Videos of military armored vehicles plowing through Christian protesters and images of their flattened bodies are fueling rage against Egypt’s ruling army generals, even beyond Egypt’s Christian community. Activists accused the military of fomenting sectarian hatred as a way to end protests and halt criticism.
Anger was also turning on state television, blamed for inciting attacks on Coptic Christians as the military crushed a Christian protest late on Sunday, leaving 26 dead in the worst violence since the February fall of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.
The bloodshed was seen by many activists as a turning point in Egypt’s already chaotic transition: the deadliest use of force against protesters by the military, which has touted itself as the “protector of the revolution.” Criticism has been mounting that the military, which took power after Mubarak’s ouster, has adopted the same tactics as the former regime and has been slow to bring real change.
The repercussions began to hit the interim civilian government. Egyptian Finance Minister Hazem El-Beblawi handed in his resignation over the government’s handling of Sunday’s protest. El-Beblawi, who is also deputy prime minister, effectively told Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf that “he can’t work like this,” said an aide to the minister who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Christians vented their fury at the overnight funeral at the Coptic Christian Cathedral for 17 of the at least 21 Christians killed in the army attack.
Prayers were interrupted by chants of “Down with military rule” and “The people want to topple the field marshal,” — a reference to Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, who heads the ruling military council. No state official or military official were present at the funeral.
Egypt’s Christians, who represent about 10 percent of the 85 million people in this Muslim-majority nation, have long complained that they are second-class citizens. In recent years, increasingly influential ultraconservative Muslims, known as Salafis, have spread rhetoric that Christians are trying to take over, protesting against the building of churches and accusing Christians of hoarding stocks of weapons. Violence against Christians, the majority of whom belong to the orthodox Coptic Church, has mounted since the fall of Mubarak as state control has loosened.
Bahy Eldeen Hassan, head of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, said the military may have counted on sectarian sentiment against Christians to allow it to crush the protest and send a signal that it will no longer tolerate civil unrest and criticism.
“The message is to the whole society, not to Christians in particular. I believe this is all in preparation with wider confrontation,” Hassan said. “I am afraid they used the Coptic Christians exploiting sectarianism and knowing that Christians will receive less sharper response from the public,” he added.
Sunday night’s confrontation began when thousands of Coptic Christians marched to the state television building, located on a main boulevard along the Nile, to stage a sit-in protesting a recent attack on a church in southern Egypt. Witnesses said the gathering was peaceful until it was attacked. Video footage showed the crowd chanting slogans until riot police and soldiers descended on them.
In the ensuing mayhem, footage shows armored military vehicles barreling through the crowd back and forth at high speeds. From the back of one vehicle, a soldier opens fire wildly on protesters. The footage — both amateur video posted on YouTube and media video — showed bodies with crushed heads or bleeding limbs.
Young Christian Vivian Magdi, whose fiance was killed when an armored vehicle ran him over, gave an account to Egyptian private network ON TV.
“His body was in the middle of the wheels. His legs were torn. His head hit the pavement, breaking his skull,” she said.
“Soldiers gathered around us and started to beat him up,” a tearful Magdi said.
“I begged them to leave him. He is not breathing,” she said. “Then a soldier with a red cap came, shouting, cursing and hitting me with a stick then tried to beat him up. I threw my body on him [her fiance] ... and the soldier said to me: ‘You infidel, why are you here?’”
During the bloodshed, a state TV presenter urged “honest Egyptians” to go protect the army, saying troops were under attack from the Christian protesters. A scroll on their report read, “Coptic protesters are pelting soldiers with stones and Molotov cocktails,” as presenter Rasha Magdi reported three soldiers killed.
“By whose hands? Not the Israelis, not the enemy, but by the hands of the sons of the nation,” she said.
Its continual coverage over the hours made little or no mention of protesters killed.
Soon, bands of young Muslim men also descended on the scene, armed with sticks, swords, firebombs and firearms, and clashed with the stone-throwing Christians.
Forensic reports for 17 slain protesters released on Monday showed they died from being crushed by armored vehicles or from gunshots. Another died from a sword blow to the head. Another body was headless. The military has suggested soldiers were killed, but has not officially confirmed deaths or said how many.
“The TV was used as the tool for instigating sectarianism and hatred to religion,” Hassan said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese