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Egypt: Violent clashes between pro-and anti-army in Cairo

 

New clashes in Egypt. At least one person died and 16 others were injured on Tuesday evening November 19, in clashes between pro and anti-military protesters in Cairo.  

A thousand Egyptians gathered in Tahrir Square to commemorate November 19, 2011, the first day of a bloody week in which about forty protesters were killed by police in a nearby street. They also call on the government set up by the army to adopt reforms.

But supporters of General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the chief of staff of the Egyptian army, which was overthrown in July the Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, have e also converged on the same spot, and armored riot police to intervene against the clashes that erupted between the two camps. 

Unease among secular

On Monday, the government installed by the army had opened, Tahrir Square, a memorial to the martyrs of the 2011 revolution. But protesters chanted slogans against the Islamists and the army. According to them, the memorial erected by a government led by de facto military is an "insult" to the memory of the "martyrs." On Monday evening, they had covered the memorial graffiti and red paint, symbolizing the blood of those killed before the damage.

These are not the first violent clashes involving Islamists since the arméea deposed and arrested President Mohamed Morsi on July 3, and the new government installed by the military re premium in the blood every manifestation of his supporters.

First satisfied with the fall of the president from the Muslim Brotherhood, whom they accused of authoritarian drift, revolutionary early days do not hide their discomfort with a comeback repressive apparatus, which killed a thousand of them in 2011 and beyond. 

They complain in particular the persistence of a climate of impunity for the security forces, illustrated, they say, by the death of hundreds of pro-Morsi protesters during the brutal dispersal of their camp room Rabaa al Adaouia in August in Cairo.

The pro-Morsi have not joined the anti-army

Pro-Morsi, especially Muslim Brotherhood, have since the targets of a relentless and extremely deadly crackdown, and show every day for over four months. They had not expected to take to the streets on Tuesday.

Since Aug. 14, when police and soldiers killed hundreds of pro-Morsi protesters in Cairo, more than a thousand of them were killed, mostly by the bullets of security forces and 2000 of the Muslim Brotherhood were arrested, almost all frames the brotherhood that had yet largely won parliamentary late 2011 with.

Elections for 2014

Mohamed Morsi and Brotherhood leaders imprisoned, are considered including the killing of protesters and facing the death penalty. 

General Sissi invoked to justify the coup of July 3, millions of Egyptians who demonstrated June 30 against Mohamed Morsi, accused of monopolizing all powers to the Muslim Brotherhood and want to Islamize the Egyptian society forced march.

The interim government and the army, supported by a large majority of the population and almost all of the media, promised a new constitution and elections for 2014.

With dispatches AFP / REUTERS