Security forces kill hundreds in Egypt
Nation in state of emergency, citizen rights suspended after troops launch blitz on ousted president’s supporters
CAIRO— Egyptian security forces killed more than 200 protesters and wounded hundreds of others on Wednesday in a daylong assault on two sit-ins by Islamist supporters of the ousted president, Mohammed Morsi, that set off waves of violence in Cairo and across the country. By afternoon, the interim government appointed by Gen. Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi had declared a one-month state of emergency across the country, suspending the right to a trial or due process. The declaration returned Egypt to the state of virtual martial law that prevailed for three decades under President Hosni Mubarak before he was forced to step down in 2011. Mohamed ElBaradei, the interim vice-president and Nobel Prize winner who lent his reputation to convinc- ing the West of the military-appointed government’s democratic intentions, resigned in protest, a spokeswoman said.
By evening, the Egyptian Health Ministry said 235 civilians had been killed in violence across the country, and the Interior Ministry said 43 police officers had been killed. The number of injured was put at 900. But the large number of dead and critically injured Egyptians whom reporters saw at various makeshift field hospitals in Cairo indicated that the final death toll would climb much higher.
At least one protester was burned alive in his tent.
Many others had been shot in the head and chest. Some of the dead appeared to be in their early teens, and young women assisting in a field hospital had stains on the hems of their abayas from the pools of blood covering the floor.
The government imposed a 7 p.m. curfew across much of the country. Clashes and gunfire broke out even in well-heeled precincts of Cairo far from the sit-ins. Outside Cairo, mobs of Islamists angry about the crackdown attacked a police station in the Giza district, burned down at least two churches in rural southern Egypt and raged through the streets of Alexandria and other cities.
After a six-week standoff with the demonstrators, the scale and brutality of the attack appeared to extinguish any hope of a political reconciliation. Instead, the crackdown was the clearest sign yet that the old Egyptian police state was reemerging, defying the protests of liberal members of the interim cabinet, Western threats of a cut-off of aid, and the risk of a prolonged, violent backlash by Islamists angry about the theft of their democratic victories.
Tens of thousands of Morsi supporters had moved into the protest camps, many with their families. The fatalities in the attack included the 17-year-old daughter of a prominent Islamist lawmaker in the dissolved parliament, Mohammed elBeltagy.
“This is the beginning of a systematic crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, other Islamists and other opponents of a military coup,” said Emad Shahin, a professor of political science at the American University in Cairo. “It is an attempt to begin a new phase of a police state under military control behind a civilian facade.”
As for the American threats to cut off aid or block international loans, Shahin said no Egyptians ever took them seriously.
Aspokesman for President Barack Obama said the United States was continuing to review the $1.5 billion in aid it gives Egypt, most of it in the form of military equipment. The spokesman said the U.S. condemned the renewal of the state of emergency and urged respect for basic rights.
Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird issued a statement expressing deep concern over the violence and calling on Egypt to implement much-needed changes to ease tensions.
“We urge both parties to avoid violence, and engage in a meaningful political dialogue for the good of all Egyptians,” he said, according to The Canadian Press.
The attack began about 7 a.m. when a circle of police officers began firing tear gas at the protest camps and plowing down tents with bulldozers. The Egyptian Interior Ministry had said it planned to choke off the protests gradually, at first by cutting off supplies of food and water, blocking new entry to the sites and leaving one safe exit for those who sought to leave.
But by about 8 a.m., the smaller sit-in, near Cairo University, had been demol- ished in a cloud of tear gas. At the larger sit-in, near the Rabbah al-Adawiya mosque, several thousand appeared trapped inside with no safe exit as snipers fired down on those attempting to flee, and riot police officers with tear gas and birdshot closed in from all sides.
There was no evidence that the Islamists had stockpiled weapons inside the encampment, as Egyptian state media had claimed. Instead, Islamists converging on Rabbah from around Cairo hurriedly broke pavement into rocks or mixed Molotov cocktails for hurling at the police. A few were armed with makeshift clubs, or sought to use garbage pail lids as shields.
For a time in the late afternoon, the Islamists succeeded in pushing the police back far enough to create an almost safe passage to a hospital building on the edge of what remained of their camp. But shortly before dusk, soldiers and police officers made a renewed push, seizing control of the hospital and tearing down the last tents and a stage erected at the core of the camp. The protesters had nowhere left to hide, said Morad Ali, a Muslim Brotherhood spokesman who had been inside the camp, and they were forced at last to flee.
Egyptian state television sought to play down the police violence, beginning the day with reports that the camps were being cleared “in a highly civilized way.” Later, state television broadcast footage of what appeared to be an Islamist wielding an assault rifle.
After a midday emergency meeting, the interim government issued a statement praising the security forces for their courage and restraint while blaming the Islamists for any loss of life. The government also renewed its pledge to pursue a military-based political blueprint for the country’s future in “a way that strives not to exclude any party from participation.”