Pro-Morsi protesters vow to come back
A shot of the Rabaa al-Adawiya square in Cairo yesterday.
Hundreds of supporters of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood stormed a government building in Cairo yesterday and set it ablaze, as fury over a security crackdown on the Islamist movement that killed hundreds of people spilled on to the streets.
In Alexandria, Egypt’s second largest city, hundreds marched to protest against Wednesday’s violent breakup of Brotherhood sit-ins in the capital, prompting nationwide violence in which at least 525 people died and thousands were wounded.
”We will come back again for the sake of our martyrs!” the protesters chanted.
They demanded the reinstatement of former president Mohamed Morsi, who was deposed by the army six weeks ago after mass demonstrations against him, and whose ouster triggered a crisis that has polarized the most populous Arab nation.
Brotherhood spokesman Gehad El-Haddad told Reuters that anger within the movement, which has millions of supporters, was “beyond control”.
“After the blows and arrests and killings that we are facing, emotions are too high to be guided by anyone,” he said.
The Brotherhood has called on followers to march in Cairo later yesterday, while funeral processions for those who died provide further potential flashpoints over the coming days.
On Wednesday, protesters clashed with police and troops who used bulldozers, teargas and live ammunition to clear two Cairo sit-ins that had become a hub of resistance to the military.
The clashes spread quickly to Alexandria and numerous towns and cities around the mostly Muslim nation of 84 million.
A Reuters witness counted 228 bodies, most of them wrapped in white shrouds, arranged in rows on the floor of the Al-Imam mosque in northeast Cairo, close to the worst of the violence.
Some men pulled back the shrouds to reveal badly charred corpses with smashed skulls. Women knelt and wept beside one body. Two men embraced each other and shed tears by another.
ISLAMISTS IN SHOCK
In the aftermath of the bloodshed, and with the death toll expected to rise further, Morsi supporters were left dazed by a crackdown that was more swift and brutal than most expected.
Army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi removed Morsi from power on July 3 in the wake of huge protests by people frustrated at the lack of progress on economic reform and wary of what they saw as a creeping Islamist power grab.
But the subsequent crackdown points to a bleak future for the Brotherhood, which was suppressed for decades under autocrat Hosni Mubarak before he was toppled in a 2011 uprising.
“It’s not about Morsi anymore. Are we going to accept a new military tyranny in Egypt or not?” Haddad said.
Despite shocking scenes in Cairo and beyond, including television footage of unarmed protesters dropping to the ground as security forces opened fire, many Egyptians support the crackdown, underlining how deeply divided society has become.
An Egyptian woman mourns over the body of her daughter wrapped in shrouds at a mosque in Cairo.
“The Brotherhood would never agree to a political deal,” said Ismail Khaled, 31-year-old manager in a private company.
“They are terrorists and violent, and what happened was the only logical way to end their sit-ins, which did have weapons and … violent people. Thank God the police ended them. I wish they had done so sooner.”
Cairo and other areas were largely calm overnight, after the army-installed government declared a month-long state of emergency and imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on the capital and 10 other provinces.
A military source said that while sit-ins like the main one outside the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque in Cairo would no longer be tolerated, marches may be in spite of the state of emergency.
The decision to forcibly clear sit-ins defied Western appeals for a negotiated settlement to the crisis, amid concerns that the country which has signed a peace treaty with Israel and straddles the strategic Suez Canal could spiral out of control.
BLOODSHED
“DEPLORABLE”
The Muslim Brotherhood said the true death toll was far higher, with a spokesman saying 3,000 people had been killed in a “massacre”. It was impossible to verify the figures independently given the extent of the violence.
The state of emergency and curfew restored to the army powers of arrest and indefinite detention it held for decades under Mubarak.
The army insists it does not seek power, and it has installed an interim government to implement plans for fresh elections in around six months.
But efforts to restore democracy have been overshadowed by the crisis, and the Brotherhood suspects the military is effectively running the country.
Egypt’s interim president named at least 18 new provincial governors earlier this week, half of them retired generals, in a shake-up that pushed out Brotherhood members and restored the influence of men from army and police backgrounds.
Source: The Daily Star
The historical fact is that Zionist Trinity (USA, U.K., World Zionist Congress Oligarchy-controlled) WEST never wanted any Muslim state to have democracy, freedom of expression. There had not been a single military coup in Muslim states that had not the backing & blessings of the Zionist Evil Trinity. And this Evil Trinity engineered almost 99% of the military coup in Muslim world. -Dr Abdel Magid-al-Ani:Cairo========
Robert Fisk: Muslims lose trust in elections, ballot box
Independent journalist and writer Fisk wrote: “Muslims who won power, fairly and democratically through the common vote, have been hurled from power” .Middle East correspondent of the British paper Independent, Robert Fisk analyzed the political implication of the massacre in Egypt. In his article titled “Cairo Massacre: After Today what Muslim will Trust in ballot box Again” Fisk claimed that the massacre in Egypt on Wednesday leaves Muslims helpless in trusting the ballot box. In other words, the violence against the anti-coup protests in Egypt will make Muslims lose their trust in democratic values and elements such as elections and ballot box. Criticizing position of Western politicians, in his article Fisk stated that what happens in Egypt “is not Brotherhood vs army though that is how our Western statesmen will mendaciously try to portray this tragedy,” but it is a hurl of army over the civilian demanding that they, not their leaders, own their own country.
Claiming that the violence in Egypt has created a cruel division within Egyptian society that will take years to heal Fisk added: “Muslims who won power, fairly and democratically through the common vote, have been hurled from power. And who can forget our vicious siege of Gaza when Palestinians voted – again democratically – for Hamas? No matter how many mistakes the Brotherhood made in Egypt – no matter how promiscuous or fatuous their rule – the democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi was overthrown by the army.”
In the article Fisk implied that the support to General Al-Sissi was the main cause impeding the chaos. Saying that “every violent incident in Sinai, every gun in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood will now be used to persuade the world that the organization – far from being a poorly armed but well-organized Islamist movement – was the right arm of al-Qa’ida,” Fisk emphasized that the chaos impeded by the army will be counted on the Brotherhood and made use of the conflict in delegitimizing the movement.
Touching upon resignation of el-Baradei, Fisk continued “He had to go, for he never intended such an outcome to his political power gamble when he agreed to prop up the army’s choice of ministers after last month’s coup. But the coterie of writers and artists who insisted on regarding the coup as just another stage in the revolution of 2011 will – after the blood and el-Baradei’s resignation – have to use some pretty anguished linguistics to escape moral blame for these events.”Fisk concluded that something died in Egypt. Not the revolution, for across the Arab world the integrity of ownership – of people demanding that they, not their leaders, own their own country – remains, however bloodstained. Innocence died. AA. http://www.worldbulletin.com.16.08.2013.