Egyptian security forces fortify Interior Ministry against protesters
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REPORTING FROM CAIRO -- Egyptian security forces fortified barricades around the Interior Ministry on Sunday after four days of deadly clashes with protesters demanding that the nation’s ruling generals hand power to a civilian government.
Streaked with tear gas and scattered with stones and smoldering tree limbs, downtown Cairo was an eerie landscape of unfinished rebellion. Towering new concrete walls cut streets in half as protesters wandered amid blackened buildings, broken glass and the distant gaze of riot police in an unsteady truce.
The scene -- barriers rising as police fired rubber bullets to keep protesters at bay -- was testament to a nation in the grip of a military that has failed to provide security in a dangerous and erratic transition to democracy. Bandaged protesters and tattered flags were emblems of exasperation over the denied promises of a revolution that one year ago overthrew President Hosni Mubarak.
At least 12 people have died nationwide since Thursday, a day after a riot at a soccer stadium killed 74 people when hooligans from a club in Port Said attacked fans from a visiting Cairo team. Many Egyptians blame the police and military for not preventing the melee, which, like deadly protests in November and December, has come to symbolize the army’s inability to ensure calm.
The restive political climate has also revealed widening differences within the ranks of protesters and activists. Some want to continue aggressive street tactics and battles with security forces. Others have called for an end to confrontations around the Interior Ministry and a shift by protesters, many of them young soccer fans known as ultras, to peaceful rallies in Tahrir Square.
“Those who love Egypt should not destroy it,” chanted demonstrators who urged a ceasefire between police and front lines of young men ready to charge, their faces covered by surgical masks to cut the sting of tear gas.
The bloodshed of recent days marred the seating of the nation’s first freely elected Parliament in 60 years. Dominated by Islamists, the new assembly, which is held in check by the military, is struggling to end the crisis and push the country toward presidential elections in June. The military has vowed to step down then, but it faces growing pressure to step aside much sooner.
Egyptian media reported that about 200 women, many of them mothers dressed in black, gathered in front of parliament and demanded an end to the violent crackdowns on protesters and activists.
‘Enough killing, enough lies,’ they chanted. ‘Egypt will remain in mourning until there is retribution.’
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-- Jeffrey Fleishman
