HUNDREDS OF EGYPTIAN soldiers swept into Cairo’s Tahrir Square today, beating protesters with sticks in the second day of a violent crackdown that has left nine dead and hundreds injured.
Journalists’ TV cameras were thrown off balconies during the operation against anti-military demonstrators
The violent, chaotic scenes suggested that the military – fresh after the first rounds of parliament elections that it claimed bolstered its status as the country’s rulers – was now determined to stamp out protests by activists demanding it transfer power immediately to civilians.
TV footage, pictures and eyewitnesses accounts showed a new level of force being used by the military against pro-democracy activists the past two days. Military police openly beat women protesters in the street. Witnesses said they beat and gave electric shocks to men and women dragged into detention, many of them held in the nearby parliament building, witnesses said.
Mona Seif, an activist who was briefly detained during violence Friday, said she saw an officer repeatedly slapping a detained old woman in the face, telling her to apologise for joining the protests.
“It was a humiliating scene,” Seif told the private TV network Al-Tahrir. “I have never seen this in my life.
With Egypt in the midst of multistage parliamentary elections, the violence threatens to spark a new cycle of fighting after deadly clashes between youth revolutionaries and security forces in November that lasted for days and left more than 40 dead.
The clashes in November involved the widely disliked police force. But this time the police have stayed away and the crackdown is being led entirely by the military. That could indicate a new confidence among the military that it has backing of the broader public.
But the heavy-handed crackdown is likely to rally its opponents. Among those killed on Friday was an eminent 52-year-old Muslim cleric from Al-Azhar, Egypt’s most respected religious institution.
Tahrir Square and streets leading to the nearby parliament and Cabinet headquarters looked like war zones. Flames lept furiously from the windows of the state geographical society, which protesters pelted with firebombs after military police on the roof rained stones and firebombs down on them.
Protesters grabbed helmets, sheets of metal and even satellite dishes to protect themselves from the hail of stones from troops above.
This afternoon, troops charged into Tahrir, swinging truncheons and long sticks, chasing out protesters and setting fire to their tents.
Footage broadcast on the private Egyptian CBC television network showed soldiers beating two protesters with sticks, repeatedly stomping on the head of one, before leaving the motionless bodies on the pavement.
A journalist who was briefly detained by the military forces told Associated Press that he was beaten up with sticks and fists while being led to inside a parliament building, next to Cabinet headquarters.
He also saw a group of men and one young woman being beaten: Each was surrounded by six or seven soldiers in uniform and plainclothes beating him or her with sticks or steel bars or giving electrical shocks with prods. “Blood covered the floor, and an officer was telling the soldiers to wipe the blood,” said the journalist, who asked not to be identified for security concerns.
Pictures posted online by activists during Friday’s fighting showed military police dragging several women by the hair, including young activists wearing the religious headscarf. One photo showed soldiers beating up a woman who appeared in her 50s.
Egypt’s new, military-appointed interim prime minister defended the security forces’ response. While he acknowledged that people have died from gunshot wounds, he denied the military and the police had fired at protesters. Instead, he said “a group came from the back and fired at protesters.”
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