Egypt’s Interim President Adly Mansour (centre) and Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy (right) with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton in Cairo, yesterday.
WASHINGTON: The United States yesterday “strongly” condemned the recent violence in Egypt, where 72 people were killed in an attack on a rally in favor of ousted president Mohammed Mursi.
“The United States strongly condemns the bloodshed and violence” in Cairo and Alexandria, the White House said in a statement, urging the military-backed interim government to respect the rights of demonstrators.
Egypt, a key US ally, has been violently polarised since the July 3 overthrow of Morsi — the country’s first elected president —in a military coup triggered by massive demonstrations against his year-long rule.
Cairo and the northern city of Alexandria have since seen massive rival rallies that have often turned violent, with Mursi supporters battling political opponents and the police.
The United States has refrained from calling Mursi’s overthrow a “coup” — which would require the freezing of some $1.3bn in annual military aid — instead calling for a swift transition to elected, civilian rule.
Mursi hails from the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the region’s largest and best organised Islamist movements, which prevailed in a series of elections held after the secular autocrat Hosni Mubarak was toppled in a popular uprising in 2011.
Supporters of Morsi — who has been held incommunicado since his overthrow — have called for a million-man march on Tuesday, raising fears of more street clashes. Egypt is a key US ally in the Middle East and one of just two Arab nations to have signed a peace treaty with Israel.
Egypt’s interim government was accused of attempting to return the country to the Mubarak era, after the country’s interior ministry announced the resurrection of several controversial police units that were nominally shut down following the country’s 2011 uprising and the interim prime minister was given the power to place the country in a state of emergency.
Egypt’s state security investigations service, Mabahith Amn ad-Dawla, a wing of the police force under President Mubarak, and a symbol of police oppression, was supposedly closed in March 2011 — along with several units within it that investigated Islamist groups and opposition activists. The new national security service (NSS) was established in its place.
But following Saturday’s massacre of at least 83 Islamists, interior minister Mohamed Ibrahim announced the reinstatement of the units, and referred to the NSS by its old name. He added that experienced police officers sidelined in the aftermath of the 2011 revolution would be brought back into the fold.
Police brutality also went unchecked under Mursi, who regularly failed to condemn police abuses committed during his presidency. But Ibrahim’s move suggests he is using the ousting of Morsi — and a corresponding upsurge in support for Egypt’s police — as a smokescreen for the re-introduction of pre-2011 practices.Agencies
