Today marks the first Friday since the downfall of Mohamed Morsi. Friday
is of course the holy day in Islam and marks the start of the weekend
in Egypt. Therefore it has traditionally been the big day of protest and
today has been expected to be bigger than most.
Supporters of the revolution have been gathering in their millions in
Cairo's Tahrir Square. In part this has been to celebrate their success
and in part to maintain the pressure for a swift return to democratic,
civilian rule. Unfortunately many of them are also gathering because
they feel safer there in the large crowd then they do in their homes
amid marauding bands of Morsi supporters looking for revenge. Supporters
of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have gathered in their thousands in
the Nasr city area of Cairo calling for the immediate reinstatement of
Morsi and the flawed constitution they tricked the nation into
supporting by convincing them that a "No" vote in the referendum would
be a vote in favour of Chris Brown. These conflicting protests are being
repeated on a smaller scale across the nation starting with Egypt's
second city Alexandria.
The day's security challenges though started with a series of attacks
against army/police posts in the Sinai Peninsula. One Egyptian soldier
was killed and at least two others injured when rocket propelled
grenades were fired at checkpoints guarding El-Arish airport close to
the border with Gaza. Later a police intelligence headquarters was
attacked close to the Rafah crossing. Egyptian helicopter gunships
returned fire and Egypt has closed the Rafah crossing as a result.
Ever since the 1972 war with Israel the Egyptian military proper has
been prevented from operating fully within the Sinai Peninsula. As a
result the area has largely become the domain of Bedouin tribesmen who
periodically fight each other over land and smuggling routes. Therefore
it is possible that these attacks were simply smugglers attempting to
distract the security forces in order to make sure their latest shipment
got through. However it is much more likely that these were
co-ordinated attacks by Islamist militants intended to provoke the
Egyptian military. The idea being that the military would then take out
its frustrations on the Muslim Brotherhood demonstration in Nasr city
allowing the Brotherhood to portray themselves as the persecuted victims
of a military coup.
Fortunately the Egyptian military were having none of it and not only
did they not move in to break up the Nasr city protest they actually
pulled back their troops and armoured vehicles allowing the Muslim
Brotherhood to march through Cairo. Unfortunately the Brotherhood
decided to march straight to the Presidential Palace and are currently
attempting to storm the Republican Guard barracks. This has provided the
Muslim Brotherhood with the confrontation they desperately crave with
the elite Republican Guard doing what they do best - frighting back.
As far as I can tell these soldiers are acting with maximum restraint
first politely asking the Brotherhood to leave before firing tear gas
when they refused. There have also been some reports of shotguns being
used and live ammunition being fired. However I should point out that
the way that the Egyptian military fire tear gas grenades is from a
device fitted to the muzzle of the standard AK-47 rifle. Therefore the
sound of rifle fire and the presence of spent cartridges does not
necessarily mean that the army are using live ammunition against the
Brotherhood.
I will be keeping an eye on how things progress throughout the evening.
However if the Brotherhood does not disperse of it's own accord the
military will have to consider using baton charges backed by armoured
vehicles to break the crowd into smaller sections and then force the
sections back to Nasr city where they can be safely contained.
14:55 on 5/7/13.
Edited at around 18:40 on 5/7/13 to add: Initially I wasn't going to
sully my blog with this but since then I have decided that it is
relevant.
Literally moments after posting the above the Officer In Charge (OIC) of
my case known by the codeword "Sarastro" telephoned my father. My
father immediately transferred the call over to me and after his usual
round on unwarranted demands Sarastro confirmed that he had in fact been
in possession of my contact number this whole time. He went on to
confirm that the telephone number I'd been leaving messages for him on
was indeed valid.
After becoming quite obstructive Sarastro was then informed, in person
of the case reference numbers that not only demonstrate that I have
committed no criminal offence but also that my accusers are actively
engaged in very serious criminal activity. These were the case
references that Sarastro was desperate to avoid having put to him at
interview last Friday (28/6/12) - they are explained more fully in my "I
Dunno I Can't Even Get Arrested These Days." from that date. After
continuing to be both hostile and obstructive Sarastro was informed that
he has to check those case references and I will be calling to confirm
his progress on Monday (8/7/13). If he does not have the correct answer
for me by that point I will have to very seriously consider having him
arrested for attempting to pervert the course of justice by way of
obstruction.
Personally I think that Sarastro read this blog post and then decided he
could try to improve his chances of promotion by disrupting my
involvement in the situation in Egypt by provoking another stressful
round of argument between my father and I. Either that or he's planning
to seek asylum in Saudi Arabia.
None of that though explains the mistake I made above. That was caused
by a confused and developing situation, the language barrier and UK news
channels really considering the situation in Egypt to be too hot to
handle.
The Muslim Brotherhood did not in fact march from Nasr city to the
Presidential Palace and attack the Republican Guard barracks there.
