Supporters of ousted president Mohamed Mursi protesting in Cairo yesterday.
Reuters/Cairo
At least three protesters were shot dead yesterday outside the Republican Guard barracks in Cairo where deposed president Mohamed Mursi is being held, security sources said, as angry Islamist supporters confronted troops across Egypt.
As darkness fell, thousands of pro- and anti-Mursi demonstrators gathered in parts of Cairo. Soldiers and special forces backed by armoured personnel carriers attempted to keep small groups from the two factions apart.
Tens of thousands of people marched across the country in what Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood movement called a “Friday of Rage” to protest against his ouster and an interim government set up to prepare for new elections.
Egypt’s first freely-elected president was toppled on Wednesday in what his supporters call a military coup, the latest twist in a tumultuous two years since the fall of Hosni Mubarak in “Arab Spring” uprisings that swept the region in 2011.
Mursi supporters in Cairo were hit by shotgun pellets after a crowd of several hundred people marched towards the barracks where Mursi is being held.
The army denied blame for the shootings. An army spokesman said troops did not open fire on the demonstrators and soldiers used blank rounds and teargas to control the crowd. It was unclear whether security forces units other than army troops were also present.
Later, tens of thousands of cheering Islamists gathered near a mosque in a Cairo suburb where they were addressed by Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie, free to address them despite reports on Thursday that he had been arrested.
In a fiery speech, he vowed to “complete the revolution”, and repeatedly referred to Mursi as the president.
“There cannot be a concession on our president Mohamed Mursi, otherwise it is our lives,” he shouted as a military helicopter hovered low overhead.
“To the great Egyptian army, we are the ones who protect your back, and you protect us from our enemies. Your bullets are not fired on the sons of your nation, you are more honourable than that.”
Continued violence will alarm the US. Washington has so far avoided referring to the army’s removal of Mursi as a “coup”, a word that under US law would require a halt to its $1.5bn in annual aid.
The top US military officer, General Martin Dempsey, spoke to the chief of staff of Egypt’s armed forces yesterday, although no details were provided.
Mursi’s opponents also say it was not a coup but an intervention to impose the “people’s will”.
Several dozen people have been killed in the last month of unrest, during which huge rallies in Cairo and other cities called for Mursi’s resignation amid anger over economic stagnation and perceptions of a Brotherhood power grab.
His overthrow on Wednesday was greeted with wild scenes of celebration involving millions of people, but infuriated his supporters who fear a return to the suppression of Islamists they endured under generations of military rule.
Mohamed Ezzat, 35, who said he was a Brotherhood member, said protesters would stage a sit-in outside the Republican Guard headquarters and other locations throughout Cairo, to protest against the “coup” against Mursi.
“The most important thing with the army is that they stay out of politics. We had a legitimate, elected president, and the army came and removed him,” he said.
Hundreds of Islamists marched to the national broadcasting centre on the banks of the Nile in central Cairo, bringing them close to Tahrir Square where a crowd of thousands of anti-Mursi demonstrators had gathered.
The army has said it intends to keep the rival factions apart, and soldiers and armoured personnel carriers were deployed in the area, apparently for that purpose.
Clashes were repeated across the country.
Thousands of Islamists took to the streets of Alexandria and Assiut to join protests, and in Damanhour, capital of the Beheira province in the Nile Delta, 21 people were wounded in violence between supporters and opponents of Mursi.
In the Sinai Peninsula bordering Israel, five police officers were gunned down in separate incidents in the town of El Arish after gunmen killed a soldier in an attack in a nearby town overnight.
African Union suspends Egypt
The African Union voted overwhelmingly yesterday to suspend Egypt from all its activities after the army ousted the elected president, Mohamed Mursi. Suspension is the AU’s usual response to any interruption of constitutional rule by a member state and it is generally lifted once a country has held a free election once again, which is the Egyptian army’s stated goal, though it has given no timeframe. “As mandated by the relevant AU instruments, the African Union Peace and Security Council decides to suspend the participation of Egypt in AU activities until the restoration of constitutional order,” said council secretary Admore Kambudzi. Egypt is one of the biggest contributors to the AU budget and its suspension will freeze it out of joint decision-making.