Egyptian Christians mourned their dead and berated the army yesterday after at least 25 people were killed when troops crushed a protest about an attack on a church in the worst violence since the uprising that toppled former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.
Armored personnel carriers sped into the crowd late on Sunday to break up the demonstrators near the state television building. Videos posted on the Internet showed mangled bodies. Activists said corpses had been crushed by the vehicles.
Tension between Muslims and minority Coptic Christians has simmered for years, but has worsened since the anti-Mubarak revolt, which has allowed the emergence of Salafist and other strict Islamist groups that the former president had repressed.
Muslim and Christian activists said much of the anger from Sunday’s violence was focused on the army, which has also come under fire from across the political spectrum for failing to give a clear timetable for handing power to civilians.
The violence casts a shadow over Egypt’s first parliamentary poll since Mubarak fell. Voting starts on Nov. 28.
“Instead of advancing to build a modern state of democratic principles, we are back searching for security and stability, worrying that there are hidden hands, both domestic and foreign, seeking to obstruct the will of Egyptians in establishing a democracy,” Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf said on state television.
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