Egypt anti-government protests grow

[elbows]

There are some reports that the government will soon announce that foreign attempts to mediate a deal have failed. This comes shortly after McCain & Graham met with al-Sisi, elBlah-blah etc in Egypt, and amongst other things called for political prisoners to be released. I believe McCain also called it a coup again, but then said that 2011 was a coup too.

 

[laptop]

There are some reports that the government will soon announce that foreign attempts to mediate a deal have failed...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23601349

Two US senators on Tuesday called for mediation with his Muslim Brotherhood.

But the Egyptian presidency declared in a statement that the "phase of diplomatic efforts has ended today".

"These efforts have not achieved the hoped for results," it added.

"The US says we must talk, we talk... for 10 minutes."

 

[elbows]

Well the timing is certainly worrying, with Ramadan drawing to a close. Impossible to say very much about the sincerity of the negotiations since we don't know whats been going on behind the scenes or what has really been on the table. But if we take public statements and lack of gestures at face value then the sincerity of the government is lacking to say the least, and its no surprise there hasn't been enough wiggle room to get anywhere close to a deal. No idea if the MB have actually been prepared to concede anything either.Thinly disguised criticisms by the US & others suggests they have been frustrated by the stance of the military and government, but again hard to know quite how far this point can be stretched.

I previously said that I wasn't very impressed with the number of people the MB could get onto the streets. I should probably qualify this - they haven't had enough people to storm key locations, win decisive street battles, etc. But they have had staying power, keeping the size of the sit-ins large enough to have some kind of impact and not to be easily crushed. But I don't think we really know what will happen if the state moves to break up the sit-in's with force, especially as previous military and police massacres were about intimidation and containing the geographical spread of sit-ins and keeping them away from particular facilities rather than trying to break them utterly.

 

[elbows]

Recent posts on the AlJazeera blog feature stuff like a renewal of the idea that the government will try to deal with the MB sit-ins by laying siege to them and cutting off supplies rather than storming them. Plus a reporter saying that the MB have been building actual concrete walls round the periphery of the sit-in near the mosque.

Oh yes and this Amnesty International press release in relation to their report the other day that I linked to and the foreign ministers subsequent bullshit misquoting of it on the BBC. I haven't tried to watch the hardtalk episode in question yet.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media...er-misquotes-amnesty-international-2013-08-07

Amnesty International absolutely refutes a statement by Nabil Fahmy, the Egyptian Foreign Minister, alleging that the organization has evidence that “heavy weapons” are present inside a sit-in by supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi near Rabaa al-Adawiya Mosque in Cairo.

During an interview on BBC HARDTalk broadcast on Tuesday 6 August 2013, Nabil Fahmy said that Amnesty International had issued a statement saying there were “heavy weapons inside Raba’ ”. Amnesty International has not issued such a statement.

Last Friday Amnesty International announced that the organization hadgathered evidence indicating that a number of Morsi supporters had tortured individuals from a rival political camp since the outbreak of the political crisis in June. Some of these incidents occurred in areas near where pro-Morsi sit-ins were being held.

At no stage did Amnesty International refer to the use of “heavy weapons” inside the sit-in.

 

[elbows]

And now a wacky interlude.

It's amazing how big of a presence Sponge Bob is at the Rabaa sit-in... They sell Sponge Bob balloons, children's clothing, etc... [A person dressed in the cartoon character's costume] even appeared on stage a couple of nights ago.
Now he's being used to mock a statement issued by the Ministry of Interior, which stated that people at the sit-in were "mentally kidnapped".
Sponge Bob declares, in this fresh graffiti, "We are mentally kidnapped".

 

[laptop]

I supported the opposition to President Morsi until the military takeover, which all supporters of human rights should reject.

The most important pretext for the ousting of President Morsi was the existence of division in Egypt. But today th e division is deeper and the polarisation is wider. My support for the 30 June movement in opposition to Morsi changed after the military coup, which went against all the gains and values of the 25 January revolution. Its nature became obvious to me as I watched the killing of protesters, the incarceration, kidnapping and forced disappearance of thousands of coup opponents, and the closure of satellite TV channels.

