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- Soon after the protest started on the corniche, a few Christian protesters picked up rocks and hurled them at the riot police. As they retreated, the protesters continued to pick up rocks and stuff them in their pockets.
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- Leaders of the police often walked alone into the middle of the protests to negotiate and to urge the youngest boys to leave, while many Christians urged other protesters to put down their stones.
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- A young man got the wind knocked out of him during a scuffle with riot police.
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- One of the leaders held a cross that the protesters rallied around and passed off.
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- The protest started in one of the ritziest parts of downtown Cairo with malls and upper class hotels, where people watched from windows, and then it crossed the Nile to Imbaba, known as one of the poorest parts of Cairo.
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- Some protesters gathered stones as they walked away from the line of police.
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- The large group of Christians would pass by busses, coffee houses and mosques, chanting pro-Christian slogans. There were no visible clashes between Christians and Muslim civilians.
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- A young man with a Che shirt grabs water during the long walk.
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- Protesters crossed the Nile on the dark and quiet Imbaba bridge.
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- Protesters crossed the Nile on the dark and quiet Imbaba bridge.
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- In Imbaba, the protest gained participants and began weaving through alleys that grew smaller and smaller.
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- After weaving through alleyways, one group of protesters merged with a group that had broken off earlier, forming a large group that had to navigate the crowded streets.
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- Imbaba is largely a Muslim district, and many of the onlookers watched without showing emotion.
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- The protest weaved through the alleys of Imbaba on its way to a church.
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- The protest twice stopped in front of churches, but church leaders and government security officers quickly urged them to continue on.
Christians in central Cairo protested Jan. 2 against the Alexandria church bombing that occurred just after midnight on New Year’s Eve. The protest started downtown and continued for a few miles, ending across the Nile at a church in the Imbaba district. The protest was largely peaceful, though at the beginning, it included stone throwing and some police violence. The protest included a few hundred participants who often swelled and scattered. Imbaba is known as a working class neighborhood with a large Muslim population and a few Christian enclaves.