Violent Demonstrations Continue in Egypt
Monday, July 29th, 2013July 29, 2013
Supporters of Egypt’s ousted Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, marched today on a military facility in Cairo, in defiance of a warning from the army to protesters to stay away from military installations. Demanding the reinstatement of deposed President Morsi, several thousand demonstrators left the Rabaa al-Adawiya Mosque—where the Muslim Brotherhood have been staging a weeks-long vigil—for the Egyptian Army Intelligence headquarters. Earlier in the day, the army issued a statement warning protesters “not to come close to military facilities in general, and the headquarters of military intelligence specifically.”
More than 70 Muslim Brotherhood supporters of the deposed president were killed in clashes with state security forces in Cairo on July 27. Responding to criticism that security forces had overreacted to the demonstrators, Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy blamed the Brotherhood for the violence: “If you have people shooting each other on both sides then you’re obviously going to have casualties.” Egyptian prosecutors have confirmed that security force members were killed in the clashes and that 73 demonstrators have been arrested on charges including murder.
The latest round of violence began on July 26 when Mohamed Morsi was formally charged with espionage. He was accused of conspiring with Hamas—the Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip. Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, under Morsi’s direction, allegedly carried out “aggressive acts in the country” during the 2011 uprising against the regime of President Hosni Mubarak. Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders are accused of “premeditated murder of some prisoners, officers, and soldiers” after breaking out of a Cairo prison in January 2011.
Before today’s march on the Army Intelligence headquarters, the Muslim Brotherhood announced plans for another demonstration tomorrow, which they described as a “million-man march.” Foreign Minister Fahmy issued a statement in response, “If they decide to pursue violence, then you are looking at a completely different confrontation.” The Egyptian army removed Morsi, Egyptian’s first freely elected president, from power on July 3 after mass anti-Morsi protests across the nation. Many Egyptians believed that Morsi was more interested in turning Egypt into an Islamist state than in dealing with its many problems.
Additional World Book articles:
- Tahrir Square
- The Middle East: From Fall to Spring (a special report)
- Egypt (2011) (a Back in Time article)
- Egypt (2012) (a Back in Time article)