Cairo: At least five people were killed in sporadic violence in Egypt on Thursday after Islamists called protests to mark the first anniversary of a police crackdown that ended with the deaths of hundreds of demonstrators.
On August 14, 2013, after then army chief and now President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi had removed Egypt’s first freely elected Islamist president Mohammad Mursi, police dispersed thousands of Mursi supporters at protest camps in Cairo’s Rabaa Al Adawiya and Nahda squares, leaving hundreds of people dead.
The pro-Mursi Anti-Coup Alliance had called for nationwide rallies under the slogan ‘We demand retribution’.
Four people were killed by gunshots across Cairo when Mursi supporters clashed with riot police and civilian opponents, a security official said.
Earlier, a policeman was gunned down in a southern Cairo suburb by unknown assailants. The interior ministry blamed Mursi supporters for his death.
Police fired tear gas during clashes with pro-Mursi demonstrators in three neighbourhoods of the Mediterranean city of Alexandria and in the town of Kerdasa, southwest of Cairo.
Similar trouble was reported in the Nile delta province of Sharqiya.
At least 14 people were wounded and around 70 arrested nationwide, security officials and state news agency Mena said.
Security forces were deployed around Cairo’s main squares including Rabaa to thwart any attempts by pro-Mursi groups to hold rallies.
In a conference call on Tuesday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) executive director Kenneth Roth said the Rabaa crackdown had been a “widespread systematic attack on civilian population”.
He called for an investigation into the roles played in the assault by Al Sissi, interior minister Mohammad Ebrahim and Medhat Menshawy, who led the crackdown.
Hazem Beblawi, who was prime minister at that time, brushed off the HRW criticism.
“It was a sad decision, yet necessary, I do not have the slightest doubt that what happened was right,” Beblawi told AFP.
“No disproportionate force was used, it only took so long because of the vicious resistance [of the protesters],” he added.
The crackdown was launched after thousands of pro-Mursi supporters refused to end their sit-ins despite repeated warnings by the authorities.
