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Death toll rises to 525 after Egypt police storm protests
CAIRO, Egypt (Hürriyet) – At least 525 people were killed in nationwide violence sparked by a crackdown on the protest camps of supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, a health ministry official told AFP.
Muslim Brotherhood called for a march in Cairo on Thursday, a day after bloody crackdown on its supporters who occupied protest camps demanding the reinstatement of president Mohamed Morsi. The Brotherhood said the planned march would set off from the Al-Iman mosque in the capital “to protest the death of their relatives”.
Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood spoke of 2,200 dead overall and more than 10,000 wounded.
The army-backed interim government imposed a month-long nationwide state of emergency, and curfews in Cairo and 13 other provinces after the violence on Wednesday. Gory photographs and video images of the Cairo bloodbath dominated social media networks, as world powers called for restraint and condemned the show of force by security forces.
At least four churches were attacked, with Christian activists accusing Morsi loyalists of waging “a war of retaliation against Copts in Egypt”.
Media reports say MB leaders under arrest
Among those killed in Cairo was 17-year-old Asmaa al-Beltagui, daughter of wanted Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed al-Beltagui, a spokesman for Morsi’s movement said.
Britain’s Sky News said a veteran cameraman, Briton Mick Deane, was shot and killed while covering the assaults.
The violence prompted vice president and Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei to resign, saying his conscience was troubled over the loss of life, “particularly as I believe it could have been avoided”.
“It has become too difficult to continue bearing responsibility for decisions I do not agree with and whose consequences I fear,” he said.
State of emergency
The state of emergency went into effect at 4:00 pm (1400 GMT) on Wednesday, with daily overnight curfews from 7:00 pm to 6:00 am. The dramatic descent on the squares shortly after dawn came as a surprise to many. Security officials had originally spoken of gradually dispersing the sit-ins over several days.
Shortly after dawn on Wednesday, witnesses and an AFP correspondent said security forces fired tear gas before surging into Rabaa al-Adawiya, sparking pandemonium among the thousands of protesters who had set up the camp soon after Morsi was ousted in a military coup on July 3.
Men in gas masks rushed to grab each canister and dunk them in containers of water, as the main stage near the mosque of the camp blared Islamic anthems and protesters chanted “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest).
Government praises “self-restraint” of security forces
Interim prime minister Hazem al-Beblawi praised the police for their “self-restraint” and said the government remained committed to an army-drafted roadmap that calls for elections in 2014.
The Muslim Brotherhood urged Egyptians to take to the streets in their thousands to denounce the “massacre”.
“This is not an attempt to disperse, but a bloody attempt to crush all voices of opposition to the military coup,” Brotherhood spokesman Gehad al-Haddad said on Twitter.
Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said no more protests would be tolerated. The anger against the Islamist movement was evident as residents of several neighbourhoods clashed with Morsi loyalists.
Clashes also erupted between security forces and Morsi supporters in the northern provinces of Alexandria and Beheira, the canal provinces of Suez and Ismailiya, and the central provinces of Assiut and Menya.
In Alexandria, hundreds of angry Morsi supporters marched through the streets armed with wooden clubs chanting “Morsi is my president”. An AFP reporter said they set fire to tyres and tore down pictures of army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who led the coup against Morsi.
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Egypt, Syria and parts of the world are on fire, can we locate Barack Obama .. on a golf course like Ike, perhaps on a ranch in Midland Texas,
well you are close – President and First Lady honor George and Laura Bush in Tanzania.
My diary – Clapper Caught In Blatant Lie, Where’s Obama?
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“Hegazy needs a million martyrs going forward to Al Quds”
You tell me about Egypt’s democracy, Muslim Brothers and the behavior of Salafist preacher Safwat Hegazy. Watch and listen for the hatred and incitement and from which political corner it comes. “It is either victory over the coup or martyrdom,” senior Brotherhood politician Mohammed El-Beltagy told the pro-Mursi rally. “Our blood and our souls for Islam!” the crowds chanted.
Egyptians who are supporter of the Tamarod or “rebel” movement are killed, police stations across Egypt were attacked with multiple deaths and for weeks/months the Coptic christians and churches were under siege.
The US can’t be a broker in Egypt, as they don’t want meddling in their domestic affairs.
In the Sinai, Morsi refused the military a free hand to go after militants and kidnappers. These security personnel hostages were freed after negotiations but the kidnappers were let go. The kidnappers had an arsenal that included SAM-7 surface-to-air missiles, anti-tank missiles and landmines.
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Above comment did upset some people @Tikun Olam.
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My commentary @Tikun Olam – Oui
The legitimacy of the Mursi Muslim Brothers regime became intolerable after December 2012 power grab. The MB agitated Egyptian society with its intolerance towards minority and women’s rights in a remake of the constitution, judicial pressure and appointments of convicted militants to governorships. Morsi gave support to Hamas, did not stop violence against the Copts and limited the army’s response to militants in the Sinai. The US administration (Ms Obama) has clearly favored the MB axis Egypt-Hamas-Turkey-Qatar. Most likely to give support to any and all rebel fighters willing to take up arms against Assad in Syria. With 100,000 deaths, this adventure has been a gross failure of the Obama administration. See rhetoric used by Susan Rice in “diplomatic” channels of the UN Security Council.
Tamarod — Arabic for Rebellion — is a grassroots campaign which says it collected more than 22 million signatures declaring a lack of confidence in Mursi. Anti-Morsi Egyptian protesters marching on June 30 with Qatar-Israel-US flag stitched together. Link – Mondoweiss. The search for a link Tamarod to the Hitler Jugend gave no results.