Clearly, the leaders of the military takeover have something to conceal from the watchful eyes of the world. That explains why I was recently refused entry into Egypt. I now feel I have a responsibility to warn the world of the fact that a fully fledged despotic regime is seeking to reinforce its foundations in the country. The 25 January revolution guaranteed freedom of expression, of assembly and organisation. All these freedoms have been crushed in the aftermath of the coup.

http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...t-coup-crushed-freedoms-revolution-25-january

Who she?

Known to some of Yemen's opposition movement as the "mother of the revolution", Tawakkul Karman has emerged as a crucial figure among the youth activists who began camping out at Change Square in central Sana'a in early February, demanding the end of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's three-decade rule.
In Yemen, a 32-year-old mother of three may seem an unlikely leader of the fight to overthrow the president, but Karman – a journalist and human rights activist – has long been a thorn in Saleh's side and has been jailed many times.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/07/tawakkul-karman-profile

 

[elbows]

And so as the calendar moves on we are back to the same sort of reports as we had previously about how the breakup of the protest camps will be attempted by the state. Namely that it will be done by the police rather than the army, that it may be done very slowly and will involve a siege and only letting people out and not in. Al JAzeera think they have learned that this will begin early on Monday.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/08/2013811163225525429.html

The BBC haven't reported on this stuff yet as far as I know, but they have put a few relevant statements near the end of a piece about the MB criticising the latest reconciliation talk initiative.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23657288

Before the four-day holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, interim Prime Minister Hazem Beblawi announced that the decision to disperse the pro-Morsi sit-ins outside the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque and the al-Nahda square near Cairo University was final.

On Friday, Brotherhood leader Mohammed al-Beltagi warned the government: "Kill as much as you like. I won't move an inch… We will offer a million martyrs."

 

[TomUS]

Looks like it will start at sunrise with surrounding them & trying to starve them out. But I'm sure Morsi supporters have prepared for this. I'm afraid we'll see another Tiananmen Square.....& possibly the beginning of civil war.

An interior ministry source told the BBC an operation to clear the protest camps would begin shortly before dawn.
Security forces will initially prevent people from joining the sit-ins outside the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque in eastern Cairo and at Nahda Square, to the west.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23662651

 

[FNG]

The most likely response from the more Militant Islamicist groups will be muted.They seem to be content to play the long game and allow for the army to remove the Muslim Brotherhood as potential rivals whilst simultaneously radicalising the MB's support base.

Long term Al-Q appears to be a manoeuvring for a secessionist move for the Sinai Peninsular rather than taking on the army in Cairo or Alexandria.they are picking their terrain carefully,the armies response will be hampered by the Camp David Agreement restricting military aircraft from the area hampering the flexibility of their operations and as seems to be happening drawing Israel into the conflict in a supporting role,via drone strikes/surveillance.
http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/mapping-jihadi-groups-sinai

 

[elbows]

I'm not exactly shocked that they didn't start at dawn. Quite possibly they are still at the 'lets see how much we can scare people away with tough talk' stage.

 

[elbows]

I'm at work at the moment so not had time to look at the news properly, but 15 former military officers sworn in as local governors, my how subtle!

 

[TomUS]

So it's going to be a Mubarak style military dictatorship with even less pretense of having a civilian government. So what was the revolution for?

 

[elbows]

I don't think they are eradicating that pretence. It might be traditional to have former military men as governors of border areas from what I have read, not totally sure. But it sounds like they've also put retired military men in place in Luxor, Alexandria and Port Said.

Not sure quite how many of them there are either since reports vary. The figure of 15 I saw was mentioned n brief in a BBC article ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23685055 )

Other reports mention 7 or 'at least half (of the 18 appointed today).

http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/egypt-s...th-transition-swear-in-20-governors-1.1408726
http://www.rferl.org/content/egypt-morsi-governors-replaced-clashes/25074590.html

In any case the MB anger and marches that these appointments caused were as much about the fact they replaced MB governors as anything.

