PORT SAID, Egypt (AP) — For nearly two weeks, protesters and strikers have shut down much of Egypt’s Mediterranean city of Port Said, filling up the streets with one angry rally after another. At the unrest’s height, they succeeded in closing off a multimillion-dollar port for days, forcing some ships to reroute, and in sealing off a major factory complex.
The strikes in this city of 750,000 at the tip of the strategic Suez Canal rattled Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and his government in a way that previous protests haven’t, because they directly hit the economy. Opponents of Morsi, some of whom now openly call for his ouster, are looking to Port Said as a model for stepping up their campaign against him with a possible wave of civil disobedience in other parts of the country.
