Egypt clashes continue as curfew defied

Source:
FT.com
Date of source:
4 Feb 2013
Reference:

Egyptians defied efforts by President Mohamed Morsi to restore order around the country on Monday as demonstrators and security forces clashed for the fifth consecutive day and tension mounted between the government and its opposition rivals.

The Islamist-dominated upper house of parliament quickly approved Mr Morsi’s controversial proposal to grant the army powers to arrest civilians. This came the day after he declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew in the Suez Canal cities of Suez, Ismailia and Port Said, where a court verdict on Saturday sentencing 21 people to death over a football stampede last year has sparked widespread unrest and led to at least 37 deaths.

Port Said residents took to the streets in politically charged funeral ceremonies for five people killed on Sunday and, as night fell, thousands of people in all three cities went out on the streets in defiance of the curfew.

“There are clashes going on,” said Khaled Fatiha, an activist in Port Said. “Most shops are closed out of fear of being vandalised. But people are on the street and are not scared.”

The latest outbreak of violence has further dimmed prospects of a quick recovery for an economy struck hard by the revolution two years ago as well as a lingering global slowdown. It is also the culmination of a breakdown in relations between Egypt’s Islamist and non-Islamist camps as well as a disconnect between the emerging political elite and the young activists who led the revolution two years ago but now feel it has been hijacked by other forces.

Mr Morsi’s authorisation of civilian arrests by the army is likely to increase the polarisation further. Opposition leaders quickly condemned the measure as a heavy-handed throwback to the rule of deposed president Hosni Mubarak.

On Monday the National Salvation Front, a grouping of non-Islamist opposition parties, rejected a call by Mr Morsi for a national dialogue to resolve the political crisis and end violence on the streets that have led to 50 deaths in the past five days.

Mohamed ElBaradei, leader of the liberal Dostour party and former head of the UN’s atomic energy agency, dismissed the talks as “cosmetic and not substantive” and said his coalition’s conditions for a meeting included a demand that the president accept responsibility for the bloodshed.

The opposition has avoided talks with the president because a deal on an election law reached during a similar dialogue in recent weeks was rejected by Mr Morsi’s allies in parliament.

On the streets, few paid attention to the political machinations. Young activists, some wearing black balaclavas or scarves over their faces, engaged in ferocious street clashes with police to mark the second anniversary of the “day of the bridge”, when protesters confronted Mr Mubarak’s security forces on a bridge across the Nile and stormed Tahrir Square.

By nightfall, plumes of smoke wafted up from central Cairo as protesters faced off against police firing teargas. At least one man, apparently a bystander making his way home from work, was killed by gunfire early on Monday morning, local media reported. Demonstrators set at least one police armoured vehicle ablaze.

At least eight people were injured and 21 arrested after protesters attempted to storm a police station in the Suez Canal city of Ismailia, with similar incidents reported in Port Said. Protests were also taking place in Alexandria, according to local media reports.