Bryan Denton for The New York Times
Supporters of the deposed Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, marched in Cairo on Sunday, but several marches were scaled back or rerouted.
CAIRO — The Egyptian government acknowledged that its security forces had killed 36 Islamists in its custody on Sunday, as the country's military leaders and Islamists vowed to keep up their fight over Egypt's future.
The deaths were the fourth mass killing of civilians since the military took control on July 3, but the first time so many had died while in government custody.
The news of the deaths came on a day when there appeared to be a pause in the street battles that had claimed more than 1,000 lives since Wednesday, most of them Islamists and their supporters gunned down by security forces. The Islamists took measures on Sunday to avoid further confrontations, including canceling several protests over the military's ouster of a democratically elected Islamist-led government.
While confirming the killings of the detainees on Sunday, the Ministry of the Interior said the deaths were the consequence of an escape attempt by Islamist prisoners. But officials of the main Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, described the deaths as "assassinations," and said that the victims, which it said numbered 52, had been shot and tear-gassed through the windows of a locked prison van.
The killings were the latest indication that Egypt is careering into uncharted territory, with neither side willing to back down, Egyptians increasingly split over the way forward and no obvious political solution in sight. The government is considering banning the Brotherhood, which might force the group underground but would not unravel it from the fabric of society it has been part of for eight decades.
Foreign governments also remain divided over the increasingly bloody showdown. United States officials said they had taken preliminary steps to withhold financial aid to the Egyptian government, though not crucial military aid, and the European Union announced Sunday that it would "urgently review" its relations with the country, saying the interim government bore the responsibility for bringing the violence to an end.
But the Egyptian military retains the support of the oil-rich states of the Persian Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which have pledged billions in aid to the new government.
Although it appeared that security forces were more restrained on Sunday — with no immediate reports of killings in the streets — Maj. Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, the country's military leader, spoke out on national television in defiant and uncompromising tones, condemning the Islamists again as "terrorists," but promising to restore democracy to the country.
The government has been pursuing a relentless campaign to paint the Islamists as a threat, and has increasingly lashed out at journalists who do not echo that line, especially the foreign news media.
Acknowledging but rejecting the widespread international criticism of the security force's actions, the general said that "citizens invited the armed forces to deal with terrorism, which was a message to the world and the foreign media, who denied millions of Egyptians their free will and their true desire to change."
The Muslim Brotherhood had announced that it would stage nine protest marches in and around Cairo on Sunday as part of its "week of departure" campaign that began Friday to protest the military's deposing of the country's first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi.
All but three of the marches were canceled, and even those that continued were rerouted to avoid snipers who were waiting ahead, along with bands of government supporters, the police and the military, some in tanks. The authorities, too, appeared to avoid aggressively enforcing martial law provisions, including a 7 p.m. curfew, that would have led to clashes with the protesters.
Protesters who gathered at the Al Rayyan mosque in the Maadi area of Cairo had aimed to march from there to the Constitutional Court, Egypt's supreme court, whose chief justice, Adli Mansour, has been appointed interim president by the country's military rulers.
Mayy El Sheikh, Kareem Fahim and David D. Kirkpatrick contributed reporting.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: August 18, 2013
An earlier version of this article misidentified Asmaa el-Beltagy, who was killed at Rabaa Square. She was the daughter, not the son, of a senior Muslim Brotherhood leader, Mohamed el-Beltagy.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Islamists Killed While in Custody, Egypt Confirms
Dengan url
https://dunialuasekali.blogspot.com/2013/08/islamists-killed-while-in-custody-egypt.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Islamists Killed While in Custody, Egypt Confirms
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Islamists Killed While in Custody, Egypt Confirms
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar