CAIRO, Feb 4: Egyptian security forces on Saturday fired tear gas from armoured trucks at protesters demanding an end to military rule, as anger over a deadly soccer riot fuelled a third day of clashes that have killed at least 12 people.
The violence followed a melee and stampede after a soccer match Wednesday in the Mediterranean city of Port Said in which 74 people died in the world’s worst soccer violence in 15 years. Protesters accuse the security forces of failing to prevent thebloodshed.
After two days of running street battles, clashes broke out again in downtown Cairo Saturday as protesters marched on the Interior Ministry. Security forces fired volleys of tear gas at rock-throwing protesters calling for the army to relinquish power and the execution of Egypt’s military ruler. The ministry has been a frequent target for the protesters because it is responsible for the widely distrusted police.
In parliament, lawmakers on the national security committee held an emergency meeting to discuss the latest bout of violence, and proposed rebuilding a concrete wall in front of the Interior Ministry to prevent protesters from reaching the building, the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper reported.
It said the committee also recommended asking parliament to authorise “shooting anyone who tries to encroach the wall.”
The proposal, which has not been approved yet, immediately sparked an outcry among demonstrators and activists.
Rights groups and several newly elected members of parliament have called on the country’s military leader, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, who served as President Hosni Mubarak’s defence minister for 20 years and took power after Mubarak’s ouster last February, to immediately transfer power to a civilian administration. Some are also calling on presidential elections to be held in April rather than June.
Some protesters Saturday urged for an end to the violence and called on people to leave the Interior Ministry area.
“If you love Egypt, return to the (Tahrir) square,” chanted protesters along the side streets of the ministry on Saturday.
Police then cordoned off several streets with lines of riot police and barbed wire, pushing protesters further back from the building’s headquarters.
In the port city of Suez, protesters set up cordons outside the police headquarters to ban people from protesting around it and keep the calm after three days of violence there.
On Friday, security forces in Suez opened fire on a crowd of several thousand outside the police headquarters. A total of seven people were killed, a police official said Saturday. Egypt’s state-new agency MENA reported the victims ranged in age between18 and 21 years, and that the most recent victim died of a gunshot wound Saturday that he sustained the previous day.
By Saturday morning, five protesters were also reported dead in Cairo after security forces used tear gas and birdshot to disperse thousands rallying outside the Interior Ministry the day before. The death toll was provided by the security officialand a volunteer doctor.
Abdolheliem Mahmoud, the doctor at a field hospital in Tahrir Square, said the latest victims died Saturday from birdshot to the head or chest sustained in overnight clashes. Another protester was in critical condition, he said.
Field hospitals were set up in streets near the Interior Ministry to assist hundreds of cases of suffocation from tear gasinhalation on Friday.
The Health Ministry said Saturday that 2,500 people have been injured since the violence began on Thursday. Also, a security officer died after an armoured police vehicle ran him over in the mayhem outside the ministry Friday, the security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with police regulations.—AP