Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Port Said on Friday to demand justice for protesters killed by Egyptian police, as a strike in the Suez Canal city entered its sixth day.

Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Port Said on Friday to demand justice for protesters killed by Egyptian police, as a strike in the Suez Canal city entered its sixth day.

Protesters chanted against President Mohammad Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood, while accusing the interior ministry of having killed at least 40 people in clashes with police last month.

Most factories and government offices were closed during the week, witnesses said, and expected to stay shut after the Muslim weekend of Friday-Saturday.

The protesters were demanding justice for the demonstrators killed in clashes with police in late January after a court sentenced 21 Port Said football fans to death over a deadly riot last year.

President Mursi, who called in the army and declared emergency law in Port Said after January's violence, pledged on Tuesday to reserve 400 million Egyptian pounds ($59.4 million) of canal revenues for Port Said.

Mursi will also present a law to senate, which acts as the legislature pending parliamentary elections, on reopening a free trade zone in the city, his office said.

Residents of Port Said and other canal cities have long complained that Cairo marginalizes them.

Last year's football riot which killed 74 people, mostly supporters of a visiting Cairo team, exacerbated Port Said's isolation, they say.

January's clashes coincided with the second anniversary of a popular uprising that overthrew former President Hosni Mubarak, bringing in a period of military rule and then Mursi's election last June.