Instead the marched directly to the Republican Guard's own headquarters
where Morsi is said to be held. To my mind this is even more provocative
because if they were marching to the Presidential Palace they could
argue they were simply trying to protest somewhere they were more likely
to be seen and heard. However by marching directly on the Republican
Guard HQ the Brotherhood's actions seemed more like an attempt to free
Morsi by force. This is something that is simply unacceptable to any
well-trained, professional security force.
The elite Republican Guards on duty shouted clear warnings for the
Brotherhood to stop. The Brotherhood ignored those warnings and
continued to advance on the troops positions. The soldiers then did what
they are trained to do and opened fire with live ammunition killing I
believe three confirmed. This period of live fire went on for around
five minutes before it was stopped by officers on the ground and the
guardsmen then proceeded to use only teargas fired from their AK-47's
using blank ammunition.
This is exactly the type of confrontation the Brotherhood intended to
provoke in the hope it would trigger off a wave of similar violence
across the nation. There is some evidence they've achieved this with
reports of violence coming in from Alexandria. However in Cairo interim
President Mansour announced that both houses of the Egyptian Parliament
have been dissolved. This prompted the Brotherhood to march on the
state-TV building where they are staging a sit-in protest while the army
attempt to keep them away from Tahrir Square.
In the meantime there are initial reports of two further police officers
being shot and killed in El-Arish in the Sinai Peninsula. If confirmed
this does really raise the question of;
"What type of weapon do they have to use and how many people do they
have to kill before the Muslim Brotherhood's actions become considered
an attempt at a military coup?"
Edited at around 22:25 on 5/7/13 in an effort to go for the longest post ever:
The only coverage I getting at the moment of the situation in Egypt is
from the capital Cairo and frankly there's enough of a story going on
there. As a result I am not really aware of what is going on across the
country. However the last update I got from the Egyptian health ministry
puts the death toll at 10 with 318 wounded nationally. I don't have
further information about the circumstances of those deaths and at this
point I'd prefer to see the health ministry concentrating of keeping
people alive rather than giving me hourly updates.
I do know as fact that 3 of those deaths occurred at the Republican
Guard HQ as mentioned above. The state-TV channel is also reporting that
at least 2 people were killed outside their HQ as part of the Muslim
Brotherhood protest. As always exact details are hard to come by amid
the chaos but it appears to be a repeat of the incident at the
Republican Guard HQ. That is to say the Muslim Brotherhood heard that
interim President Mansour was within the building so attempted to storm
the building to either kidnap or kill the President. Having a sworn duty
to prevent this from happening the soldiers on the ground issued
warnings and when those warnings were ignored opened fire with
less-lethal shotguns. The Brotherhood are of course outraged but this
but frankly I'm confused as to what they thought would happen if they
tried attacking trained and armed soldiers? Fortunately having been
watching Al-Jazeera English I get the distinct impression that the
Muslim Brotherhood have been ordered to return to the their Nasr city
barracks overnight.
As I was writing my above update there was a pitched battle taking place
on the October 6th bridge between Morsi supporters, supporters of the
revolution and people who were just out for a ruck. Possibly because one
of their reporters was on the bridge CNN started to panic massively and
spent a good hour demanding to know why the army/police weren't trying
to intervene. The Muslim Brotherhood of course were busily telling
everybody that the army weren't getting involved because they had put
non-uniformed agent provocateurs in to commit acts of violence in order
to justify a crack down on the Muslim Brotherhood. Personally I don't
believe that story at all but after intense pressure from CNN the police
did eventually move in to clear the bridge driving both parties back to
either Tahrir Square or Nasr city. Later a CNN team had their camera
confiscated by an army officer who was clearly not impressed with their
intervention.
The initial lack of army/police on the October 6th bridge is something I
will try and look at in more detail tomorrow. However it did remind me
of an incident in which all of the European Union's (EU) anti-Islam
groups such as the English Defence League (EDL) travelled to the
Netherlands for a big protest/riot. Obviously all of the EU's
anti-racist groups such as Unite Against Fascism (UAF) also travelled to
the Netherlands to stage a counter-protest/riot. The Dutch police
simply marched both groups to a local sports field, set-up a medical
tent and let them get on with it. This has since been cited across the
EU as the model to follow in dealing with this type of EDL/UAF
protest/riot. It seems a particularly good model for the Egyptian
military to follow during this interim period at least. After all the
incidents at the Republican Guard HQ and the state TV HQ show what
happens when soldiers and protesters meet. I think it also underlines
how much the Egyptian military really don't want to get involved in the
running of the country and instead what to hand over to a democratic
government as quickly as possible.
However from what I've seen so far this does present a particular
problem for the protesters in Tahrir Square because they seem the most
likely to be attacked. My advice to both camps though would be to
establish a perimeter and devise a way to passively defend that
perimeter. The people within that perimeter should then look out for
each. For Tahrir Square especially that means anyone engaging in sexual
assaults or other negative behaviour is immediately escorted outside of
the perimeter and left to take their chances on the outside.
(Originally Posted on 5/7/13)
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