At least one protester was shot dead and dozens wounded on
Friday when riot police clashed with demonstrators demanding the
overthrow of Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi.
ouths threw petrol bombs and shot fireworks at the outer wall of
Mursi's Cairo presidential compound as night fell. Police responded by firing
water cannon and teargas leading to skirmishes in the surrounding
streets.
Two witnesses said they had seen a protester shot dead in Cairo
with live ammunition in front of them.
"It's verified. I am at the
morgue. He was shot with two bullets, and that's the report of the hospital. The
shots were in the neck and the right side of the chest," said one of the
witnesses, lawyer Ragia Omran. Medical and security sources confirmed Mohamed
Hussein Qurany, 23, was killed with live bullets.
The head of Egypt's
ambulance service said at least 54 people had been wounded across the country,
mostly in Cairo.
The renewed violence brought an end to a few days of
calm after the deadliest week of Mursi's seven months in power.
Protests
marking the second anniversary of the uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni
Mubarak have killed nearly 60 people since January 25, prompting the head of the
army to warn this week that the state was on the verge of collapse.
The
head of the Republican Guard, which protects the palace, condemned what he
described as attempts to climb the compound walls and storm a gate. In a
statement to the state news agency, he urged protesters to keep their
demonstration peaceful.
With multi-colored fireworks bouncing off their
shields and bursting among them, helmeted and baton-wielding riot police chased
protesters at the palace and set their tents ablaze. Petrol bombs briefly set
fire to a building inside the compound.
Footage aired by al-Hayat private
television showed half a dozen helmeted riot police surrounding a prone man,
beating him with truncheons as he lay on the ground beside an armored vehicle
near the palace.
Activists quickly posted the pictures online with
comments including "As if the revolution never happened".
The protesters
accuse Mursi of betraying the spirit of the revolution by concentrating too much
power in his own hands and those of his Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood
accuses the opposition of trying to overthrow the first democratically elected
leader in Egypt's 5,000-year history.
Mohamed Ahmed, 26, protesting at
the presidential palace, said: "I am here because I want my rights, the ones the
revolution called for and which were never achieved."
There were also
scuffles earlier near Cairo's central Tahrir Square, where police fired teargas
at stone-throwing youths. In Alexandria, protesters blocked roads, staged a
sit-in on the railway and tried to break into the TV and radio
building.
Earlier, men dressed in mourning black marched through the Suez
Canal city of Port Said, scene of the worst bloodshed of the past eight days,
chanting and shaking their fists.
"There is no God but God and Mohamed
Mursi is the enemy of God," they chanted. Brandishing portraits of those killed
in recent days, they shouted: "We will die like they did, to get
justice!"
For the Port Said marchers, Friday was also the first
anniversary of a soccer stadium riot that killed 70 people last year. Death
sentences handed down on Saturday against 21 Port Said men over the riots helped
fuel the past week's violence there, which saw dozens shot dead in clashes with
police.
VIOLENCE DISAVOWED
Friday's marches took place despite an
intervention by Ahmed al-Tayyeb, head of the 1,000-year-old al-Azhar university
and mosque, who hauled in politicians for crisis talks on Thursday where they
signed a charter disavowing violence. Mursi's foes said the pact did not require
them to call off demonstrations.
"We brought down the Mubarak regime with
a peaceful revolution and are determined to realize the same goals in the same
way, regardless of the sacrifices or the barbaric oppression," tweeted Mohamed
ElBaradei, a former head of the UN nuclear watchdog who has become a secularist
leader.
The main opposition National Salvation Front denied it was to
blame for the demonstrations turning violent. Mursi's office said it would "hold
the political forces that may have participated in incitement fully politically
responsible, pending results of investigation".
Tahrir Square, ground
zero of the uprising against Mubarak, has become a graffiti-scarred monument to
Egypt's perpetual turmoil, strewn with barbed wire and burnt-out cars. Vendors
sold flag bracelets, pharaonic statues, sunflower seeds, water and fruit while
the protesters gathered.
A man with a microphone shouted to the crowd,
calling for Mursi to be put on trial. "We came here to get rid of Mursi," said
furniture dealer Mohammed al-Nourashi, 57.
UNGOVERNABLE
The rise
of an elected Islamist after nearly 60 years of rule by secular military men in
the most populous Arab state is the most important change achieved by two years
of Arab revolts.
But seven months since his narrow election victory over
an ex-Air Force commander, Mursi has failed to unite Egyptians and protests have
made the country seem all but ungovernable. The turmoil has worsened an economic
crisis, forcing Cairo to drain its currency reserves to prop up its
pound.
Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie, on his Facebook page, blamed the
unrest on "regional and international forces which aim for instability and to
stir up problems and ignite strife to damage Egypt ... to thwart the democratic
transition".
Brotherhood followers have clashed with demonstrators in the
past, especially at the presidential palace which they regard as a symbol of his
legitimacy. But the group has kept its men off the streets during the latest
violence.
It is far from clear that opposition politicians could call off
the street demonstrations, even if they wanted to.
"You have groups who
clearly just want a confrontation with the state - straightforward anarchy;
you've got people who supported the original ideals of the revolution and feel
those ideals have been betrayed," said a diplomat. "And then you have elements
of the old regime who have it in their interests to foster insecurity and
instability. It is an unhealthy alliance."
Many Egyptians are fed
up.
"We are exhausted. This protests thing is a political game whose
price the people are paying. I hate them all - liberals and Brotherhood," said
Abdel Halim Adel, 60, near the presidential palace.
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