Security forces killed scores of protesters and wounded thousands of others yesterday in a day-long assault on two sit-ins by Islamist supporters of the ousted president, Mohamed Morsi, that set off waves of violence in the capital, Cairo, and across the country.
By afternoon, the interim government appointed by Gen Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi had declared a one-month state of emergency across the country, suspending all rights to a trial or due process. The declaration returned Egypt to the state of virtual martial law that was in place for three decades under former president Hosni Mubarak, who was forced from office in 2011.
Curfew imposed
Clashes and gunfire broke out even in well-heeled precincts of Cairo far from the sit-in sites. Streets across the capital were deserted, and the government imposed a 7pm curfew across much of the country.
After a six-week standoff with the demonstrators, the scale and brutality of the attack – with armoured vehicles, bulldozers, tear gas, snipers, live ammunition and birdshot – appeared to extinguish any hope of a political reconciliation that might persuade Mr Morsi’s supporters to participate in a renewed democratic process under government auspices.
Instead, the crackdown was the clearest sign yet that the old Egyptian police state was re-emerging in full force, defying the protests of liberal interim cabinet members, western threats of a cutoff of aid or loans, and the risk of a prolonged backlash of violence by Islamists angry over the theft of their democratic victories.
It was a level of violence that might have crushed the January 2011 uprising that ousted Mr Mubarak if military and police forces had been unleashed at that time, although back then the security forces faced a broader spectrum of protesters before the struggles over the political transition divided the Islamists and their opponents.
Last night, the Egyptian health ministry put the number killed in violence across the country at 278 and said more than 2,000 had been injured. They also said 42 police officers were killed.
The Muslim Brotherhood called the operation a “massacre”. Witnesses spoke of gunfire from shotguns and automatic rifles as white clouds of tear gas offset plumes of black smoke from burning tires in violence that deepened an already profound gulf in Egyptian society. Protesters arrived at field hospitals with gunshot wounds to the neck and chest.
At one location, soldiers were seen firing on a lone protester lobbing rocks from a rooftop. Many were arrested, including leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, news reports said.
At least one protester was burned alive in his tent. Some of the dead appeared to be in their early teens, and young women assisting in a field hospital had stains in the hems of their abayas from the pools of blood covering the floor.
Family fatalities
Tens of thousands of Morsi supporters had moved into the protest camps, many with their families.
Those killed in the attacks included the 17-year-old daughter of a prominent Islamist lawmaker in the dissolved parliament, Mohamed el-Beltagy, as well as the daughter and son-in-law of Khairat el-Shater, the most influential leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the main Islamist group allied with Morsi.
"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 – this is what they are trying to do."
A spokesman 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.
– (New York Times)