Egyptians living in the U.S. and their supporters are celebrating the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak with rallies in New York and other cities around the country.
Amnesty International is leading a rally in New York at the Egyptian Mission to the United Nations.
The human rights group is calling for Egyptian authorities to immediately lift the state of emergency and to enact human rights reforms such as protecting the rights of religious minorities.
About a dozen young Egyptians have gathered in Indianapolis. Twenty-nine-year-old Ahmed Elessawy says he left Egypt two years ago because he couldn't support a family there. He says he hopes to work as a pharmacist in Egypt and the U.S. in the future.
Rallies also are being held Saturday in Washington, Detroit and San Francisco.
Revelers stayed out until the early hours Saturday morning to mark the resignation. Sherine El-Abd found herself sobbing with joy at her home in Clifton, N.J. A board member of the Washington-based nonprofit Arab American Institute, she predicted that the military in Egypt will "oversee a clean, democratic election.''
Nabila Guirguis, who grew up in Cairo but now lives in Marlboro, N.J., told NBC New York she was happy to hear Mubarak had resigned because she feared bloodshed if he had stayed in office. But she said many are worried about what comes next.
Some local Egyptians "are very nervous, they are not celebrating. They want the chaos to end," she said. "They are afraid that the country won’t be stable again. They think the country will be like Iraq or Iran. You cannot civilize a country in a few weeks. I think it will be chaos for a long time."
Vice President Omar Suleiman said the Supreme Council of the armed forces would "run the affairs of the country."
