Morsi backers brace for Cairo crackdown

Supporters of deposed president Mohammed Morsi urged Egyptians to take to the streets on Monday to thwart any police crackdown on two Cairo protest camps manned by thousands of Islamists for weeks.

Security sources and a government official had said police action to close the camps would begin at dawn, despite the risk of violent clashes with those seeking Morsi's reinstatement, but nothing happened and the demonstrators vowed to stay put.

A pro-Morsi grouping, which includes the Muslim Brotherhood, called for nationwide rallies against the military, which toppled Egypt's first freely elected leader on July 3.

"The alliance calls on the people of Egypt in all provinces to go out on marches on Monday and gather everywhere," it said in a statement that also proclaimed plans for "a million-man march" on Tuesday against what it called a military coup.

At al-Nahda camp, centered on a traffic roundabout and extending down a palm tree-lined boulevard next to Cairo Zoo, protesters lolled in the shade of tents away from the mid-afternoon sun. The mood was solemn, but not fearful.

Asked about the threat to dismantle the camps, Ahmed Shargawy, a 23-year-old translator, said: "They said that 15 days ago, too. They always say they are going to finish it."

After a six-week standoff, the authorities are keen to end the sit-ins, where women and children are among the protesters, and accuse Brotherhood leaders of inciting violence.

Western and Arab envoys and some senior Egyptian government members have pressed the army to avoid using force as it tries to end the crisis in the troubled Arab nation of 84 million.

Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy said the right to peaceful protest will be guaranteed and every effort is being made to resolve the situation through dialogue, but he suggests there is a limit to the government's patience.

"It is not reasonable for any democratic government to have to accept sit-ins where violence is being used and the security of citizens and the country is being threatened," state news agency MENA quoted Fahmy as saying in an interview with the BBC.

Gradual dispersal

The dispersal of the sit-ins will be gradual, with protesters given several warnings before police move in, senior security officials said.

At first, warnings will be issued and people will be asked to leave. Police will then use water cannons and tear gas to disperse those who refuse to go.

Another security official said, "Violence will not be used unless the protesters get violent."

Morsi's defiant supporters have fortified the protest camps with sandbags and piles of rocks in anticipation of a crackdown.

Thousands were still camped out at the biggest sit-in, near a mosque in northeast Cairo. At entrances to the sprawling site, men with sticks shouted "God is greatest" to keep morale high.

"I have been here for 28 days and will stay until I die as the issue is now about religion not politics. We want Islam, they want liberalism," said protester Ahmed Ramadan, who quit his job in a Red Sea tourist resort to join the camp.

One security source said action against the protesters has been delayed because larger crowds arrived at the protest camps after news broke that a crackdown is imminent.

Army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who ousted Morsi, has come under pressure from hard-line military officers to break up the Brotherhood sit-ins, security sources say.

Almost 300 people have been killed in political violence since Morsi's overthrow, including dozens of his supporters shot dead by security forces in two incidents.

Reuters-AFP

(China Daily 08/13/2013 page11)