The suffering and deaths of the Egyptian people is indeed intolerable. In a political stalemate as exists in Egypt, there is no force that could manage the MB to accept the fall of Morsi as a fact. The residents of Cairo took part in the violent opposition to the Morsi crowd and so called sit-ins. The response of the Morsi protestors was not peaceful as it’s unusual for security forces to suffer 43 deaths. Of course there is massive propaganda from all sides and it’s difficult to get a clue what really happened in the sequence of events. The only chance for the MB to recover in the PR campaign is to have victims seen on the newsreels. In the hate-filled speeches by the clerics of the mosque, it’s exactly what they called for. The MB leadership has most likely been arrested yesterday.
I’m only a witness to events through the eyes of media and therefore coloured, biased and poorly informed. Just looking for a rationale as I have lived through decades of mass killings and genocides. Today’s events just confirms there is a power-play behind the scenes which involves the individual GCC states, US, EU and Turkey. The US has no leverage in Egyptian politics as everyone witnessed in the “missions” by Obama envoys William Burns, John McCain and Lindsey Graham. Burns managed to hold talks, the two senators were permitted a photo-op but weren’t taken seriously. Egyptians already have protest action when the name of the new US Ambassador to Egypt was leaked to the press. Egypt doesn’t want the likes of Robert S. Ford in Cairo.
As soon as the Obama administration cuts military aid, it tears up the Egypt-Israel Peace treaty. It’s not what John Kerry can use right now and the military have made the same calculation. The GCC states have already pledged $12bn in aid to the military regime of Egypt, except Qatar naturally. Even today, read the reactions from the UAE and Bahrain in full support of Egypt’s interim government. McCain already called the people’s revolution a military coup during his visit, it didn’t impress Egypt’s leaders a bit.
Juan Cole’s take: Egypt’s Transition Has Failed: New Age of Military Dictatorship in Wake of Massacre [August 15, 2013]
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Fair enough point by Silverstein; however, his consistency masks simplicity by equating democracy with winning elections and the winners get to have a free hand. Tyranny — regardless if it’s by the majority or minority, secured through inheritance, the ballot box, or armed forces, is never what the ordinary man or woman thinks of as democratic. Good enough, elected representative governments require conditions and/or legal frameworks that few peoples and nations want much less are willing to demand. So, major cohesive factions fight in an effort to get a disproportionate share of “goodies” and the power to tell others how to behave.
A major change to modern times and the “fights” is that the factional leaders no longer put their butts on the line by leading the troops. They hide away in their caves and palaces and order others to do their bidding, and the “others” are too stupid and/or brainwashed not to know better.
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I got some straightforward criticism about my strong view in opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood and its clerics who have swept the masses into religious frenzy using incitement and hatred. One of the clerics is Salafist Salwat Hegezi about whom I wrote a diary – Classic Agitator: Preacher Safwat Hegazy Inciting Violence In Cairo.
Daniel’s argument relied on a statement by Norman Finkelstein, he referred to the Tamarud youth movement as “Hitlerjugend.” Finkelstein placed a quote on his website: Tamarud Hitlerjugend to Sisi: “Kill Muslims, not us!” I can’t find any article on Egypt which would substantiate such an allegation. I do see that on his website, Finkelstein refers to the Al Arabya and Al Jazeera sites for articles. Al Jazeera has proven to be biased towards the Muslim Brotherhood and its paymaster Qatar. (Ms Clinton too was a fan of the Qatari satellite station) Doing quite some searching, I could only find a mention of the Hitler Jügend in a wikipedia entry about Hezbollah’s Imam al-Mahdi Scouts.
See also today’s new article by Juan Cole – Egypt’s Waco.
“The Tamarrud or Rebellion movement of Mahmoud Badr and others had actually forwarded a memo to the United Nations asking them to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as an international terrorist organization. A splinter group of the Muslim Brotherhood, ‘The Brotherhood without Violence’ is also making wild charges that the inner circles of the Brotherhood leadership are planning a bloody campaign of violent reprisals. It is not only Egypt. The Kuwaiti newspaper al-Siyasa headlined on Thursday after the bloody events, “Egypt breaks up Sit-in of the Brotherhood of Terror,” saying the long-suffering Egyptian people had awaited the end of this nightmare of the Muslim Brotherhood, which had turned city squares into armed camps.”
Al Jazeera and Qatar: Muslim Brothers’ Dark Empire?
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@Richard: No!
Salafist preacher Safwat Al Hegazy was directly involved at the Raba’a Al Adawiya mosque [July 27] and through his incitement got the crowd in a frenzy (at 3am) to move towards the October 6 bridge into a blockade of security forces.
Juan Cole speaks on the involvement of the “military” wing of the Muslim Brothers on July 9 violence. Refers to an eyewitness Omar Ahmed (known to Egyptian friends whom Juan Cole trusts).
And his recent entry: “Muslim Brotherhood cadres did deploy firearms against the police, killing some 50 of them. There was a report of the Brotherhood actually using mortar rounds against a police station in the upper Egyptian city of Asyut.”
Yesterday’s death toll 173 killed throughout Egypt – source France24 live press conference in Cairo.
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Omitted that the MB don’t practice KSA’s sort of Islam. Too liberal. But the Saudi King and all the princelings never speak that honestly knowing full well that would cause heads to explode around the world.
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An interesting read, a paper by El Sisi as a student at the Army War College.