Egyptians mark anniversary

Egyptians assess anniversary of uprising with display of support for army-backed government

CAIRO — On the third celebration of the uprising that promised to free Egypt from autocratic direct, thousands of demonstrators rallied in the capital Saturday to display support for the military number who overthrew the country’s first democratically voted into office leader.

competitor groups of demonstrators across the homeland were contacted with dangerous force. Clashes between policeman and anti-coup protesters aligned with Mohamed Morsi — and in a few cases, with liberal anti-military protesters — left 29 dead and almost 170 injured, according to the wellbeing Ministry, a day after six persons were killed in a string of attacks on security goals in Cairo. Twenty-six of the killings were in greater Cairo, the ministry said.

Morsi’s supporters in the Anti-Coup Alliance, an Islamist coalition, said at nightfall that 40 people had been killed nationwide. The wellbeing Ministry issues only the tally of bodies obtained by government hospital morgues, while activist tolls are often drawn from area clinics and family members.

previous in the day, supporters of Egypt’s infantry commander, Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, accumulated in a firmly protected Tahrir rectangle, the epicenter of the pro-democracy revolt that overthrew strongman Hosni Mubarak in 2011, to chant pro-military and nationalist slogans and advocate Sissi, the man who led the July coup that ousted Morsi, to run for president. The view mismatched harshly with the pluralistic air of the 2011 uprising, in which liberal youth activists, Islamists and others joined hands to call for Mubarak’s ouster and popular reforms.

Gone were the tents and banners of the multitude of political parties and activist groups that have taken to the square over the past three years to converse about, contend for and voice their demands for Egypt’s political transition.

“There is no space for us,” said Marwan Yassin, a 23-year-old liberal activist from the seaboard city of Alexandria. Yassin took part in the rallies that commanded to Mubarak’s downfall, but he said that “the youth have no belief in the political process now.”

Nearly every banner in Tahrir Square on Saturday unexciting Sissi’s face. Even the somewhat few posters with the titles of political parties, such as the liberal al-Wafd, were paired with the general’s face. Patriotic melodies blared from a stage, and military helicopters enencircled overhead. State TV aired footage of pro-military Egyptians promenading in cities over the homeland.

“It’s not their right” to be here, Hani Mahfouz, a video theater manager, said of Morsi’s backers in the Muslim Brotherhood and the liberal and leftist assemblies that spearheaded the 2011 protests but were visibly missing from Tahrir Square on Saturday. “They are the political front for terrorism,” he said of the activists, numerous of who have been jailed under the new military-backed government after disputing constrained freedoms.

“This ‘military direct’ [phrase] that they use is offensive,” he supplemented, mentioning to activist chants. “Our infantry is the best in the world.”

The few sizable anti-coup demonstrations that materialized across the capital Saturday were contacted almost instantly with force. policeman discharged live ammunition at anti-government demonstrators on the outskirts of Tahrir rectangle and in other localities of the town.

In the capital’s Dokki neighborhood, policemanmanman in very dark ski masks and bulletproof vests discharged volleys of tear gas and bullets into an anti-coup march, as spectators barracked them on. Swarms of young men emerged to be aiding the police, dragging other juvenile men — evidently from the other edge — back to policemanmanman lines.

“I didn’t do anything,” screamed one young man as he was pulled away by other ones in civilian apparel. Bystanders there and in other components of the capital said there had been swaps of gunfire between policemanman and Brotherhood protesters.

An central Ministry authorized said at least 350 people were apprehended nationwide.

Also Saturday, militants launched three attacks on government security goals, including a car bombing directed at a central security force barracks in the town of Suez, in Egypt’s crucial canal zone.

The militant group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis asserted responsibility for the downing of a infantry helicopter in the Sinai Peninsula on Saturday after noon. The statement issued to jihadist forums said the group’s fighters discharged a surface-to-air missile at the helicopter, in what would be the first known deployment of the shoulder-fired tools for fighting by extremists conducting an insurgency against security forces in the Sinai desert.

localized media furthermore described that a surface-to-air missile was utilised to bring down the aircraft, quoting security officials.

The fresh violence came a day after Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis asserted blame for Friday’s blasting device attacks in the heart of Cairo, including a mighty blast at the city’s police head office.