, elderly cleric from Cairo's historic Al Azhar University who has sided with protesters against the military. Thousands attended his funeral march Saturday in downtown Cairo.
Saturday also saw the military leadership and its appointed interim government make halting attempts at damage control in the face of increasingly embarassing fallout from the violence.