Egyptian crackdown marked
100 days since military targeted Brotherhood
CAIRO — Clashes erupted Friday as thousands of supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood around Egypt held protests marking the passage of 100 days since the start of a bloody crackdown against them in the wake of the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi. The violence left two dead, including a 10-year-old boy.
The marches in multiple districts of Cairo and other cities were commemorating the Aug. 14 storming by security forces on two pro-Morsi protest camps in the capital that killed hundreds of Islamists.
In one of Friday’s marches, protesters attempted to enter Rabaah al-Adawiya Square, which was the site of the biggest sit-in camp, in an eastern neighbourhood of Cairo. Security forces, who had sealed off the square with barbed wire and armoured vehicles, drove the protesters off with volleys of tear gas.
The biggest march in Cairo brought out several thousand protesters, who tried to block a main road, then clashed with Morsi opponents in exchanges of stonethrowing. Police fired tear gas to disperse the protest.
A 10-year-old boy died when he was hit in the head by birdshot in clashes between Morsi supporters and opponents in the city of Suez, said Ahmed el-Ansari, head of Egypt’s emergency services. The boy was among a crowd of residents who came out to fight with the Brotherhood protesters, a doctor in the Suez emergency unit said, though wishing to not be named.
El-Ansari said a 21-year-old was killed when he was shot in the chest during clashes in eastern Cairo. It was unclear whether he was from the protesters or local anti-Morsi residents. At least 14 people were wounded in clashes nationwide.
In one of the protests in the upscale district of Heliopolis in Cairo, Brotherhood supporters set tires on fire, which spread to a nearby tramway car, according to the state news agency MENA.
The Interior Ministry, which is in charge of police, said in a statement that pro-Morsi students set fires and hurled stones inside the campus of Al-Azhar University. They threw stones through the campus fence at police outside, who fired tear gas into university, MENA reported.
Islamists have been holding almost daily protests to denounce the military’s July 3 removal of Morsi, the country’s first freely elected president. Under the weight of the crackdown since Aug. 14, the protests have mainly been reduced to small gatherings, but at times they have swelled to larger numbers.
The military ousted Morsi after protests by millions, who demanded his removal after a year in office, accusing him and his Muslim Brotherhood of trying to monopolize power. Morsi supporters have accused the military of wrecking the country’s nascent democracy with the coup. Thousands of members of the Brotherhood have been arrested since the crackdown began.
Also Friday, the Brotherhood lashed out at U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, after he said this week that the Islamist group “stole” the 2011 popular uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.