Egyptian supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood shout slogans while holding a picture of deposed president Mohammed Mursi during a rally outside Cairo’s Rabaa Al Adawiya mosque yeterday.
Ahmed Al Tayeb, Grand Sheikh of Al Azhar, demanded the release of political prisoners on Friday after the arrests of several leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood.
CAIRO: At least three protesters were shot dead yesterday outside the Republican Guard barracks in Cairo where deposed President Mohamed Mursi is being held, security sources said, as angry Islamist supporters confronted troops across the country.
Thousands of people marched across the country in what Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood movement called a “Friday of Rage” to protest against his ouster and an interim government set up to prepare for fresh elections.
Egypt’s first freely elected president was toppled on Wednesday in what his Islamist supporters call a military coup.
Mursi supporters in Cairo were hit by shotgun pellets after a crowd of several hundred people marched towards the barracks where Mursi is being held. Photographers took pictures of at least one dead young man and several severely wounded being carried from the scene.
The army denied blame for the shootings. An army spokesman said troops did not open fire on the demonstrators and soldiers used only blank rounds and teargas to control the crowd. It was unclear whether security forces units other than army troops were also present.
Later, tens of thousands of cheering Islamists gathered near a mosque in a Cairo suburb where they were addressed by Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie, free to address them despite reports on Thursday that he had been arrested.
In a fiery speech, he vowed to “complete the revolution”, and repeatedly referred to Mursi as the president.
“To the great Egyptian army, I say ‘Allahu Akbar’ (God is great) ... I say ... we will sacrifice,” he shouted as a military helicopter hovered low overhead.
He urged the army not to fire on its own citizens, and added: “Our bare chests are stronger than bullets.”
Continued violence would alarm the United States. Washington has so far avoided referring to the army’s removal of Mursi as a “coup”, a word that under US law would require a halt to its $1.5bn in annual aid. Mursi’s opponents also say it was not a coup but an intervention to impose the “people’s will”.
Meanwhile, the African Union suspended Egypt from the continental body yesterday after the ouster of Mursi, in line with its strict rules against unconstitutional changes of government.
The AU’s Peace and Security “council decided to suspend the participation of Egypt in AU activities until the restitution of constitutional order”, said an official statement.
The pan-African bloc met yesterday at AU headquarters in the Ethiopian capital to discuss the political crisis in Egypt, following Morsi’s removal by the army on Wednesday.
“The council reiterates the AU’s condemnation and rejection of any illegal seizure of power,” the statement added.
Egypt has been in turmoil since the fall of Hosni Mubarak in the “Arab Spring” revolutions that swept the region in 2011.
Several dozen people have been killed in the last month of unrest, during which huge rallies in Cairo and other cities called for Mursi’s resignation amid anger over economic stagnation and perceptions of a Brotherhood power grab.
His overthrow on Wednesday was greeted with wild scenes of celebration involving millions of people, but also infuriated his supporters who fear a return to the suppression of Islamists they endured under generations of military rule.
UN human rights chief Navi Pillay yesterday expressed alarm about reported mass arrests of key members of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.
“There should be no more violence, no arbitrary detention, no illegal acts of retribution,” Pillay said in a statement.
“Serious steps should also be taken to halt, and investigate, the appalling—and at times seemingly organised — sexual violence targeting women protestors,” she added.
Clashes were repeated across the country. Thousands of Islamists took to the streets of Alexandria and Assiut to join protests, and in Damanhour, capital of the Beheira province in the Nile Delta, 21 people were wounded in violence between supporters and opponents of Mursi.
Ehab El Ghoneimy, manager of the Damanhour general hospital, said three people had been wounded with live bullets, others were wounded with birdshot, rocks, or had been hit with rods.
In the Suez city of Ismailia, soldiers fired into the air as Mursi supporters tried to break into the governor’s office. The Islamists retreated and there were no casualties, security sources said.
State television and radio also reported clashes in the Nile Delta towns of Gharbeya and Beheira, in Qena south of Cairo and the rural province of Fayoum. No casualties were reported.
In the Sinai Peninsula bordering Israel, two police officers were shot dead on Friday by unknown gunmen in El Arish, medical sources said in an incident not believed linked to the protests.
Agencies
