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Bloody Crackdown on Protests in Egypt Egypt’s Assault on Protesters Kills Scores
(about 2 hours later)
CAIRO — Egyptian security forces killed scores of protesters and wounded hundreds of others on Wednesday in a daylong assault on two sit-ins by Islamist supporters of the ousted president, Mohamed Morsi, that set off waves of violence in the capital, Cairo, and across the country.CAIRO — Egyptian security forces killed scores of protesters and wounded hundreds of others on Wednesday in a daylong assault on two sit-ins by Islamist supporters of the ousted president, Mohamed Morsi, that set off waves of violence in the capital, Cairo, and across the country.
By afternoon, the interim government appointed by Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi had declared a state of emergency, suspending the right to a trial or due process and returning Egypt to the state of virtual martial law that was in place for three decades under President Hosni Mubarak, who was forced out of office in 2011. By afternoon, the interim government appointed by Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi had declared a one-month state of emergency across the country, suspending the right to a trial or due process. The declaration returned Egypt to the state of virtual martial law that prevailed for three decades under President Hosni Mubarak before he was forced to step down in 2011.
After a six-week standoff with the demonstrators, the scale and brutality of the attack — with armored vehicles, bulldozers, tear gas, snipers, live ammunition and birdshot — appeared to extinguish any hope of a political reconciliation that might persuade Mr. Morsi’s supporters to participate in a renewed democratic process under the auspices of the military-appointed government. Instead, it was the clearest sign yet that the old Egyptian police state was re-emerging in full force, defying the protests of some liberals in the civilian cabinet, the threats of diplomatic ostracism from the West, and the risk of provoking a prolonged violent backlash by Islamists angry over the theft of their democratic victories. Mohamed ElBaradei, the interim vice president and a Nobel Prize-winning former diplomat who had lent his reputation to convincing the West of the military-appointed government’s democratic intentions, resigned in protest, a spokeswoman said.
By late afternoon, Egyptian state media put the number killed at about 95, including two policemen, although the large number of dead and critically injured Egyptians whom reporters for The New York Times saw moving through various makeshift field hospitals suggested that the final death toll would climb much higher. By late afternoon, the Egyptian health minister had put the number killed in violence across the country at about 130, including at least four policemen, and said about 900 had been injured. But the large number of dead and critically injured Egyptians whom New York Times reporters saw moving through various makeshift field hospitals in Cairo indicated that the final death toll would climb much higher.
Witnesses spoke of gunfire from shotguns and automatic rifles as white clouds of tear gas offset plumes of black smoke from burning tires in violence that deepened an already profound gulf in Egyptian society. Protesters arrived at field hospitals with gunshot wounds to the neck and chest. At one location, soldiers were seen firing on a lone protester lobbing rocks from a rooftop. Many people were arrested, including leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, news reports said. At least one protester was burned alive in his tent. Many others were shot in the head and chest. Some of the dead appeared to be in their early teens, and young women assisting in a field hospital had stains on the hems of their abayas from the pools of blood covering the floor.
The Muslim Brotherhood called the operation a “massacre” and put the number of dead in the hundreds, a figure that was not immediately borne out by accounts from reporters visiting morgues. But the toll nonetheless seemed to climb rapidly. The government imposed a 7 p.m. curfew across much of the country. Clashes and gunfire broke out even in well-heeled precincts of Cairo far from the sit-ins, and by afternoon streets across the capital were deserted. Outside Cairo, mobs of Islamists angry about the crackdown attacked a police station in the Giza governorate, burned down at least two churches in rural southern Egypt, and raged through the streets of Alexandria and other cities.
At one makeshift morgue run by Morsi supporters, the number of dead rose to 12 from 3 in a matter of minutes. The violence potentially made Wednesday’s killings the most deadly of three mass shootings since the overthrow of Mr. Morsi in early July. After a six-week standoff with the demonstrators, the scale and brutality of the attack — with armored vehicles, bulldozers, tear gas, snipers, live ammunition and birdshot — appeared to extinguish any hope of a political reconciliation that might persuade Mr. Morsi’s Islamist supporters to participate in a renewed democratic process under the auspices of the military-appointed government.
Sky News said one of its veteran cameramen, Mick Deane, was killed. The circumstances were not clear. Mohamed el-Beltagy, a prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood, said his 17-year-old daughter was also among the dead. Instead, the crackdown was the clearest sign yet that the old Egyptian police state was re-emerging in full force, defying the protests of liberal members of the interim cabinet, Western threats of a cutoff of aid or loans, and the risk of a prolonged backlash of violence by Islamists angry about the theft of their democratic victories. It was a level of violence that might have crushed the January 2011 uprising that ousted Mr. Mubarak if military and police forces had unleashed it that time, although back then the security forces faced a broader spectrum of protesters before the struggles over the political transition divided the Islamists and their opponents against each other.