AlJazeeras coverage seems especially poor of late, often consisting of a steady stream of brief reports from the sit-in's and not too much else, although that may change if the situation does.They certainly don't seem to have picked up on this governor stuff much yet today.

As for the continued failure of the state to act on its often announced and leaked crackdown plans, opinion seems to vary as to how much this is down to it being a deliberate psychological campaign, a genuine desire to avoid bloodshed, splits within the government about exactly what course to take. Or a possible backfire where the leaks of imminent action actually attract more people to the sit-ins which then makes the task of breaking them up even harder.

Either way the MB certainly demonstrated today an ability to march & protest outside many different government buildings, albeit in a somewhat limited scale.

 

[yardbird]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23691571
bbc online report says armed vehicles at each entrance to the square and the sound of live fire.

 

[laptop]

https://twitter.com/soltanlife

Loads of blood. Guardian trying to confirm.

 

[treelover]

Sky are reporting a possible massacre, I'm no fan of the brotherhood but this is mass murder, the new regime has no legitimacy.

 

[treelover]

Inside Rabaa now - scenes of utter chaos and huge numbers of dead. Field hospitals full of bodies and extreme injuries

from Sky

 

[albionism]

Mass murder happening right now.. Don't click on link if easily shocked.

https://twitter.com/Alastair_Beach/status/367581267715293184/photo/1

 

[butchersapron]

They said from sunday this was going to happen. And by they i mean the sit-inners and the state. Another tranche of radicalised youth now. The islamists dreams come true. Wait till this comes out of Sinai.

 

[elbows]

So the smaller of the sit-ins was easily crushed, but the sheer scale of the other one means this story may grow more horrific by the hour

 

[treelover]

It will be Trade Unionists, etc, next

 

[treelover]

The islamists will decide that democracy doesn't work, this happened in Algeria and the FIS turned to armed resistance and 100,000 died in the ensuing years.

https://twitter.com/Gsquare86

btw, the rev soc blogger and activist Gigi Ibrahim seems only concerned about the churches being burn down, does she support the army massacres?.

 

[elbows]

Sounds like journalists targeted as usual. Chased, arrested, cameramen on the protest stage shot in the head by sniper fire.

Plenty of grim tweets about the bloodthirsty divisions too.

@DrOmarAshour

36m​

#AJE reporter: "a woman was screaming, escaping gunfire. Another woman was looking at her smiling from a balcony, holding al-Sisi picture."

 

[butchersapron]

The islamists will decide that democracy doesn't work, this happened in Algeria and the FIS turned to armed resistance and 100,000 died in the ensuing years.

The islamists had already decided democracy only works if they can get what they want, or that it was bad as i opened the door to un-islamist things and gave a poplar legitimacy to them. You need to dig a bit deeper here before suggesting such black ad white scenarios.

 

[elbows]

Reports of several churches burning in Egypt.

Lots of photos of the sit-ins being crushed here, including some very grim ones of burnt corpses at the smaller of the sit-ins.

http://www.imageforum-diffusion.afp...ang=&ID_Fulcrum=-1106585243_6&mui=1#numPage=1

 

[elbows]

Minor news via twitter: Picture of police vehicle that apparently drove off the October 16th bridge. Photo includes a body.

https://twitter.com/hossam14/status/367588647597404160/photo/1

 

[elbows]

A brief tv statement of the usual flavour:

The government holds the Muslim Brotherhood leaders responsible for the bloodshed, the statement said.
The security forces’ self-restraint, the statement said, is reflected in the low number of causalities compared to the number of protesters and the weapons they possess.

http://www.madamasr.com/content/cabinet-lauds-interior-ministry’s-‘self-restraint’

 

[elbows]

And reports that the mosque inside Rabaa el Adaweya (main sit-in) is crammed full of women and children. At least one report of several dead babies there due to heat/lack of water.

 

[Barking_Mad]

 

[elbows]

Quite a lot of videos here. Watch out as one of them shows burning corpses (the one that is 2:10 in length).

https://www.youtube.com/user/ElWatanNews/videos?shelf_index=0&view=0&sort=dd