Hours after the operation began, the authorities said they had cleared the smaller of two encampments, at Nahda Square near Cairo University. Protesters at the larger camp, around the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque in the northeastern suburb of Nasr City, remained defiant but seemed to be under siege by vastly superior forces seeking to uproot them. Tens of thousands of Morsi supporters had moved into the protest camps, many with their families. The fatalities in the attack included the 17-year-old daughter of a prominent Islamist lawmaker in the dissolved Parliament, Mohamed el-Beltagy.
Pro-Morsi demonstrators from outside the larger camp, meanwhile, clashed with the police on its approaches, braving waves of tear gas to barricade streets. Some protesters prepared gasoline bombs and broke paving stones to hurl at their adversaries as the confrontation unfolded. “This is the beginning of a systematic crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, other Islamists and other opponents of a military coup,” said Emad Shahin, a professor of political science at the American University on Cairo. “It is an attempt to begin a new phase of a police state under military control behind a civilian facade — this is what they are trying to do.”
The clashes illuminated the deepening fissures in Egypt between an Islamist movement sustained by the Muslim Brotherhood in support of Mr. Morsi and secular forces who cast the military as protectors. The operation also threatened to reinforce regional tensions with Turkey, whose Islamist-backed government opposed the overthrow of Mr. Morsi. The “armed intervention on civilians, on people demonstrating” is “completely unacceptable,” President Abdullah Gul told reporters in Ankara, the Turkish capital. As for the American threats to cut off aid or block international loans, Professor Shahin said, no Egyptians — generals, liberals, Islamists or scholars — ever took them seriously. “In the end, the West will back the winning side,” he said. “That is how dictators think, and to a certain extent it is true.”
The British foreign secretary, William Hague, condemned the government’s use of force in clearing the Morsi supporters and called on it to act with restraint. A spokesman for President Obama said the United States was continuing to review the $1.5 billion in aid it gives Egypt, most of it in the form of military equipment. The spokesman, Josh Earnest, said the violence “runs directly counter to pledges from the interim government to pursue reconciliation” with the Islamists.
“I am deeply concerned at the escalating violence and unrest in Egypt, and regret the loss of life on all sides,” he said in a statement. “The U.K. has been closely involved in intensive diplomatic efforts directed at reaching a peaceful resolution to the standoff. I am disappointed that compromise has not been possible.” He said the United States condemned the renewal of the state of emergency and urged respect for basic rights, like the freedom of assembly and peaceful demonstrations. But he stopped short of writing off the interim government, and said the United States would continue to remind the government of its promises and urge it “to get back on track.”
News agencies reported clashes between civilian supporters and foes of Mr. Morsi in other parts of Cairo. An Egyptian human rights group, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said the crackdown had spurred counterattacks by Muslim Brotherhood supporters against Coptic Christian churches in Minya and Sohag, south of Cairo, apparently reflecting a perception among Islamists that the Coptic minority had supported the military’s action in ousting Mr. Morsi. The Islamists vowed to continue their fight. Speaking to journalists after the death of his daughter, Mr. Beltagy, the Islamist parliamentarian, declared, “The police state has come to an end,” and asserted that Egyptians across the country would rise up to defend democracy. The dead gave their lives “for the cause of God, for Egyptians to lead lives of dignity and honor.”
As demonstrations spread to other cities on Wednesday, television footage from Alexandria on the Mediterranean and from Aswan in the south showed thousands of Morsi supporters taking to the streets to protest the military action in Cairo. The authorities were reported to have suspended rail services into and out of Cairo to prevent pro-Morsi demonstrators from regrouping or summoning reinforcements. The attack began about 7 a.m. when a circle of police officers began firing tear gas at the protest camps and plowing down tents with bulldozers. The Egyptian Interior Ministry had said it planned to choke off the protests gradually, at first by cutting off supplies of food and water, blocking new entry to the sites and leaving one safe exit for those who sought to leave.
The coordinated action against the Morsi supporters, which had been expected for days, began around 7 a.m. local time. The protesters are seeking the reinstatement of Mr. Morsi, who became Egypt’s first democratically elected president in 2012 and was deposed by the military six weeks ago. In removing Mr. Morsi, the military also suspended the Constitution and installed an interim government presided over by a senior jurist. But by about 8 a.m., the smaller sit-in, near Cairo University, had been demolished in a cloud of tear gas. At the larger sit-in, near the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque, several thousand appeared trapped inside with no safe exit as snipers fired down on those attempting to flee, and riot police officers with tear gas and birdshot closed in from all sides.
A statement from the interim government praised the security forces for showing what it called restraint and blaming leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood for inciting violence. “The government holds these leaders fully responsible for any spilled blood, and for all the rioting and violence going on,” the statement said. There was no evidence that the Islamists had stockpiled weapons inside the encampment, as Egyptian state media had claimed. Instead, Islamists converging on Rabaa from around Cairo hurriedly broke pavement into rocks or mixed Molotov cocktails for hurling at the police. A few were armed with makeshift clubs, or sought to use garbage pail lids or even a swimming kickboard as shields.
The interim authorities also pledged to pursue a military-based political blueprint for the country’s future in “a way that strives not to exclude any party from participation.” For a time in the late afternoon, the Islamists succeeded in pushing the police back far enough to create an almost safe passage to a hospital building on the edge of what remained of their camp. They had moved cars into place as fortifications, and two long rows of men were passing stones hand to hand to try to build new barricades.
But, in a further sign of the rift between faith and political power, Al Azhar, the pre-eminent Muslim religious authority, said it had no advance knowledge that the authorities would use aggressive means to disperse the protesters. A statement cited by Agence France-Presse called on all sides to “exercise self-restraint and take into account the interests of the nation” and said, “The use of violence has never been an alternative to a political solution.” The passage was safe except for a roughly 20-yard stretch in front of the hospital doors, where snipers still fired down from both sides. A series of Islamist marchers from around the city were able to enter the encampment, bolstering its numbers even as the shooting continued.
The statement followed hours of clashes after army bulldozers moved in to dismantle the defenses set up by protesters. But shortly before dusk, soldiers and police officers launched a renewed push, seizing control of the hospital and tearing down the last tents and central stage erected at the core of the camp. The protesters had nowhere left to hide, said Morad Ali, a Muslim Brotherhood spokesman who had been inside the camp, and they were forced at last to flee.
Images on Al Jazeera television showed a car ablaze and protesters being treated for bloody injuries. Protesters’ tents appeared to have been razed, and a pillar of black smoke rose above palm trees in one of the areas. The footage showed what appeared to be a gunman firing from a rooftop, but the shooter’s identity was not immediately clear. Journalists were also caught in the violence. Sky News, the British satellite television service, said one of its veteran cameramen, Mick Deane, was killed. The circumstances were not clear.
At Nahda Square, black-uniformed police officers wearing gas masks and helmets dragged and carried away protesters, the footage showed. At least one of the protesters showed no sign of life as his limp body was loaded into an ambulance. The police seemed to be rounding up protesters in groups as they fled the barrages of tear gas. The footage also showed smoke from burning tires. Mohamed Soltan, a spokesman for the protesters, told Al Jazeera that a cameraman working with the protesters had been shot and killed by a sniper while filming on a stage. There was no official confirmation of the shooting.
State television broadcast images of what it said was a protester firing on security forces with an assault rifle. Egyptian state television sought to downplay the police violence, beginning the day with reports that the camps were being cleared “in a highly civilized way.” Later, state television broadcast footage of what appeared to be an Islamist wielding an assault rifle.
An Associated Press television video journalist at the Nasr City camp said he heard women screaming as a cloud of white smoke hung over the site. After an emergency meeting in the midday, the interim government issued a statement praising the security forces for their courage and restraint while blaming the Islamists for any loss of life.
Mohamed Soltan, a representative of protesters there, told Al Jazeera that a cameraman working with the protesters had been shot and killed by a sniper while filming on a stage. There was no official confirmation of the shooting. “The government holds these leaders fully responsible for any spilled blood, and for all the rioting and violence going on,” the statement said.
The camp in Nasr City was always likely to present the authorities with a greater challenge. Tens of thousands of people have built a well-equipped community there with electricity, Internet access, a hospital, communal kitchens, latrines and showers. The government also renewed its pledge to pursue a military-based political blueprint for the country’s future in “a way that strives not to exclude any party from participation.”
Though dozens of people have been killed by the police and the military since the sit-ins began, analysts said, the crackdowns on the protesters seemed to have reinforced their conviction to stay.

Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting from Cairo, and Alan Cowell from London.

Mr. Morsi is being held at an undisclosed location. The military authorities have taken steps toward his criminal prosecution on charges relating to his activities during the revolution that ousted his predecessor, Hosni Mubarak.
While Egyptians broadly consider Mr. Mubarak’s autocracy to have been fundamentally illegitimate, Mr. Morsi is now under investigation for his own escape from political imprisonment and his work in the Islamist political opposition that helped to topple Mr. Mubarak in 2011.

David D. Kirkpatrick reported from Cairo, and Alan Cowell from London. Kareem Fahim contributed reporting from Cairo.